Page 44 of Make Me Forget
Headed Home
Murphy - Three Weeks Later
Mara left me. I’d now faced one of my biggest fears twice and lived to tell the tale. Not that you could call my current state living. I’d stopped going home, instead slept on the couch in the office. Even Penny, who feared sharing her opinions with me, told me I needed get myselftogether.
They didn’t understand. The woman I’d loved for over a decade just packed up and left without aword.
Well, she’d mailed a letter the day she departed, and it sat unopened on my desk. I hadn’t gotten balls enough to readit.
The letter had become a little dingy around the corners from my handling it for the past threeweeks.
I knew I pushed her away. Replaying everything in my mind on a loop, I could see me screwing things up and pushing her, only to have her finally push me back. Over and over, I watched in myhead.
In my anger, I never saw her tears. I never saw her embarrassment of me. I never saw the way she pleaded with me tolisten.
It came down to me being a dick, and her leaving accordingly. I deserved this life now. How many times does a man get a second chance with the girl of his dreams only to screw itup?
I cleaned up, exited to the bar, and started organizing glasses by height and wetness. Not a very efficient mechanism for cleaning, but it kept me busy, and a busy Murphy meant I didn’t go off making stupiddecisions.
The bar door slammed shut, and a lean, mid-forties blonde lady in a black business suit took a seat at thebar.
“Can I helpyou?”
“Just a water please. Are you theowner?”
I nodded, plunked a glass of ice on the counter, and filled it from the spout. She took it before I could put a napkin down. “I actually came to seeyou.”
I tilted my head to get a better look at her. For some reason, the last few weeks, I felt older, and my eyes and body responded accordingly with aches and pains, blurry vision, fuzzy hearing. “What do youwant?”
I internally winced at the gruffness in my tone. She didn’t seem to notice and flipped open a folder on the counter. “We have an offer to buy this place. You could be a very rich man, Mr.Wilcox.”
“Why would anyone want to buy a bar in a crap hole town like thisone?”
She hedged with a cute little shrug probably practiced over years of wheeling and dealing people and theirproperties.
“When you get an answer to that question, maybe I’ll considerit.”
Suddenly, she seemed more open to talk, flipping the pages in the packet she laid on the counter. “The buyer is interested because this is a profitable route for the truck driving industry. Turning your bar into a restaurant is smart business sense, especially with the attached motel. Which we already acquired.” She made a circle motion with her hand. “We like to keep things in thefamily.”
I let her statement go. “And how much are theyoffering?”
She preferred the packet again. “It’s all right here. You can read it foryourself.”
I leaned into the counter and caught a whiff of her perfume, something floral and likely French. She didn’t smell like Mara’s cleansoap.
She leaned down too, putting her assets on display above the low neckline of here camisole. “If you wanted, we could go somewhere moreprivate.”
All my brain said was: notMara.
While this lady was considerably older than me, there was something attractive abouther.
Again. NotMara.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m going todecline.”
“The deal?” She surged up from thestool.
“I’ll think about the deal. You can come back tomorrow and ask methen.”
