Page 48 of Lying Hearts
Chapter Thirty
Brendan
Nerves: calm now. Hesitancy: still there. Mind: filling quickly up with marketing ideas.
“I’m not just making conversation, no.” I toss the towel and walk over to watch her count, waiting for an answer. She’s in over her head. I know that. She looks younger than me and running her own business without having a game plan is a common error in small business owners. When you start something, you can’t just go in half-cocked with fairy dust in your brain. It doesn’t work like that.
With twenties in both her hands, she looks at me helplessly. “Well, the truth is, I don’t know how I’m going to get the word out. I’m not great at that stuff. I can run a bar, but this is my first solo show, so…”
“You’ve never done the promoting,” I finish.
She sighs and gives a short nod, putting the money back in the register while she thinks. I give the room a once over again and decide it’s got a great vibe in here. It’s not like the other places up the street so this will appeal to it’s own crowd. There’s kind of a Goth feel to it and people like a dark bar, especially for dates. I can see this hitting it big if she just pushed it right.
She walks toward me, pulling back her hair from her forehead by running her fingers through it while she looks at me. The thought settles in again that she’s addictive to look at, settles in me again. I just stare at her, thinking I could help her make this place great. But I don’t even know her. That’s a hell of an assumption, on many counts.
“I never needed to promote. The place I worked at, then managed, had been there for years before I got there.” She follows my eyes around the place, seeing her baby. There’s pride on her face, but it doesn’t hide the fear. “I guess I expected because this is a busy area, it would just sell it itself, you know?”
The towel stops. “It’s a busy neighborhood, but these people are loyal to their own and you’re an outsider.”
She winces. Mutters, “Story of my life. Listen, let’s not talk about it, okay?” She turns around abruptly, her hands on the open register drawer, her shoulders sunken. What did I say?
“I’m sorry. I was just saying it like it is, but I could have been a little more…”
“Dishonest?” She throws me a rueful smile over her shoulder.
I can’t help but smile. “Yeah. I guess.”
She walks over and changes the song from Riders On The Storm that just started, to Otis Redding’s These Arms Of Mine. Walking back, she looks a little bit lighter. “I love this song.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I go back to wiping tables. We don’t talk for a little while and I’m running through ideas for what I’d do to spread the word, other than tell my friends and acquaintances. Does she have a page on Yelp? Are their photos? Does she have a Facebook page? How about Pinterest? She could have boards on cocktails and a music playlist with suggestions and… the list goes on and on.
I don’t know what’s giving me the urge to help, but I know that I can. Isn’t that enough? She might shoot me down. It was hard enough to talk her into seeing me tonight.
Looking at her silence as she counts, her hair pulled over one shoulder; I decide I’m going to give it a shot. She can always say no. I’ll just walk over and offer my services to her. Tell her I’ll do it for free; help her get set up and she can take it from there. But without a map, how can you get anywhere? Why am I nervous? People pay me for this.
She looks to her right and sees me standing next to her behind the bar. With her pen suspended in the air from writing the final drawer count, she says, “Oh! I didn’t hear you walk up.”
“Look, I didn’t mean to get you worried.”
“You didn’t. I was worried already.”
I scan the bar again, building up the courage to say it. “I could help you.”
She blinks, still holding the pen. “What do you mean?”
Glancing to the floor, I weigh the dirty, now crumpled-up bar towel in one of my hands, looking at the dark crinkles. “Well, this is your baby, so forgive me for imposing. But I think I could help you market it, if you’ll let me. Marketing is my thing. It’s what I do.”
She brings her hand up to her mouth, the pen stuck between her fingers. She looks pretty cute. On a whisper, she finally manages, “Why would you do that?”
I really don’t know why. Because I like the place? Because I can? Something tells me it’s more than that. “I feel like I could help. I want to.”
She drops the pen and brings both of her hands up to hold her head like she’s afraid it might explode. “Are you being serious? You’re not just saying this?”
I smile. “I’m totally serious. You know what’s cool?”
“Having someone help you?”
That makes me laugh and I shake my head. “No, it’s offering to help someone and have them appreciate it as much as you just did. Great. So it’s a plan?”
Staring at me, she’s speechless. She just nods. Chuckling to myself, I walk back out and grab a chair to turn it over on the table. As I do, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap comes on, by AC/DC. I glance to the iPod player, impressed that she has this on it.
“Great song.”