Bound

Part 32: Released. Turning Moon #2. Chapter 2

Genna Clancy set her address book on the bar counter and flipped it open at the 'x' section. She didn't know a single person whose surname began with an 'x', 'y' or 'z'—or anyone who actually used an address book these days—but scribbling her many lists inside made perfect, non-wasting-of-money sense. With a determined click of pen, she added the value of her latest pay cheque to the column marked 'Money In'. In the neighbouring column, 'Money Out', she filled in her expenditure from the last couple of days; rent, food and her favourite magazine 'Catering World'.

Betty Kirk, the owner of Kirk's Homestore, took delivery of it for her every month. Whenever Genna arrived to buy it, Betty would make a big deal of handing the publication over, still encased in its plastic wrapper as if too precious to risk contamination by the other less important magazines. The ceremony obliged Genna into offering gushing thanks, followed every time by Betty commenting on how Genna might one day open her very own restaurant in their little town of Rochfort.

Genna added up the tallies and pulled a face. If she didn't spend any money for the next three days, she'd hit her monthly savings target. "I can go three days without solid meals," she announced to the empty bar. "A girl can live on peanuts alone. And I can suck on lemon slices for vitamin C. What more could I need?"

The inner door squealed on its hinges and her first customer of the day ambled in. Bob Kincaid had a newspaper tucked under his arm and he whipped it out to give Genna his customary salute as he made a beeline for his favourite table in the far corner.

"Good morning, Bob," she waved back, closing the address book.

"Genevieve," he greeted, insisting on using the version of her name she only heard when she annoyed her mother.

"What'll it be, Bob?" she called from behind her station, already dropping ice-cubes into a tumbler.

"Let me see. I think I'll have . . . a beer."

"One beer coming up." Genna pressed the tumbler against the scotch bottle optic.

"You know," he began, and she mouthed his words in tandem as the first measure of amber liquid splashed over the ice. "Make that a scotch instead."

"A single?" She added a second shot.

"Of course," he replied, and then, "Well . . . why not make it a double?"

She placed the glass in front of him a moment later. He already had his paper spread open and peered over the rim of his glasses at the headlines. He'd sit there for the next hour and a half, work his way through three shots of scotch—one double followed by a single, because 'Good God above, two doubles would be sinful at this hour of the day, Genevieve!'—and by the end she'd know exactly what went on in the world. Which was of benefit, she told herself, aiming a swipe with her cloth at a tabletop as she returned to the bar. With Bob reading out the contents of his newspaper to her every day, she didn't need a TV or a radio. Yet another way in which she saved money.

The recital began, and Genna allowed herself to slip into standby mode. It meant propping her butt on the shelf wedged between the sink and the decrepit glass washer—not the most comfortable perch, but a perfect spot to monitor the outer door while giving her feet a rest. If any customers, or her boss, Tony Black, wandered in, she'd have enough time to straighten up and look busy. Not that supplying Bob Kincaid with scotch would keep her any way near occupied, but she didn't want Tony wondering if he paid her to wedge her ass on a shelf while she thought about being in places that weren't his bar in the sleepy town of Rochfort.

Bob read out a headline, adding how no-one needed telling how depressed the economy was; everyone was already acutely aware. Genna agreed with the first of many automatic 'uh huhs' and allowed her mind to drift, wondering what she had in her fridge that could provide a decent, cheap meal for dinner that evening. The irony of realising how she lived like a money-strapped student made her snort. It was her friends, Shaun and Tina, who had the right to moan about student life, not she, the one who had two jobs and rented her own place.