Chapter 1

He was standing at the bar, I didn’t see him come in or walk toward it.

He had a tuque on, his head tilted down enough that he was speaking only with his eyes: large, dark, and slightly sunken. I was so attracted to him.

He ordered a shot of Wild Turkey and a Blue. His voice was so deep. The beer request gave me a moment of grace. At least I knew half his order.

I turned toward the bar, holding my breath, feeling my heart, scanning furiously while trying to be undetectable. “What the hell is ‘Wild Turkey’ and where the eff is it??...’”

Found it. I took it to the counter. Shaking from private embarrassment of not even knowing my job, and intimidation from his beauty and firmness, I spilt quite a bit. No mind. This has taken long enough. Move on.

Without smiling, mostly likely with a look of amazement and terror instead, I put down the shot in front of him. My boss, Sylvia, took inventory as though it were the eighties. Even those paying cash had to leave a paper trail. I over-heard his name. Chris. I tore off a clean sheet from my pad and silently wrote down his order.

It’s a friendly bar, only regulars really frequent. I went to the back to fetch beer to stock the fridge. My third last patron, Bruce, had left. My second, Manuel (pronounced [Man-well]), a Portuguese man who was about sixty and has an accent though he was born in Canada, was downstairs using the washroom. When I returned to the front I saw that Bruce was gone. He didn’t say good-bye. Did he know?...

In my naïve, friendly, and absolving fashion, I ran toward the door to shout good-bye. Manuel was now coming up the stairs, located right beside the door, and told me to get away from it. It was nearly the dead of winter. He then bid me a good-night.

Manuel didn’t get along with Sylvia, I never really knew why. They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. He would put me in awkward situations because he would bad-talk her within my earshot, but he would prove to be very dear to me: he played my cupid out of his usual sheer generosity.

Chris went downstairs. I hoped he was staying. I went back to get more stock.

Just as I hit the threshold between the back and the bar, Chris was right there, we literally collided. It was perfect. I knew then and there something magical was happening. Nothing ever worked so organically or timely for me.

I think he would have walked into the back had I not gotten to that dividing point first. The regulars treat the bar like their home, that’s how Sylvia can keep it running, even though it’s usually quite empty. Many have seen the disarray of the back room and kitchen, though I was told on more than one occasion that it wasn’t allowed. I soon saw that there were more rules for me since I was new.

Chris said that he wanted to play a new album he just bought between work and the bar. I said sure. I continued to move behind the bar and neatly placed the beer in the fridge. First things first! Chris was now a few steps behind the bar. I nearly panicked. “You can’t come back here!” I exclaimed. He looked taken aback, but also endeared.

He handed me the CD. Amy Winehouse’s post-mortem album. I wasn’t fond of her music until that night. At this point, it was only Chris and me in the room. We sat directly across from each other, with the bar in between, forming a safe barrier.

The music was so smooth and sensual. There were waves where I felt that we were bonding, where I felt that we were falling in love. That made me feel uneasy.

I admired that he spent money on actual albums instead of stealing them online. He said the two most important things to him were books and music. That he had more albums, books, and movies than his tiny bachelor apartment could manage, and that he even had quite a few of his CD's there at the bar. I was officially enamoured.

I was the one in control, running the bar, but he controlled our interaction, talking non-stop; it was quite remarkable. And when I wasn’t floating in and out of paranoia, I felt like a princess.

He influenced me so much. I even became patriotic that night. I asked him what his background was. He told me Canadian. I told him there was no such thing. He, with more authority than my timid being could feel comfortable with, said that was not true: that once we are even just first generation, where our ancestors came from has no bearing. I think the fact that his mother’s side were pioneers had much to do with his view as well. Then and there I stopped thinking about the UK. I didn’t want to be English anymore. I wanted to be North American.

No one else came into the bar during my shift. I knew God was working with me that night.

I hoped to see him again on my next shift.