Page 54 of One Night in Alaska
I wanted to walk over to him and wrap my arms around him, hugging him tightly. Instead, I headed to the closet to find an outfit appropriate for a bar. I hoped this helped. I hated seeing Beau so upset—and I hated feeling this way myself.
31
BEAU
The bar closest to my house in Switzerland was very similar in style to the restaurant I’d taken Georgia to the night before. The atmosphere was different in that it was louder, with people talking at private tables or at the bar and music playing with a heavy bass beat. The décor, however, was the same rustic style that most of Switzerland seemed to embrace.
The two of us walked in, shoulder to shoulder but not hand in hand. I hated the strain I felt between us that hadn’t been there when we’d gone out to eat the night before. If only I could go back and make a few changes, but right now, that wasn’t possible. All I could do was try to move forward.
We sat down at a little table toward the back, away from the more crowded area and the biggest of the speakers. I didn’t recognize the song that was playing, even though I was somewhat familiar with Swiss pop music. My limited knowledge of the language had allowed me to communicate with that little girl and her mother earlier, but with the singer shouting, I had no idea what he was talking about.
This probably hadn’t been the place to come if we were going to talk things through, but it was the closest bar, and at the moment, all I wanted was a nice stiff drink.
The waitress came over and took our order. I asked her for a local beer, one I’d had before that was sure to get the job done. Georgia followed suit, asking for the same thing. “Be careful with those,” I warned her. “They’ll sneak up on you.”
She shrugged. “Figured I’d try something local.”
“The taste is great, and I think that’s part of the problem. Leaves you wanting more when you probably shouldn’t have any.”
A few moments later, the waitress returned with our beers and asked if we wanted anything to snack on. I was glad this bar served food because I’d neglected to feed my guest. We ordered fondu again. Georgia had liked it so much the night before, and it was a dish one could get almost anywhere in Switzerland.
“Have you been here before?” Georgia asked over the music.
I nodded, but I didn’t really want to think about that at the moment. My eyes trailed across the room to various spots where I’d sat and whiled away the hours with my wife. “Yeah. A few times.”
Georgia seemed to understand what was bothering me. She took a drink of her beer and stared down at the table for a few moments before lifting her head and gesturing over my shoulder with the top of her head. “Think he’s related to the other one?”
I turned then to see what in the world she was talking about and spotted a ram’s head on the wall. It looked a lot like the one we’d been discussing at the restaurant the night before. Immediately, I began to chuckle. “Yeah, they were probably taken out together. Poor fellows.”
“It really is sad,” Georgia lamented. “I hate to see animals killed for no reason.”
“Me, too,” I agreed, “although it’s impossible for us to know why these particular animals were killed. Maybe they were injured or there was an overpopulation.”
She stared at me with one eyebrow raised, as if to say that she seriously doubted that was the case and figured it was just for sport, but the Swiss culture was different than America. She didn’t argue with me, though.
We sat in silence sipping our beers, Georgia nodding her head to the music, and then our fondue came and we dug into that. I ordered another beer, but Georgia was taking her time, sipping on the alcohol while also drinking plenty from the water glass she had before her. Smart girl.
“Too bad they aren’t doing karaoke here tonight,” she said with a giggle.
“Can you even imagine trying to read the lyrics in Swiss as we sang? No way,” I told her, laughing along with her.
“They wouldn’t let me sing in English? Pretty much everyone here seems to speak it,” she reminded me.
“True. I don’t know, but this doesn’t seem like that kind of a place.” Thinking about how she’d hauled me up to the stage to sing with her made my cheeks turn a little red, but it had been fun. My only hope was that no one teased me about it when I got back home. Sometimes people recognized me that I didn’t know. By now, all of Sitka could be comparing my singing abilities to one of those failed auditions forAmerican Idol.
Some of the locals broke into a traditional Swiss dance, and Georgia got very excited watching them, pausing with her fondue eating to clap along with the beat. For a moment, I thought she might decide to get up and join them and wondered how quickly she could learn the steps. Something told me Georgia could do just about anything she put her mind to. But she stayed in her seat, smiling and cheering as the group of six worked their way around the dance floor. When the song ended, they all raised their arms in a cheer, and the bar broke out in a great congratulatory celebration.
I smiled—and ordered my third beer.
“That was amazing,” Georgia said, tossing back a bit more of her drink. She wasn’t even halfway through the beer yet. “I loved that.”
“Yeah, it was great,” I agreed. “I could never dance like that. Not that I’ve ever tried.”
“Do you like to dance?” She dipped some bread into the cheese before popping it into her mouth.
I took a deep breath and pondered how to answer that. I had—once. A long time ago. But only to slow songs. And only with Kaylee. “No, not really,” I told her. It was easier than telling her the truth.
My mind went to our wedding and how we’d danced together to our song, “Love You True,” by Lydia Luce. It wasn’t a well-known, popular ballad that a lot of people knew, but it was special to us. The lyrics played over in my mind, and I found myself blinking a lot so that tears wouldn’t have a chance to form in my eyes. I took another long swig of my beer.