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Wendy made a show of looking at her watch. The poet said that the next street over had at least two bars on it. “The Ginger Door will be opening soon, I think.” It was nearly five. Wendy thanked her and departed the hotel. She’d taken a taxi from Albany Airport to get to Tinhook and had been dismayed that it seemed as though the Lord George Inn was in a residential section of the town. Back when Thom and she had made their plan to meet in Tinhook, they’d decided to meet at the closest bar to the festival site at five o’clock on the Friday. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to Wendy that there might not be a bar within walking distance.
But now that she was outside in the cool evening, the sun still high in the sky, she spotted a sign that pointed its way toward the “historic downtown.” In five minutes, she found herself on a wide street, brick buildings on either side. Half the storefronts seemed shuttered, but the half that weren’t seemed to be either pizza places or bars. She spotted the Ginger Door, calculated that it was possibly the closest bar to the Lord George Inn, and made her way to it. Thom was already inside. He had a full beer in front of him and had just lit a cigarette. The only other customers in the bar were four middle-aged ladies at a booth. All of them were also smoking, and the bar was filling up with smoke, tinged blue by the late-afternoon light coming in through the plate-glass window.
“This seat taken?” Wendy asked Thom as she slid onto a leather-topped stool.
“Do I know you?” he asked, barely suppressing a grin, but she could see the happiness in his eyes. Wendy realized suddenly that she’d been nervous about seeing him again, but now that he was here, all that nervousness dissipated, and she felt something approaching joy as well.
“I don’t know. Do we know one another or don’t we? Had we already made this decision?”
The bartender, an older man wearing suspenders and a belt, wasdown the other end of the bar slicing lemons. The women at the table were laughing as though they were already on their second or third drinks. “I don’t think there’s any harm in our talking together at this bar. God, it’s nice to see you.”
Wendy squeezed his leg with a hand, surprised to find he was wearing shorts. “Oh,” she said.
“I forgot my pants.”
“Yes, you did.”
“What do you want?”
“To drink?”
“Yes, to drink.”
“How about a Tom Collins? That was my father’s drink and this bar reminds me of him.”
After Thom had ordered her drink, but before it arrived, Wendy said, “I’ll just have this one drink. I have to get back for the reception at the hotel.”
“What’s it like?”
“The hotel?”
“The hotel. The conference.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice, and I don’t care. I’m just so glad that you are here.”
“Are you surprised that I came?”
“A little bit, I think, considering what we talked about last time. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t show up.”
“That’s not going to happen. I mean, I’m always going to show up. No matter what we do or don’t do.”
Wendy’s drink arrived. After tasting it she instantly regretted her choice, because it really did remind her of her father. “Yuck,” she said.
“Want to swap? My beer is terrible too.”
“Sure.”
They swapped drinks, and Wendy tasted the warm beer. “I like this better,” she said.
“When can we see one another?”
“I’ve thought about that. Just come over tonight and spend the night at the inn. There’s a dinner but that ends at eight o’clock. There’s a bar there and I’m sure all the other participants will be drinking. I’ll go to my room and you can meet me there. No one will notice.”
“Drink okay, miss?” the bartender said, noticing that they’d switched.
“Oh, fine. Turned out it wasn’t what I wanted, but there was nothing wrong with it.”
Thirty minutes later, walking back to the Lord George, the sun now casting a long, distorted shadow of her frame along the sidewalk, Wendy told herself that they needed to start being extra careful. It would be fine if Thom came to the hotel and spent the night. No one would see them together. But maybe being together in public was now a mistake. Not that she thought it made any real difference that a bartender had noticed them because they had switched drinks, but it was just the type of thing that could eventually become a problem.Nobodyshould notice them. After Bryce was dead it was important that Thom and Wendy meet again as strangers. Well, not total strangers. They could meet again for the first time since they were kids. That would be okay.