The Bar With No Name

It doesn't have a name. It has a neon sign that says BAR and one of the letters is on its way out.

Inside it's beer and floor cleaner and whatever's been in the vents since the smoking ban. Four people at the counter, all alone, all here on purpose.

I'm doing the thing with the water rings, joining them up, when she takes the stool beside me. Not the one with a gap. The one beside me.

"You look like you're waiting for someone who isn't coming."

"That's a hell of an opener."

"It's a Tuesday."

She buys the second round because I bought a first round I don't remember buying. Her laugh arrives late, a half-second after the thing that caused it, like it had to travel.

The bartender wipes the counter in circles and doesn't get any of it clean.

We don't exchange much that's true. She says she teaches. I say I used to. Neither of us follows up, which is its own kind of agreement.

By last call her hand is on my knee and the sign is throwing pink across her collarbone and the R has gone out entirely, so it says BA.

We stay until they put the chairs up.