the ceiling. Instead I see a man in a houndstooth jacket nursing a glass of Scotch, a lovely woman with cascading black hair and olive skin laughing behind the bar, and a few scattered others, all enjoying their drinks and in no way behaving like serial killers.
Sam grins down at me. His hand remains firmly attached to my lower back (who am I kidding, it’s clearly in high-ass position) as he leads me toward the raven haired beauty. She walks around the bar and pulls Sam into a familiar embrace. I know it’s silly, but when she puts her hand against his cheek, I feel a little jealous at their shared intimacy.
“Clara, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Ellie.”
Clara, who’s truly breathtaking, turns to grace me with a wide smile. She pays no mind to my bare feet, pulling me into a hug that leaves me in no doubt of her womanly superiority.
“Ellie, Ellie, so nice to meet you! What a lucky girl you are to be here with this hunk of a man, eh?” Clara’s accent is thick and, like the rest of her, oozing with passion. “Welcome to my little bar. Any friend of Sam’s is a friend of mine. Please tell me what you are wanting and Clara will get for you, yes?”
I open my mouth to ask for a spare pair of Keds, but she’s so graceful and sexy and completely undisturbed by my lack of footwear, I can’t think of what to say. “It’s nice to meet you,” I finally sputter out. “Your accent, where are you from?”
“I am from Columbia, but I move here with my husband ten years ago and buy this little bar. It is nice, no?”
“Yes, it’s really, um, it’s very interesting,” I say. That’s right, Ellie. Show her up with your superior conversation skills. “Is your husband here tonight?”
Sam coughs into his hand, trying and failing to hide the bemused smile splitting across his face.
Clara, Miss Universe herself, spits on the floor in front of my bare feet. “No!” she spits again. “That Bastardo is no here anymore. This is Clara’s place now. I cursed him and now he sleeps with the dogs!”
Oh good, I pissed off the Latin goddess who spits on her own floor and curses people. Big improvement over my foot-fetish date. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know,” I say, looking to Sam for help.
Clara eases her knitted brow and gives me a dazzling smile. “Of course you did not know, my sweet. Please, you take a seat and Clara will bring you something good to drink.” She ushers us to a nearby table then saunters back to the bar to get our drinks.
I look at Sam and then back to where Clara is carefully considering our drink selection. “Should I be worried she’s going to try and poison me?”
Sam laughs and leans back in his chair. “Nah, she’s really a very sweet woman. She just doesn’t like to bring up the old man.”
“What’d he do?”
“I’m not clear on all the details, but I believe it had something to do with a seventeen-year old waitress that used to work here,” he says, eyebrows raised conspiratorially.
“Good lord, I would hate to be him.”
Sam leans in close to me, his hand going around my shoulder to grip the back of my chair. I wish he’d quit maneuvering himself so close to me; it’s making it very difficult to not lick his dimple.
“I’d be more worried for the girl. Clara loved her husband, but the waitress? Well she’s expendable. Story is that shortly after leaving town the girl started losing all her teeth and hair. If Clara is as good at casting a curse as she claims to be, that girl ought to be one toothless, hairless teenager by now.”
My eyes must be as wide as saucers because Sam can’t hold back the bark of laughter that tears through him. “I’m only messing with you,” he says. “The girl works at a Dollar Shop in Canton now. Teeth and hair are firmly in place. No sign of ‘el Bastardo’ though. If he knows what’s good for him, he’s as far away from Clara as humanly possible.”
Sam’s eyes study my face as if he’s trying to discern the effect his story and this place are having on me. I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and he says, “You’re always doing that, you know?”
“Doing what?” I ask, meeting his concentrated gaze.