“Thirty-two.”
Tegan laughed. “Close. I’m thirty-eight.”
Just then, two couples came in, laughing, going up to the bar.
“Ah, I see you’re ready to wet your whistle, girls!” the taller man said to the women. They giggled like school girls.“Drinks on me!”
The disruption made Moe a little frustrated. He wanted to keep talking to Tegan. But he had a job to do.
They were boisterous and loud, too—taking at least ten minutes with a rather large, elaborate drink order.
Tegan stayed where he was sitting, even as one of the women gave him a dirty look. They all wanted to sit at the bar together but the seating was such that Tegandividedthem up.
Moe got their order ready.
Tegan finished up his last glass of beer. “Hey, Moe, when do you get off?”
Moe looked over at Tegan, hearing the question despite the loud group laughing and joking around them.
“Uh, the bar closes at 12:30. I ain’t gotta cover. So I’m here until closing.”
Tegan nodded. “Then I’ll wait,” he yelled over the counter.
Moe was glad he was in the process of making a large, somewhat complicated order. The thought of Tegan waiting with him all night until he was done with work…made him blushterribly.
Finally, the group settled down and went to a booth in the bar to drink.
“So…what did you do before you owned a bar?” Tegan asked quietly.
Moe sighed. “I went to college. I got my Entrepreneurship Degree and I also studied in operations management. I dabbled a bit with music and art history. But I always wanted my own business.”
Tegan nodded in appreciation. He put his elbow down and hand on his chin, leaning closer toward Moe. Moe backed away a bit, feeling flustered by the intense way Tegan was gazing at him.
“Moe, you like art? What kind of art?”
“Caravaggio.”
“Why?”
“Because his paintings tell a story. They tell you something exciting, or grotesque, and deeply emotional. It’s a snapshot of something terrifying, and the details are so minute…so fine, that it is mind blowing to me.”
Moe pictured one in particular. The painting was calledJudith Beheading Holofernes. It was one of his favorites.
* * * *
Tegan nodded, imagining them holding hands looking at Caravaggio in an art museum. “I never went to college. My family was very wealthy, but I wasn’t what they wanted in a son…I never met their high expectations. My father and mother had me in Hebrew school and I also had a private education until I was old enough to move out, and once I graduated from high school, they kicked me out without any help.” Tegan shrugged. “I wanted to be a musician. I played guitar. But I never made it through auditions to be in a band.”
“Why didn’t you just start your own band?” Moe asked, giving himself a point for being right about Tegan being Jewish. He felt a little ridiculous for caring so much about it, but he was starting to like Tegan—-he didn’t really have friends or close family, and he was very much alone most of the time.
Tegan shrugged. “I was always a bit unimaginative. Except with crime. There I apparentlyexcelled!”
Moe laughed loudly. The other patrons didn’t look over at all. They were immersed in their own conversations.
“You got caught, though…” Moe said softly.
Tegan laughed humorlessly. “Well, my boss was the one who caught me. Then, he wanted to extort me. I punched him.The police came…and I was arrested immediately.”
Moe looked at him with a mixture of kindness and a bit of concern. “You ain’t ever going to do that again? Right?”
