Of all people, Rachel had been Laverna’s most dependable barmaid. When Rachel was fifteen, Laverna had fired her entire weekend shift, both girls, for stealing from the cash register. Laverna was the law of the town, and a penny-pincher, so she installed her excited fifteen-year-old daughter behind the bar on weekend days, and the money flowed. Laverna didn’t care if it came from pedophiles. Rachel had been a natural—imperious and saucy and a quick learner. Laverna eventually stopped shadowing her, and for two years, Rachel transformed two of the slowest shifts into moneymakers. When Rachel was exiled, bookkeeping was the only time Laverna missed her daughter.
A man pushed his way through the crowd at the front door, nodding at each and every miner. They glared at him as he passed, at his Quinn Volunteer Fire Department polo shirt. His eyes were locked on Laverna. He sat down next to Black Mabel and inched his stool away from her, to show some respect. He smoothed out a ten-dollar bill with his index fingers and propped his elbows on the bar.
“Scotch,” he said.
“We’re out,” Laverna said, and wiped her hands with the beer rag.
“Beer,” he declared. “And keep the change.”
Laverna studied him closely. He was vaguely handsome, and looked more capable than the other firemen she had known. His polo shirt was unwrinkled, tucked into his pants.
“Thanks,” Laverna said, and poured him a beer and placed the pint before him. He raised his drink to her.
“Jim,” he said, and stuck out his hand. “I’m new in town.” He stood up, and she had no choice but to shake. “I’ve been wanting to make a proper introduction.”
“He’s the new Jim in the department,” offered Black Mabel. “Jim Number Three.”
Laverna rolled her eyes and went back to the crush at the bar. Laverna did not like the volunteers in town, especially the firemen. They had enormous egos and couldn’t keep it in their pants.
Frank had never come to the bar, even after they were married. He left her every June to spend five months in the woods at the Forest Service lookout, came back in November, left again in January. He spent winters maintaining snowmobile trails, not looking for forest fires, yet he returned to Quinn one April to a woman enflamed. Laverna had missed two periods.
Frank took to sleeping on the sunporch, and this was where he stayed through a ferociously cold April, shielding himself with a space heater and piles and piles of sleeping bags.
Rachel was born in September 1964, and Laverna’s cold, cold heart warmed when they handed her the baby. Frank was not present at the hospital—he stayed on the front porch, working his way through another Louis L’Amour. When they brought the baby home, Frank smiled for the first time since the yard sale. And for a while, anyway, he did make some effort—he bought a crib at an auction and played the harmonica for the baby, who seemed to enjoy it. He knit a tiny pink afghan on the front porch, a skill nobody knew he had.
They passed two years this way. Frank wasn’t a doting father, but he tried his best. He built Rachel a mobile of airplanes from tin-snipped beer cans, which hung above her crib until Red Mabel pointed out that if it fell on the sleeping baby it would dismember her. He gave Laverna his paychecks, stayed out of her way, occasionally cleaned Red Mabel’s guns. When he decided to leave, shortly after Rachel’s second birthday, he gave no clear reason why, maybe because Laverna didn’t ask for one. She needed the sunporch for storage anyway, had thought about learning how to make jellies and applesauce for the baby; the woods were thick with huckleberries, and she needed the space for canning.
Frank bought a trailer house on the outskirts of town. The checks came every month, and Frank kept to himself—Laverna got a child out of the deal, and as a businesswoman, she determined that all accounts were settled.
When Tabby arrived at the bar, Laverna made a big production of wiping the nonexistent sweat from her brow, poured herself a greyhound, and limped away to the only free table in the back, carrying a bar rag with her so it looked like she still intended to do some work. She put her feet up on the chair, and watched Jim Number Three push himself off his barstool. He looked embarrassed as his boots crushed the shells of peanuts. Wiping his hand on his jeans, he pulled up a chair across from her.
“Howdy,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”
“You could rub my feet,” said Laverna.
“I’m a volunteer,” he stated. “But that doesn’t mean I do charity work.”
“How many fires have you been on?”
“Four,” he said as he sat down.
“Jim Number Three, you are a true hero.” She sipped at her greyhound and did a quick head count of the miners. She liked to keep a tally while they drank. When they disappeared, bad things tended to happen.
“They were chimney fires,” he said.
“Chimney fires can blaze out of control,” she offered.
“Not these ones,” he said.
Laverna excused herself to pour another greyhound. The door swung open, and Bert Russell emerged from a curtain of snow suspended in the howling wind. The door eased shut behind him, and as usual, he avoided looking at Laverna. She checked the expiration date of the grapefruit juice, and interrogated Tabby about Jim Number Three.