What will she have? Club soda to begin, with ice. Then (she thinks) maybe, a (single) glass of white wine, depending …

Juliana is in no hurry. This (secret) interlude in her life, she deserves.

Like a rift, an odd tuck in wallpaper. A puckering, an incongruity. Hidden by furniture, no one ever knows. Not a blemish if invisible!

On the TV above the bar is the replay of a recent sports event, or highlights of that event. All is urgent-seeming, yet all is (merely) replayed, it has become history. The hotly contested game has been won and lost. The athlete interviewed before the game has been vindicated or has been humiliated. In the house on Mill Street, Patrick may be home after all, watching TV news, likely it is PBS. Likely it is urgent news of the day about which all informed American citizens should know. If Patrick calls her cell phone, Juliana may not answer, or if she answers, she may say quickly in a lowered voice—Oh honey, we’re on a conference call. Can’t talk now. See you soon!

Glancing around to see a man approaching her. Politely asking if the stool beside her is taken. Seeing that Juliana is alone.

Juliana laughs, pushing hair out of her face. Why does he need to ask permission to sit on the bar stool beside her? No need to ask, the bar stool is unoccupied, isn’t it?

In the mirror behind rows of bottles Juliana’s face is blurred and indistinct, as if undersea. Barely Juliana can recognize herself.

Gripped in her warm hand, the glass containing her drink has lost its icy edge. Soon lukewarm liquid that has gone flat, from which romance has fled. Juliana is intrigued by the stranger, who has seated himself beside her with an almost formal deliberation—hands on the bar as if to steady himself as he sits on the stool, taller than Juliana, observing her sidelong. He is in his late thirties, perhaps. Fair skin, red-tinted hairs on the backs of his big-knuckled hands, thick wrists. A sulfurous smell—tobacco? Incongruous in this setting, he is wearing a white cotton shirt, long sleeves rolled to the elbow. His forearms are tight-muscled, covered in coarse red hairs. A wristwatch with a leather band, on his left wrist. And his eyes, crinkled at the corners like kindly eyes, or eyes with a habit of squinting.

Juliana feels light-headed, faint with anticipation. In that instant, suffused with a kind of joy.

The man beside her is asking what has she been drinking? Is she ready for something stronger?

Acknowledgments

Thanks and much gratitude to the editors of the magazines, literary journals, and anthologies in which these stories originally appeared:

“Detour” in Harper’s

“Curious” in Salmagundi

“Miss Golden Dreams 1949” in Collectibles, ed. by Lawrence Block

“Wanting” in Narrative

“Parole Hearing, California Institution for Women, Chino, CA” in Boulevard. Reprinted in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, 2021, edited by Lee Child and Otto Penzler.