Bar-Scene

“I can, you know. Get something. For it.” Mrs. Smith spun her hi-ball on a thin layer of water. “That’s what he says. Who wants that, really?”

Sam was 23 and not at all sure why she was telling him about her…much older husband? He stood behind the bar polishing a glass, doing his best to avoid her eyes. The two were alone.

“Get something for it, Sammy,” Mrs. Smith repeated. She expected a response. She stared at him, eyes upward as she sucked Seagrams through the straw. It unnerved him. She called him Sammy from day one and it still made his hair stand on end.

“Mrs. Smith –”

“Veronica.”

Sam closed his eyes before he tried to say just-her-name. It was quick, no more than a half-second, but enough for her. She reached her hand closer to him. Her bangles clinked and she wiggled her fingers.  Her face said she was going to help him get past this. She was there, always. To help.

It was time to put-up or shut-up.

“Mrs. – Veronica, you know what we used to call your class, don’t you?”

The question intrigued her. She forgot her hand, lonely against the bar, and let the straw slip from her lips. “No, what?”

He set down the glass and the towel. Standing up full and straight, he said: “Woodshop.”

The English teacher didn’t understand until she did, pulling back her hand from an increasingly virile Sam. Not Sammy, but a man at his peak who added a confession that became a point of pride:  “I know it was for me.”

He heard the word “inappropriate” as she pushed into the glare outside. She would not be back. Sam picked up her glass, downed the last, and returned to his brilliant day.