Page 4 of A Novel Love Story

Perfect.

“Well,” I said to myself, “this is certainly how all horror movies start.”

Alone. In a rainstorm. In a no-name town in the middle of the woods. Without cell phone reception. If Freddy Krueger or theSawguy came out from behind a building, I’d pull Sweetpea back onto the road and drive until I hit Nova Scotia.

This was going to be worth it—I kept telling myself that. The alternative was … that this was all for nothing, and I’d wasted gas, sanity, and my time on this ill-begotten adventure. Like Bilbo Baggins as he left the Shire, I was beginning to wonder if I’d made ahorrificmistake.

A bolt of lightning crossed the sky, quickly followed by a clap of thunder, and I was running for the bar.

The door closed behind me with a slam, and all seven patrons at the bar turned to look at me. I dripped rainwater onto the scuffed hardwood floors. Well, this was certainly awkward. I quietly took a seat on the barstool closest to the door, and as I did the patrons went back to their drinks.

This nightreallycouldn’t get any worse.

At least I wasn’t in the rain anymore.

“What can I get for you?” the bartender asked, sliding over a dry towel. I took it gratefully, and began to squeeze out the droplets in my hair. The bartender was an older woman with dark brown skin, gray-streaked short hair, and bright orange nails, wearing frayed jeans and a T-shirt with a flaming rooster logo. She had a kind of openness about her that told me she often played therapist to most of her patrons.It was a good thing I was just passing through, I doubt she had time for all my baggage. “Beer? Wine? A fruity little drink with an umbrella? We just got pink ones with flowers on them.”

“Um—whatever your house red is, is fine, and do you have a food menu?” I asked hopefully, and she produced a beat-up menu. The plastic was peeling at the corners, and there was a strange stain near the wine section.

“Sure thing. Take a look at the menu, and I’ll go fetch your drink,” she replied, taking a glass from the rack, and left.

The barstool was leather, and my wet thighs stuck to it as I tried to get comfortable. The bar was chilly, and I shivered as I checked out the menu. Ortriedto. The words were blurry, so I rubbed my eyes, but it didn’t seem to fix them at all. The place probably had the normal bar food, anyway. I’d eaten at enough of them in my lifetime to know that there was atleasta burger on the menu, some cheesy fries, and a chicken tender option.

I was still so riled up from my run-in with that strange man that I wasn’t hungry at all, but I could hear my mom’s voice chide and tell me that if I didn’t eat now, I’d just be crabby later with a migraine. She wasn’t wrong, but it was annoying. Even a thousand miles away, off on herEat, Pray, Loveadventure, she was pestering me without even knowing it.

The bar was small, lit with neon signs promisingPARADISE BY THE DASH(BUD)LITE, andSMOOTH RUMMING. The smell of cigarettes was unmistakable, despite the largeNO SMOKINGsign behind the counter. The smoke had permeated the worn leather barstools years ago, and no amount of deep cleaning could scrub that odor out now. I didn’t mind, though. It smelled a lot like those dives Pru had dragged me to in college. She’d always find a Beatles cover band and shout at them to play “Dear Prudence” just to hear a stranger sing her name.

When you were named after a song, you had to make the best of it somehow.

There weren’t many people in the bar, just a few locals at the high tops in the back, watching some sports game on the flat-screen. Soccer, I think.

When the bartender came back with my wine, I ordered a burger and gave the menu back. She jotted it down on her pad, nodding. “Good choice, good choice. It’ll be up in a jiff. You need anything else, I’ll be over on the other side watching the rest of the match,” she said, pointing to the TVs in the back. Then she leaned in close, and whispered—as if in a secret, “I’ve got fifty on Wimbledon.”

“I wish I knew what that was,” I replied.

She gave a shrug. “Beats me, but I can’t pass up a bet. Ooh—I think someone scored!” she added, and fled to the other side of the bar.

The house red wasn’t half-bad—a fruity, sweet blackberry merlot. The burger came out a few minutes later, with a side of soggy fries. By then, my hair wasn’t dripping anymore, so I pulled it up into a bun and tried a bite. I almost immediately regretted not getting the chicken fingers. The patty was closer to charcoal than beef, and hard as a rock. I debated sending the burger back, but the bartender was deep into the match, and I didn’t want to distract her from fifty bucks.

It’s fine, I told myself, taking a bottle of ketchup from the condiments rack. The label had been peeled off, probably to disguise the brand. People were weird about ketchup. It was waterier than most ketchups, but as long as it disguised the taste, I didn’t care.

And when I took another bite, I learned it wasn’t ketchup at all.

It was hot sauce.

It was hot sauce so hot that after just one bite, I could no longer feel my face.

“Everything good over here?” asked the bartender, returning as if she could sense my distress.

I swallowed my pain. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I gasped, and then downed most of my wine. Somehow, it made the burningworse. Whatever was in that bottle of Satan’s revenge had turned my lips to jelly.

“The hot sauce got you,” she inferred, and dug something out of the refrigerator below the bar. A small carton of milk—probably used for late-night coffees. She poured me a glass and I gratefully drank it. “It’ll calm down in a second. The heat’s always at the front, but after, it leaves you with a nice, sweet aftertaste. It’s quite good, considering,” she said as I finished the glass of milk. “Gail, by the way.”

“Eileen,” I said, grabbing a napkin and mopping my nose with it. “And I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I’d be this leaky. What’sinthat hot sauce?”

“It’s a secret, Frank says. But you get the sweet now, right?” she added, grinning.

I did, actually. “It almost … tastes like honey?”

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