Bar Girl

This is a fiction piece, but a little longer than usual. Hope you enjoy.

I noticed her, noticing me from across the barroom. The place was filled with people, and music, from the trio in the corner, and cigarette smoke, from the twenty or so people smoking . I had parked my butt in the smallest booth in the corner, purposely out of sight of most everyone there. I wasn’t looking for company of any sort. I’d even left Barker at home, mostly because he tends to draw attention to us. When he was with me, someone always came over to scratch behind his ears. I didn’t mind so much, because he liked it, but no one ever offered to scratch my ears.

I saw her start to move down the bar, talking to various people as she worked her way towards me. I started chanting a mantra, “please not me, please not me.” I had nothing to say.

So why didn’t I get up and leave? Well, I called this place my second home. If I wasn’t home at night, I was here usually with Barker. Nowhere else to go in this little town. But that was fine with me. Usually, the people familiar with me, knew I liked to keep to myself, and to be honest, I was an acquired taste. Or was I tasteless. Depends on the day, I guess.

Did I say I was being honest? Forget that. You see, the real reason I wasn’t leaving, was because she had the most beautiful brown skin, and blacker than black short hair. I knew if she ever did get down the bar to where I was sitting in the booth, it was all over for me, except the drooling from my open mouth, as I stared, and tried to think of something to say to her.

The list goes like this. No models, or women that looked like models. No thin women, or if they were thin, they had to be taller than me. No large breasts that stared you in the face. Big was ok, but not in my face big. And as far as that goes, no nipple piercings either.

She, in all her deliciousness, was none of this.

She was closing in though. Still working her way down the bar. How did she know so many people in this bar, if I had never seen her before?

What was her back story? She was definitely a brown girl, so….

The beauty of this woman was not the kind of thing that jumped on you, or stopped you in your tracks. It was the kind of beauty that gets revealed in her smile. As she came closer, I could see her dark brown eyes as she was talking to the patrons of the bar. They were mirroring her words, and responding to the words of her acquaintance. I could, or imagined I could, hear the conversation in my head, just by watching her eyes.

Decision time. Order another drink, and be certain she would eventually get down the bar to my booth; or get up now and go home, never knowing what the deal with her was. I was just too nosy. I ordered another.

After my drink came, a buddy came out of the restroom to my right, and stood in front of the booth, trading pleasantries and jokes for a short while. When he returned to his seat, she popped into view around the end of the bar, almost startling me with her quick appearance.

“How ya doing, or should I say how am I doing? You have been tracking me all the way down the bar. Mind if I sit down for a bit?”

I halfheartedly pulled a few empty glasses to the end of the table, so she would not be looking at me over the mess of my evening’s imbibing.

“Would you like another drink? That one is almost gone.” I mumbled , as she sat down across from me.

“That would be nice, thank you.”

I ordered her another drink, and reluctant to show her immediately what a poor conversationalist I could be, I stared down at my old, scared, white hands, and then at her small, brown, perfectly smooth hands. She had short trimmed nails with clear polish that said “I take care of myself.” My hands seemed to say, “lots of years, lots of damage along the way.”

Then she did something I did not expect. She placed both of her hands over the top of my hands. Her hands were ice cold. “Yes, I know, my hands are always cold.” She said.

“Cold hands, warm heart?” I quipped, regretting it immediately. “I get it.” She said.”Did you just now come up with that? How interesting.”

“If you will just give me a minute to extract my foot from my mouth, maybe we can have a conversation.”

“If you don’t mind my saying this, you look like you need a doctor.” She replied.

“Hey,” I spouted, “do I come to your local bar and insult the way you look?”

“Idle down, you’ll blow a gasket, hot rod. I just wanted to get your attention. Are you listening now? Don’t think about all the junk that men think about, and bring your thoughts back here. With me. I’ll explain.”

“I happen to know,” she said quietly, “that except for a few people in this town, no one has been to see a physician for at least three years. That’s when the previous doctor retired, and was not replaced by anyone, not even a public health nurse. This town isn’t big enough to attract a new doctor. It just isn’t on anyone’s radar. Not many people are going to travel the 100 miles to Cody, just because they haven’t felt right for a few weeks. Everyone always assumes it will get better, or go away.”

“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our little corner of Wyoming. Why would that be?” I sighed.

“Well, its my job now. I’m the new doctor in town. I just opened up my medical office down the street.”

“In old Dr. Lewis’s place?”

“Yup. Nothing had been changed since he left, so, little to update for my practice. I hope you will think about having a checkup, at least.”

I didn’t get around to asking her how she had ended up here, but I’ll figure it out.

I have an appointment to see her on Monday.