Stella

It’s tourist feet, two pairs in the same fancy new sandals, one on each side of the puddle under the gate. Little red toes and band-aids under the straps, man and woman. They push inside in their bright yellow raincoats, huddled together like two new traffic cones and trying not to be noticed, then they whisper and nod before they part around the puddle and totter out again, coats so bright it’s like they’re still there, even after they’re gone. Afraid of the giardia, I think. Like we got a dirty glass just waiting for them. Now it’s just Mike and the new Peace Corps on the patio, and Gene, poor Gene off all alone at the private table and hoping and waiting in the last light of a rainy day, then only old Castro drooling and passed-out on the pool table and I can tell it’s going to be dead tonight, a good time to have a little fun with Mike and Gene and the new Peace Corps, going to be dead tonight and Ruthie can handle things by herself. I give her a look.

“Sure, go ahead,” she says. “I’ll just fire you again.” She’s got a little TV under the bar to watch the soaps she tapes during the day, and she aims her remote at me and fires me, turning off her soaps.

Just the stereo now, that old Eagles cd somebody left behind, nice without it having to fight the TV. I put three VBs and one for myself on the tray, plus the shots of Crown for Mike and the new Peace Corps, then I nod for Ruthie to pour one more. “It’s on Gene,” I say. She slides it over, eyes me while I drink it. Here’s to us and a good night, and to you, Ruthie, my best friend Ruthie. I give the glass a spin along the bar, the glass spinning in a nice curve back to Ruthie and it drops inside the gutter, wobbling there like a drunk and almost tipping over, vibrating as it rights itself and comes to rest in front of the sink. “First one,” I say.

“How you get to the last one is what I want to hear, ‘cause it’s gonna be some trouble with you tonight.”

“It’s no trouble,” I say.

Ruthie laughs and gives me a wink.

I take the tray, and smiling I cruise along with the music through the bar, teasing Mike and Peace Corps as I pass them with their drinks and I laugh at them: those two sitting there in the same red Pohnpei Heaven on Earth shirts and the same crooked haircut too, black and white versions of the same sorry drunk, mouths stuck open like a couple of dead fish.

“Hey,” Mike says, and I head out under the trees and through the torchlight, humming with the music and taking my time over to Gene at the private table. Poor Gene, almost hidden but for the push-button glow of his watch, watching me and his time pass from under the cone of a shaggy thatched roof, thousands of miles from home. The wind is picking up, blowing the old smells out again, feeling like warm ribbons of the bar’s sour old smells twisting away through the cooler air.

“So you called her?” he asks.

“Still sleeping, maybe,” I say. I take his empty and put the full one down on the coaster.

“You still think she’ll come?” he asks, blinking at me with those big eyes of his. He keeps finding himself in places he’d never go before, doing things too, and now he’s a little scared of himself, and me too, now that he finally got a taste.

I give him a shrug, trying not to laugh. Outside the fence a car comes up the road, headlights washing along the trees, tires splashing through the potholes, then it’s gone, leaving the sound of dogs fighting far away.

With two fingers he puts a five dollar bill on the tray, leaving it folded like a tent, then he stops, his hand still out like he might even bless it, and I can tell he’s stuck thinking it might be rude to leave me a tip. Go ahead, Gene, it’s not so rude—you can give me a tip, a big fat tip, if you want.

“I guess just keep the change, a drink on me,” he says, and he pulls his hand back, forcing his smile so wide he gets wrinkles by his eyes. He really wants to be nice about it, about everything, because he’s a science man and supposed to be above it all, only half believing it himself that he’s really hiding in the dark, too far from home, so he can try his luck with a night-crawling girl. But that’s not all he wants, worried so much about the time. He’d sit here all night and the next if I told him to, playing with his watch with that same mixed-up look on his face.

The wind catches his money and it flies off the tray and over the gravel toward the bar, tumbling. Ruthie already sees it coming, big yellow skirt hiked up to her knees and bare legs dodging left then right to catch it. Scandalous. She squashes the bill flat with her foot, her slipper slapping so loud against her heel that even Castro’s head jerks up, a second or so later.

“Sorry,” Gene says. He’s put on a nice white barong, pressed even, but he’s tucked it in and with it buttoned up tight it makes his sunburned head look like a red balloon. Supposed to wear a t-shirt under one of those things, but he doesn’t know. Poor Gene. Around the bar the wind is making music with the trees: trunks creaking and moaning, branches rubbing and leaves shaking, storm chimes before the coming rain. It feels good, the wind blowing my hair around.

“It gets wet out here,” I say, “so you better come inside, come hang out with me and Mike and the new Peace Corps. Marihna might come later, I’ll call again later if you want.”

“I don’t know them,” he says.

“You’ll come in when you get wet, maybe sooner when you get scared of the dark.” I give him a smile over my shoulder as I leave, lots to smile about as I carry the tray back through the windblown torchlight, thinking: Going to be dead tonight, going to have some fun with them tonight, and then I come out of the torchlight just as the sky blooms full of lightning, smiling now in the lightning with the same smile I had for Gene, this time for Mike and the new Peace Corps.