by Caro Carson
She sniffed it tentatively. “Wow. That will wake you up.”
Connor felt like they were talking in code. Yes, they’d both just woken up. They’d both snapped out of that spell. She must know it as well as he did.
Kristopher had placed a glass with a single ball of ice, larger than a golf ball, on the bar. Connor took Delphinia’s glass from her, poured her whiskey over the ice and handed the new glass to her. “It will melt very slowly, but a little melt is good. A touch of water makes the whiskey burn less, so you can taste it more.”
“Now what?” She looked at the glass apprehensively, bracing herself, thinking too hard. She’d never enjoy anything like that.
“That’s it. You’re now officially enjoying Irish whiskey.”
That earned him a look of disbelief. “Shouldn’t I taste it at some point?”
“It’s not necessary. Relax and enjoy the music, watch the crowd. You entertain yourself a bit by rolling that ice ball around. You watch the shades of brown change with the melt, hold it up to the light again if you like. Enjoy the colors.”
“But...” She rolled the ball in the glass.
“There’s no trick to it. Stay as long as you like, but if you’re here for Buck’s last song, be ready. He leaves everyone teary-eyed with ‘Red River Valley.’ It’s even worse than when my Irish singer does ‘Danny Boy.’” Connor winked at her and walked away.
From a distance, he kept an eye on her for the next song, and the next. She toyed with the ice. She didn’t hold the glass up to the chandelier, but she sat with her elbow on the bar, held the glass up to her eye and looked at the mirror through it.
She listened to “Red River Valley,” lost in thought. So lost, she raised her glass and took a sip. Connor saw the faint surprise in her face as she realized she’d done it. She looked into the glass, and she smiled. She took another sip. She liked it.
Of course.
He liked her—but he’d already known that.
They’d had nothing in common, except a love for books. Now, there was more. They both enjoyed whiskey when it was savored. They shared a physical attraction; that was a certainty. Most dangerous of all, she made him laugh. They got each other’s jokes. He could glance at her and tell when she was amused by the same thing he was.
It was not enough. She knew nothing about him. His childhood. His incarceration. His education, or lack of it. There was no need for her to ever know, because this would not become a love affair. They were not soul mates. They were not going to scale mountains.
This story was much simpler.
Once upon a time, a girl walked into a bar. The bartender enjoyed their conversation, and then she walked back to her lovely life. The bartender mopped the floor, turned off the lights, climbed the stairs and went to bed.
The end.
* * *
“Don’t you look nice, dear? Are those sandals new?”
Delphinia turned from the sink, surprised to see her mother in the kitchen on a Sunday. It was surprising to see her in the kitchen at all, really. Dr. Rhea Acanthus-Ray wasn’t the kind to slave over meat loaf and mashed potatoes, but when Delphinia had been a child, her mother had perfected the basic grilled cheese sandwich for her. She’d served it dozens of times on a porcelain plate, alongside a pickle and a handful of potato chips. It was still one of Delphinia’s favorite meals.
She gave her mother a peck on the cheek. “Thank you. I went to Austin and bought myself some things.”
Everything was new. Her shirt was bright blue. Tiny, embroidered dogs were scattered on the material of her shorts. The sandals revealed her freshly pedicured toes. Even her haircut was new.
The changes must not be obvious. Her toes were polished with a subtle pale pink, after all, and her hair was still all one length. It was probably hard to see that it was six inches shorter. Still, her mother had noticed her sandals. That was something.
“Buying yourself new things? You and Vincent must have plans this afternoon.” Her mother sounded delighted.
“We don’t, actually.” Delphinia didn’t want to kill this happy kitchen camaraderie, but it irked her that her mother assumed any positive change was due to Vincent. “You know, Vincent and I don’t see each other very often.” He won’t cross a few acres of grass.
Her mother only laughed. “You’ve been exclusively dating him for seven months, practically every Tuesday and Thursday evening.”
Delphinia winced. “That was only for the last half of the fall semester.”
Her mother’s delight died. “Oh, Delphinia. Did you have a lovers’ quarrel?”
“No, of course not.” We’re not lovers, for one thing.
And for another, she hadn’t been dating Vincent on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But it was true that she’d been dating Vincent exclusively for seven months, so confessing her substitute-professor role at BCC would serve no purpose, now that it was over and done. Habits were hard to break. She still wanted to please her parents.
“Your accident had him quite shaken. I’m sure Vincent wants to spend time with you now that midterms are over.”
Delphinia cleared her throat. “Yes, he’s taking me out to dinner Thursday with some friends of his who just got married.” He sent me a text. We have an appointment.
But her mom was delighted once more. “Dinner with newlyweds. Let’s hope they are deliriously happy. That could get a young man thinking that he’d do well to be a newlywed himself.”
“That’s not the point of the evening.”
“It’s never the point, dear, but it happens more often than you’d think.” Her mother spoke in a bizarre, conspiratorial tone, as if the two of them were trying to lure Vincent to the altar.
Delphinia hated to be a disappointment, and her inner wolf was still more of a puppy in her mother’s presence, but she couldn’t let this go on. “Please, don’t get your hopes up. Vincent and I do go out socially, but that doesn’t mean we’re at an...uh...intimate point in our relationship.”
“I stumbled upon that kiss in the hallway.” To Delphinia’s shock, her mother pretended to fan herself with one hand. “You have nothing to worry about on that score. I’m glad to see you so happy, dear. You’ve been looking so vibrant lately.”
Happy? She wasn’t happy at all. Was she?
Her mother pecked her on the cheek as she left.
Delphinia turned away from the kitchen sink. Perhaps she did feel happier lately, but it was the happiness of anticipating being happy. She was going to propose some changes to her Victorian Essay course. Not yet.
She was going to move into her own apartment. Someday.
Her inner wolf howled louder now. Do something.
She was going to go to the Tipsy Musketeer again to enjoy some music and whiskey, and to soak up a joyful atmosphere—this very evening.
Wear something sexy!
* * *
Sunday evening at the Musketeer had an entirely different feel to it than Friday. The spring break ghost town effect had kicked in. There were only a quarter as many people in the pub as there’d been on Friday, and no live music.
Delphinia loved it. She had Connor all to herself, or nearly.
He stayed on his side of the bar. That meant he couldn’t see her sexy new jeans or pink-painted toes, but she hadn’t come here to seduce him. She’d just wanted to be near him.
Since he always scanned the pub, she’d turned around her barstool so she could see what he saw. She’d taken the seat on the end again. From here, she could see partway into the snugs, enough to see a couple in the middle one, kissing as much as they were talking. That carved rosette was witnessing one more love story.
So was she. So was Connor. So was anyone who walked by the snug.
“I don’t see how the snugs gave women privacy to drink. They’re not hiding that couple very well.”
From behind her, Connor answere
d. “There were curtains. Up close, you can see the nail holes where the curtain rods were.”
“But people must have seen the women when they walked in the door, before they had a chance to hide.”
“I imagine everyone knew what everyone was doing. It was important to appear like a proper lady or gentleman, or else we wouldn’t have the snugs. But it was only on the surface, or this bar wouldn’t have been the first building in town to be built out of brick instead of timber.”
Delphinia rolled her ball of ice around her glass as she listened to Connor. She felt so content. She was in the right place. She was happy. Not looking forward to happy things in the future, but actually happy now, right here.
The couple in the snug were even happier. They started seriously snogging. Delphinia turned around to face Connor. “Voyeurism isn’t really my thing.”
He smiled at her. He’d smiled at her a lot this evening. “If they don’t come up for air, I’ll have to walk over there and hand them a glass of ice water.”
“Have you had to do that before?”
“This is a college town.”
She raised her glass in a little toast to that fact.
“I’m not the first owner to cool off guests. There are some legendary tales. Men drank in those snugs, too. Things could get dicey if you had groups of women in one and men in the other. There was a lot of curtain-hopping.”
“What did the men and women sneak into each other’s snugs for?”
He rested his forearms on the bar, perfectly serious. “I’ll give you one guess.”
She sat up straighter. Surely that rosette hadn’t witnessed couples actually having sex on that bench. “In the Victorian era? With all the corsets and bustles?”
“They made babies back then, didn’t they? Mr. Murphy will tell you there was too much of that still going on in the sixties. The nineteen sixties, not the eighteen. Don’t get him started on what the devil should do with ‘those kids who think this is Woodstock.’ He took the curtains down. The only private snug left is this one.” Connor pointed at the wall next to her.
“This isn’t a wall?” She rapped her knuckles on the paneled wall. It sounded hollow. When she looked up, she saw that it stopped about eight feet up and didn’t reach the ceiling.
“It’s a snug for the VIPs. There used to be a side door, before Mr. Murphy added the back hallway and the storage rooms. People came in the side door, snuck right into this booth, rang a bell and got their drinks served privately, see?” He pushed himself off the bar and slid open a small piece of paneling on his side. “Only the bartender would know who was in here.”
“This is just the coolest building.” Delphinia braced her hands on the bar to lift herself up so she could lean over farther. If she craned her neck, she could peek through the small window. “It’s pretty big in there.”
“It’ll hold four men easily. The mayor, the doctor, the minister...” His voice trailed off.
She looked at him. His eyes snapped from the deeply scooped neckline of her new blouse back to her face.
“...and the college professor.”
Her position must have given him a clear view down her blouse. Her mistake, an accident, but that new bra made of smooth, blue satin seemed like such a smart purchase now.
She tossed her hair back as she sat down. “We professors are moral pillars of the community.”
“So I see.”
I see. That might have been a reference to her unintentional peepshow. Matching wits with him was too fun. “Would you like to check out the snug with me? You’ll be perfectly safe. I have a sterling reputation to uphold.”
“Yes, you do.” The change in his mood was subtle, but she felt it. “You go ahead. The door’s around the corner.”
She stepped down from her barstool and found the door to the snug, which had a stained-glass inset. The benches had cushions.
Connor slid the paneled door open. “Can I get you anything, madam?”
“I love the stained glass.”
“It lets in light, but it’s not see-through. They were pretty clever about it all. Mr. Murphy said the university president and the sheriff were regulars in there well into the 1980s. They were ticked off when he added the addition, because it forced them to walk through the pub to get to the booth. He told them if they weren’t man enough to walk through the pub, then they weren’t man enough to drink at the Musketeer at all.”
“I can’t imagine saying that to the president of any university. Then again, the president wasn’t his boss.”
“No, not his boss.” He turned away from her. “Not his father, either.”
“My father’s only the dean.”
Connor said nothing.
She placed her hands on the little sill. “You know so much about this building. It makes the Victorian era come alive. I would love to have you teach as a guest lecturer.”
He tilted his head as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“I could have my classes meet here once a semester, and you could lecture on the architectural features and how they prove that it was common practice to circumvent all those infamous Victorian social restrictions.”
“That would be a short lecture. People like to drink. People like to have sex. Always have. The end.”
He was being funny, surely, but his expression was perfectly neutral, the unconcerned Greek god once more. But he had a scar on his eyebrow; he was only human. She could persuade him with a sound academic argument. She’d been persuading adults that way since childhood.
“Just look at this place, all this brass and glass. Ruskin praised the innocence of farmers in his essays, like they were children in the Garden of Eden who needed to remain unspoiled. But when those virtuous farmers came to town, they spent their money in a showy bar that made them feel like they were part of all the materialism that came with the Industrial Age. It would make such a good class.”
“I’m not interested, but thanks.” He slid the door shut.
Had she—had she offended him? By the time she came around the corner, he was already walking down the bar to check on one of the few other customers. She hustled after him. They were each on their side of the bar, like racers at a track meet staying in their assigned lanes. “Connor, wait.”
He seemed startled—irritated?—but he stopped.
She gripped the back of an empty barstool. “I’m not asking as a favor. I should have made it clear that the university would pay you. Nobody expects faculty to work for free.”
“Faculty?” Connor said it like it was ludicrous, not humorous. “I’m not going to be on the faculty at Masterson.”
“I meant there’s money in the faculty budget for us to bring in guest speakers. You submit a quick outline of the learning objectives. You’re the subject matter expert, so it doesn’t matter what your degree is in. Business, art history, whatever. The department chair will approve it. The money comes out of the dean’s budget.”
He looked up to the ceiling, as if he needed to find patience to deal with her. “Your mother and father sound very generous.”
Delphinia could be offended, too. “I don’t get special treatment from the chair and the dean. Any professor can request funds.”
They exchanged a heated look. “I’m not going to have a dozen PhDs in here, asking me questions about Ruskin.”
“It’s only a 300-level course. Why not?”
“Because.” His hand had been in a fist. She only noticed because he flexed his fingers and studied them for a moment. “Because I don’t know enough about Ruskin to answer all their questions, all right? Listen, your whiskey is on the house. It was a pleasure to talk to you this evening. You’re welcome back at the Tipsy Musketeer any time.”
With each sentence, he put more invisible space between them. He was once more the owner of the bar. She was only his customer. From acros
s the impenetrable mahogany, he nodded at her as he would at any customer. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go serve some ice water to a certain couple.”
She wasn’t special to him at all.
He hesitated. “By the way, the shorter hair looks good on you. Good night, Rembrandt.”
Or maybe she was.
Chapter Fifteen
Delphinia had a stack of midterms that needed graded.
The day yawned before her. She’d bought her new clothes and she’d had her mini-makeover, but she had no one to appreciate it.
By the way, the shorter hair looks good on you, Rembrandt.
Connor had appreciated it—but that conversation about the guest lecture had gotten testy. Leave it to John Ruskin to ruin things. There’d been no way to smooth things over yesterday, because the pub was closed on Mondays, but tonight, she could stop in.
Go now. Go see him. Go.
She had the perfect excuse: she could grade her papers at the pub. Her new Bermuda shorts were modest enough, should a professor run into a student in town. Connor had wanted to see her knees all healed up, hadn’t he? She could use that as a casual way to strike up a conversation and pick up their joke about fine and magnificent body parts and books. She’d just take a quick shower first, maybe wash her hair...
An hour later, she waited at the crosswalk for the light to change. She was just seconds from seeing Connor, just a few feet from standing next to Connor, giddy with anticipation.
The light turned green, and she headed for him, armed with her red pen and her stack of midterms, so he wouldn’t guess why she’d really come. Professors who graded papers always wore makeup and had freshly blown-out hair at two in the afternoon, right?
Wrong. She was being as subtle as that boy-chasing, love-struck teenager she’d never gotten to be.
She’d nearly kissed him on Friday night, under the chandelier. He’d left her alone with her whiskey. On Sunday, he’d kept the width of the bar between them for hours. Yes, he’d walked her home after the accident two weeks ago, but when she’d kissed him on the cheek, he’d left her on the brick walkway.
