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“Terry. Pleased to meet you. Funny you never mentioned your pen-friend was coming,” the auburn-haired bartender said, first to me, then to Daisy.
“Well now, that’s why you’re the bartender and I’m the manager. You never listen, do you?” she lied and winked at me when he looked the other way.
“Barney, you say? I’d have remembered a shite name like that.”
“Barney is not a shite name; my uncle was called Barney and that’s where Barney got his name. I’ll have you know he was a decorated war hero, Uncle Barney. Isn’t that right, Barney?”
She’d said Barney that many times I almost lost the plot, wondered if we were related by some of what she’d said, but when she prompted me I jumped in to support her.
“Correct,” I replied in case I said more and put my foot in my mouth.
"Barney is my pen-friend from Canada. Don’t you remember me telling you about him? He’s a lumberjack.”
At five feet ten and a hundred and eighty-five pounds I’d have made a terrible lumberjack, but it amused me greatly when I heard Terry agree.
“Oh yeah, I remember now. Jesus me memory is going.” I guessed he went along with her story for a quiet life and Daisy gave him a look of disdain like she believed what she’d said herself.
“Where do you want me?” I asked trying to change the subject and distract them away from talking about me.
“Everywhere,” Daisy replied, then caught herself in her flirtatious comment. “I mean you’ll just float around the bar picking up glasses, and no talking to the women mind… you’re not being paid to crack on to the customers.”
A look of sarcasm passed between us because we both knew I wasn’t being paid for the work. I cast my eyes around the bar and there were only two couples in one corner, an old guy in a flat cap reading a newspaper, and three old dudes in their eighties with the customary green top hats with shamrocks on the front.
I got this.
Little did I know from the sedate appearance within the bar it was only the calm before the storm.
Placing the empty pint glasses on the bar counter, I turned when I heard the hustle and bustle as a group of ten, pretty, dolled-up females entered the bar. The commotion and level of conversation changed the dreary atmosphere immediately and it became clear from the get go they all knew Daisy well.
In the five minutes that followed they each complimented and praised each other on how they looked then ordered an array of exotic cocktail drinks.
“Feck me, who’s the hottie?” A small redheaded pixie-like girl asked Daisy.
“Her old pen-friend Barney,” Terry interjected.
“A pen-friend? Like you write snail mail and shit?”
Daisy shot her a glare. “Letter writing is a dying art, and as that’s how we began our friendship we chose to continue. We’re…close,” she snapped.
“Still… he’s only a pen-friend, right?” the small redhead insisted
“And he’s gay,” Daisy added when the woman devoured me with her eyes.
“Am not,” I replied quickly, and the small redhead smiled seductively in my direction.
“I'm Lianne. Now, if I’m not mistaken, our Daisy here doesn’t want us to get close to you. Any particular reason for that?”
I glanced to Daisy and the murderous look on her face was a picture. Staring into the eyes of a grizzly bear would have felt less threatening. Even though I hardly knew her, I’d seen the same pissed off, borderline, about-to-commit-murder in a woman’s eyes enough times to know where she was heading.
“I’m afraid I’m taken.” I gave Lianne a sad smile like I was sorry about that and saw Daisy exhale in a forced huff like she’d almost run out of oxygen.
“Taken… as in girlfriend, fiancée, or married? I don’t see a ring.”
“Now what difference would that make, Lianne McGonigle?” Daisy snapped.
“All the difference in the world because there’s still time for him to change his mind. Has anyone ever told you, you look like—”
