“Here you go, kittens,” she shouted above the music as she slid them across. “These are so cheap they’re practically free.”
Harper stood at the back of the crowd, waiting her turn.
When she reached the counter, Bonnie had her head down, wiping spilled tequila from the bar.
“What can I get you?” she asked, without looking up.
“Margarita on the rocks,” Harper said, raising her voice to be heard above the music. “Don’t go crazy with the salt.”
Bonnie’s head shot up, a grin spreading across her face. “Harper!” Ignoring the other customers, she hopped up onto the bar to give her a hug. “What are you doing here?”
Harper breathed in Bonnie’s comforting scent of cool, lemony cologne and the turpentine she used to remove oil paints from her hands.
An artist in reality, Bonnie supported herself tending bar and teaching part-time at SCAD. The two had been friends since they were six years old. Bonnie was the closest thing to family Harper had these days.
“It’s good to see you, too,” Harper said, as Bonnie released her and dropped down behind the bar. “I just needed to see a friendly face.”
“I’m as friendly as they get,” Bonnie assured her, dropping back behind the bar. She turned to a man in his twenties who was slumped on a barstool, watching the two of them with drunken fascination.
“Get up, Neil.” She snapped her fingers. “Give the lady your seat.”
Startled, he hopped up so quickly he nearly fell over. “I … yes.” He looked confused about the order and his own actions but shuffled back obediently as Harper took the pilfered barstool, still warm from his backside.
For a second, he stood there wavering. But then, giving the two of them an awkward bow, he retreated unsteadily.
“You’re mean,” Harper chided.
Bonnie waved that away. “He’s been sitting there for an hour, drunk as a coot and staring at me like a sick calf.” Standing on her toes, she turned toward the door and yelled, “JUNIOR!”
Across the room, he stood and gave her an inquiring look.
Bonnie pointed at the retreating figure. “Grab Neil and send him home. He’s wasted.”
Snapping a salute, the hulking bouncer stalked off across the bar in search of his prey.
“You really want a margarita?” Bonnie asked Harper, holding up the cocktail shaker. “Be aware: If I make you more than one of these I have to steal your keys.”
“Just one,” Harper told her. “I can drive on one.”
Bonnie narrowed her eyes. “I’ll make it weak.” She reached for the lime-juice bottle beneath the bar. “But tasty.”
Harper turned to check on Neil. Junior had found him. He rested a thick arm across the young man’s shoulders and spoke to him amiably. Neil seemed resigned to his fate. The two of them ambled to the door.
Bonnie placed a full cocktail glass on a napkin. “I’ve got to deal with all this,” she said, gesturing at the crowd pressing in around Harper. “But don’t you dare leave. We need to talk.”
Before turning away, she reached across the bar and grabbed Harper’s cheeks with cool fingers. “Damn, girl. I’ve missed your face.”
While she hurried to work, Harper settled in to people-watch, sipping the tart drink, the tequila making her tongue curl.
The crowd was the usual mix of mostly young, mostly beautiful grad students and other local twentysomethings. Many, like Bonnie, had brightly dyed hair. The women all seemed to have long, glossy manes. The men favored ironic T-shirts. Aside from the bartenders and Junior, Harper didn’t know anyone. Cops wouldn’t be caught dead in this bar. The other reporters didn’t know it existed. And that was the whole attraction. Here, she could relax.
An hour passed before things calmed down enough for Bonnie to leave Andi and Tony in charge and take a break. She headed around the bar, a beer in one hand, and motioned for Harper to follow.
By then, the dance floor was mostly empty, although a crowd lingered at the tables around the edges.
The bar still looked very much like the library it had once been. The walls were covered in old bookshelves, filled with a free lending library of well-thumbed paperbacks and textbooks. The old reading rooms, reached through arched doorways, were dubbed Poetry, Prose, and Pool, respectively. Pool and Poetry were both occupied, so the two of them settled on the faux-leather couches in Prose, where the smudged white walls were painted with the opening lines of famous novels in inky black.