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She bursts out laughing.
Batty. She’s definitely batty.
After a long swig of her drink she says, “Here’s a little local lore for ya. Ready?”
I don’t want to insult her. “Sure,” I mumble.
She points up to the elk head. “Big Ed, there? He met his end during a horrific snowstorm. Biggest blizzard we had up in these parts in the past century. Beautiful elk, he was. We all knew him, and it was a sad day when he passed on. I’m the town vet, you know. I actually tried to revive him. No luck. Poor fella had a ruptured spleen, and short of getting him a care flight to a big hospital somewhere for a transplant, there was nothing I could do.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Life and death… Nature taking its course. We all had to move on, but it’s a good thing Susan Sullivan stuffed him so nicely because—here’s the important thing, so listen close—he’s still with us.”
“Big Ed?”
“Sure. His spirit is right here, in this bar. Once in a while, you can hear him. Now, not reallyhearhim, like a voice booming down from the wall there. That’d be nuts. But you’ll get amessage, is what I mean.” She taps the side of her head. “So strong it’s like he’s speaking to your soul. Happens to me all the time, when I’m here. It’s why I come in the first place, though the beer’s not bad, either.”
“Interesting…”
She chuckles. “You don’t believe me, I can tell. But you hang around this place long enough, you’ll get a message. Mark my words. And when you do, you’ve got to do what Ed says. For your own good. If not—now, here’s where the legend gets spooky—you’ll be cursed. And if that happens, you’re done. Kaput. Try driving? You might go off the road. Try shoveling your driveway? You can bet you’ll slip and fall on a patch of ice you didn’t even know was there. All sorts of terrible things can happen.”
At that moment, the server walks over to us and slaps her hand down on the wooden bar. “What can I getch’ya?”
I’m so grateful for the interruption, I almost jump up to hug her. I ask for a seltzer, and a minute later she places it down before me, complete with ice and a straw. When I reach for my card she shakes her head. “Nah, on the house. When you’re ready for a real drink or some food, you just holler.”
She wanders off to deal with other customers and their “real drink” orders. I busy myself with sucking down some of the bubbly water.
The woman on the barstool next to me eyes my drink. “They got good beers on tap, you know.”
“I can’t wait to try one. But not tonight. I’m actually here for a work thing.”
For the second time since sitting down, my companion dissolves in hearty laughter. This time she actually slaps her knee. “Ha! Good one. Work, on a Saturday night… here? Ain’t no meetings going on, unless you count our precious dollars meeting that register over there. And if you pull a computer out of that big old purse of yours and start working remote, or whatever you kids do these days, I’ll have seen it all.” She shakes her head and smiles. “Work... heh heh.”
Down the bar, the server turns to ring up a customer’s tab. She has a tattoo of a wolf on left tricep, and some sort of Celtic design on the right.
Maybe she’d be a good match for Parker. I could ask her to fill out a Right Match profile…
Then again, she’s a little young. And just because she has ink like Parker doesn’t mean she’d be compatible with him. Matchmaking isn’t as simple as finding similar style traits. There’s so much more to it than that.
Even though my process isn’t perfect, given that there’s a limited pool to work with, it’s a lot better than trying to find a date with a blindfold on—which is like what most people do when they try to pick out partners on their own, without help from reliable data.
The woman beside me chats a bit about how “kids these days ought to have real jobs, not mess around on the internet all day.” Then she finishes with, “So, you can’t really be here for work. And you’re not here to drink, clearly. What’s really got you at the Tipsy Tavern, then?”
“My friend works here. He’s not here tonight, though, as far as I can tell.”
“Give me a name. I know everyone around here.”
Great. “Parker Manning.”
Her eyes light up.
“Actually,” I say, “I’ve got a question about him, if you’re up for it.’”
“Oh, goody. Sure thing, honey.”
“Do you know anything about why he was fired from the tennis center?” I sip the cold fizzy seltzer, and wait as she draws in a long sip of her beer.
She sets the glass down and sighs happily. “Goodness, I love it here. Sometimes I get caught up on the latest town hullabaloo, and sometimes I get to dish the skinny out. You know Glenn at all?”
