Page 73 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
Now Leo sounds truly offended. “Cleaning? You were cleaning?”
“Apparently with her tits,” observes Alessandro.
“I don’t understand,” I cut in. “Did you buy this chalkboard? And it’s vintage? And you didn’t tell me about it first?”
Joey, this entire time, has been staring through everyone’s legs to Sloane’s open purse by the door, and then with a lunge that reminds us all of his college-ball glory days, he flings himself at her bag and then surges to his feet, a jangle of keys dangling from his hand. Seized between his fingers is the grubby leg of a baby doll—not from the realistic kind of doll that Student Health has, but from the kind of doll you find prehaunted at a thrift store.
We all go still, except for Maddie, who is scrunching her face.
“Why would you put a baby leg on a key chain?”
“So it doesn’t get stolen,” Joey says. And then with courtroom melodrama, he adds, “But thishasbeen stolen.”
“What?” Maddie laughs. “Sloane wouldn’t...”
Sloane has gone from flushed to ashen, and we’re all staring at her in various states of confused worry.
“She must have,” Alessandro says slowly. “Because those are the keys to The Dry Bean’s bathroom. In her purse. Sloane, why do you have the keys to The Dry Bean’s bathroom in your purse?”
And that’s when I notice that Leo is the only one not staring in confused worry. He’s now leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking greatly amused.
Sloane clears her throat. Dusts daintily at her blazer. “I, ah, did not steal the keys to The Dry Bean’s bathroom.”
Joey is shaking his head. “Robbie never lets the baby leg leave the hook without his say-so. He would never allow a patron to just walk out of the bar with the baby leg!”
“Oh, but he would.” This (smugly) from Leo.
Sloane clears her throat again. “So, here’s the thing. About Robbie. And The Dry Bean. The bar has been... entered... into my possession... in a manner of speaking.”
A beat. Then, “What?” from all of us, except for Leo.
Sloane laces her fingers together in front of her and, looking very prim for someone standing barefoot on a love seat, says, “I bought The Dry Bean. During the last Best Night Ever.”
Joey’s mouth falls open. Alessandro asks if she bought the business, the property, or both. And I look at Leo.
“You knew?”
“Yes, of course I knew,” he says. “She needed the family lawyer to try to get out of it. But even though the agreement was written on a bar napkin and Sloane was impaired enough to sing in public, we couldn’t actually fight the sale.”
“Because Robbie vanished the next day,” Sloane comes in. “I went back the next morning to tell him I was going to stop the funds transfer I’d made the night before... I found the bar empty and the keys on the counter with a note telling me when to expect the next shipment of olives. None of the employees had anything but a phone number for him—which turned out to be disconnected anyway—and none of his business neighbors knew where he lived. We tried hunting him down at the Lake of the Ozarks since we knew he had a boat there, but it turns out Robbie might not even be his real name. His deed was inked almost forty years ago, when it was possible to get by with shoddy identification, maybe, I don’t know? But the upshot is that the transfer had already gone through, he closed his account the next day, I can’t find him anywhere, and now I have the bar.”
She takes a deep breath. “And I’ve been keeping it a secret because I was hoping I’d be able to get out of it, and also because it’s all just so embarrassing. Like I didn’t even have the good sense to take up with a younger man, postdivorce. I bought a sticky dive bar instead. Which is why I occasionally have spare pallets of Perrier and I’m covered in chalk dust.” She glares at Leo. “Which you should have known!”
“Known that you would be cleaning a chalkboard related to your little property mistake?” Leo asks doubtfully. “I don’t think so.”
“You bought The Dry Bean,” Joey says, a note of dawning awe in his voice. “Sloane,you bought The Dry Bean! Just like we always dreamed of when we were younger!”
Sloane dismounts the love seat and, with a huff and a hop, attempts to put on her high heels without sitting down. “You know, it’s a lot harder than you think, suddenly being responsible for a bar, and it’s bad enough to”—hop—“be dealing with ancient chalkboards”—hop—“and the glass recycling company”—hop hop—“and knowing that I’m throwing my energy into a giant dirty hole that no one will care about after I’m dead—Alessandro, stop.”
Alessandro, who was making a delighted face, throws up his long-fingered hands in innocence. “You were the one who saiddirty hole, Sloane, I’m only a man.”
Finally in her shoes, Sloane lifts her chin imperially and extends her hand, like a queen, to receive the dirty, key-jingling baby leg that Joey solemnly places there. Then she bends down and scoops up the baby from Student Health, grabs her purse, and opens the office door.
“None of you are getting discounts at the bar,” she pronounces, and then leaves.
We stare at the open door as Joey’s alarm goes off.
“Shit,” he mumbles. “The players will be getting here soon. Can I leave the weasel in your office?”
