Smart Ass: Plucked

One of my first reader reviews for "Plucked" made me happy all week: I seriously loved Plucked, full of melancholy and romance, and oh, just the way you conveyed that sense of small town with so many deft, light, touches. Really skillfully done. A story that'll stay with me a while.

This is one I worked on for a long time. Occasionally, I know a plot line but don't know who the characters are. With some stories, the characters arrive first. With Plucked, I knew Sandy. I knew the ice queen. And I knew exactly what was going to happen. But for some reason, I took my molasses-slow time getting from point A to, well, point anal.

She’s at the bar that night. We’re all at the bar. Small-town living means that your choices are narrowed to two—stay home or go to The Local. Sandy’s at the corner—his corner. Nobody would dare to sit on Sandy’s stool, even when he’s not in the bar. That’s how things are out here. What’s yours is yours. At least, until you lose your turn. The woman steps inside and scans the room quickly. I can see her assessing the situation. Battered floor that matches the scuffed bar that matches the ripped-up stools. An old jukebox—not vintage, mind you, nor refurbished retro—just fucking old.

Then there’s me, behind the bar. She comes forward with a smile.

“You serve caffeine in the morning and liquor at night?”

“Yes, ma’am.” That defines my life in a solitary sentence. I’m an insomniac and a workaholic. I need to keep my hands busy or my thoughts take me places I’d rather not go.

“I’ll have a vodka.”

I choose the best we’ve got and give her a glass that’s extra clean with no dings. Sandy seems beside himself. He doesn’t know what to do. Does he offer to pay? Does he move to her side? She still has not looked his way. When she downs the vodka in a single swallow, he seems to realize she might leave, and he might blow yet another chance.

“The next one’s on me,” he says, moving Mercury-swift to the open stool at her right.

She tilts her head at him. I’ve never seen such a cold-blooded stare in my life.

If she were a reptile, he’d be digested. Sandy seems unaware. I want to tell him to run—the way you sometimes find yourself yelling at nature shows if you’ve had too much to drink. “Run, little mouse, run! The diamondback’s about to strike.” But he’s hypnotized already, mesmerized by some sick promise in her eyes.

I serve my regulars while listening to Sandy try to banter. He asks if she’s new to town, as if he hasn’t been asking all over, as if he hasn’t been party-lining up the place trying to figure out who she is and where she’s from.

“Passing through,” she tells him, and she toys with a pack of foreign cigarettes on the counter.

“But staying for a little while?” The hopefulness in his voice makes my throat tighten.

One bit of gossip had her taking an old farm for a few weeks. The farmer’s long gone and his city-slick heirs have turned the homestead into a vacation rental. For three times what the average rent is, you can stay in the rustic quaintness of a formerly working farm. Urbanites seem to find this concept enticing. As if creaky floorboards and a Chambers yellow stove are as exotic as a trip to a foreign land.

“At the Winters’,” she says, naming a different location—one with a small, second unit on the water.

“Are you an artist?” He’s rolling his dice. The “passing through” ones are usually artists, or writers, or musicians.

She shakes her head and taps her fingertips on the bar, and I see that Sandy was off. No telltale paint stains, but there’s a callus on the tip of her left pinkie. I know what she is before Sandy does. My mother played cello with our city orchestra. I wasn’t always a hick. Some of us who pass through end up turning around and staying when they hit the county line. Creaky floorboards can woo even the strongest heart—or occasionally the most broken.

“Writer?” he asks next, and I turn to see her smile at him. Oh, Sandy, I want to say. Run, baby, run. She’s a viper. I feel her attraction even though her gaze is not aimed at me.

“I’m on hiatus,” she says, and she doesn’t say more. Sandy rolls the word around in his mind. I can see him trying to figure out what to do next. He appears surprised when she slides one slim arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. If I weren’t right across the bar I would not have been able to hear her say, “How about you? Passing through?”

He chuckles, nervously. When was Sandy last nervous in front of girl? Sometime circa the 90s, I’d have to guess. “I’m here,” he says, “for good.”

“That’s my only option? For good?”

I feel as if Sandy and I are in some way connected. Our hearts beat faster at her dark, slow words. My mental pleas of Run, Sandy, Run, have changed in a quarter note to Be bad for her, Sandy. Go home with her and be bad.

*****

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XXX,
Alison