Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [17]
He walked in the direction in which the man had pointed. Main Street dipped down a hill. On the right-hand side of the hill was a park with an amazing view of the ocean. There were all kinds of boats docked in the harbor: lobster boats, speedboats, even an enormous cruise ship. And a tall ship, the type of ship Jack had seen tucked inside a bottle. This ship had flags at the top of its four masts. Across the street from the park were more shops and restaurants, and sure enough, there was a sign that read MEET ME AT GEDDY’S.
This felt like such a lucky break. Surely, if his mom had come into Bar Harbor, she had gone there.
With one foot on the blue-carpeted steps that led up to the restaurant, Jack waited for a family to go in ahead of him. The hostess gathered menus and motioned for the family to follow her, and when they’d all turned away, Jack slipped past the hostess stand and headed up to the oval bar that stood smack in the center of a very long room.
He slid in between two stools, waiting to get the attention of the bartender, a young guy who reminded Jack of the college kids who worked at the Intown Inn during the summer. He’d known as soon as he approached the bar that his mother wasn’t there. Maybe it was the quiet, or the seeming dimness that had nothing at all to do with the red lights that glowed above the bar. He found himself staring at a baseball game on one of the four TVs until disappointment let go of his chest and he could breathe regularly again. He made himself look around to confirm what his heart already knew.
There was a young couple seated at one end of the bar, sharing a Red Bull, and a bookish woman typing on her laptop at the other. Every so often, she’d pause and take a bite of her salad. And there was a large, bearded man sitting close to where Jack was standing, holding a soda between both hands.
“Might as well sit up here,” said the bearded man, patting the stool beside him. “He’s going to be a while.”
The bartender was filling a large drink order for a waitress with long eyelashes, whose eyes opened and closed in a way that kind of reminded Jack of a llama. The bartender moved from making several green drinks with salt around the rim of the glasses to blending chocolaty drinks with whipped cream on top.
Jack slid up onto the stool and stared at the walls of the restaurant as if he’d never been in a bar that was covered with signs and license plates and other random junk like oars and stuff before. Truth was, he and his mom had been in lots of bars exactly like this one. Many a night, he’d stared at random words on the wall — words like To become old and wise, one must first be young and stupid — and wondered when they could finally go home. What was it about this place that made it so special to his mom?
The man next to him gave his shoulder a nudge. The bartender was waiting.
“Oh. Could I have a glass of water?” Jack asked.
“Sure,” said the bartender. “What happened to your hand?”
Jack looked down at his hand, resting on the edge of the shiny copper bar. He’d gotten so used to the steady pulsing of his finger that he’d almost forgotten about his injury. But that one finger was clearly larger than the rest, and bent at a slightly odd angle. It was black-and-blue between the knuckles.
“Looks broken,” said his neighbor, taking another sip of his soda.
“You should get that checked,” said the bartender, scooping ice into a glass.
“Nah,” said the bearded guy. “I’ve broken a finger plenty of times playing football. Ice it and splint it. It’ll heal fine. Here,” he said, motioning to the bartender. “Fill one of those rags with ice.”
The bartender took a cloth, filled it with ice, and placed it on Jack’s finger.
The bearded guy nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Jack.”
“No way,” said the guy. “Jack’s my name! Do they call you Jackie?”
“Just Mo — my mother. Sometimes.” Jack turned