He was stacking women’s sweaters on a low circular table when she walked into the pro shop and started talking to Barton. “Hey, Paula,” he called to her, and she returned an ostentatiously casual wave.
“Hi, Keith,” she said, her perfectly arched left eyebrow lifted. Her face was slightly asymmetrical to begin with, something you didn’t notice until you’d been concentrating on it for a long time. When she turned her full attention to Barton he felt his abdominal muscles tighten.
He continued to arrange the table, pastels of varying shades going more or less according to the color wheel as he remembered it—was there a particular order, warm to cool or vice versa?—and pretending not to listen to the conversation between Paula and Barton. She was looking for a windbreaker for her husband’s birthday.
“He doesn’t play golf, does he, Mrs. Rigby?”
“No, but he wears windbreakers and likes the club logo. Or he likes to let people know he’s a member.”
Buying a gift for her husband there at the pro shop? It was some kind of mind game, he knew that much, but her skill level was way beyond his. Was she trying to make him jealous or trying to be funny? Jesus. Was there something weird about the way she’d waved? About her voice, addressing him? Was there an appreciable sex vibe between them? He was certain there was; the question was, could Barton read it? If he were caught having an affair with a member, it would mean his job, and though they got along all right as coworkers, it was a competitive workplace, and he knew Barton would sell him out without compunction.
He’d never thought of himself as the kind of guy who’d knock boots with a married lady. But the way she’d started coming on to him, slowly at first, flirting during lessons—nothing unusual about that, as long as you didn’t act on it—then getting more and more direct, finally flat out telling him that, as far as she was concerned, it was going to happen. He wasn’t in love with her, he didn’t think. The notion of her leaving her husband to come live with him had never occurred to him, in fact. But he thought about her all the time, about how she looked clothed and unclothed, about the things she said to him during, before and after, about what she might be doing at a given time of day, about what she did with her husband. About whether she did the same things with Rigby she did with him.
The problem was, the thing was making him a nervous wreck. It was starting to affect his game, and lately giving lessons he found himself looking at some of his other flirtatious lady students and asking himself whether he should try to take things a step further. He knew that was the way a lot of pros got burned and ended up working in call centers or drive-throughs. Maybe it was time to break it off, start taking Mo seriously and look to the future.
But while Barton’s back was turned toward the rack, Paula favored him with a glance so sultry and playful that he felt his face start to burn and had to turn away, pretending to realign a display of titanium drivers.
“What’s his size?” Barton asked.
“You’ve seen him, right? He’s a bodybuilder, so probably extra large.”
And here was another of Paula’s games, pointing out Rigby’s physical prowess and the prospect of severe physical damage if he ever found out someone was putting the meat to his missus, as she charmingly put it. He’d met Rigby three times and had found him to be glib but agreeable on each occasion, more so the more alcohol he’d consumed, but he had no trouble imagining him in a violent rage and had no doubt that he was capable of doing serious damage if provoked.
Then Mo walked in wearing her waitress uniform, wholesome, strawberry-blond, pretty Mo, and he felt his blood pressure rising in panic. “Hey Keith, you got lunch coming up? I got cut and I’m going to Bert’s downtown. Join me?”
She navigated the maze of displays and grabbed him by the biceps and kissed him. Panicking, he barely kissed her in return.
“Barton, look at Keith,” Paula said in a tone of rich amusement, with the merest sardonic hint of a smile on that lovely mouth. “He’s blushing.”
“Did you sense kind of a weird vibe between Barton and that lady?” Mo said between bites of an enormous, greasy BLT.
“How do you mean?”
“There was just something sexy about her talking to him.”
“Not in a million years. He’d be fired.”
“I didn’t mean anything was actually going on. But she was flirting.”
“She’s not the type.” He knew it was ridiculous to be offended by the insinuation, but he felt a duty to defend her. “She’s a married mother of three.”
Mo snorted. “Right, and that kind never gets in any trouble.”
“It’s just, she’s a nice lady.”
Mo nodded and took a long swig of her iced tea. “So we’re invited to Big Bear next weekend? My friend Amy and her husband are renting a big cabin, and there’s a room for us if we want. Chloe’s going and some other people I don’t know.”
He took a bite of his club sandwich and watched the pedestrians on Main, trying to think of an answer. “Actually, I can’t.”
“You’re off work.”
“I took on some private lessons. You could go without me.”
“The cabin isn’t the point. I thought we were spending the weekend together.”
“Sorry.”
“Jesus, Keith.” She slapped the table with both hands, then flipped them, holding them palms up, fingers splayed. “You told me you were off next weekend. That’s why I took it off.”
“Sorry.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms. “You don’t take me very seriously.”
That was true, but he wasn’t convinced it always would be. If there were only a way to keep her on the hook until he was ready to be finished with Paula. “Sorry.”
She pushed the plate away from her.
“Look, you didn’t say anything about going to Mammoth.”
“Big Bear. It’s Big Bear.”
“All right, you didn’t say anything about taking a trip.”
“No, but we talked about doing something. I thought we’d have a weekend together without work.”
“Sorry.”
“If you say you’re sorry one more time, I’m going to get really pissed.”
He wanted to tell her how pretty she was, mad like this, but it so happened that Paula had, only two weeks before, explained to him that this particular male de-escalation strategy was a good way to get kneed in the ball sack. “Maybe I should get back to work,” he said, and he reached for the check.
She was looking at her empty iced tea glass. “I just want you to know that I turned down an invitation to Palm Springs next month with your friend Barton.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“And that doesn’t piss you off? That he asked?”
“I guess it does.”
“You guess?”
“Well, you said no, didn’t you? You can’t blame him for trying.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means look at you, you’re beautiful and smart. And I probably don’t deserve you.”
She studied him as though trying to gauge his sincerity. He was self-aware enough to know that most people underestimated his intelligence and therefore his guilefulness. “Probably not,” she said, but she was smiling when she said it.
That night, he ate a Trader Joe’s burrito while he watched an episode of The Simpsons. This was a scenario he repeated approximately three hundred times a year, and as soon as the episode ended, he rinsed his dish in the sink and headed out the door.
On the sidewalk out front his landlady stood in a ratty pink housedress, spraying the bougainvilleas with a black garden hose, her big pale feet in flip-flops. “Disposal working all right now?”
“Working fine, Lorna.”
“Good. I want my tenants happy.”
It had taken three weeks of complaints before she’d finally sent over a handyman, but Keith cut her a fair amount of slack. The rent was cheap, and most of the time she was a nice old lady.
He stuck to the north side of Thompson Avenue until he was within sight of the bar. When he reached the comic book store, he lingered for a minute, looking through the window, then jogged across the street and walked inside.
The Town Crier was quiet even by the standards of a Tuesday in May, the lovely evening outside and the smell of flowers and the ocean keeping people away from dark, stinky indoor spaces. A quartet of college boys played pool without skill or enthusiasm, a few fossilized regulars sat muttering into their drinks and tall, gregarious Brenda was working the sticks.
She pulled him a draft without asking and placed it on the damp bar in front of him. “Hey, Keith. So guess what I talked to my lawyer about today? Restraining order.”
“Jesus. Really?”
“No fooling. Gary comes over last night about two-thirty, right after I got home, tries to put his old key in the door, starts pounding on it and yelling when it doesn’t work. Two years since the divorce was official, and he’s surprised I changed the locks. He starts yelling, ‘You cunt, let me in my house,’ and I said, ‘It’s not your house anymore, and if you call me a cunt one more time, I’ll call the cops and we’ll see what your probation officer has to say about that.’ So he left. Not before waking the kids, both of whom had school in the morning.”
“What’s the lawyer say about the restraining order?”
“Says it’s tricky because if I file one and word gets back to his P.O., he’s back in jail, which is fine with me, but I worry about the kids getting a little older and knowing their dad’s in prison. On the other hand, if I don’t, he’s liable to kill me sometime.”
He liked the scenario of the ex going back to prison but kept his counsel, as this was the kind of advice that could come back and bite you in the ass if a couple reconciled and confidences were shared. “Well, be careful. What’s Mickey have to say about it?”
She snorted. “Mickey’s scared shitless, that big fat pussy. He’s twice as big as Gary, but he said he couldn’t come over tonight because his dog’s sick. I’m about ready to drop that asshole, maybe hook up with somebody with a little more brass in their balls. Or maybe I should hold out for somebody with a job, maybe I could quit one or two of mine.”
“You still waiting tables at the Old Formosa?”
“Nope, they had me down to two shifts so I said see ya. That place is a magnet for cheapskates anyway, tips barely covered the sitter, nights when my mom couldn’t do it. I got two shifts a week at Pottery Shack.”
She sniffled, ran her finger under her dripping nose, then rubbed at her bloodshot red eye with the same finger. “Damn, my eye’s killing me tonight.”
“Quit rubbing it.”
“It itches.”
“You’re going to get a sty if you don’t cut that out.”
“Yeah, all right, Doc.” She sighed, looking at the boys at the pool table. “Think I should have carded them? I’ve seen two or three of them in here before.”
“Not for me to say.”
“The tall skinny one’s a good tipper. I think he likes me.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Lots of guys liked Brenda. “Maybe you should give the whole cougar business a shot.”
The front door opened and a wary Bobby Theele peered in, wearing his ratty old winter coat despite the season, checking to see who was behind the bar. Seeing Brenda, he cautiously proceeded, walking the slow, delicate minuet of a drunk trying to look sober. This was a giveaway, because sober or only slightly wasted Bobby was an inveterate stumbler.
“Nope,” Brenda said.
Bobby reached the bar and took a stool. “Come on, Bren. I’m fine.” He leaned down so close to the bar that his tangled gray beard almost touched it, and Keith could smell the stale sauce on his breath three stools away. Bobby was the owner, and when he got too drunk to be served anywhere else he showed up at his own place; this would be his fourth or fifth stop of the night.
“Promised your wife I wouldn’t when you got like this. I’ll call you a cab if you want.”
“Screw you, you rotten bitch.” He looked like a cornered, elderly, injured wolf, yellow teeth bared and pure hate in his eyes. “I own this shithole and I’ll fire you on the spot.”
“Now, Bobby, no you won’t, Constance won’t let you. And on paper, she’s as much the owner as you,” she said, no offense taken. “I’ll give you one shot, and then you go home in a taxi.”
He leaned back, arms folded across his chest and a defiant glare on his face. “Fuck you.” His bulbous eyes shone in the reflected light of an ancient Hamm’s beer ad, a slow-rolling panorama of glistening river and faded mountain. The big rectangular stained-glass light fixture above the pool table also pushed Hamm’s. When was the last time that particular beer was available here or anywhere, Keith wondered as Brenda poured Bobby a shot of Old Grand-Dad.
Bobby stared at it, arms still folded. “Gimme a chaser and it’s a deal.”
She opened him a Bud Light and set it on the bar in front of him, then picked up the house phone to call the cab company.
“Thank you, Brenda,” he said quietly, dignity compromised but intact. Once he’d swallowed the shot and taken a healthy swig of the beer, the nature of his drunkenness transformed. He sat up straight and addressed Keith, his diction slightly clearer than before, one bushy, gray eyebrow arched in amusement.
“Well, if it isn’t Arnie Palmer himself, relaxing after a hard day instructing the haute bourgeoisie of Ventura County in the arcane secrets of the links.”
“Oat what? Some kind of breakfast cereal, Bobby?”
He squinted at Keith and pointed at his nose. “Don’t be smart. Rumors of war afoot, my lad. Mind they don’t draft you.”
“There isn’t a draft anymore,” Keith pointed out, “and I’m thirty-four, anyway.”
“Cannon fodder, once they run out of young ones. You better get yourself some kind of injury. Once they raise the draft age, a fine athlete like you’d be on the way to the front lines to fight the Hun.”
“I don’t think it’s Germany we’re fighting anymore.”
Bobby swatted at an imaginary housefly in front of his nose. “The dusky Christ-deniers, then. Point is, you ought to get yourself an injury. Lose a toe, say.”
“That’d play hell with my backswing. My sense of balance is my livelihood.”
The front door opened once again, and Bobby took a sad look in that direction, expecting the grim figure of the cabbie, but in his stead was Paula’s no-account lawyer husband, and at the sight of him, Keith felt the blood drain from his cheeks.
“Rigby,” Keith said, hand extended. “Good to see you.”
“Keith,” Rigby said, gripping his hand a little too hard, wearing a pink polo shirt and khaki pants and tasseled loafers. Bobby made a show of looking him up and down with disdain.
“I believe you’ve entered the premises under the regrettable misapprehension that this is the Ventura Yacht Club, sir,” Bobby said in a pretty good William F. Buckley drone, and to Keith’s surprise, Rigby laughed. He didn’t think of Rigby as someone with a sense of humor about himself.
“Hah, yeah, I’m kind of dressed that way, aren’t I?” He folded his arms across his chest—big weight lifter’s forearms like Popeye’s, veins striated and bulging.
The door opened again, and the cabdriver stepped in and stood there looking around for a second before his eyes landed on Bobby. “I should have known I was coming for you. Let’s get a move on before your old lady starts worrying.”
“I don’t need a ride, my old pal Thurston Howell the Third here is going to take me home.”
“Afraid I can’t, Mister,” Rigby said. “My chauffeur won’t let me pick up strangers.”
Bobby allowed him a phlegmy chuckle, then the cabbie took him by the arm and helped support him on the way to the door. Rigby nodded to Brenda and ordered a Beefeater and tonic, climbing onto a stool next to Keith.
“He’s kind of an interesting old guy.”
“Yeah, he’s all right before he starts getting mean. I think you caught him right before he was about to turn.”
“Here you go, sugar,” Brenda said, sliding the drink in front of Rigby.
“Don’t remember ever seeing you in here before,” Keith said.
“Never been in. Always noticed it driving past, though. Nice old sign out front.” The burly neon Quaker ringing a bell and the words town crier in what were once bright red cursive letters, faded now to a flickering pink, were well-known landmarks to Venturans, even to the vast majority of them who had never stepped inside and would never dream of doing so.
“It has that going for it.”
“I’m here because Paula thought this was where you hung out. Got something I wanted to run past you. There’s something I didn’t want to talk about over the phone.”
He was about to say something else when Brenda came back over and replaced Keith’s beer without asking. “How you doing, sugar?” she asked Rigby.
He swished the remaining ice, swallowed the rest of the drink and handed her the glass. “I would have another, if another were on offer.”
She took the glass with a sidelong look at Keith. “I’m Brenda, by the way, since our mutual friend lacks the couth to introduce us.”
“My friends call me Rigby.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be friends,” she said. They watched in silence as she made the drink and put it on the bar with as kittenish a look as Keith had ever seen on her face. When she headed down the bar to deal with the morose contingent at the south end, he took a drink of his fresh beer.
“You ever hit that?” Rigby asked, jerking his head in Brenda’s direction. He watched her carefully, nodding ever so slightly.
“Never have.”
Rigby rapped his knuckles on the bar to signal a change of topic. “Paula says your grandfather’s a painter. Been around Ventura County since forever.”
“Yeah.”
“Is he any good?”
“I think he is. He made a living doing commercial art and working on cartoons when my Mom was a kid.”
“It just might be I’ve got a job for a painter. Someone who knows a thing or two about the local art scene.”
“Like a commission?”
“Exactly. Can you give me his number?”
“Let me talk to him first. He’s past ninety, gets a little bit prickly.”
“Ninety? And he’s still painting?” He hesitated, made a face. “He’s still good? Hands steady?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s about all he does anymore.”
Rigby wrote a number down on a napkin and slid it along the bar to Keith. “Give me a call if he’s interested.”
Rigby shook his hand, paid for the drinks and left in a hurry. I’d be in a hurry to get home, too, if I was married to Paula, he thought.
Brenda propped her breasts on the bar and arched a carefully plucked eyebrow. “Now that is one good-looking, muscly man. He married?”
“He sure is, Bren. Sorry.”
She made a regretful clicking sound and leaned back against the backbar. “Too bad.”
Good thing, Keith thought, because Rigby was exactly the kind of guy she kept ending up with, and the fact that he had more money than most of the others didn’t make him any better.