She met the first man she ever slept with here, as well as the last. The last one being almost a year ago, just before she took her chastity vow. Which she also did at the Edgewater. Quitting was easier than she thought, a hell of a lot easier than quitting smoking. It wasn't like she was giving up sex forever; she was just abstaining, taking a break, because she thought it would be good for her, the way some people who aren't even really Christians give things up for Lent. Her head was clearer and calmer than it was before the vow, when a space in the back of her head had always been devoted to the question of sex, of when and who and how and if, a churning little spot of energy that ran underneath and beside all her other mental activities. Now she'd freed up that energy and could just use it — well, what was she using it for? — to live.
What happened was this: on a Friday night — Friday nights at the Edgewater were an institution, and as usual the place was packed — Kelly looked around and counted nine men she'd slept or fooled around with. It wasn't the number that bothered her but that, looking at them, she couldn't stop picturing them all naked, and it was not an arousing picture. She was walking around trying to serve drinks and hear people's orders over the music and all the while seeing naked men, pale-skinned, dark-skinned, potbellied, muscled or flabby, hairy-chested or bare, hairy-backed or not, leaning against doors, sitting back in chairs, everywhere their freckled, spotted, rough or smooth skin. There was just too much skin. She took a deep breath and thought, No more.
That was last July, and she hadn't been with a man since. The chastity thing drove Manny crazy and he was always trying to set her up with somebody, most recently with his cousin from Kitchener who was coming to town for a visit. Manny's interest in her was by turns paternal, platonic, and sleazy. He often encouraged her to go back to school, patting her on the shoulder and telling her she was too smart for this dump, too young, too something; he'd also, every once in a while, look down her shirt or squeeze her butt. When he brought up his cousin, she was wiping down the bar while he flipped through catalogs of restaurant equipment. Manny dreamed about making the Edgewater more upscale, a thought that was wishful in the extreme. He wanted to put in stainless-steel chairs and sell microbrews. He also wanted to institute a no-jeans dress code, an idea that, when he floated it by a couple of regular customers, made them snort Miller Genuine Draft out their noses.
“He's a very interesting person, Kel,” Manny said. “You guys would have interesting conversations, I bet.”
“Okay, so I'll talk to him when he comes in. But that's it, talking.”
“Well, okay, but really talk to him. Get to know him.”
“Manny.”
“What?”
“You know I'm off men.”
“Off men? What does that even mean?” He looked around as if he had an audience for this question, but it was Tuesday night at seven-thirty and the place was almost deserted. “It's not normal, a girl your age. Hey, do you like these stools?”
She looked at the catalog. The stools were four feet high and upholstered in a black-and-white cow print. “Looks comfy.”
“You know what else?”
“What else, Manny?”
“My cousin? He's only got one leg.”
“Poor guy,” Kelly said. “How'd he lose it?”
Manny looked at her over the catalog. “Motorcycle accident.”
“Oh.”
“It's not the whole leg that's gone, it's actually cut off at the knee. The left one.”
“Poor guy.”
“Well, it's not the whole leg.”
When she came back from taking the order of the only occupied table, Manny still hadn't gone back to the catalog.
“So, that doesn't interest you at all?”
“What doesn't?”
“The leg.”
“What do you mean, interest me?”
Manny shrugged and studied a page of light fixtures, chrome and colored plastic descending from some invisible ceiling. “He says girls love the leg, that's all.”
“Great,” said Kelly. “Then he doesn't need me to talk to, does he?”
Manny's cousin's name was Lone. At first she thought she'd misheard, and that his name was Lorne, like Lorne Green, but no, it was Lone. A nickname, Manny explained, that referred to his one intact leg. He came into the bar around nine-thirty, while Manny was in the back. By now there were a few more customers, including a guy who'd never been in before and who therefore thought the name Edgewater Bar & Grill implied that food was being served. Which it kind of did. But Manny had just added the “& Grill” to the sign a couple of years ago because he thought it sounded better.
“You can't even make me a sandwich?” the guy said. “Some fries?”
“I think we have some chips by the register,” Kelly told him. “Do you want regular or barbecue?”
“If I wanted some goddamn chips I'd go to a goddamn store.”
“Feel free,” Kelly said.
“Hey, why don't you just leave her alone,” said a voice behind her.
Turning around she saw a man walk up close, very close, to the guy's table and jab a finger at his face. He was thick-armed and barrel-chested, definitely a weight lifter, wearing a black Metallica T-shirt. Below, his body turned slim at the hips, and then there were his legs. He was wearing jeans, and the leg that wasn't whole was wearing jeans too, with only a hollowness below the knee, an airy, smooth sort of quality in the fabric, to signal what was missing.
“You must be Lone.”
“And you must be Manny,” he said, and smiled. “Just kidding.”
“What's this, a reunion?” said the guy who wanted food.
“Shut up,” Lone said.
“I'm handling this,” Kelly told him.
“Not very well,” the other guy said.
“That's enough,” Lone said, turning to hit him, hard, in the face.
The guy howled, clutched his cheekbone, swore, promised to call the police, swore again, and left. Conversation at the other tables resumed.
“That really wasn't necessary,” Kelly said, wiping down the table.
“He was a jerk.”
“A jerk who hadn't paid yet.”
“Lone, my man!” Manny shouted, coming out from the back, and they exchanged an elaborate handclasp. Kelly could see a family resemblance: both were stout and thick-chested, although Lone's chest had a lot more definition than Manny's, and both had bushy dark eyebrows and stubble-shadowed chins.
“Lone, Kelly, Kelly, Lone.”
“We just met,” Kelly said.
“Great,” Manny said, clasping his hands together as if he couldn't stand that the handshaking was now over. “Let's sit down. Kelly, could you get Lone a beer?”
“Sure.”
When she came back, they were sitting at her old table by the window, looking at the lights of the neighborhood reflected over the water, red from a traffic light punctuating the paler yellows.
“So, how's Aunt Linda?” said Manny. “Thanks, Kel. Come, sit down and join us.”
“I don't know. She's okay, I guess.”
“Yeah? How's Mark?”
“He's on drugs.”