Page 13 of One Chance to Stay
He snickered and shot me a wink. “Well, I hope you enjoyed the show.” I don’t know how Jon roped the men of Firefly into that calendar. Bribery? Blackmail? Now that I thought of it, it wouldn’t take much more than a please and thank you, and I’d drop my drawers. It served me well in the tip department when bartending.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.” Anywhere else, the question might be innocent. Two grown men exchanging pleasantries, but I had heard the stories. He served as an agent of Firefly, gathering intel to report back to home base.
“I won a raffle for a week's stay at Valhalla.”
“Evelyn’s a good woman. Folks were worried about a Bostonian moving into town and setting up shop. Don’t get me wrong, worried is a strong word, but?—”
“Flatlanders,” I said. “I get it.”
He chuckled. With a single word, I entered into a bond with Logan. Not that we didn’t like outsiders. Vacationers were the lifeblood of Maine, but we had a special kinship with our own people. It said we understood the difficulties of harsh winters and the collective dislike for mosquitoes. I’m sure Logan already tried tracing my heritage. If we worked our way up the family tree, we probably shared a relative or two.
I had passed the test, and now we were destined to be best friends. His entire demeanor relaxed as he brought the coffee cup to his lips. We were no longer strangers. “What brings you to town?”
“Didn’t want the raffle to go to waste.” Partial truth.
“What’s the real reason? Nobody just comes to Firefly.”
He had a gruff, almost abrasive delivery. I imagined that when Seamus came to work, the two exchanged nothing but grunts. They’d recount their days with eyebrow movements and long sighs. They weren’t so different from the men at Spectrum. That usually ended in grunting as well.
“Do you want the straightforward answer or?—”
“You know the rules.” He raised his cup. Only in Maine did people ask a question, anticipating the story to come. I couldn’t help but smile as I took a sip. After using the same tactic withpatrons over a martini, it shouldn’t surprise me that my innate ability to read folks came from being a Mainer.
“Ever sit down and think about where you expected life to go?”
He only answered with a nod of the head. Who was I kidding? My new best friend thought about life plenty.
“I have a great job. I love the people. But…”
“Wondering ‘What if?’”
I nodded. “I’m starting to wonder if this is where I want to be in ten years?”
“Ten years is a long time.”
He spoke just enough to move the conversation along. Logan had done this before. When his eyes dropped, I could almost see his thoughts written on his face. His lips curled, and the lines around his mouth deepened. He had a story of his own.
“Twenty years ago, I opened the hardware store. Junior had been deployed overseas, and I just… I wanted him to have something when he got home.” The jacket made sense. With a smile, the fatherly pride beamed through. “I went from working construction full time to putting those years of experience into the shop.”
“You just upped and changed everything?”
The question hung in the air, and I realized I had found the barrier that prevented me from moving forward. Fear. For four letters, they were like a wall, barriers that stilted momentum. Somewhere deep down, I had known this, but as I told my patrons, talking it out helped the process along.
“Not quite,” he admitted. “I went part-time for almost a year. Long nights, you know? My body didn’t have many years left in construction. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.”
“What did Junior say about it?”
“Junior? Even a thousand miles away, he’d say, ‘It’ll be worth it, Pops,’ and just like that, I knew he was right.”
I held up my coffee cup in a salute. “The definition of bravery. Both of you.”
“Got something on your mind?” Crafty and insightful. This is how small towns roped you in. How could you deny their sincerity? He didn’t ask the question for any other reason than being neighborly. Mostly. I’m sure he’d still report back to the collective.
“Not sure,” I said. “I want a change. I think I need a change. To what? I don’t quite know.” Something quieter? Something more real? I didn’t need a full answer—just a direction.
He slammed back the rest of his coffee. Getting up, he zipped up his jacket, signaling we had reached the end of the conversation. He wouldn’t leave, not yet. I’d drop a twenty betting he’d have a last bit of?—
He rested a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll get there. It doesn’t happen overnight. When you figure it out, you’ll make it happen.”
