Chapter 3

She had said “a few days.” That would have meant returning on Thursday or Friday. Here it was, early Saturday night, and not even a text. Lennie’s attitude had definitely soured since Tuesday evening. Earlier in the afternoon, he had left a message on her phone. “Cindy, I’ve been thinking about you. Please call me when you get this. Take care, sweetie.” Then he realized he had called Cindy’s phone, but she had been Samantha since Wednesday morning, not Cindy, and wouldn’t get the message.

It was like that damned elephant in the room just shit on him. He wanted to get an intelligent perspective on his problem. And he wanted to drink heavily. Looks like another trip to Goldfinch’s, he reasoned. He needed a worthy analysis, and that meant talking with Greg.

It was still early, and the crowd was sparse. There were no conventions in town. It wasn’t a bar with live music or entertainment except for a piano player with a baby grand on the weekends, which wouldn’t start for another hour, so it stayed fairly slow.

“Greg, you have to help me. I’m so messed up right now.”

Greg looked at his true friend. “Let me guess, woman problems, Lennie?” It was like Greg could read minds. No, he couldn’t read minds, only faces and body language.

“Yeah. I’ve been seeing Samantha.” Lennie knew not to use Cindy’s real name.

“Wait, I didn’t think you were much for that kind of girl, Lennie. I know you have the money, but...” Then Greg realized the truth. He wasn’t the smartest bartender in Seattle for nothing. Thirty years, and he could read faces like others read the sports section of the Seattle Times.

“You’re not ‘dating’ her,” using his fingers to make air quotes, “you’re dating her, like for real, right?”

Lennie nodded. Nothing came out of his mouth. His puppy dog eyes told Greg everything he needed to know. He leaned over the bar toward Lennie and whispered, “Can we talk frankly?”

“Why do you think I’m here, Greg? Oh, and before I forget, can you call over and reserve a room for me? I’m getting hammered tonight. No port for me, pour me a Buffalo Trace. Make it a double, on the rocks.”

Greg dropped a single large chunk of ice into a glass, poured and served the smooth Kentucky bourbon to his friend. Lennie said in a low voice, “Look, you know what she does for work, right?” Greg nodded silently.

“How can I get closer to her when I know she is with other men, doing what she does? Look, I know how fucking stupid I must look here. I’m dating one of the most expensive escorts in Seattle, probably the West Coast, who says she’s crazy for me and I’m crazy about her. She knows things about me that I don’t even know about myself. She has this special ability to look inside me that opens up my heart. I never thought I would ever feel this way again.”

Greg nodded. “Ahh, love. Doesn’t matter how young or old you are—when it hits, it hits. Don’t deny your own feelings. Look, there are issues that you two have to work out, but let’s start with the basics. She hasn’t lied to you or purposely misled you, has she?”

“No, Greg. That’s just it. She has been honest about it, completely truthful, but never once tried to rub it in my face. I think she knows how I feel about it, and she is having her own issues with how to deal with it, or more like dealing with me, while she does what she is good at. I don’t want to look like some stupid remake of Pretty Woman, when Richard Gere saves Julia Roberts, and they live happily ever after. It’s chickenshit on my part, I knew what she did that first evening I met her. You know, it was here at your bar.”

Greg nodded and recalled that evening well. “Yep, she’s a Cosmo girl.” Greg categorized everyone by their favorite drink. In his mind, what one ordered reflected a bit about who they were. His Cosmopolitans were feminine and classy, just like her.

“Look, Lennie, I can’t say exactly what you should do. I will tell you one very important thing: communicate with her. Sounds like she is looking to work with you, not work against you. She has her own life and history long before she met you. I’d just say to take her to a place where you cannot be disturbed, a nice place, and just be honest with her. Try to understand her, beyond what she does. Maybe going down that path first will give her and you a better way to talk about what she does. She’s a big girl, I think she can work with you as long as you both try.”

“Why does she still escort, anyway?” Lennie asked out loud, not necessarily for Greg’s benefit. “She owns a Lake Washington waterfront condo in Kirkland worth a few million at least. She has an investment portfolio in the stock market worth millions of dollars. That night, she was here when we met her, and she made twenty grand in 24 hours with two appointments. And then another ten grand the next evening. Geezuz, Greg, that’s a lot of fucking money to get laid, you know? People who throw around that kind of coin are in a different league. How can I even compete with their lifestyle?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lennie stared at Greg’s smirk as he shot him down. “Look at yourself, you’re worth millions. And with that company you started, you’ll be backing up the truck to deposit that money in your bank account until you turn senile and forget how to spend it.”

Greg paused and stared directly at Lennie.

“That’s got to be maybe two years, three years tops.” He kept a straight face as he delivered the line.

Lennie saw through the senile old man reference and laughed, breaking the tension. “Fuck you, barkeep!” Lennie chuckled as his attitude lightened up. Greg was indeed the finest and smartest bartender he knew.

“Anyway, you’re a good guy, and she seems to be a good person in addition to being one of the most beautiful women ever to have graced my bar, so cheer up and think positively. Look, it’s a corny saying, but my dear departed Granny said it, so you’d better not dis my late Granny, “Where there’s the will, there’s a way.” The question is, do you have the will to work through this with her?”

That was Greg for you, he thought. Always cutting through the BS and getting to what’s important. It changed his attitude, and Lennie held up his empty glass and pointed at it to Greg, who was now at the other end of the bar, serving another customer. Tonight, he was going to be a happy drunk and a man with a hangover tomorrow.

When Lennie woke up, his head was pounding. Afternoon sunshine filtered through the window. The clock said 1:16. Hmmm, this is a hotel bed, I’m downtown, he thought to himself. They knew him so well at the front desk that they just automatically gave him a late checkout. He looked over to the table, next to the bed in his room, and there was a bottle of water and two small packs of Tylenol. Thanks, Greg, you da man, he thought to himself. Greg had made sure the water and tablets would be there. Greg knew his customers.

That reminded him that he was going to get Greg and his bride a long vacation week at Rosario resort on Orcas Island in the San Juans. It was a mansion, accessible only by boat or by air, built by an early Seattle mayor, a rich shipbuilder over a century ago. Now it’s a hotel resort with a great chef and deluxe service. And a round trip on a Kenmore Air seaplane, they had those seaplanes that took off from Lake Union in Seattle and landed right at the dock in Eastsound. Yeah, Greg will impress his bride of 30 years, Lennie thought. He’d order and pay for the trip later today when he got home.

He reached over and picked up his phone. No calls or texts from her. His attitude soured, but then he remembered what Greg said. Did he have the will to work it out with her? That got him thinking. She was worth millions in that condo alone. And she sure can generate a lot of cash, quickly. She had money stashed away, lots of it. So why did she still escort? If it wasn’t the money, did she just like to screw strange men? Lennie shuddered. He would have to wait until he saw her next. Why doesn’t she call? Ideas in his mind swirled ‘round and ‘round. Crap, he thought to himself, he sounded like a fucking schoolgirl.

It was 8:30 on Sunday night. Lennie hadn’t heard anything from Cindy. Not even a text. The void of communication was eating at his confidence. He was home and intended to stay there instead of going out. The hangover lingered; he needed to eat something. A local bar had great burgers, so instead of driving, he walked the mile down the road to a small retail strip. Upon arriving, he sat at the bar. Bob “don’t call me Roberto” was the bartender and owner. Seeing Lennie walk in the door, he slid Lennie’s favorite draft beer to him as he was sitting down on the barstool.

Bob had owned the bar for nearly 20 years. It was his life’s dream come true. Arriving from Mexico as a kid, he worked the lettuce and strawberry fields in central California and the hops harvests of the Yakima Valley in Washington. He received his green card, joined the Army for four years, and eventually gained citizenship. Bob did it the right way, and if you wanted to hear someone swear at the millions coming over the border illegally, just ask him what he thought of uncontrolled immigration. Bob was for anyone who wasn’t a thug or a drug dealer to come to America, but he was a stickler for doing it legally. He also couldn’t understand why Congress and the President refused to write a law for so many years that made sense for all. It didn’t matter which side was in power; they all seemed to screw it up royally.

Bob was another exceptional barkeep; he knew his customers as Greg did at his bar. Except Bob poured beer and hard liquor, forget those fruity drinks that Greg made. Nope, Bob was proud he couldn’t mix more than the occasional Margarita, and he served his whiskies one of two ways, rocks or neat. There were a half-dozen reds and whites; the selection was simple and basic, but all were priced very competitively, and all of the wines tasted well above their price. The beer was ice cold, poured in frozen mugs. He cleaned the 15 lines that ran the beer from the keg to the tap every month. If a beer didn’t sell well enough and the keg sat for too long, he would exchange it for another brand. The beer always tasted perfect from one of Bob’s taps. He took pride in his establishment, and it showed.

“You are looking sad, my friend,” Bob said quietly, in his accent that revealed where he was originally from. “Tell me, what is wrong?”

Lennie sipped from the frozen beer mug. He liked Bob for so many reasons. “Bob, I’m an idiot. And an old one to boot. I met a beautiful younger woman and am falling for her.”

“That sounds like a problem worth having, my friend,” Bob answered, a look of curiosity on his face. “There must be more to the story.”

“Yes, there is.” The bar was slow for a Sunday night. Lennie looked left, then right, and leaned forward. “There’s no easy way to say this, other than just to say it. She’s a high-priced escort.”

“Oh my friend, you’ve told me you see working ladies a few times a year, but you fell for one? You have money to pay for one, but I can’t believe you would do that.”