Kat
I ran out of the kitchen, trying not to pant as I went. God, it was so fucking hot in this building. I had all the doors propped open and fans blowing air around, which helped a ton in the bar and dining room, but I thought I was gonna fucking melt over the griddle.
“Hey guys,” I said with my best bar smile. “Alright, one Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese, one Pizza Burger, and one Italian Grilled cheese.” I said, handing out the plates before moving back into the kitchen.
“Kat! How are you?” Judy asked, popping behind the double doors, despite how many times I’d asked her not to, so she could give me a hug.
I hugged her back. “Good, Judy. I’m just cooking. I’ll come say hi in a few minutes when I settle out,” I told her, immediately working to put three more burgers on the grill for the next order that just came through.
She told me she’d see me soon and moved back into the bar. I sighed, leaning on the front plate of the griddle as the doors closed behind her.
My brain flashed back to how she’d do the same thing with mom, before… She’d never done it with me until after the accident, after I’d had to open the bar back up after being closed for a month.
“You got this. You have no choice,” I murmured, moving to put buns on the griddle to toast them and moving to stage fries in the baskets.
“Kat?” Sandy asked as I pulled the buns off the griddle.
“Yessum?” I asked, moving closer to hear her over the fan.
“There’s a guy out here that wants a refund for a beer he drank.” She said with a pinched face. She didn’t like confrontation, but she was a really good bartender otherwise.
I sighed, feeling my shoulders bunch up. “Tell him when he can spell dinero without Google, I’ll give him a refund for a beer he drank in it’s entirety.”
She nodded. “I’ll tell him you’ll be out in a minute.”
I rolled my eyes, but smiled. I loved how she took my sarcasm and bent humor in stride. There wasn’t as many people how could. I’d really had to water myself down after the accident, because people either didn’t understand me, or didn’t like how I talked to them. And as the torch of being a ‘pillar of the community’ got handed to me, a little too fast, might I add, I’d had to reel myself in.
When the three burgers were done and I delivered them to their tables, I wiped my hands on my apron and moved back behind the bar. Thankfully, we weren’t in a hugely populated area. The twenty people in the bar now was about as busy as we got on a Friday or Saturday night, and now being the only full-time employee, I was a lot more grateful for being in the middle of nowhere.
“That guy,” Sandy told me, politely pointing to the man at the far end of the bar.
I sighed and shook my head. “Sully, what part of giving my one employee shit gets you off?”
John Sullivan held his hands up. “In my defense, I told her I was joking.”
I shook my head, moving to pull a Budweiser out of the well and pop the top for him. “You know she doesn’t understand your dry ass humor.”
“Well, she’s been here a couple months, she should.” He told me pointedly.
“I’ve seen you twice in the last three months. She doesn’t know you like that.” I told him, remembering all the nights I spent fawning over him, over a pool table as he ignored me.
He rolled his eyes. “She ain’t you, anyway,” He told me, glancing up at the TV.
That was probably the closest thing I’d gotten to a compliment from John Sullivan since I’d known him.
“And how was she in bed? Everything you’ve ever dreamed of?” I asked him, rolling my eyes.
He looked almost hurt as he turned to look at me. “She’s got a boyfriend, last I heard anyway.”
I smirked. “I’m really surprised that stopped you. Look at you, growing and shit.” I told him, moving down the bar from him before he could say anything else.
“Did you refund him?” Sandy asked, looking uncomfortable.
“No, he just wanted to say hi,” I rolled my eyes to prove my point. “He’s a jerk, but he’s harmless. Just keep his beer full and he’ll give you less shit.”
She nodded as I went back into the kitchen. I knew it was busy at the bar and while Sandy was awesome at multi-tasking, she got overwhelmed easier than I would’ve liked. Still, I wondered how long I could hide in the kitchen before I had to face Judy.
Judy was nice and always had good intentions, but she also didn’t know when to stop, or how not to hurt your feelings with her good intentions. She had sure broke my heart a time or two with those good intentions.
And my answer came about fifteen minutes later as I sliced tomatoes on the mandolin.
“That lady that came back here to hug you is asking when you’re coming out of hiding,” Sandy said, leaning against the counter to check her phone for a moment.
I sighed. “I don’t wanna hear her tell me how hard it is that she doesn’t have mom and dad anymore,” I whined, because Sandy knew exactly why Judy wanted to talk to me.
“I know, babe, but you know good and well she’s not gonna leave until you tell her that she’s being dramatic and it hurts your feelings,” Sandy told me pointedly.
I leaned against the counter, feeling more knots work themselves into my shoulders. I knew that; I did. But I hated how I had to work around everyone else’s feelings about people so painfully close to me, while nobody wanted to listen to me bitch about how it effected me.
“I know, honey,” Sandy said, giving me a sideways squeeze.
I took as deep a breath as my lungs would allow and blew it out harshly before standing and moving out to the front of the bar. Judy flagged me down in seconds and I moved over to her, sitting next to Patty and Roy.
“Oh, Kat, I was wondering when you were gonna come out of hiding.” Judy said, patting me on the arm as I came up to them.
“You know me, always working on something. Gotta keep the grease on this machine up.” I told her, feeling her unintentional dig a little deeper today.
“Hey, did you hear that prison camp in opening back up?” Patty asked and while I hadn’t heard anything about it, I felt like it was brought up to keep something else at bay and my stomach knotted up.
“Huh, no, I hadn’t heard that. The one up by Russel Flatts?” I asked, loosely throwing my thumb over my shoulder.
“Yeah. It’s called…” Patty scrunched up her face, like she was trying to remember. “God, it’s something to do with sapphires.”
“Isn’t it Blue Rock?” I asked, glancing around the table. “I think I drove past it last week when I ran up the mountain.”
“Yes!” Patty said excitedly, pointing at me like I’d solved the great mystery. “Anyway, they are getting it up and running this week and they’re bringing in inmates from Billings.”
“It’s crazy to think they’re opening it up again,” Judy spoke. “It’s been closed up for years. They had a guy hang himself in the trees out front. Guess they found drugs in his system and his note said he couldn’t go back to prison.”
The words sat heavily in my stomach, my brain not being able to stop from conjuring a faceless man gently swinging in the breeze by his neck. Subconsciously, I reached up and ran my hand over my neck.
“But it should be good to have them working at the camp, right? Have them reform and get back into the general population?” I asked, glancing between them to see where we should be sitting with it.
“I mean, can we trust them to be in the public?” Patty asked.
“That’s not a fair basis. I mean, we knew plenty of people who went to prison, for more white collar stuff, sure, but they still had to earn their way out.” Roy said, shrugging. “No reason not to give them a chance.”
“I dunno how I’d feel about them being in the village. Up the mountain is fine, where are they gonna go?” Judy said, shaking her head.
“I think they’ll be fine. I sure they’re just bringing out a couple people who are near the end of their sentence. Maybe they shorten it with work hours or something.” I told them, shrugging.
They all nodded and as the conversation lulled, I wanted to make a break for the kitchen again. Judy could say she’d talked to me and she hadn’t even hurt my feelings yet.
“Hey, Kat, there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” Judy said as I turned from the table.
I tried not to be obvious with the sigh I let out, but I turned back to the table. “What’s up, Judy?” I asked, knowing full well I wasn’t hiding my face very well.
“Wade and I wanted to do a little memorial, for your parents on the side of the road.” Judy spoke and I felt like my vision was shattering around the edges. “Right where the truck pushed them into the river, but I don’t know exactly where on the side of the road it happened.”
I felt like all the air got sucked out of my lungs and she just looked at me expectantly.
“Judy, I think… It’s only been a couple months. I think it deserves some time.” Patty tried to say to her friend, but I wanted to scream.
“I just thought it’d help bring a little closure. I know it’s hard losing a parent, but I thought this might help a little.” Judy spoke and I could hear in her voice she was being genuine, but I felt my knees shake at her words.
I hadn’t lost them to cancer after a long, hard battle. They hadn’t been in their eighties and ready to go; they’d both just turned fifty-nine this year. They were just pulled out of my world.
“Closure?” The word was ripped out of my throat like a scream for help.
I felt like the bar tilted to a stop and I couldn’t tell if it was the bar, or if my hearing suddenly went silent, but it was far too quiet than it had been a moment ago.
“Judy, my parents got killed, and you think a cross on the side of the road is gonna give me some closure from being catapulted face first into their shoes?” I asked before I could realize the words were knocked out of my voice box.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Sandy said, suddenly at my side. “Let’s get you some lemonade, and we’ll sit out back with a fan, alright?”
I took any excuse to tear my eyes off Judy. I didn’t know what hurt more, that she thought she was helping, or that she didn’t realize how much she was hurting me. I could feel eyes on me as I moved through the bar, into the kitchen and out the back door to where we had chairs set up.
With not a lick or grace or dignity, I flopped the entirety of my body weight into a plastic lawn chair. I bent over at the waist, my face falling into my hands as I forced the tears back.
“She didn’t mean it how it sounded. I’m so sorry,” Sandy said, somewhere to my side.
I waved her off. “Go check on the bar for me. I’ll just be a minute.”
She left and I sat there, trying so hard not to fall into the slew of flashbacks that had been wrecking my life. I heard glass clink on wood and looked up to see Sandy setting a shot on the side table I’d placed between the two chairs. “Your favorite,” She said with a sad smile.
“Thanks,” I said, my throat feeling hoarse as I took the shot and slammed it as she moved back towards the bar.
The Irish whiskey felt good on my tongue and I sucked in a breath through my teeth as I felt it in my throat. It felt like it sat in my stomach and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything today. Well into the five o’clock hour now with only three hours left to go and after being here since nine this morning, now my body tried to tell me it was empty.
“I just thought it’d help bring a little closure,” Judy’s voice echoed in my head.
I remembered screaming on the floor as Chris stood in front of me, tears in his eyes. He’d always been my favorite Sheriff, he was always the one dad called when there was a question or a problem. He stood in front of me, holding onto his vest hard enough, his knuckles turned white.
“I’m sorry, Kat,” He told me, letting out another sob.
I had screamed, bent over on the floor as my head touched the wood.
A leaf fluttered off the roof, bringing me back to myself for a moment. I took a shaky breath and shook out my hands as my fingers went numb. I wasn’t doing this. I couldn’t. I was not strong enough to fall apart with a bar full of people.
Sandy needed me, I lied to myself. She’d handled more people than this when she’d helped last hunting season. But if I lied to myself that she needed my help, I could pull myself back together enough to close the bar and fall apart in the quiet hours of the evening.
