“You weren’t an asshole.”
“No?”
“You paid your tab and you didn’t start a fight with anyone. So in my book that’s not being an asshole.”
He smiled. “Okay, maybe Iwasn’tan asshole, but I stillaman asshole. It’s more or less a constant. So I’m apologizing for that, at least.”
To her surprise, Liza noticed that both his words and his smile of resignation made her feel calmer. Maybe he wasn’t what you would call handsome, but he wasn’t bad looking either when he smiled. Charm. Yes, a certain charm. Maybe it had been there earlier too, but her radar for things like that was turned off when she was working behind the bar.
“Anyway,” he said as he straightened up from the car. “Can an asshole make amends today by offering to drive you somewhere, Liza?”
He must have noticed that she hesitated slightly, because the next moment he opened the passenger door for her with an exaggeratedly gallant gesture.
She laughed drily. “After the conversation we had, what makes you think I’d dare take you up on your offer?”
“Your gut feeling when it comes to people,” said the man. Bob. She didn’t know why she remembered the name. Probably because it was short. She glanced up and down the street. Not ataxi in sight, and if she waited for the next bus her sister wouldn’t make it for hers. She felt the old fear. It was speaking to her, but in a low voice. And she had gathered from the phone call she overheard at the bar that he was a policeman.
“Okay,” she said. “But no funny business.”
He showed her his open palms and backed away smiling as he walked around the car.
—
“Well?” he said, after she’d given him the address and they had passed the first set of traffic lights on the road south in a strange but not actually embarrassing silence.
“Well what?”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I thought you were the one who had something on your mind.”
“Shoe is on the other foot now. I’m your driver and yourconfidant.”
She smiled. “What if I don’t have any issues?”
“Oh, but you have some, my lady.”
“Oh yeah? Such as what?”
“You’re tough, but you were afraid when I said I’d been waiting for you. You work behind that bar and it hides your limp, but you can’t hide it when you run. You probably have trouble making a commitment because you’re afraid of being let down again.”
She sighed.
“Am I wrong?” said Bob.
“I guess not, I’m just so tired of men who think a superficial psychoanalysis is the way to a woman’s heart. And the zipper on her pants.”
They drove on in a silence that was now slightly more oppressive. Liza noticed the bandage on the knuckles of his hand on the steering wheel.
“Do you always give your suitors such a hard time?” he asked.
Liza sighed again. “Is that what this is? You’re paying court to me? And if so, do you always stalk your victims?”
She saw that she had hurt him and regretted what she’d just said. Why could she never just leave it? The guy was driving her home, his woman had just dumped him, and he was looking for some comfort. How difficult could it be for her—especiallyfor her—to understand that?
The radio was playing low. Emmylou Harris’s version of Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest.” A playlist from his own phone maybe. Okay, so he got bonus points for that.
“All right then,” she said. “My son’s father up and left me. I developed a rare illness, one that eats up the bones. It took parts of my hip and no one believed I would ever walk again. He just couldn’t handle looking after a newborn baby and a handicapped wife and away he ran. Not hard to understand.”
