Chapter 4: The Supper Club

The respiratory therapist was nice, which made it worse.

We sat in a booth at the Pine Room, under a mounted walleye, and he told me about his beagle and his sister's wedding.

He ordered the prime rib and asked what I wanted before he asked what I did.

I liked him.

I liked him, and I knew I was not going to see him again.

Halfway through the salad, I felt the back of my neck go hot.

I did not turn around.

I did not need to.

"Do you know that guy?" the therapist asked, and tipped his head toward the bar.

Ansel sat on the last stool, in his canvas jacket, with a club soda and a basket of crackers he had not touched.

He was looking at a hockey game on the television above the bottles.

He was looking at it very hard.

"Yes," I said. "He's my stepbrother."

"Is he, uh. Does he need something?"

"He's keeping an eye on me."

"Oh." The therapist set down his fork, and a slow, decent understanding crossed his face. "Is that a family thing?"

"It's a new thing," I said.

I finished my dinner, because I was raised to.

At the door he kissed my cheek, said he'd had a nice time, and told me, gently, that he didn't think he was the right man for the job.

He was right.

I watched his taillights leave the lot.

Then I walked back in, past the hostess, and stopped at the end of the bar.

"You followed me," I said.

Ansel turned his stool.

"Kasper wanted to send Eero," he said. "Eero would have sat in the next booth with a notebook. I said I'd go."

"So I'd get the quiet one."

"So you'd get the one who wouldn't say anything."

I leaned my elbow on the bar.

"You were watching me."

"I watched the game," Ansel said.

The bartender, a woman in her fifties with reading glasses on her head, polished a glass and pretended to hear nothing.

"Come outside," I said.

He put a ten on the bar and followed me out.

The Pine Room's sign hummed pink over the gravel lot.

His truck sat at the edge of it, a rust-green Ford with a crew radio on the dash, facing the highway.

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