Breaking the Ice (14 page)

   “It is!”

   “It doesn’t have to be.”

   I saw the gears turning as she scanned her eyes around the room, the steam virtually shooting out of her ears. I leaned across the bar and asked, “What are you thinking about over there, Brooks?”

   She was excited, hopping off her stool and grabbing her purse, all but bouncing toward the door. “Just give me forty-eight hours. I might have a plan.”

   “Whoa, whoa. Hang on there a minute, Sparky.” I came around to her side of the bar and held out her forgotten car keys. She took the two steps back in my direction to retrieve them as I asked, “What’s this plan of yours?”

   Her lips scrunched into a pretty pout as her eyes lowered into pensive slits. “I’m not sure yet, but I might have a great idea for an event for your bar.”

   “I can’t pay you—”

   “Just give me a small cut of the take and a fabulous letter of recommendation. That’s all I ask.”

   “That doesn’t seem very fair to you.”

   “Fair schmair. I’m unemployed for godsakes. I’ve got all the time in the world to work on this stuff. It will give me some good material to pad my resume. So, no worries, okay?”

   She was the one who was out of a job, yet she was telling
me
not to worry? This girl was something else. “I’m not the one risking anything here.”

   She dismissed my concerns with a flippant wave of her hand. “No risk. My father said he’d help me out for a little bit until I can get back on my feet.”

   Benny? Jesus. Maybe the guy wasn’t such a douchebucket after all.

   “And you know what?” she started in. “I’m
glad
I didn’t get that promotion. That firm was so stifling. This way, I’m forced to get a better position somewhere else.”

   “Why go to another firm at all?”

   Her smile dropped as she glared at me in confusion. “What do you mean?”

   I leaned against one of the stools and offered, “I mean you’re smart, you’re ambitious, and you know your stuff. Why wouldn’t you just start your
own
business?”

   Her brows were furrowed as she blinked at me. “My own event-planning firm? I guess I never… How could I…?” The switch took an extra minute to flip in that beautiful brain of hers, trying to make sense of my words. Suddenly, her eyes went bright as her mouth fell into a surprised smile. It was as if I could actually see the lightbulb going off over her head.

   “You never thought to strike out on your own?” I asked.

   “Well, no. Not exactly. I mean, I dreamed about it, but…”

   “There’s no reason why you can’t. You said yourself that this was going to be The Summer of Avery. If not now, then when?”

   “Are you going all Kennedy on me?”

   “Er, a, I’ll have the clam chowda.”

   She ignored my dead-on JFK impersonation and instead chewed on her bottom lip, mulling over her revelation. “I’d get to make my own rules.”

   “You already do.”

   “I could work right out of my house. I wouldn’t even have to rent out a space right away.”

   “Or ever.”

   “I could do this. I mean, I could really do this, right?”

   “Sure could.”

   “Holy shit, Zac! You’re brilliant! Thank you!”

   Before I could even get out the laugh that was threatening to erupt, Avery threw her arms around my neck and squeezed the ever-loving hell out of me. I was surprised, but I hugged her back, wrapping my arms around her middle and pulling her closely against the length of my body.

   It was just a friendly hug.

   At least, it was supposed to be.

   Her body was pressed against mine, her arms squeezing a bit tighter around my neck. I suddenly had the unquenchable urge to back her right up against the damned bar and slam my mouth against hers.

  
I could do it. I could kiss her right now
. I could just grab her by the back of her hair and lower my lips to hers. Who would stop us?

   I buried my face in the hair at her ear and breathed her in, letting my hands slide ever-so-slowly up her spine. Before I could get lost in the scent of her, she pulled back, and I reluctantly released her from my grasp.

   Her face was flushed and she wouldn’t look me in the eye, instead swiping a hand over her hair and grabbing her purse, stuttering her goodbyes as she made her retreat for the door.

   And then I exhaled.

Chapter 17

   The Westlake Pub has the distinction of being the very first communal establishment constructed in this town. Before the courthouse, before the school, before the hospital. Hell. The bar had been built before the man-made lake was even finished being dug out of the ground. It was practically as much of a historic landmark as Norman Rock out front of the municipal building.

   Prior to the Rock’s infamy, the town was informally referred to as Lenape (pronounced LEN-a-pee), named after the Native Americans who used to populate the area before they were—according to my elementary school textbooks—
asked very nicely
to share their neighborhood with the extraordinarily non-violent white people who spilled over from New York City.

   Anyhoo.

   A hundred or so years later, the story goes that when the founders first decided to build their courthouse, they had a ton of Lenape forest to clear out first. This was back in the 1800s, before power tools and backhoes, so you can imagine what an undertaking it must have been. As they went to level the hill at the edge of the site, they encountered a huge boulder underneath the ground, and they soon came to the realization that there was just no way to remove the thing efficiently. Some of the townspeople voted to relocate the prospective site of the courthouse, but no one wanted all that hard work of clearing the forest to go to waste. Some voted to just blast the boulder out of the way with dynamite, but bringing in an explosives crew was going to cost a lot more money than our resident architect had budgeted for.

   Ultimately, it was ten-year-old Norman Lasser who suggested just building around the big rock, shaking his head in discouragement, and explaining, “It’s just common sense.” Everyone else was quick to agree. The rock was left in its place, the ground was dug out around it, and new plans were drawn up for a C-shaped courthouse to surround it.

   The staying power of “Norman’s Rock” soon came to embody the spirit of this entire town, eventually becoming its claim to fame and the most outstanding feature of its landscape. Before long, the area of Lenape came to be known as the town of Norman, all because of some stupid, stubborn rock named for some outspoken kid with all that common sense.

   Basically, we got a new name for our town, and the peace-loving Lenape got the shaft once again.

   After the courthouse was built, people from all over would stop in to see our weirdly-shaped building framing the house-sized boulder that refused to be moved.

   A few years later, a brass plaque was attached to the stone. It’s still there to this day, and it reads:

Here stands the rock of Norman.

It’s just common sense.

   And if there was anything the people of this town liked to think they were full of, it’s common sense. I mean,
obviously
, the first brainiac to suggest building the town pub before anything else must have been
full
of common sense. A school? A hospital? A post office? Who needed any of that stuff? So long as the people of Norman had their watering hole, nothing else mattered.

   So, yeah. Common sense abounds.

   The completed construction of the courthouse gave Norman its town center. An entire municipal complex has since been added to that original structure, including a police station, jail, and numerous council offices.

   One such council office was occupied by The Norman Society, a group that started out as a few old cultured biddies who were practiced in the fine art of planning tea parties. The group had since evolved into the premier social club of our entire town. Almost every month, there was one event or another scheduled for this community, mostly held at the beach or the ball fields or the clubhouse next door to my bar. There was the St. Patrick’s Day party and Octoberfest for the grown-ups or the Junior Olympics and Sock Hops for the kids. There were block parties, bonfires on the beach, parades, barbecues… and a ton of other social events for the people of this town to get together and talk about how rich they were. 

   Every September, the town held their annual “Norman Days.” You’d think from the way the people here looked forward to it that The Norman Society’s sole purpose in life was to plan the weekend-long event. Our new mayor had been touting this year’s Norman Days as “A Very Special Celebration” almost since the first day after
last
year’s celebration. 2003 would mark the one-hundred and fiftieth year since the town was founded, and by God, The Norman Society had been hard at work ensuring that this was going to be the party to rival them all.

   As a member of Norman’s Chamber of Commerce, I had of course been asked to contribute something of value to this year’s festivities. Most businesses would set up a canopy tent along Main, and spend the day handing out freebies and coupons to any event attendees. Some would have carnival-type games set up, and the idea was that the more interesting tent you had, the more people would come and check out your operation. It was a great way to get your name out in front of the citizens of the town, especially if you were the owner of a new business.

   But The Westlake didn’t have that problem. Everyone who lived here was well aware of my pub. They chose to ignore its existence, however, because a broken-down building on the edge of their precious lake was a thorn in the side of all these fine upstanding people who had such common sense.

   Unlike my new event planner.

   Because, as it turned out, Avery’s first order of business was to weasel my bar into a highlighted feature of Norman Days.

   “You’re nuts,” I said to her when she first proposed the idea. “There’s no way those people want anything to do with this place.”

   “They send you an invitation every year,” she shot back. “You said so yourself.”

   “It’s not an invitation. It’s a reminder that they’ll expect me to close up shop for the weekend.”

   That was the truth. It was an “unspoken agreement” that Norman Days would take over my parking lot for the two nights of their celebration. Ever since the clubhouse was erected next door, we’d been forced to share the parking lot. But whenever the town was having one of their larger events, they’d rope off the blacktop, knowing the party would spill out of the clubhouse and into the lot. With no place to park, it was stupid to schedule a band and piss off anyone that tried to come and see them. The out-of-towners would simply skip the night at their favorite watering hole, and with only a handful of regulars to fill the stools, my bar was a ghost town. More often than not, it made more sense to simply shut down for the weekend, knowing I wasn’t going to have any customers. It only happened one or two other nights throughout the year, but
always
for the two nights of Norman Days.

   “You close because you don’t want to fight them. And that’s the right move; you don’t want them to have any further reason to give this place a hard time. But don’t you see what a perfect opportunity this is? It can be your chance to let this place shine.”

   “Yeah, Ave? This place hasn’t ‘shined’ in a hundred years.” I ran my hand along the top of the nearest TV, holding up my fingers to show her the layer of dust.

   Avery rolled her eyes. “That’s why I brought the cleaning crew.”

   The aforementioned cleaning crew had been tearing my place up all morning. Under Avery’s supervision—and my chagrin—they attacked every inch of my grimy pub. They vacuumed all the stalagmites of dust hanging from the ceiling, pulled every bottle off the shelves, and scrubbed down every corner.

   Avery had me walk through the bar with her, pointing out which of the dusty, old decorations could go. Most of the stuff I couldn’t care less about, but when we got to the Notre Dame banner, I put my foot down. “Nuh uh. No way. The Fighting Irish stays. It’s been here since the bar was built, for godsakes!”

   “It looks like it.”

   When she could see I wasn’t going to budge, she capitulated. “Fine. But at least let’s get it professionally cleaned.”

   That, I could agree with.

   The rest of our seek-and-destroy mission went much the same way. All the old beer posters and promotional banners were taken down, all the blow-up race cars, the cracked mirrors, the broken neon. Even the stuff we decided to keep was removed temporarily, allowing access to parts of the walls that hadn’t seen daylight in decades. My poor bar looked so empty.

   But clean. I had to admit that it looked clean.

   Avery had gone to some fabric place and picked up a huge roll of dark green vinyl, and was planning to unscrew the cushions from all six booths, under the impression that she’d be able to reupholster them without too much trouble. She suggested we leave the tables exactly as they were however, explaining that the numerous names carved into their tops held too much history to simply dispose of. “Once you have some brand new cushions on here anyway, the booths will look more shabby-chic than simply crappy.”

   I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but I figured she knew more about that kind of stuff than me.

   With a budget of five hundred dollars—which Avery assured me we wouldn’t exceed—and a timeline of two weeks, she’d managed to transform my dingy bar into an inviting pub. Sure, the floors could use refinishing and the bar tops had seen better days, but ultimately, I couldn’t believe it. The place looked a hundred times better than it had only fourteen days ago.

   There was new paint on the walls, the windows had been squeegeed, and every burned-out lightbulb had been replaced. The booths and the stools had new vinyl on their cushions, and all the pictures on The Wall of Fame had gotten an upgrade with some dollar-store black frames. She’d also gotten my old Devils jersey framed without telling me. As much as I wanted to protest, I just couldn’t refuse her gift. She was really excited about it, and after it went up, I allowed myself to be proud of my accomplishment, however short-lived.

   We re-hung some of the nicer mirrors and banners, all of which had been scrubbed to the point of gleaming, and I had to admit that having everything new and clean and matching really made a huge difference.

   All that, and the bar still managed to be the casual place that it was before. My regulars had watched the transformation, nervously wondering if I was going to go high-class with the joint. Despite my assurances, they were finally able to see for themselves that their repeated pleas to “not get rid of the dank” hadn’t gone unheeded. I was really happy with the middle ground Avery had struck; the place was clean and classy, but still relaxed and welcoming.

   Aside from Martha Stewarting my entire establishment, Avery was busy planning for the part The Westlake would play during Norman Days.

   It was unfathomable that we had spent practically every minute of the past weeks together without a single fight. It was nice, actually. I guess once we made the decision to keep things platonic between us, there was nothing to fight about. At least with each other.

   I’d been mentally warring with
myself
all week.

   There were the times when Avery would be up on a ladder and her cute little ass would be taunting me from under her stretch pants, and I’d have to physically remove myself from the room in order to keep from grabbing it.

   There were the times when she’d joke with me, her comments and fluttering lashes verging right on the edge of flirting, and I’d have to bypass the dirty comebacks in favor of a straight answer.

   And the time she showed up for painting day in her little pink short-shorts and white knee socks? Jesus. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. We got the walls finished in no time flat, mostly due to the fact that I kept a blinders-on focus on the job at hand.

   Now here it was, Friday evening, the night we’d been working toward.

   Norman Days was scheduled to kick off the festivities with a huge party at the clubhouse. Twenty-four hours later, they’d be trying to outdo themselves for Night Two. In the daylight hours in between, there was the parade, carnival, and business tents planned for some family-friendly entertainment.

   No one ever acknowledged that such innocent fun was bookended by two solid nights of debauchery.

   Avery had arranged for a stage to be erected on our end of the parking lot, and hired one of our more popular bands to play. The plan with the outdoor stage was to draw people out of the clubhouse into the parking lot, and hopefully, into the pub. It was my call to keep Alice out from behind the bar—after all, we were trying to make a good impression on our potential clientele—so instead, she and Travis were assigned to stage duty. I figured no one would pull any crap with those two babysitting, but just in case, Alice’s personality was better suited to yell at people should the need arise.

   Avery borrowed the T-shirt gun from the arena, and I must have given her a dozen boxes of leftover promotional tees from the liquor distributors that I’d hoarded over the years to load it up. She advertised that there’d be a special prize for anyone who caught the
Zima
one. Her scheme worked. There were tons of people who rushed the stage at Alice’s announcement, and Travis shot that thing into the crowd like he was warding off a zombie apocalypse. It was pretty funny, watching all those people clamoring for every crappy tee Travis blew out at them.