Page 2 of Roma King
“How old is he?” Waylon asks.
“Twenty-one.”
I nearly fire apple juice down my nose. They must think I’m really hard up if they’re trying to set me up with a man-child five years my junior. Waylon sits a little straighter, adopting the stiff, rigid posture of an army recruitment officer. We’ve all witnessed him assume the role on countless occasions before. “Not too late to join up, y’know. I served straight out of school, but twenty-one’s still real young. The army’d make a man out of him in no time.”
Garrett silently sips his drink, eyes roving from one end of the bar to the other as he waits for Drew’s response.
“Doubt he’d make it through boot camp,” the old man sighs. “Parents spoiled the shit out of him. Turned him into a bit of a brat if I’m honest. I thought you’d be a good influence for him, Zara. Men tend to try and get their lives in order when there’s a beautiful woman in the picture.”
Henry releases a bark of laughter that makes Garrett jump. “Sounds like unpaid babysitting to me. Our girl’s too smart to take on a twenty-one-year-old kid.”
I can’t recall when it had happened, but at some point I became ‘their girl,’ as if I’m their communal property. Since my parents are two thousand miles away and don’t really give a shit about where I am or what I’m doing, I welcomed the position. Being ‘their girl’ has its perks. Sarah gives me motherly advice. Andrew makes lofty, vague promises about helping with my taxes. I never see him do it, but whenever I get a delivery for my water cooler, Garrett lugs the huge bottles up to my third-floor apartment for me and leaves them outside my door. Waylon insisted on giving me self-defense classes in my tiny living room and showed me how to shatter an attacker’s nose and shove the bone straight up into their brainpans. And if I’m sick, all four of them rally around in their own way, fussing over me in their attempts to make me feel better.
Yeah, it’s nice to have been claimed, to be part of this strange and unexpected family unit when I am so far away from the place I originally called home.
Andrew blows out a deep breath and picks up his tie, wrapping the length of it around his hand. “Can’t blame me for trying, right? Maybe in a couple of years, when he’s got his ducks in a row, she’ll reconsider. You’ll still be single then, right, Zara? Unless your dream guy suddenly materializes out of thin air, that is.” He waggles his bushy eyebrows at me in a teasing fashion, and Sarah leans across the corner of the bar and whacks the top of his arm.
“Don’t you jinx her, Drew. You have no idea what’s possible. Zara’s going to find herself the perfect man soon enough and we’re all gonna be cursing the bastard’s name.”
Andrew’s eyebrows bank together. “Why on earth would you say that?”
“Because! He’ll be rich and famous, and more handsome than Laurence Olivier. He’ll treat her like a princess and shower her with gifts. He’ll show her just how small and pathetic we all are over at the Bakers’ and he’ll whisk her away to a better life. And that will be that. We’ll never see her again.”
Garrett’s dark eyes grow very round. He dips his head, tucking his chin into the collar of his jacket, and I’m struck with the overwhelming urge to give the man a hug. Sarah’s only screwing with Andrew, and, in part with me, too, but I can hear the worried note of truth in her words. She might not really believe that I’m going to be carried off by a handsome, rich, movie star, but I know the woman well enough to see that she’s worried. She probably thinks I’m going to move at some point and leave them all behind.
The Bakers’hasseen better days. The paint in the stairwells is peeling, the pipes are always clanking, and the sinks consistently end up blocked at least once a month. The laundry room in the basement invariably smells like damp, too, and there are cracks everywhere in the walls, but I don’t care about that stuff. My pokey little one-bedroom apartment is the first place I’ve called home since I’d moved to Spokane, and I’m more than a little in love with the place.
What others might call age-worn and tatty, I call rustic charm. I’ve grown accustomed to the rattling pipes, and the sound of Mrs. Heffowitz’s cat yowling downstairs whenever she goes out to play baccarat at the YMCA. I repainted the walls inside my apartment a sunny shade of yellow and filled the space with books, and throws, and paintings, and I don’t plan on trading it in for the world. Plus, there’s nowhere I feel safer than surrounded by my people. I’m not just ‘their girl’, after all. I’ve claimedthemas my own, too.
“I’m not going anywhere, Sarah. Don’t worry. Not even for Brad Pitt. I love it here too much.”
“Pssshhh. Nonsense. I’d abandon you all in a heartbeat if Brad asked me to,” Sarah laughs. There’s a warmth to her voice. A seed of relief, planted by my quick reassurance. Garrett untucks his chin and slides his glass forward, indicating to Henry that he wants another whiskey.
Henry pours him his Jack, groaning as he stretches to place the almost empty bottle back on the shelf above the register. “That’s one for the road,” he says, when he turns around. “I got jury duty in the morning. Gotta be out by eight.”
“Lord, not you, too. They got me last month. Sucked up two of my days off,” Waylon grouses. “Sat there bored to tears while they convicted some woman for not sending her kids to school. Complete waste of time.”
Henry grins a partially toothless smile. For sure, he has enough money to replace the two teeth that are missing, but I personally think he leaves his smile that way as it leans him a particularly dangerous edge. The man’s a teddy bear, but he doesn’t want his other patrons to know that. The missing teeth help his cause. There are nights at Hitchin’s when things get a little out of hand, and far fewer of the disagreements would take place outside if people thought Henry was anything less than a stone-cold hard ass. “I’m hoping I get those Gypsies,” he says his eyes glittering.
“Gypsies?” Andrew asks.
“Yeah. Haven’t you been watching the news? They caught them last week. Two of ’em. Brothers. Cops caught ‘em trying to rob a bank. That would be interesting, at least.”
“If they were only arrested last week, they won’t be in court yet,” Andrew says, but he still sits forward, resting his forearms against the bar. Waylon’s eyes have hardened at the topic of conversation. Even Garrett has looked up from his Jack. It seems Henry has the attention of the men, even if Sarah blows out her cheeks and begins to trace the tip of her index finger through the ring of condensation left by her glass on the bar top.
“I heard there was a whole camp of them, moved into town. Didn’t even know Gypsies still existed,” Andrew says.
Waylon’s hackles are up—I can tell before he even speaks. “Oh, they exist all right. Used to rob my parent’s store blind back in Portland when I was a kid. They’d steal anything that wasn’t bolted down. I’m surprised they’re trying to hit banks, now, though. Didn’t think they were organized enough for that.”
“Clearly, they’re not.” Tossing his bar rag over his shoulder, Henry opens the cash register, takes out a stack of bills, and begins to count the night’s takings. “They wouldn’t have been caught, if they were now, would they?”
Garrett cants his head to one side, as if he’s thinking deeply about this reasoning. Sarah feigns indifference, sliding the golden sun pendant she always wears up and down along its chain. Her shoulders are tensed, though, her lips pressed together, as if she’s trying to bite back her words, which isveryunlike her; Sarah has an opinion on everything and isn’t afraid to tell you, even if she knows it will cause an argument. In fact, that’s when she loves to share her opinions the most. Tonight, she taps a bright red fingernail against her knee and gazes off into space, keeping her mouth firmly shut.
“What about you, Zara? You noticed any Gypsies around here recently?” Henry asks.
“I don’t think you’re meant to call them that anymore. And no, I can’t say that I have.”
“God, not more of this renaming non-sense,” Andrew grumbles. “Did you know, you’re not supposed to call a woman a woman, or a man a man anymore? Everyone’s supposed to be ‘gender neutral.’” He throws air quotes around the phrase, as if he’s just said something in an alien language we’re probably not familiar with. “And what, exactly, are we meant to be calling Gypsies now?”
