Falling for June: A Novel (20 page)

28

I
MAKE IT A
personal policy to never go to Finnegans on Friday nights—too many amateurs; too much drinking—but this was one night I made an exception. I just couldn’t go home to my apartment. Not after the day I had just had, followed by the lonely drive into the city from Echo Glen.

“Hiya, handsome.”

As soon as I heard her voice I knew it was exactly what I needed to hear. And it was probably why I had come too.

“Hi, Estrella. How are you? Busy in here tonight.”

“That’s Friday for you,” she said. “What’ll ya have? It’s on me, since it’s technically still your birthday.”

I glanced at the clock: eleven fifteen p.m.

“You don’t happen to have any RC Cola, do you?”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t think so,” I said. “How about a club soda with lime.”

“Getting wild tonight as usual I see,” she joked, taking down a glass and scooping it full of ice. “You hungry?”

“No thanks. Say, you ever had a MoonPie?”

“What’s a MoonPie?”

She handed me my drink, and I handed her the Polaroid that Mr. Hadley had taken of me blowing out my candles. She
smiled, looking at the photo. “I haven’t seen a Polaroid photo in ages. You look happy here, but that’s a funny little cake.”

“They’re popular down south, I think.”

“Polaroids?”

“No, MoonPies.”

“I thought you said you were from around here.”

“I am. I grew up in Belfair, unfortunately.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Belfair’s not that bad.”

“
Not that bad
,” I said. “What do you know about Belfair?”

“We lived in Bremerton through my sophomore year of high school. My dad was in the navy.”

“Okay, but it rains all the time and you know it.”

“Yes, but that’s why it’s so green.” Then she smirked, adding, “Of course, you won’t have to worry about that once you move to Miami.”

“Florida gets rain,” I said, shrugging.

She laughed. “In the form of hurricanes.”

What does everyone have against Florida? I wondered. “You sound like a client I spent all day with.”

She handed me back the Polaroid. “Well, you have wise clients then.”

“I’ll miss this place more than the rain anyway,” I mumbled.

Someone called from down the bar, distracting her. She held up a finger, then turned back to me. “What’s that now?”

“Nothing. You’ve got customers.”

“It’s all right. They can wait.”

“I just said I’ll miss this place when I move to Miami.”

“Miss Finnegans? Really?”

“Not Finnegans so much. But, you know, seeing you.”

“I said I’ll be right there,” she called down the bar. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Come again?”

And this was why I didn’t come in on Fridays.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll just watch TV.”

“That infomercial for a silly home paraffin wax kit’s been running all night again. I can’t find the remote.”

“I like soft feet. Maybe I’ll pick one up.”

She laughed. “You sure you grew up in Belfair and not Bellevue? Okay, Mr. Soft Feet. I’ll be back to check on you.”

As soon as she was gone I was lonelier than ever—even though the bar was crowded with laughing people blowing off a week’s worth of steam. Usually I spent Friday nights at home, watching
Seinfeld
reruns. Sometimes I’d walk to Pacific Place and see a movie by myself. Very rarely I’d have a date. But tonight I had a lot on my mind, and none of those options sounded any good.

It seemed like ages ago that I had left Seattle to drive out to Echo Glen, but it had been just that morning. It was less than twenty-four hours ago, in fact, that I had sat in this very seat, watching this very TV, and that silly depression-pill commercial had come on, reminding me of Mr. Hadley’s letter and those crazy bird stamps. Amazing how tiny things like that can really rock your world.

I wasn’t quite sure whether it was Mr. Hadley himself or his story that had gotten to me most. I was fascinated by his wife. Attracted to her even, in some strange way, and I found myself wishing I had lived the story instead of just having heard it. I guess you could say I was falling for June. I wondered what it felt like to hang glide off of a cliff into the moon. I found myself envisioning a poppy field in Spain. They’re red, right? Isn’t that what he said? Crimson maybe. Anyway, I was all mixed up. And I was sad too. Sad for Mr. Hadley’s losing his property when it meant so much to him; sad that June had passed away, even if she had lived a long and fulfilling life; and sad that I would never find anything like the love those two shared. Not that I was looking or anything.

As I sat there thinking, I began to hate my job. I knew damn
well that somebody had to do it, but did that somebody really need to be me? Some sorry sap works the execution lever too, but that doesn’t make it a job I’d ever do. Who the hell was I to kick these people out of their places with a check from the bank and big fat f-you? Sure, I sometimes helped them move. And I’d absolutely help Mr. Hadley too. I’d do what he had asked at least. I’d cash in every favor I’d stored up to get his quitclaim signed and his short plat pushed through. But what if there was more I could do?

“Just one minute left, better make your last birthday wish.” Estrella sat down at the empty stool beside me and nodded toward the clock. Then she smiled. “Gee, fella, aren’t you going to offer to buy a girl a drink?”

“Buy you a drink. But aren’t you working?”

“You looked like you could use some company so I got Tom to cover for me. He’s closing anyway.”

“Okay, sure. I’d love to buy you a drink then. What’ll you have?”

“I’d like a hot chocolate.”

“One hot chocolate coming up.”

I raised my arm to get Tom’s attention, but Estrella pulled it back down, biting her lip and shaking her head.

“We don’t serve hot chocolate at Finnegans, silly.”

“But I thought you wanted—”

“And I do. Let’s go to Dilettante on the hill. They’ve got Viennese cocoa to die for and they’re open till two.”

It was drizzling again outside when we left Finnegans, so we took my car, which I had parked nearby instead of walking.

“I guess this means you don’t like me,” she said, looking out the window as I drove.

“Why would it mean that?”

“Because you only ask out girls you don’t like, remember?”

“Yeah, but this is different.”

“How so?”

“I didn’t ask you; you asked me.”

She laughed and we rode the rest of the way in silence.

Dilettante is a trendy late-night dessert spot on Capitol Hill, serving everything from double-sized portions of their famous homemade rice pudding to double chocolate truffle martinis. It’s a great place, but you could easily wake up the next day filled with double regret. We snagged a quiet, candlelit booth in the back and looked over the menus.

“Oh, aren’t you a cute couple,” our server said, arriving at our booth with such speed he had to check himself on the booth back, as if he were on roller skates.

“Oh, we’re actually not—”

He waved my comment away. “I’m not telling, handsome. What happens at Dilettante stays at Dilettante.” Then he turned to Estrella, saying, “This one is a real romantic. You want your usual, sweetie?”

Estrella nodded. “Extra chocolate shavings, please.”

“And how about you then, Romeo?”

“I’ll have the same.”

“Two dark chocolate Viennese coming up.”

As soon as he was gone, I turned back to Estrella. “You must come here a lot.”

“Sometimes,” she said. “I just live a block away.”

“Ah, I see. So this was a ploy to bum a ride home?”

She grinned. “Yes, because it’s so hard to hop a bus up the hill I have to seduce a new customer every night for a ride. It’s tough being a poor defenseless woman in the big city.”

“All right. I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that. But you did just say you were seducing me, for the record.”

“Of course. Dilettante is where I seduce all my men.”

“Great. That sure explains the ‘This one is a real romantic’ comment from our server.”

“That’s just Georgie being Georgie. It means he likes you. But let’s get back to you. Tell me about your day. You looked a little down when you came in.”

“I did? Maybe I was down, I don’t know. I had the strangest birthday. But you don’t want to hear about this.”

“Yes, I really do,” she said.

So I began telling her about my day. From my drive out to Echo Glen that morning and meeting Mr. Hadley, to his tale that unfolded throughout the afternoon and into the evening. I was in the middle of his and June’s budding love story at stunt camp when Georgie breezed by to drop off our hot chocolates with a wink, fortunately in too much of a hurry to stay and chat.

“Oh, this is good,” I said, tasting mine.

“Isn’t it heaven?” she replied. “I was addicted to them for a while, but I’ve managed to cut back to one or two a week. You must have noticed all the weight I gained, since you come in to Finnegans all the time.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, “I never noticed. Which is strange since I’ve spent so much time there at the bar counter stealing glances at your ass.”

She blushed, looking down at the table and biting her lip coquettishly, as she sometimes did. A dab of whipped cream remained on her lip, making it even cuter than usual.

“I can tell you’re the type of boy my mother always warned me about,” she said. Then she looked up at me with sexy, half-hooded eyes and added, “Fortunately for you, I never listened.”

I was lost for words, but I know I blushed for sure.

“Now, get back to the story of David and June,” she said. “I was really enjoying it.”

So I went on, filling her in on everything Mr. Hadley had told me, although with much less detail and clarity than he had recounted it with. It was strange, but Estrella and I knew very little about each other, and yet here we were bonding over
someone else’s love story. By the time I got to the part where Mr. Hadley had left me, with the two of them engaged and in love, despite her Parkinson’s diagnosis, riding off toward Aranda de Duero together on bicycles traded for with June’s ring, Estrella was cradling an empty mug with tears running down her face.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said, shaking her head. “Everyone should find true love like that. The way he went after her all the way to Spain. It makes my heart ache. What happened?”

So I told her I hadn’t heard about the wedding yet, but I filled her in on June’s being buried at Echo Glen, and about how Mr. Hadley had asked me to help push the paperwork through so he could dedicate it as a cemetery.

“He even offered me twenty-five grand.”

“Wow,” she said. “That’s a lot of money.”

“I know it is.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I know what I’m
not
going to do. I’m not going to take his money. But I will help him.”

“See, I knew you were sweet as pie, despite that too-cool-for-school loner attitude you saunter in with all the time.”

“I do not saunter.”

“Do too. Three nights a week, same thing: ‘Club soda with lime and a menu, please.’ Even though you always order the chicken Parmesan sandwich.”

“I love the chicken Parmesan sandwich.”

“Apparently.”

“I think we’ve talked enough about me,” I said. “I’d like to hear about you. But first I’m getting us another round.”

“See,” she said, “now you’re addicted too.”

I flagged down Georgie and ordered us two more cocoas. Then I settled back in my seat to hear about Estrella.

“Oh gosh,” she said. “I don’t know where to start. What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for the brochure and not the book, since it’s getting late. Let’s see, I already told you I grew up in Bremerton and that my dad was in the navy—they live in Seward Park now. My mother makes quilts. She enters them in contests and wins. She sells them on a website I helped her design. I love cats, but my only pet is a betta fish named Bernie that I’ve had for five years. People think fish don’t return affection, but they do. What else do you want to know?”

“What’s one thing you couldn’t live without?”

“Chocolate,” she said, grinning. “And books. Next.”

“Okay, something you’re good at.”

“Puzzles. Especially landscapes.”

“Something you’re bad at.”

“I’m horrible at caring for houseplants. I kill one a month it seems, but I refuse to give up.”

“Your favorite thing to do on a Sunday.”

“Visit my parents for dinner and a game of Scrabble.”

“Scrabble?”

“I’m a Scrabble champion. At least against my parents.”

“So, they’re still married?”

“Thirty-two years and counting. Theirs is a real love story, not unlike the one you just told me, minus the BASE jumping and hang gliding and all that. My father works on planes, but he says only a fool or a soldier would jump out of one.”

I blew on my chocolate, mumbling almost to myself. “This is really challenging my worldview.”

“What is?” she asked. “The cocoa?”

“These love stories. That’s two today.”

“That’s right,” she said, nodding. “You’re the guy who doesn’t believe in love. What did you say the other night? It’s fun at the beginning, but bites you in the end. Someone’s been hurt a little, I’d say. Tell me, Elliot, who was she?”

“Who was who?” I asked.

“The girl who broke your heart.”

I shrugged, looking down. “My mother, I guess.”

As soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t. But something about Estrella’s face made me want to pour out my past, wounds and all. So I told her. I told her about my mother running out on us. I told her about my father’s passing. I even told her about my childhood obsession with moving away to someplace sunny, realizing for the first time as I said it that perhaps I had somehow connected my childhood sadness with the rain that seemed always to fall outside my bedroom window.

When I finished, her expression was a mix of tenderness and pain. As if my story had hurt her somehow. But she didn’t say anything, which was kind of nice. Sometimes you just want someone to listen because there’s nothing to say.