Can You Meet Me at Barry’s?
After I left Pitcairn, Larry skipped town, evading overdue rent and clean-up fees, including the cost of scouring the orange spray paint I’d left all over the attic walls. Larry ended up in Chicago where – while supposedly grieving the loss of our relationship – he met Brenda, who rode with him back to Pitcairn on the motorcycle.
I know this because Larry called me on my new phone in my new apartment and told me.
“Hey Baby,” Larry said into my ear, and my stomach flip-flopped like it did back in our early days. “How ya doin’?”
I stuttered over my words for a second, looking around for something to ground me. “I’m okay,” I said.
“That’s good,” he said, like a proud papa. Eventually he said, “Hey, I have something for ya.”
I nearly drooled at how sexy Larry sounded over the phone. “You do?”
“Yeah, you left a box at Danny’s. Can you meet me at Barry’s tomorrow?”
My new neighbor’s name was Barry, but I knew what Larry meant. Barry’s Bar. How long it had been since I’d gone to Barry’s Bar!
But did I need that box? Did I even want to see Larry?
I didn’t think for long. “Sure,” I said to Larry. “What time?”
“Noon,” Larry said. “See ya tomorrow.”
I remembered all the happy lunches I’d had at Barry’s Bar so many, many moons ago – the jukebox, the burgers, spinning on my barstool like a child.
“Okay,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
At Barry’s the next day, there was Larry with the girl from Chicago. She looked younger than me, with a round face, filthy brown hair, and a tattoo. Her voice was low and crass.
As I approached, Larry noticed me and she got quiet. I deemed myself prettier and ignored her.
Larry and Brenda were drinking cans of Miller Lite.
“Still not drinkin’?” Larry asked, smiling that oh-so-familiar smile.
“Not drinking,” I said.
“Okay, c’mon,” Larry said, heading toward the door. We left Brenda at the bar.
Larry led me into the Pitcairn Hotel, to our old apartment, where his brother still lived.
We stood where Larry and I had once lived, along with Danny and his heroin-addict girlfriend, sharing a bathroom with no door and a kitchen with no food only two years before.
The bed was still unmade.
Larry pointed at my box. I recognized it instantly. Inside were things my mom had saved for me: my baby book, report cards, coloring pages, a shark I’d made in shop class, my kindergarten handprint in plaster.
My whole childhood was in that box.
“Wow, thanks,” I said. “I didn’t even know I left this here.”
“Sure,” Larry said. And then he put his hands on my face, and bent down to kiss me. We kissed with such passion, I thought my knees would buckle. I melted.
My stomach flip-flopped as our tongues intertwined, his scent consuming me, his hands simultaneously gentle and rough. The world disappeared until finally, we stopped.
I breathed. I couldn’t speak.
“Remember that,” Larry grinned. “Just fuckin’ remember that.”
“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t say much else.
“I have a feeling you’ll be coming back to me,” he said.
Larry carried the box to the Camaro, and put it in the trunk. He closed the trunk the way he’d closed the trunk so many times before, shrugging the cold from his shoulders, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“See ya later, Baby,” Larry said with a smile, then crossed the street back to Barry’s Bar.
I have forever remembered that kiss. But I never saw Larry again.