Night Fever

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Except that it doesn’t. He’s a millionaire. I’ve been working since I was seventeen with nothing to show for it. I’m an asshole. And I suck at football.”

  One corner of Lola’s mouth rose. “You’re the best one out there.”

  “You have to say that because you’re my girlfriend.”

  “True, but it doesn’t mean shit. Those guys are terrible.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. We’re pretty bad.”

  “You should all stick to video games.”

  He pretended to look hurt. “Geez, you don’t have to drill the point home.”

  She uncrossed her arms. “And you aren’t an asshole. I bet in order to get to that level of success, Beau had to step on some people. You’d never do that. You’re a good person, Johnny. That’s what matters in the end.”

  He considered that a moment. Lola saw their friends heading for their cars. Thinking the conversation was over, she started to walk away, but Johnny said, “He’s a venture capitalist.”

  Lola paused. “What?”

  “Beau. He invests in tech startups, but before that, he built a website that sold for millions.”

  “Oh.” Lola wasn’t impressed. She was more concerned with why Johnny was still talking about it.

  “According to the article I read online,” Johnny continued, “it took him like a decade to do it. He would build a website, but either someone else would beat him to it or he couldn’t get investors. He didn’t give up, though, even when the market crashed. Took him seven times before something finally stuck.”

  Lola’s throat was dry. That only reiterated one of the few things she knew for sure about Beau Olivier. “He’s persistent,” she said.

  “The company that bought his website ended up squashing it or something, so it never saw the light of day. Now he’s co-founder of Bolt Ventures.” Johnny shrugged. “Did all that, and he never even went to college.”

  Lola knew that already, but she didn’t see the point in mentioning it. Despite her curiosity about Beau’s background, the less she knew the better. She changed the subject. “Johnny, unless you’re planning on going commando tomorrow, I need to do laundry today.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows. “I could’ve sworn I just did it.”

  “That was two months ago,” she cried with a burst of laughter. “Where do you think your clean clothes come from, invisible fairies?”

  Johnny grinned and waved her off. “Hey,” he said. “Come here.”

  She took a few steps, put a hand on her cocked hip and narrowed her eyes playfully. “What?”

  “I’ll take you to Hawaii one day. Or wherever you want to go. Even if it’s the goddamn Pomona Swap Meet. I promise.”

  Lola dropped her arm from her hip and sighed. He’d flinched when he’d said Hawaii. She didn’t know how to make it any clearer to him that Hawaii meant nothing to her. But as she was on the verge of starting up the argument again, she stopped herself. His eyes weren’t as hard as they had been the last few hours, and she didn’t want to provoke him. The back and forth was beginning to drain her.

  Instead, she said, “I appreciate that, but I don’t need to go anywhere. I’m fine as long as I have one thing.”

  He spoke before she could say you. “Clean underwear?” he guessed.

  She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Yes. As long as I have that.”

  * * * * *

  Later, at the Laundromat down the street, Lola unloaded clothing from her basket into a washer. All three of the functioning machines at her complex had been occupied, which was why she normally avoided doing laundry on the weekends. She straightened up and rubbed her lower back. She’d never owned her own washer and dryer, but that was certainly something she’d be willing to splurge on with her five hundred grand. She covered her mouth at the thought and checked to make sure no one was around, as if she’d said it aloud.

  She grabbed Johnny’s jeans and emptied change from the pockets into a baggie like always. Lint and a movie stub went in the trash. The last thing she pulled out was a white business card with corners rigid enough to break skin. There was a phone number and a company name. She flipped it over. It was as vague and mysterious as the man it belonged to. Across the front was only his name, printed in stiff, sharp letters.

  Beau Olivier.

  Chapter Five

  Vero whistled low, craning her neck to see through the neon maze that was Hey Joe’s front window. “Check out those wheels.”

  The door was propped open for the seventy-degree weather. In the early-evening dusk, a man in a suit got out of an Audi. Lola and Johnny, crowded behind the bar with Vero, looked at each other.

  “Let me handle this,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Vero asked. “Is it the money guy?”

  Lola’s gaze snapped between Veronica and Johnny. “You told her?”

  “Personally, I would’ve accepted the offer,” Vero said, a teasing smile on her face. “Wonder how he feels about redheads.”

  “It’s prostitution,” Lola said.

  “I prefer to think of it as a trade.” Vero opened her hand toward the door. “You got something I want,” she pointed at her crotch, “I got something you want.”

  “So you sleep with him then,” Lola said.

  “Honey, for that much I would. I don’t care how he looks.” She leaned over so Johnny couldn’t hear. “But damn if that man didn’t look good.”

  Lola shook her head. “He looked like trouble.”

  Vero laughed throatily. “You know Vero gives it up to trouble for free all the time.”

  Lola willed herself to look away from the door. It’d been days since Beau had been there. She hated to admit she was still thinking of him. There had to have been a reason he picked her, but she went in circles trying to figure it out. Had there been others? If so, what was the common factor between them?

  She tore her eyes away to focus on Johnny. He watched the door with more intensity than he’d looked at her with in days. A few hours earlier, an unusually large table of male customers had ordered round after round. He’d joked with them that if they doubled their bill by the end of the night, he’d throw in a complimentary lap dance from the waitress of their choice. “Come on, I’m joking around” had been his defensive answer to her glare. Johnny didn’t joke around like that, but he hadn’t really been himself since the picnic.

  Lola held her breath when the man walked in. She and Johnny exhaled at the same time. “It’s not him,” Johnny said in a way that almost sounded disappointed. Johnny leaned over the bar. “Can I help you?”

  In the light, the man was clearly not Beau. His arms were too short for his wrinkled suit jacket and his belly strained the buttons of his dress shirt. “Wow,” he said. He narrowed his eyes up and around, stopping at the framed black-and-white photos of musicians on Hey Joe’s stage. “This is even more authentic than it looked on the Internet. Not like the dives you see in Brooklyn where all the stuff on the walls came from a website or boutique.”

  Vero was refilling the bar caddies. Johnny picked up a jar of olives she’d asked him to open earlier and knocked the lid hard against the edge of the bar. Everyone jumped and turned to him. He twisted off the top and passed it to Vero without removing his eyes from the man. “What can I do for you?”

  He held out his hand for Johnny, who just stared at it. “Hank Walken,” he said, jovial and unaffected by the brushoff.

  “Jonathan Pace.”

  “I’m looking for Mr. Wegley.”

  “Mitch isn’t around right now. What’s this about?”

  “Heard this place is for sale. You guys worked here long?”

  “About twelve years,” Johnny said.

  “How’s business?”

  The man was smarmy. Lola would set the building on fire before a guy like that got his hands on Hey Joe. “It sucks,” Lola said. “In fact, the whole block sucks.”

  Hank nodded. “Interesting.”

  “Interesting?” Johnny asked.


  Hank scanned the wall behind them. “Yeah,” he said absentmindedly. “It’s got a lot of potential. Would do well with some sprucing up.”

  Johnny and Lola exchanged a look. “Sprucing up how?”

  “I’ve done my homework. This place has history. Foot traffic. Repeat business.” Hank checked under the lip of the bar as if he expected to find something there. “That’s not showing in the numbers, though. It needs a fresh touch. Something special. Maybe a rooftop bar or a lounge area or something.”

  “This is more of a local joint,” Johnny said.

  Hank’s eyes went to a pool game happening in the corner. “I picked up on that.”

  “It’s the complete opposite of a lounge.”

  “There’s your problem.” Hank pointed at Johnny, grinning. “You’re not thinking outside the box, son. It’s all about the angle. We give it a cool, hip, rock ‘n’ roll vibe. Get some young celebrities to make appearances at the reopening. We’ve already got the rep, but a new look and a little rebranding could do wonders.” He nodded thoughtfully to no one in particular. “I’ve flipped bars before, and fives minutes in here, I’m seeing a lot of missed opportunities.”

  It was exactly what Lola and Johnny had been saying for years. Mitch wasn’t willing to budge on a lot of things to keep the integrity of the bar, but sales suffered as a result. Not that Lola and Johnny had ever once discussed turning it into a lounge. “What opportunities?” Lola asked.

  Hank looked back at her and narrowed his eyes. “Think I got this far by giving away my secrets, sweetheart?” He laughed good-naturedly but didn’t answer her question.

  “Business really is slow,” she said. “Not sure this place can be saved.”

  “I disagree,” Hank said. “In the right hands, Hey Joe could be at least doubling profits by this time next year.” He dug his sausage-like fingers into his suit jacket. “I’ll give you my card. I’m just going to take a look around. If I don’t hear from Mr. Wegley, I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Johnny took the card. “He won’t be in until Friday.”

  “Any way we can get him in here to take a meeting?”

  “He’s out of town.”

  “Guess I should’ve called before hopping on a flight from New York. That’s all right. I’ll wait.”

  Hank walked away. He swiveled his head, pausing to read Lola’s flyers on a corkboard. He inspected the floors, touched the walls—got so close to the pool table, a man nearly twice his size asked him if he knew any surgeons who specialized in pool-cue removal.

  Johnny held up the card for Lola, ripped it and dropped it in the trash behind the bar. “Are you kidding me? A rooftop bar?”

  Lola shook her head. “Can you imagine if Quartz and the guys heard that?”

  “Hey Joe’s got history, man,” Johnny said. His eyes narrowed on Hank as he made his slow way to the exit. “Seriously. You can’t just flush that down the toilet.”

  Vero shrugged. “Something needs to change. Maybe it’s time, Boss.”

  “And maybe you go snort some lines,” he said.

  “Johnny,” Lola scolded. “What is with you?”

  He muttered an apology, grabbed a Coors from the mini-fridge and keyed off the top. Vero muttered about checking on her tables. Lola kept her mouth shut and didn’t mention Johnny’s no-drinking-during-work-hours rule.

  Vero hadn’t put anything away. Lola picked up the jar of olives, but it slipped out of her hands and broke. “Damn it,” she cried, jumping back. “Why don’t you guys ever clean up your own shit?”

  “You guys?” Johnny asked.

  Lola glanced up at him. She saw an opening for her frustration and took it. “Yes, you guys. Did you not see the basket of clean laundry that’s been sitting out since Saturday?”

  Johnny’s lips pinched. “I thought you were waiting to put it away.”

  “Waiting for what?” Lola asked. “There’s no law that says you can’t do it.”

  He held up a palm and the beer in his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it was a test.”

  “It wasn’t,” Lola said under her breath, squatting to clean up the glass. “It would just be nice if someone else did something once in a while.” She’d overreacted. It was second nature to clean up after Johnny and that transferred over to work. But the constantly taking things out and leaving them there annoyed her sometimes.

  She dropped the big pieces of glass in the trash, right on top of the two halves of Hank’s card. “Johnny?”

  “What?” he asked. “I said I was sorry.”

  “No, not that.” She paused. “Where’s Beau’s card?”

  Johnny stopped staring into space and turned abruptly to her. “Why?”

  “I remember him setting it on the bar, but I never threw it out. Just wondering what happened to it…”

  Johnny took a long swig of his drink. He inspected the bottle. “I tossed it.”

  “That night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “Like I said, that fucking night, right after he left. Ripped it in half too. Should I have burned it?”

  Lola looked at him as hard as he avoided looking at her. After finding Beau’s card in Johnny’s pocket, she’d hidden it in her birth control box under the sink—and it was in one piece. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m goddamn sure, Lola,” he said. “What’re you nagging me for?”

  Vero walked up and set a ticket on the bar. Johnny snatched it to fill the order. Lola tried to convince herself she owed her boyfriend the benefit of the doubt, but that he’d kept the card meant only one thing to her. However small it was, there was a part of Johnny considering Beau’s offer.

  * * * * *

  Mitch returned to work that Friday. It’d been a long, draining week of mood swings and clipped words—offenses both Lola and Johnny were guilty of.

  While Johnny was distracted up front, Lola went back to Mitch’s office and leaned in the doorway.

  “What is it?” he asked without removing his eyes from his computer.

  “How was your trip?”

  “Productive. Barb found a house she likes.”

  “I bet her family is happy you guys are moving there.”

  “They are.” Mitch looked up. “Barb is too. She’s wanted this for some time.”

  “What about you?” Lola asked.

  “You know how it is. This place is a grind. Barb always said if it got to be too much, she wanted me out.”

  “But do you have to leave L.A.?”

  He held his arms out. “This is L.A. Things were great when I was out there screwing around with customers all day, but now I’m back here most of the time, trying to dig myself out of this hole. Barb knows my dad’s place is the only thing keeping me in California.”

  “Yeah.” Lola picked at some peeling paint. “Have you had any offers?”

  “Nothing official yet, but it won’t be long.”

  “Oh.”

  “What is it, Lola? I’m kind of busy here.”

  “I don’t know. I just…Mitch, what do you think this place needs? Why’s business slow?”

  He sighed. “In the eighties, when my dad handed over the reins, we were already struggling. But then grunge came on the scene and I wasn’t letting that anywhere near here. Not after the rock legends we’d seen.”

  “So you lost the young music crowd.”

  “Young and some old. You know all this, Lola.”

  “I’m trying to see it from a business perspective.”

  “All right, then you want to know my first mistake? Pay for play. I let my head get too big asking new bands to cough up cash for a spot on our stage. They walked instead. I could’ve made up for it in the nineties, but like I said, I fucking hate grunge. Turns out a lot of people don’t, though. When Fred’s went belly up, the block became a carousel of crap. Except us, the only place still standing, but our knees are buckling. Barb says I either sell out or get out, so I’m washing my hands of it. I can’t stick around t
o see what happens.”

  Mitch’s words were hard, but she heard the regret in his voice. “That Hank guy said something about a lounge. I think he wants to turn this place high end.”

  “We’re meeting later today, so I’ll know more then, but it sounds like he wants to keep the name and image, just make it into something classier. A real scene.”

  “But that’s not what Hey Joe is.” That wasn’t what Johnny was.

  He shrugged. “Not really, kid. Sorry.”

  “Would you say this place is a good investment?”

  “There’ll never not be foot traffic. Just about getting back on the map.”

  Lola felt her heartbeat everywhere. In the last week, she’d struggled more than ever with the pressure to take care of Johnny in a bigger way than she had been. Now it was more than that. Lola could bring herself to walk away from Hey Joe, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth saving for Johnny, for all the other people who loved it and for its history. She might be the only one who could do it. “So if someone had the opportunity to buy it, they should take it?”

  “Whatever you’re thinking, forget it. You don’t know anybody with that kind of money.”

  “I might.”

  “I know Johnny’s got his heart set on owning a bar and believe me, I’d love to make that happen for you two. Nobody knows this place like him. But there’s no way in hell you can even ballpark the offers I’m hearing.”

  “What’re the offers, Mitch?”

  “Around six hundred grand,” he said.

  Lola looked at the floor. More than Beau’s proposition—but people took out small business loans all the time, didn’t they? Maybe not for that much, but the difference? She cleared her throat. “If Johnny and I could come up with the money—”

  “Hey,” Mitch said, shaking his head. “Come on. You and Johnny are good kids. You’ve always been straight. Don’t tell me that’s changed.”

  “Hypothetically.”

  Mitch bit the end of his pen and reclined in his seat, studying her. “If you can make me a decent offer, and if you’re upfront with yourselves about the hard work ahead of you, then you should. Hypothetically? Buying this bar would be easier than Johnny starting his own, but not much considering the state of things. It’s not like I want to see my dad’s place destroyed, but I can’t feed myself off my principles anymore. Once I get my check, it’s out of my hands.”