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Charlie used to let loose in crowded bars both free nights of her week, but too often spoke her mind, and eventually put a cap on it. The bar Gwyn has chosen is no less crowded than any other, but the back corner, behind the storeroom door, is dark and isolated. In the main room, young and old nod over their drinks, suck on wings, shout conversations in each others ears, punch in music orders, don their blinders and dance.
“You’re happy tonight,” grins Gwyn, leaning across the table, her meaty, red-rubbed forearms crossed, and she blows at the lock of stringy, pale hair that has fallen across her nose.
It is true. Charlie is uncharacteristically spontaneous tonight. “No good reason,” she smiles.
“Boy news?” Gwyn asks, nearly squirming with anticipation. Gwyn has been happily married, with all the trappings, for seven years now.
Charlie holds one, rough-nailed finger under Gwyn’s nose in a kind of mock threat. “Don’t go there, bitch.”
Not one to give up, Gwyn continues the investigation, “Work?”
Charlie taps her friend’s knobby nose with the finger, then sits back smugly, “Strike two.”
“Damn.”
“I said there was no good reason.”
“No reason, or no good reason?”
“No good reason.”
It takes some conniving and a bribe or two, but Gwyn finally gets the truth out of Charlie, who has found the playfulness draining slowly as she gets closer to voicing it: “I ran from a cop today.”
“How’s that not a good reason?”
“Seriously.”
Gwyn watches her friend. “What do you mean?”
“What I said. I was pulled over, and I ran. By the time he got back to his car, I was a click away.”
Gwyn is speechless, still searching Charlie’s face for a clue to the joke that this must be. Charlie is already wondering why exactly she felt so good about it when she spots a tall man in a blue coat entering the gloom at the other end of the bar, removing his cap, looking around.
“Your car has a chip,” Gwyn says, stating the obvious.
“That’s the funny part, actually. Mine links the car to a dead woman. A friend helped me with it, a garage mechanic. You don’t know him,” she adds, in response to a curious look.
The man in the blue coat shakes the hand of someone in a baseball cap. She cannot see the other man’s face, but she thinks the man in the blue coat wears no smile.
“You’re lying,” says Gwyn, cautiously.
“Nope. You can fool the retina scan, too. With iodine drops. It stings.”
“Why would you do that?”
Charlie’s foot rattles nervously under the table. “Same ol’,” she says, now watching the tall man over Gwyn’s shoulder. The adrenaline has drained quite out of her system now, and she no longer feels playful.
“That again? Are you out of your mind? Listen to me, Charlie, look at me!” Charlie looks. “You can insult me, fine. I’m your friend, insult me, but please tell me you didn’t really run from an officer.”
“I’m just teasing. Had you going, didn’t I?”
“Oh, Jesus, I’ll kill you.” Gwyn takes a deep swallow from the blue drink before her. “I could go for another round.”
About Robert Woolridge
