paradise in your eyes

“Just someone with an attachment to their license,” Frankie replied as she took the drink he offered to her. “Like I said, the cops are going to be all over the roads – they have been, if you haven’t noticed. I’m not about to risk it all over a half-off drink, though I appreciate the opportunity.”

Frankie took note of his less-than-enthused reaction as she mentioned the karaoke machine that had been going at least as long as she’d been there, and smiled at his readily supplied answer. “Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand. Perfect mix of being an underrated pick and an instant success. I won’t be taking any criticism on that.”

Raising her brows, she asked: “what, you’re not a fan?”

“Fair enough,” Pascal commented. She had a good point. He vaguely wondered if he might ned to collect some keys from the patrons that night to keep them from crashing into one another on the way home. Typically, he knew who he needed to call a cab for at the end of the night but with half the town in the bar it was a little... messy. “Come back some other night, I’ll still honor the half off deal.”

He lifted a brow and gave a half tilt of his head mulling over her song selection. “That’s a pretty fuckin’ good one,” he had to admit. “So what’s your take on what’s been going on?” he asked, polishing a bar glass. 

“Seventy-five bucks,” he responded, upping the price to answer her question. 

By the time that Frankie had walked into the Conifer Lounge, it was in the midst of what she did not doubt had been an hours-long production of drinking, gossip, and horrific karaoke. The mock-speakeasy was far from what she’d consider her typical comfort zone for an evening out – but after the morning the majority of townsfolk had gone through, she knew that it would be assuredly packed out. And with her own mind working overtime, she was in need of a little bit – or a lot a bit – of noise. 

As she approached the bar and handed over her ID – which was a regular occurrence, given that half the time she was assumed to be younger than she was – she recognized that the guy serving the drinks was the owner. When he asked her what she wanted to drink while hovering near the display of bottles, she answered: “just a soda for me.” Feeling the obligation to explain, she added: “I have my car, and I assume there are more cops out than usual, what with half the town getting a load on.” She wasn’t embarrassed of saying that she didn’t drink, but wasn’t interested in the inevitable response of “then why the hell are you at a bar?”

When he questioned what had taken her so long, she shrugged. After she and Maddie had parted ways, she’d gone back home – she didn’t have a good reason for how she’d spent her day, short of overthinking herself into a migraine. “I was thinking really hard about what karaoke song would be the perfect mix of underrated and killer, and it took all day.”

Pascal handed the young woman’s ID back to her after eyeing over it for a few seconds. He didn’t have much of a plan to give her too hard a time about ordering a soda, mostly because she was at least of age and he wouldn’t have to spend the next half hour telling her she needed to leave. “Soda,” he repeated, filling a bar glass with clear soda for Frankie. He set it in front of her on a coaster asking, “You a Girl Scout or something?” 

His expression soured ass he looked over toward the unfortunate corner where the karaoke machine had been on full blast for the majority of the day. “Destruction by Joywave,” he answered almost instantly. “What’d you come up with.” He looked back over at the karaoke machine as another person queued up yet another insufferable Top 40 song. “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you take a turn at that thing and manage to break it.”

Some bar patrons had been around all day while others were somehow still arriving even as the sun set on the town of Wade. Pascal certainly didn’t mind the business, but he would have been considerably less cranky on the whole if the din of gossip in the bar didn’t overcome the music on the pay-to-play digital jukebox he’d paid too much for. His shift was also supposed to have ended several hours prior as well, and other than a few moments in the back during which he’d put in load of dishes and had a single quiet moment to himself he hadn’t had a single break.

Couple all of that with the fact that his staff had decided today of all days sounded like a good time to leave their work ethic at home, Pascal was pretty hangry… not that his usual temperament was something worth writing home about. He squashed his sour mood deep down inside with the rest of his issues and approached the bar to meet Frankie. He passively asked her to show ID, he didn’t need anyone accidentally supplying to a minor on tonight of all nights when there almost had to be some of Wade finest in the crowd and offered only a quick nod of approval.

“What’ll it be?” he asked, pausing to give her time to order. He grabbed a glass after Frankie had picked her poison and then glanced across the countertop at her. “You’re here a lot later than the rest of the town, what was the hold up? You got something more interesting on your plate than Josie Johnson?” He hoped she did. There was no price he could possibly put on hearing someone talk about something other than Josie, or zombies, or Red, or vampires, or ghosts, or a hundred other conspiracy theories.  

Marty couldn’t have imagined spending enough time in Wade to actually have to get a job, but here she was. She told herself she was just saving until she could get back on the road comfortably again, but why did she keep looking at ads for apartments to rent? Whatever this tie was that kept her to Wade was sure to be temporary, she would do her best to make sure of it. The last thing she wanted to happen was a repeat of her experience in Vegas, though that was unlikely seeing as there were far less drugs and parties in Wade.

She milled behind the bar, a lollipop from a bowl on the bar held to her lips between her forefinger and thumb as she sucked on it, watching Pascal work. Perhaps she was just being lazy waiting for customers to come to her, but she didn’t need to bother to put in any extra work when he seemed to be doing it all for her. Once he had served the patron and was close enough for her to not have to raise her voice, she looked at him with a cocked brow, removing the lollipop from her lips to speak. “Do you even need me here?” She mused, a little sarcasm laced in her voice. “You’re the owner.” She stated plainly. “Shouldn’t you be on that side?” Martha gestured to the other side of the bar, which is sure as hell where she would be if she didn’t have to be working right now.

Pascal turned to look at Marty to answer her questions. Days when her work ethic were like they were today made him question his decision to hire her in the first place. How frown deepened when he noticed the lollipop in her hand. “Throw that away and go wash your hands, that’s unsanitary,” he instructed her with a tone of slight agitation in his voice. He grabbed the bowl of suckers off the bar top more than a little irritated they were there. “Who keeps bringing these out here? This is a bar, not a fucking doctor’s office.” He kept his tone quiet lest a customer overhear his frustration. 

He raised an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed with her asking if she needed to be there. The bar was significantly busier than usual, although that appeared to be lost on Marty who had yet to so much as lift a finger to provide even halfway decent service. “No one is forcing you to work here, so if you just can’t be be bothered today: by all means, clock out,” he responded, not really feeling like taking the time to provide useful or corrective feedback. After all, his supervisory philosophy was largely that everyone is replaceable. 

Pascal cleared a few empty glasses from the bar and placed them in a nearly full dishwasher rack, mentally making a note to take it to the wash room soon. They were running short on glasses. “I didn’t open a bar to sit and drink in it,” he sighed, glancing over at Marty. 

When: April 25, 2020, within an hour of Josie’s scheduled funeral

Open Starter

Far be it from Pascal to tell someone how to grieve, especially when grief was this good for business.

The bar had seen a slow increase of patrons in the days following Josie’s disappearance. When her body was found and doubt began to overshadow the police work being done, more seats in the bar were filled than empty. Now, just hours after her body had mysteriously up and vanished there wasn’t an empty seat in the place. It seemed like over half the town had packed themselves into the lounge. Those who were standing with drinks in their hands had to make a special effort to move past one another without spilling their cocktails all over one another. Pascal placed a bar towel over his shoulder with a sense of pride that the Conifer Lounge had become the unofficial meeting place for gossip surrounding the town's most recent scandal.

Of course, this would only last as long as the outrage existed at the police’s expense, or until the mystery became stale and everyone lost interest. Pascal vaguely wondered how long that might be. Certainly, it wouldn’t be long term, but the police had generally shit the bed on Josie’s case and there was little confidence in his mind they’d be locating the body in the near future so the additional profits shouldn’t dry up any time too soon either.

Please inquire about this jackass below the cut.