Jon and Maeve

Jon and Maeve

By David Backer

At the bar the light were low and green and everyone’s faces were close together and they were laughing and talking loud so they could hear other over the music. They played at pool and others sat at tables, played dart and everyone brought up beer bottles or glass to their mouts and shipped them.
Maeve Fesnying sat with Vicki Sord who was a repoort at the Blue Ash News. Sord had thick blond hair that was curly and Maeve was thin and wore bright red lipstick ang tight purple pants.
Maeve laughed a loud laugh and the man with the tea who looked at her and his eyes rested on and her a moment. She noticed the man with the tea and beard staring at her and even in the low green light of the bar she could see his eyes were very blue.
Maeve leaned toward him and said into the noise and the music of the place.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” and he said
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t...”
“But do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have a girlfriend.”
The man took a deep breath and looked into his tea and brought his face up to Maeve and said,
“Sorry, I just couldn’t help noticing your shirt.”
“I bet I know where you bought it.”
“Really?”
“Five bucks says you can’t.”
“It’s not really new, is it?”
“You bought it at a thrift store, right?”
“Nope,” she said
“Yes. You bought it at thrift store in a town in Iowa, Ottumwa, Iowa.”
When he said this Maeves’s eyes opened wide and said,
“Get the hell out of town! How did you know that?
The man tucked his lower lip into his teeth again and said,
“I just donate all my parents clothes to the Salvation Army in Ottumwa. That’s my mom’s shirt.”
Maeve hug him and kept hugging him and he put an arm around her.
“i’m so sorry. I can’t believe it,” she said.
“It’s okay, thank you.”
The man laughed and it was the first time anyone had touched him in a long time.
“I can’t believe your parents died and I’m wearing your dead mothers’s shirt. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Keep it on...”
Then she took a notebook and a pen from Vicky. She took a paper and a pen then gave them to the man. She ordered the man to wrote his name and his address.
Then he took the paper and the pen and wrote his name and an address and a phone number and he slid them to Maeve.
“Good. I’m Maeve, by the way.”
“Nice to see you,Rubber American Jon Sowse.”
“Well nice to see you,Maeve.
“Right,”she said.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow or something?” she asked.
“Okay.”