“He was just a bad man,” Rina said. “He won’t come back.”
She patted Isabel on the shoulder, smiling reassuringly. Isabel’s own smile wasn’t as confident.
Lamie finally showed up with the napkin, and I let her clean Isabel’s scratch. Within ten minutes, the whole place seemed back to normal, Isabel included. Larry left not long after that, but he made a point to check on Isabel before saying goodbye.
He had told me earlier he was going to Manila on Sunday to avoid driving down on the same day he flew out. So when we shook hands, I was sure that would be the last time I saw Larry Adams.
I was wrong.
CHAPTER NINE
When I came into work that Sunday night, the second to last thing I expected was Isabel showing up. I had told her just before she went home the previous night that she should take Sunday off. She’d only been working at The Lounge for around five months at that point, and though she was good at getting guys to buy her lady drinks-drinks for the girls that they got a cut of-she had yet to go out on an EWR. I figured with the incident the night before, she could use a day off to think about things. I would have laid better than even odds she was going to quit altogether.
But Isabel showed up right on time, as if nothing had happened. I stopped her as she walked to the back to change, and asked if she was okay.
“Fine, Papa,” she said, smiling.
Thirty minutes later, Larry arrived. That was the last thing I expected. At that time on a Sunday night, he was the only customer in the place.
“I thought you left already,” I said as soon as I saw him.
“Decided to wait until tomorrow,” he said with no further explanation.
I had a few managerial items to take care of, so I left Larry at the bar and went to the small office in back. When I came back out twenty minutes later, Larry had moved. I looked around and spotted him sitting at the table in the back corner, talking with Isabel.
I got a beer from the bar, and started to head over to them.
“Wait,” Cathy said.
I stopped. “What?”
“Give them a little time alone.”
“Who? Larry and Isabel?”
She shook her head, an expression of disbelief on her face. “Sometimes, Doc, you stupid.”
I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t understand what she meant. When I looked back at Larry and Isabel, instead of seeing two people sharing a friendly conversation, I saw a couple sitting a little closer together than mere friends would. I saw Isabel put her hand on Larry’s arm as she laughed, letting it linger there a moment, but always removing it. I saw Larry glance at her when she wasn’t looking at him, an unconscious smile on his face. More than anything, I saw two people who had stopped noticing there were other people around.
So instead of going over, I sat down on my stool.
“I didn’t see that coming,” I told Cathy.
“I already tell you. That’s because you stupid,” she said, then added, “sometimes.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“Bar is stocked. Everything ready. Larry is only customer.” She looked me in the eyes. “So no, I don’t have work to do.”
“Cathy, if you weren’t so damn cute, I’d fire you right now just because I could.”
“Good thing I’m cute then.”
“Yeah. Good thing.” I picked up my beer and swallowed what was left, then set the bottle back down. “I’ve got something for you to do. Get me another beer.”
She gave me an exaggerated smile before turning to the cooler to pull out a new bottle. A moment later, she set an open San Miguel in front of me.
“No Marzen left?” I asked.
“Plenty,” she answered, then walked to the far end of the bar.
That night was another example of something surprising happening after weeks of boring, interchangeable days. In truth, this new round of excitement started the night before with Mr. Comb-over attempting to force the issue with Isabel. But the next night, that Sunday, things escalated rapidly, so much faster than any of us ever realized. The biggest surprise of the evening happened around ten thirty.
The place was still fairly empty, probably no more than seven customers. Because of that, the energy level was pretty mellow. That was actually okay by me. We’d had a run of fairly intense nights, so a little ratcheting down would allow everyone to recharge a bit.
Cathy had decided at some point earlier to rejoin me, and we were sharing a couple of apple martinis she’d just recently learned how to make.
“Not bad,” I said, as I finished off the last of my drink.
“Not bad?” she asked. “That’s it?”
“Given the choice, I’d rather have a beer.”
“You have no taste.” She replaced my empty martini glass with a bottle of San Miguel. “I think that-”
She stopped, her eyes moving from my face to a point behind me. I turned to see what she was looking at.
Standing about three feet away was Isabel, smiling shyly.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Nothing wrong.”
I waited for a moment, but when she didn’t say anything else, I said, “Well, what is it?”
I heard a sigh of disgust behind me, followed by Cathy muttering, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
I ignored her and kept my attention on Isabel.
It took her a couple tries to finally say what she wanted to say, but when she did, the words rushed out. “Larry wants to pay my bar fine.”
My eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really, really, really,” Cathy said from behind me. “Maybe I should be the one in charge here.”
I continued to look at Isabel.
“Really,” she said.
“What do you want?” I asked.
This time the words didn’t rush out. Instead they were spoken as if she’d put a lot of thought into them. “I want to go.”
“You’re sure?”
A wet towel hit me in the back of the head. “Of course she’s sure,” Cathy said. “Can’t you see it? Her eyes are smiling.”
And indeed Isabel’s eyes were smiling. It was amazing, less than twenty-four hours earlier, those same eyes looked as if they could kill, and yet tonight all of that anger was gone. There was only happiness, innocence and hope.
But despite this and Cathy’s insistence, this would be Isabel’s first EWR, so I asked again, “Are you one-hundred-percent sure?”
“Yes, Papa Jay. He’s very nice. He says we only have to go out to dinner, then I can go home. No hotel. No sex.”
How many times had I heard guys use that tack? A hundred? A thousand? And it was always with the idea that at dinner, or on a barhop afterward, he’d be able to convince the girl to go back to his room. But I was inclined to believe Larry meant it. After everything I’d learned about his trip so far, it actually seemed like a logical thing for him to do. Of course, he could have been lying to me about everything. He could have been a player who was playing even the papasan. But I didn’t think so. In fact, I was positive I hadn’t misjudged him.
“So, can I go?” Isabel asked.
When I didn’t answer right away, Cathy jumped in. “Of course you can.”
But Isabel knew better than to go only on Cathy’s word. She looked at me, expectant.
“Tell Larry to come over here,” I said. “Then go get changed.”
A smile as wide as Luzon Island broke out on her face. Instead of immediately doing as I told her, she gave me a big hug.
A few minutes later, Isabel was in the back changing into her street clothes, and Larry had joined me at the bar.
I asked him the same thing I had asked Isabel. “You sure about this?”
“Doc, why you always ask this question?” Cathy said.
I looked back at her. “There’s got to be somebody somewhere who needs something to drink.”
“Everybody’s good now. I’ll stay here,” she replied.
Larry nodded. “I’m sure, Doc.” It was the first time he’d called me Doc. So I guessed I had Cathy to thank for that. “I’m just going to take her to dinner. That’s it.”