She’d read an article about this bar, back before she moved. Pulvermacher’s had a colorful history as a Beat-scene watering hole, but these days it made its money on New York’s Wisconsin exiles. Packers fans gathered in Greenwich Village on game days to drink beer and yell at the television in the company of dozens of other people who cared as much as they did about the fate of Titletown’s team.
May’s kind of bar, and May’s kind of people.
She hadn’t come here on purpose—she’d never even been here before. She’d just been walking aimlessly, head down, mind spinning. She’d been thinking, You have to come up with a plan. But no plan had occurred to her. She’d wandered into the Village and was thinking about sitting down in the little slice of public park she’d spotted, when she saw the awning over the basement bar’s entrance.
Pulvermacher’s.
She’d recognized the name, and her feet had stopped moving of their own accord. The line had nudged at her heels, urging her inside.
It had seemed possible two hours ago, when she slid her last five bucks across the bar, that she would meet some nice Wisconsin person—some woman named Pat who was built like a tank and knew how to make football dip with two cans of Hormel, a package of Philly’s, and some sliced Muenster. Or a Steve from Oconomowoc who hunted elk just like her dad. May and her new friends would exchange names, origins, stories. Imaginary Pat or Imaginary Steve would buy her a beer, and she would carefully glide the conversation on lubricated alcohol wheels in the direction of what had happened to her.
Here, hon, Imaginary Steve would say, use my phone to call your folks.
Imaginary Pat would clap her on the shoulder. You’ve had a run of bad luck. If you want, you can sleep in my guest bed tonight. We’ll get you squared away and off to the airport tomorrow.
It was a fantasy—she knew that. Her mom always said May couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, but of course she could. Fantasy was what had convinced her to move here and had pulled her into this bar. It was the voice in her head that told her, Dan’s the one. You’re going to love New York. Pulvermacher’s is going to rescue you from yourself.
Reality was the thing that was always letting her down.
In reality, bars sat virtually empty between the hours of two and five, even on Fridays, and the people who came in weren’t, generally, the sort whose mercy May wanted to throw herself upon.
In reality, Imaginary Pat and Imaginary Steve didn’t live in New York.
People like this guy did.
The bartender had begun cleaning the counter with a damp rag. He shuffled closer to her, sweep by sweep, and cleared his throat.
Nervous, May lifted her beer and drained it, realizing only with the last warm swallow what she’d done.
“Can I get you another round?” he asked.
This was it, then. Time to go.
But the line was behind her, drawn across the floor, invisible but there, and she didn’t want to leave.
She had to choose. Dan’s apartment or this bar. Before or After.
“Maybe,” she said. “Do you have a wine list?”
“I think we’ve got one somewhere in the back.” His disapproving tone made it clear that no one ever asked for a wine list here. Which, yes—she might not know Manhattan, but she knew bars—this was not the sort of place where you asked for a wine list.
“Can you look for me?”
“Sure.” He put his rag down and walked toward a door marked PRIVATE. She saw him roll his eyes as he passed the guy.
The guy didn’t look up. He wasn’t interested in the bartender any more than he was interested in her. But his companion wasn’t here yet, and maybe wasn’t coming. He could talk to her for a few minutes, buy her a drink. It wouldn’t kill him.
May hopped off her stool, sucked in her stomach, and approached. “What are you reading?” she asked.
The guy canted the book so she could see the cover, but his hand covered most of the title. All she could read was the word Dying.
Awesome.
“Any good?”
He didn’t look at her. He was a bent, dark head, an ear, a declaratory elbow. When she heard a low voice, it took her a second to understand that it belonged to him. “They’ve got their mother’s corpse in a coffin in the back of this wagon, and they’re taking her into town to bury her. The youngest kid thinks the dead mother is a fish, but he also thinks she can’t breathe, so he bores holes into the coffin and right into her face.”
The bridge of her nose wrinkled. A totally involuntary response.
“One of the two older sons is going insane,” he added. “The other one’s broken leg is starting to rot, and the sister’s knocked up.”