Animals. Part 24

"You've changed," she said.

She looked at him, frankly scrutinizing. It unnerved him, just a little, as he met the gaze; it had been a long time since he'd engaged in such open, direct contact with another living soul. As he did he realized that the past year didn't appear to have diminished her in the slightest. Her wild, dark hair was a little longer. Her wise, dark eyes were just the same. And her smile was as warm as ever.

"You look great," he told her.

"You don't look so shabby yourself." He pshawed, but she persisted. "No, honest. We were all real worried about you. . ." She realized she was going down the wrong mountain path, but it was too late. The awkwardness returned in force. She wouldn't have a bit of it. "What I mean is, I'm glad to see you looking so . . . together."

Syd nodded. "Thanks. So did Randy tell you why I'm here?"

"Sure did." She grinned conspiratorially, leaned close. "You couldn't have picked a better time. See that guy behind the bar?" Syd looked. "That's Tony. What a douchebag."

"You know what the first thing he said to me was?" She adopted a macho swagger, the witless Neanderthal voice to match. "Yo, didn't I see you in the December issue of Hustler?"

Syd groaned, checked the guy out again. He looked sorta like a cross between Jon Lovitz and Ron Jeremy: pudgy, dark-haired and mustachioed, with an oily quality that just got funnier the harder you tried to take it seriously. "So how is he as a bartender?"

"Sucks," Jane said plainly. "He's slow, he's a sleaze, he's got no talent at all, unless they give out points for being an a.s.shole. Of course . . ." and here she paused, as if debating for a second the wisdom of the words, ". . . anybody who tends bar here has got some pretty big shoes to fill."

Jane looked straight in Syd's eyes when she said it; she wasn't about to miss one little sc.r.a.p of his reaction. He wasn't sure how much he gave away in the split second of reaction time he had; but he knew for a fact that she knew that he knew more than he'd ever told the cops, or anyone else.

Syd understood. She and Jules had been tight; there was a lot of love between them. And she wasn't exactly prying; there was nothing pushy about her manner. But her unspoken message was clear: one day, I'm gonna need to know what happened.

"I know," he said. He could have been responding to any part of her message and inquiry. When he left it at that, so did she.

Then Randy came out of his office, spotted Syd, waved. Syd smiled and acknowledged him. Saved by the boss. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if you get the job," Jane told him.

And it was true. She wasn't.

And he did.

29.

In the weeks that followed his hiring, Syd acclimated quickly to the bartending life. He'd gotten around the lack of a diploma from Famous Bartenders' School on a combination of his own chutzpah and Randy's desperation, along with a rock-solid recommendation from Jane and the promise that she'd show him the ropes. It did wonders for his ego, was a milepost on the road to rebuilding his life. Chameleon's was exactly what he needed, and even better than he'd hoped. It was like a crash course in the discipline, an earn-while-you-burn proposition.

He started by second-stringing behind Trent on the Thursday-through-Sunday rush. On those nights, the bar was an utter madhouse. From a consumer standpoint, he'd always recognized the pandemonium factor; but once you stood on the flip side, there was absolutely no comparison. The orders never stopped coming. The collective thirst was never quenched.

Beyond that was the fact that you were a team out there: the bartenders, the waitresses, and the cooks in the back. Which meant that if you let your end slide, everybody paid for it, all up and down the line. Fortunately, they had a pretty well-oiled machine already up and running. All Syd had to do was plug in and get up to speed. This he did, in record time.

Trent was not only extremely helpful, but extremely grateful for all Syd's help; and when word got back to Randy, not only did Syd get Wednesday nights to himself, but it was curtains at last for Jane's oily bartending nemesis. Jane was so pleased, she did a little whooping war dance, much to the delight of all in attendance.

On the weekends, Syd and Trent split the bar in half, with a waitress station and fifteen seats apiece. They were each responsible for three waitresses, the people at their seats, and whoever wandered up from the floor. This was more than enough to keep them buzzing for eight to ten hours at a stretch.

Syd's life at those points became a flurry of bottle caps flipping and pitchers filling, intermittently punctuated by coolers, spritzers, orders of cheese fries, and Rum-and-c.o.kes galore. Fortunately, this was primarily a beer drinkin' crowd-not a lot of Martinis, Banana Daiquiris, or trendy quaffs bereft of staying power-but there were just enough eclectic characters and tastes to present a challenge and keep him guessing without driving him nuts.

Of course, people-watching was a major attraction, even if it sometimes made him feel like a cultural anthropologist doing fieldwork. For a guy who'd been isolated and out of the loop as long as he had, it was like a feast to a starving man. He saw familiar faces and utter strangers perform at both their best and worst, watched relationships blossom and shrivel in the course of a week or a weekend, sometimes a single night.

Most of all, he established relationships with the people he served: learning through conversation and observation their dreams, their failings, their prejudices and prides, the things that they wanted and the things that they got.

Which meant that, for the first time in ages, Syd felt like a member of a community. And he found that-despite the small-town setting, and the gossip-web that the last year or so had spun up in the wake of his flameout-most people were quick to accept him in his new role.

Probably because he had so completely changed.

And Jane's first a.s.sessment was dead-on: Syd was a new man, no question about it. His mind was clear. His body was pumped. He radiated a quiet competence that made people comfortable in his presence. He learned to listen without comment, to tune in to the lives unfolding around him. It was no time at all before people were joking with him, trying to drag him into their political debates, unloading a measure of their burdens on his nonjudgmental shoulders.

Syd found that he enjoyed the intimate anonymity, the ability to commiserate while still keeping everyone at arm's length. Between that carefully maintained safety zone and the realization that for once other people's personal lives were providing the requisite grist for the rumor mills, Syd had to admit that, all in all, life was good.

There was only one little problem.

And that problem was the ongoing hole at the center of his soul: the one arena in which he had not yet prepared to engage. Everything was great, you bet, except for the fact that he was alone, and there was simply no subst.i.tute for the warmth of another human touch. He tried to draw the philosophical distinction between alone and lonely; somehow it seemed a little too intellectual for his tastes, considering the emptiness he felt.

He tried to take it in stride, part of his penance. Solitude was a cruel, if somehow fitting fate. When he was working, it was easier to screen out, distracted as he was by the ceaseless flow of work, the endlessly entertaining throngs.

The flip side, of course, were the women, and the various temptations they posed. Band nights were the worst, especially when acts like Brave Combo or the Flamin' Caucasians booked in and the crowd got all hot and bothered.

Watching women was troublesome enough; watching them dance was downright painful. Something about a roomful of undulating female flesh set off an ache inside him that went all the way down to his bones; every so often Syd would catch a stray whiff of perfume and sweat that would jumpstart memories he'd fought long and hard to bury, make him nervously start cleaning ashtrays or checking the taps.

But very rarely did it actually come right at him.

So the first time Syd got hit on it took him so off-guard that he deflected it with a dazed who, me? att.i.tude that came off as practiced indifference but was in truth utter disbelief. It had been so long that he felt like he'd gone from monogamous to nonogamous, become as.e.xual, fundamentally incapable of inducing desire.

Her name was Elaine, and she was very attractive: raven-haired and buxom, and just drunk enough to trip his danger circuit breakers. She spent the better part of the night flirting with him, downing six Tequila Sunrises as she explained that she had broken up with her boyfriend once and for all, on account of he was a skeevy, d.i.c.kless little miserable two-timing b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Or something to that effect.

When midnight rolled around and Syd cut her off at lucky number seven, Elaine told him he had a nice b.u.t.t. Syd thanked her and left it at that. Elaine asked him if he was seeing anyone. Syd said no, he wasn't. She said that seemed a waste. Syd smiled and said nothing.

As he cleared her gla.s.s away she took a hold of his arm, and with inebriated single-mindedness offered to take Syd home and f.u.c.k his brains out. Syd gently disengaged, offered to call her a cab. She promised him a night he'd never forget. He promised her that come morning, she'd never remember. In the end, chivalry and common sense won out, and the only thing Syd ended up picking up was the phone.

When the cab arrived, Syd walked her out, paid for it out of his own pocket. Just before getting in she drew him aside and said thanks, that he was a really nice guy, that most guys would have taken advantage of her. Syd shrugged, said he wasn't like most guys.

Elaine embraced him. Then she stuck her tongue in his ear.

He was still shivering as the cab pulled away.

When he came back in, Jane was at the waitress station, watching him. She smiled at him and nodded. Her smile lingered with him long after she headed off, tray in hand.

It was another three days before he realized he was seeing it in his sleep.

Sunday night was Ladies' Night: yet another brilliant Randy edict, aimed at squeezing every last discretionary dollar out of the weekend crowd. Drinks were two-for-one till nine, ladies half-price all night. Jane explained to Syd that "ladies" was a term Randy applied to anything that ovulated.

Judging from the crowd, Syd was inclined to agree.

By eight forty-five the bar was bustling, with hordes of h.o.r.n.y guys lining up for the last of the bargain beverages. The music was blasting. The bar line was bedlam.

And that, of course, was when it happened.

Syd had been minding his own business, dispensing shots and beers for a gang of gap-toothed locals who were eyeballing a gaggle of big-haired babes fresh off the second shift at the local Big Boy restaurant. The jukebox finished up with a Bonnie Raitt tune, kicked in with something by Treat Her Right. Syd looked up, a big s.h.i.teating grin plastered across his face.

"All right!" he cheered. Treat Her Right was one of his all-time favorite bands: four white boys from Boston, doing the funkiest down-home blues-based swamp-rock he'd ever heard. So when David Champagne's nasty s.k.a.n.k-boogie guitar line came up Syd's body started bopping in place. It was "Hit a Man," an old Captain Beefheart tune. The drums and mouth harp came next, rumbling and dirty, and by the time Mark Sandman's gravelly voice chimed in, Syd was in full-tilt auto-boogie, shaking his b.u.t.t as he filled the mugs. He turned . . .

. . . and there stood Jane.

She was at the drink station with a big smile on her face and the most incredible sparkle in her eyes. She was also practically jumping up and down with excitement. He stopped, straightened up, felt his face go beet-red. Jane motioned urgently for him to come over. She obviously had something she was dying to tell him. Syd nodded, as a vertiginous feeling welled up in his stomach.

It was a quick couple of seconds from the bar to the register and back. The money-counting part of his brain was not impaired. But the whole time he was gathering and dispersing hayseed change, he found himself helplessly wondering about Jane. What was she so excited about? What had her jumping up and down? A couple of ideas sprang unbidden into his head.

And suddenly he was nervous.

His first thought was: she's leaving town. He recalled a leftover bit of counseling-speak. Projecting. As if his fantasies were shining out onto someone else's face, like a cheesy stag movie on a stranger's cellar wall. It made him feel exposed and stupid. Plus, it was unlikely. Getting the h.e.l.l out of Dodge might put that expression on his face, but Jane had never expressed that kind of caged-animal antsiness at the possibility of an open ticket out of town. After all, he was born here, and hence was ent.i.tled to his contempt. But Jane had come from someplace else; and in the three years he'd known her, she'd never expressed a complaint.

But the second his brain rejected that, Possibility Number Two reared its fat ugly head: she met a guy. Or a girl, for that matter. What did he know? Either way, the mere thought of it instantly sucked the wind from his sails. His mind didn't go off, as he might have expected, spontaneously erupting in a volley of who's, where's, and why's. He just suddenly felt like he was down the doom flume to nowhere.

And that was when he knew he was starting to fall for her.

Oh, s.h.i.t, said a voice in his head. It was a ball-peen-hammer moment: Syd went away, snapped back, the multicolored cartoon constellations twirling over his head. He realized he was staring blankly at the big black birthmark on the nose of some guy who was waiting for a drink. The guy did not look real happy about it.

He held one finger up, said "Just a sec," and regained his composure. Jane was still waiting. She gave him one of those Earth-to-Syd looks, and he realized she'd been watching him the whole time. Oh, s.h.i.t, he thought again, this time more subdued. Or maybe it was just that he was still in shock.

It was a big seven steps down to the drink station. He barely felt his body as it carried him to her. It was hard, once again, to look her in the eye, given the feelings he now knew he possessed; and it struck him as odd-no, make that ridiculous-that the simple act of her smiling should send him off into such a lobotomized funk.

"What's up?" he said upon reaching the end of the bar, trying like h.e.l.l to appear nonchalant. She automatically slipped him her drink orders, which gave him a place to put his eyes. Two Bud Drafts and an Amstel Light. Okay. Unfortunately, she was jumping up and down again.

He steeled himself and met her gaze.

Jane's features were radiant, animated, downright conspiratorial. Her eyes shimmered with excitement. There was no restraining her grin. She leaned forward, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against the bar top. Syd felt a quivering rush echo through him. It was loud in the club; mouth was nearly touching his ear. His cheek brushed up against her hair, and Syd was instantly filled with the smell of her, like woodsmoke and roses.

"I got tickets for Eric Clapton!" she said.

"Huh?"

"Eric Clapton!!" she repeated. "Pittsburgh Forum! Third row seats!"

"Wow." Syd found a grin beginning to crack through his brittle composure. "Sounds like fun." His body untensed a few clicks, and he mentally kicked himself for being such a jerk.

Jane was shifting her weight from one foot to the other and back again, dancing in place. He pulled back, found himself staring deeply into her eyes, and understood why he'd restrained himself earlier. It would be easy to fall in there. Too easy, perhaps.

"So," she said expectantly. "You wanna?"

Syd immediately misinterpreted. Projecting again. Before he could hide it Jane picked up on his misread. "The concert, I mean," she said. And it was her turn to blush.

"Oh," Syd began. "I, uh . . ." He cast a quick glance across the bar. People were piling up, waiting for drinks, the guy with the nose included. Jane's order was still in front of him. Syd busied himself: opening the beer cooler to get the Amstel, then pulling a couple of pilsner gla.s.ses off the overhead rack. He began to fill the first one. He could feel her eyes upon him. Syd capped off the first draft, slipped the second in without spilling a drop. Very professional. He cleared his throat, slipped a quick glance in her direction.

Jane was smiling.

It was a very interesting smile.

Syd poured a little head off the second beer, watched it slowly cave in as it dissolved down the drain. He started to laugh. He couldn't help it. Picking up both gla.s.ses, he walked back to her, put the beers on her tray, readied himself to speak.

"Hold that thought," she said.

And then she turned away.

But . . . he thought, watching her depart. An astonishing warmth pulsed through him, emanating from his heart. He closed his eyes, and her fate remained.

Hold that thought, she had said. As if he any longer had a choice in the matter. So you wanna? she had asked him; but to his way of thinking, the more wholly pertinent question was, did she wanna? From the look in her eyes, he was suspecting that maybe she did.

I love my life, he thought to himself. My life is great. But, for the first time in ages, he actually meant it.

Syd turned his attention back to the spotty-nosed man and all the rest of his quaff-craving clientele. He sighed. It was gonna be a long, long night.

And indeed, the remaining hours till closing had that timeless quality one usually a.s.sociates with purgatory. In other words, they seemed to take for-f.u.c.king-ever. Syd kept busy-a function his customers were more than happy about-while simultaneously, endlessly flagellating himself with fruitless speculation as to the nature of Jane's personal life.

The truth was, he had very little to go on, beyond the limited evidence of his deliberately reined-in senses. She was not a local; as a result, her past was not a matter of public record or scrutiny. She lived somewhere up in the boonies. He knew less than nothing about her family or upbringing, but she talked as if she'd traveled a good bit in her young life.

More to the point, and to the best of his knowledge, she'd never had anything like a steady boyfriend. If she had, she'd never mentioned it to anyone he knew. The one thing he did know was that she had a policy regarding people who did nothing but get drunk and hang out in bars. Oh, yeah, they make ME wet were her exact words. That probably helped explain why she'd never, in the past, exhibited anything more than a friendly-but-unmistakable distance with him. There was always that invisible line that was never crossed.

But now the line was gone. Or so it would appear.

It was clear, at any rate, that she had a lot of respect for the way he was pulling his life together. Working side by side for the past month had something to do with it, he was fairly sure. Confidence, hard work, and success-however humble-were definite turn-ons in his book; so maybe she was responding to that.

Did he know anyone who'd ever slept with her? He dug around in his memory, came up with a blank. Did it matter in the slightest? No, probably not. Did he have any idea why he was asking himself all these idiotic questions?

Well, actually, yes.

One very good idea.

Because comparisons were inevitable; and unfortunately, he didn't have a lot of good comparisons to make. Maybe if his last girlfriend hadn't turned out to be a f.u.c.king werewolf, his subconscious would be singing a different tune. Not to mention his ex-wife, who was such ancient history at this point it seemed like she was a character in a movie he once saw, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g over some actor he vaguely recognized.

Which led to the deeper issue of his own little secret; and how the h.e.l.l was he supposed to break that to Jane? Honey, there's one thing about me that I think you should know . . . Or like Michael Jackson in Thriller, before he turned into that were-kitty or whatever the h.e.l.l it was. I'm not like other boys. Wasn't that the G.o.dd.a.m.ned truth.

His mind made light of the matter, but the fact was that he was scared s.h.i.tless. Was it even responsible to consider making love with someone, under the circ.u.mstances? Nora had awakened the animal in Syd; would he, then, do the same thing to Jane? Was there any way around it? Would condoms help? Was lycanthropy a communicable condition: a kind of supernatural-AIDS-in-reverse that turbo-charged not only your immune system, but everything else?

The more he thought about these things, the more his brain hurt. But not thinking about them certainly wouldn't help; and besides, it was impossible to do.

Just as it was impossible to not watch Jane, every time she pa.s.sed his field of vision. She was making a perverse game out of it: watching him whenever he had to take his eyes away from her, refusing to meet his gaze when he did turn back to look. When she came to the drink station she was all business; but as he turned to fill the orders she would do it again.

In short, she was torturing him.

Unless of course you're blowing this out of proportion, came that nasty little nagging voice in his head. She did, after all, only ask you to a concert. . . .

And that really got him started. What if she was just being a pal, and he was taking it all wrong? And just how was he supposed to know the difference? Instinct? Yeah, right; he had a fabulous track record in that department. He'd rather trust the divination of goat entrails.