Page 32 of Plentywood
Hesitating at the door to the bar, where music and voices competed for airtime, I sucked in a deep breath.Here goes nothing.
“Doc!” a minimum of fifty voices yelled out in unison when I entered. All eyes turned to me and a hush moved across the room like a tornado had sucked all the air from the room. Everyone looked at each other and grinned. “Welcome,” they all cheered, turning back to me and raising various types of beverages into the air.
I sheepishly raised my hand and acknowledged their greetings, taking in the bar’s interior. I’d only read about and seen on TV what was in front of me. There were two pool tables, a large dance floor, and four dartboard machines that twinkled in one corner. The prerequisite jukebox, neon signs for beerbrands, an elk’s head, two bison heads, and several stuffed bird species, also hung on the walls. Even though I’d only been to exclusive New York City clubs, the smell in the bar was familiar somehow. Not bad. Not good. Just sort of… expected.
“What’s it gonna be, doc?” asked an elderly-looking man behind the bar. The corners of his eyes looked like dozens of rivers meeting on a relief map. “We have a few beers on tap and the usual bottled stuff. Or do you fancy yourself a cocktail?” he asked, smiling broadly, one hand on the beer tap.
“Stella,” I ordered.
“I don’t know her,” he replied. He turned to the crowd. “Stella? Anyone seen a Stella?” I felt fire spreading across my face. I hated being embarrassed or made the center of anything. “I’m just joshin’ you, doc. Domestic only in our town. Unless you’d like a Corona. We’re willing to go south of the border, but not much to the European stuff.” He pointed to a small dish of sliced limes. “Could add a twist of lime if you want to get fancy.”
“Yes,” I answered. “With lime. Like you suggested.”
I pulled out a credit card and laid it on the counter before Charlie Brewster came to my side and laid his hand on the card. “No plastic in this joint either, Slick,” he stated, handing my card back to me. Charlie smelled great, surprising me. Tom Ford, if I wasn’t mistaken. At two-hundred-and-forty a bottle, I was shocked and yet pleased.
I stared into his eyes. Visions of him bent over the exam table immediately flooded my brain, so I turned away. All my mind could think of was his firm bubble butt, and him shuddering in orgasm as I examined his prostate. I quickly gathered my composure. “I don’t carry cash,” I said, looking around nervously. “I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, doc. I got you,” Agnes’s sexy grandson said. “Might require you to hang out with me all night if I end up buying, though.”
After the scene at the clinic, that choice made me uncomfortable and I think he could see that. “Well,” I began, before he smiled.
“That’s a joke too. Have Smitty start a tab for you like the rest of us,” he advised, leaning into me. “Just pay yours more regularly than I do.”
“I doubt I’ll be in here much,” I said. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it if I did.”
Charlie moved his eyes to my feet, assessing my shoe option, studying me while he made his way back to my face, where our eyes met. “Sorta figured, doc,” he agreed. “Your fifteen-hundred-dollar jeans and the twelve-hundred-dollar shoes cost more than the rest of the guest’s clothing combined.”
“How do you know how much my jeans cost?” I asked, sort of impressed.
“Gucci’s Logo Patch, straight-legged, organic cotton, jeans, are hard to miss,” he stated. “And without a belt. Someone read the November issue ofGQ magazine.”
I moved away from the bar. He followed me. “How?” I asked, turning my palms up in question.
“Howwhat?” he parroted, continuing to tease me. “How does a gas-station-owning, country bumpkin know shit about fashion? Is that your question?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just surprised, is all.”
Charlie held out his well-manicured hand for me to shake. “Three years in New York City as a runway model. Got bored after always being hired to be the dumb surfer dude in a barely there swimsuit.”
I could totally see him as he just described himself. “No menswear? No collections?”
“Once. Tom Ford, spring collection 2016,” he answered. “You probably noticed the cologne?”
I had noticed the expensive fragrance and now it all made sense. But I still denied knowing anything about how scrumptious he smelled. “Hadn’t noticed,” I lied.
“Bullshit,” he challenged, leaning into my neck. “Any man who wearsChanel Bleufor men can recognize my scent.”
“You, Charlie Brewster, are a strange person.”
“Why?” he asked, inching to my side. “Because I don’t seem like a hick among the hicks in this sleepy town?”
“I wouldn’t refer to people as hicks,” I corrected. “But… you seem, kind of…”
“Like you?” he interrupted. “Like there’s life outside of this place?” I casually examined his clothing options. He noticed. “You’re wondering about the Wranglers and country shirt, right? Maybe the shit-kicker boots, too?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “No offense.”
“None taken, doc. This is me fitting in,” he confessed. “I grew up here before college at NYU, and before I was discovered in Central Park tossing a football around with a weekend lover.”
