Page 20 of Over the Edge

“How do people know if you’re actually going to get gas or if you’re coming here?” she asks, breaking the stiff silence that’s fallen over us during the short drive.

The ‘n’ in The Gas Station’ ancient orange and red neon sign flickers. A handful of familiar cars are parked outside the old converted gas station turned townie bar.

“Context clues, I guess.” I pull into a spot under the rusted awning next to a non-functional gas pumps.

“But when someone says, ‘I’m taking Darla to The Gas Station’ how am I supposed to know if they’re taking their unfortunately named car or an actual person?”

The Gas Station is still on most maps as an actual gas station. The odd tourist or two stumbles in because of it, but it’s far enough out of the way most people seek out other options for fuel first. But the locals just know. It’s one of the few spots besides the unmarked trails around town that we have to ourselves.

I was going to come here tonight with or without Evelyn. I have a soft spot for the place that always has me coming back on my last nights in town.

“Please don’t tell me you name your cars,” I say.

“Just my piano,” she says. “Her name is Meg.”

“Meg?”

“Like Meg Ryan,” she explains, “I loveWhen Harry Met Sally.It makes me feel okay with being single and a mess as my thirtieth birthday creeps around the corner with the voice of my mom asking why I’m not engaged yet. It also taught me how to fake an orgasm at an inappropriately young age.”

“I can get behind a piano with a name,” I say. My fingers tap nervously along the steering wheel. I guess we’re just going to ignore what happened earlier, but my mind is still whirring as I try to slot pieces into place.

Why are you here, Evelyn?

She checks her phone for something. A message from whoever she was talking to earlier? Whatever it was about, it didn’t seem all that pleasant.

I nod toward her hands, and she quickly tucks it out of view. “There’s a no phone policy. If you take out your phone, you have to buy everyone a round.”

“What if there’s an emergency?”

“Step outside or there’s a payphone,” I explain.

“Do some old folks with a vendetta against technology own the place?”

“Pat is turning forty for the sixth time this year, but she’s had a vendetta against me since I was a kid.”

Evelyn’s eyes gleam with amusement. “Are you telling meyou’rethe reason for the rule?”

“More or less.” I shrug.

The rule has evolved over the years. First, I couldn’t bring in textbooks or homework, then it was my school laptop when I’d squeeze in time to visit between classes at Columbia. The phone rule is the most current iteration. The rule was born from the times I would hang around after school. I was definitely too young to be in a bar, but Pat knew it was better than the alternative.

I played pool, or when it was slow Pat would teach me chess. I’ve never particularly liked people, but I’ve also never liked being alone. Even if I was by myself in the corner, studying old chess games didn’t feel so adrift. I think the sound is part of the reason I miss the city so much. Even if you’re shut away in your apartment the world never goes completely quiet outside.

“Anything else I should know?” Evelyn asks as she starts to reach for her door handle.

“If you ask for an off menu cocktail, Pat will try and make it and it will be the worst thing you’ve ever tasted.” The memory of these instances send a shiver down my spine.

“Noted.”

Inside, the bartop is constructed out of the old checkout counter and still has the same monstrous outdated register that stopped working last year, leading to some long-time bets to finally be resolved. I’m fairly sure Winnie got upward of a thousand dollars for that one. A group is clustered around one of the two scuffed pool tables tucked in the corner of the bar. Our shoes stick to the checkered linoleum as we head to a pair of red and chrome diner style stools.

Patricia “Pat” Herrington’s gaze slips right by me to land on Evelyn. She was in the military before opening the bar and has retained the same short, now graying, pixie cut she’s had since she left at eighteen, as well as the muscles she now uses to lug around kegs of local beer. Like most people in town she juggles two jobs, so she also daylights as the high school’s gym teacher.

“Rare to see a new face here, especially one with him,” Pat says as she hooks a thumb in my direction.

“Oh, I just found him wandering around the parking lot trying to get cell reception. There’s no way I’d associate with people who put that much product in their hair,” Evelyn says, quick as ever.

Pat slaps the glass counter and lets out a full-throated guffaw. “She’s good.”

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