“Just in time,” he muttered, nodding towards the door. “More coming in.”
Jeri looked up to see the heavy oak entry door groaning on its hinges as more bodies pushed their way into the saloon. “Oh god,” she said as the new wave of patrons headed toward the bar. “Please tell me this isn’t all because of me.”
“What– you didn’t know?” Owen replied, quickly flipping the handles of the beer taps as he filled another order. “Of course this is all because of you. You and those strange fucking letters.” Before Jeri could respond, her coworker produced another copy of The Lumberjack from beneath the bar and slapped it down on the counter in front of her. “There you go,” he muttered, smiling at her sarcastically. “Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame.”
Jeri quickly scanned the front page. On the lower left hand corner was an article under the “Local Beat” section written by a Josh Wilhelm. The pale face and dark eyes of the young man she’d just met peered back at her from the small photo beneath the author’s name. Jeri moaned as she read the title.
“Local Bartender Romanced by International Mystery Man”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I need three long islands, Jeri,” her colleague shouted over the din of the bar. “Can you help a brother out?”
Jeri nodded dully as her eyes stayed fixed on the paper. Her hands seemed to work automatically at mixing the drinks as she read the article.
“In a manner more befitting of a Hollywood screenplay than a late-night bar romance, a local woman has become unexpectedly intertwined in an old-school courtship by an international man of mystery.
And she doesn’t even know his name.
Jeri Halston, an alumnus of NAU who bartends at the Joe’s Last Stand Saloon in old downtown, has been receiving cryptic love letters since September from an unnamed gentleman who only refers to himself as the “Mysterious Joe’s Last Stand Guy”. In the letters, which have been enshrined on a wall in the old saloon for the enjoyment of its patrons by owner Joe Brown, the mystery author provides a comically convoluted and very unconventional perspective on his travels and daily affairs. But the one message he states clearly is his love for Halston.”
“Three long islands,” Jeri yelled as she pushed the finished drinks to her colleague. A man standing at the counter in front of her yelled and waved to get her attention, but Jeri ignored him as she continued reading.
“It is also clear that the mysterious author likes to stay on the move. In just over a month, Ms. Halston has received letters from India, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and most recently, Venezuela.
Adding to the mystery is the inclusion of a Polaroid photo in each of the four letters Halston has received, the subject of which always seems to be a dark-haired man, presumably the letters’ author, in the location of the letter’s origin and always wearing a blue Joe’s Last Stand Saloon t-shirt. In each of the photos, the man’s face is tantalizingly obscured by something that hides his identity.
Halston, who was not available for an interview, is apparently neither excited nor concerned by the sudden romantic attention. Bar owner Brown, Halston’s close friend and employer, says Halston is handling it like any other unexpected advance, finding it “entertaining like the rest of us, but nothing to be taken seriously.” According to Brown, “Jeri’s way too smart to let this be anything more than a flattering joke. It was even her idea to put the letters up for our patrons to read and enjoy.”
I’m going to kill Joe for this, Jeri thought with conviction.
While nothing in the letters indicates that Halston’s mysterious admirer plans to be in Flagstaff any time soon, Joe Brown hopes to meet him one day.
“I’m not sure about Jeri, but I’d love to have a drink with him,” the saloon owner said, adding “as long as he isn’t some complete wacko.”
“Hey Jeri!” Owen called out over his shoulder. “Can I get two rum and cokes and a shot of Jägermeister please?”
Jeri looked up from the paper and stared out at the loud, packed room. Around her, the crowd inside the saloon was acting as it always did– laughing, arguing, boasting, flirting – as tensions and sobriety drained with the afternoon light. As usual, Jeri’s eyes met the fleeting stares and furtive glances of men and women who smiled and lingered before moving on. But something in their stares was different.
And now she knew why.
In all her life, Jeri had never sought out attention. The closest she’d come to anything resembling fame was when she’d somehow been nominated for Homecoming Queen, and even that little taste, the nods and stares in the hallways of high school, had left her literally nauseous with anxiety. In her time as a bartender, Jeri had come to accept the attention that came with the job, rationalizing it as simply part of the occupation. But she’d certainly never been comfortable with it. To her, there was no worse feeling than the raw, penetrating sense of exposure that came from the knowledge that someone knew more about her than she knew of them. And now, thanks to Joe and a nerdy little college reporter, she once again felt the gut-wrenching sensation of being looked at, talked about, and – worst of all – analyzed by everyone in the bar.