only thing moving outside was smoke from wood stoves. Winter in this town trapped people in their homes, in their lives. It was no wonder trains didn’t stop in Quinn anymore. Only derailed.
Laverna drove to work past the softball field, covered in snow. She slowed the Cadillac, as she did every day in the winter, making sure that everything was in its right place. She was very protective of the softball field; it was the only place that made her happy, although last season had been a catastrophe. They had won only three games, and one was by default—the entire opposing team of silver miners had gone to a Heart concert in Spokane.
The Dirty Shame was converted out of a row of railroad apartments. It was sided with oily wooden shingles that Laverna’s father acquired at an outrageously low price. She took after her father; Gene Flood could talk a dog out of having rabies. He grew enormously fat after they opened the kitchen and started serving food at the bar. He died of a heart attack at one of Quinn’s softball games, which was embarrassing enough, but the fact that it took six volunteer firemen to haul him away from the bleachers was mortifying. A week after the funeral, Laverna’s mother answered the door and made the mistake of inviting Jehovah’s Witnesses into her home, confusing them with mourners. Before a month passed, she sold all the video poker machines and fled to eastern Montana with the money and her new congregation. At twenty-two, Laverna became the owner of the bar, and twenty-five years passed, changing out kegs and breaking up fights.
Tabby threw her apron at Laverna the minute she walked through the door.
“It’s all yours,” she said. And it was. Of the two bars in town—Laverna proudly owned the one that served food and encouraged fighting. The other bar was the Bowling Alley, an unoriginal name but frequented by most of the volunteer firemen and folks from town who had tired of fist-fighting over the conservation of the spotted owl. The Dirty Shame was always packed with loggers, men from the highway department, and the female silver miners. The miners were her most devoted customers, so Laverna tolerated the constant cloud from their boots and their pants, piles of powder in the dustpan. The silver mine seemed to only employ dwarf-size men and giantess lesbians. The lesbians were tougher than anybody else in town, so people held their tongues.
At six o’clock, Red Mabel installed herself at her usual stool as Laverna wiped down the taps and made a fresh pot of coffee. A silver miner, already quite drunk, stood at the end of the bar waving a twenty-dollar bill. The woman looked like Fred Flintstone.
Laverna sighed. “What?”
“Can I get a White Russian?”
“Too much work,” said Laverna. “It’s beer or nothing. I’m in mourning.” Laverna sighed again. Frank’s death was recent enough for her to get away with such a statement. They had been divorced for two decades, but Laverna would capitalize on any grief to get out of making a mixed drink. Frank rarely crossed Laverna’s mind. He had already become a ghost, as fleeting as wood smoke, long before he died. She always knew he would derail, but there was no conductor asleep at the wheel, no negligence. Frank had crashed his own train.
She had met Frank at her first and last yard sale. This is what he bought: A toy logging truck missing a wheel. A Pat Boone album. A mountain lion carved from a piece of cottonwood tree. A boot warmer. Laverna’s bowling ball, bowling shoes, and wrist guard.
Frank had held the bowling ball, palmed it like a thick-knuckled fortune-teller, and smiled shyly.
“Now that’s a sweet thing,” he said, and paid with cash. They were married four months later. He was a stranger in town, a precious thing. Laverna was not going to let him get away. She was surprised that her daughter had shown up to claim the inheritance. Laverna thought of Rachel the same way she thought about the time her appendix had burst—sometimes things could come from inside your body and suddenly betray you, nearly killing you.
Once upon a time, Laverna trusted her daughter to work at the Dirty Shame, found a lucrative use for all of that lasciviousness. Rachel brought in her own crowd, and the local cops looked the other way, ignored the fact that she was only fifteen. Rachel was a terrible bartender, but fantastic at playing the ingénue