"Yeah, whatever." Karen went up to greet Duke, the bartender and a good friend to her and her father. She had been working with him for three years, give or take a couple months, and was accustomed to just saying hi and getting on with whatever she had to do for the night. Duke had already known all of her affairs-nothing ever changed with her family life-and Duke would continue just being boring and occasionally very nosy.
Gotz was seated in his favorite place in the far back corner near the list of this month's events, eyeing her but still not speaking to her. She didn't know how many beers he'd had before she came in, but he was already drunk enough to talk about how he kept the useless vineyard so as not to lose his pride and money, although it was painfully obvious to everyone else--and embarrassing!--that he was already wasting his pride and money talking about his life's most intimate details. It was also sad how he would complain about her out loud for everyone, but even worse that Karen just shrugged it off with no shame. Karen thought that the whole village saw her as part of the town's screwed up family anyway, but indeed it was not so.
In particular, the gentlemen who visited here rather liked Karen. She was smart and polite, and carried herself well in a bar without flirting. She knew how to drink responsibly, and she could answer smart questions with smart answers about wine and other things. People like Florist Lillia's husband (Basil) and the mailman (Harris) were kind enough to greet her casually, and everyone left her alone to ponder things whenever she needed.
Paying attention only to her fingernails, she let everyone order for themselves and only distributed menus to the three small tables. The door creaked open at 9:30, at a time when the usual four or five guests were already in here or ready to leave, and in walked someone that Karen had never seen before. She didn't turn around, but felt the air rush in. Karen knew that familiar smell and feeling of hard work, a mix of clean sweat and rain. Still, she didn't put down her emery board--only looked at the newcomer out of the corner of her eye.
He was fairly tall, maybe about just her height. It was hard to see many of the details of that blue cap he wore, but one wave of brown hair stuck out of it (he wore the cap backwards). He had skin that was the palest of white, not yet suntanned, so she could tell that he hadn't been in the village long.
A couple people waved to him and hollered, "Hey Jack!!" so she supposed that he had been here for quite awhile. This said Jack was wiping his face off with a handkerchief he pulled out of the pocket of his denim overalls. He was thin but looked nonetheless like a harmless and mentally sane guy. Karen could only guess he looked a little bit older than her, and when she finally caught a good look when he approached the bar, she saw his eyes-a very clear, abnormally clear, brown.
"Hmmph," Karen said to herself only loud enough for her to hear and sulked. A new guy. So-freakin'-what. That was the last thing she needed to deal with was a new person in town to point a finger at her and ask why she was the way she was.
But at the same time... he was fairly cute. It was too bad that she wouldn't be talking to him anytime soon. Tourists never lasted long after they had seen all of Flower Bud Village. Karen distinctly remembered one time in which a handsome tourist from the city had came by the bar, complaining about their not having cable television; although who would want to spend time inside watching TV when they came to a simple, scenic countryside village in the first place?
"Just make yourself comfortable, Jack," Duke smiled and handed him a menu. This new boy sat at a stool near Jeff, the bakery master, in front of the counter and stared daydreamily into the menu.
"Hi," Jack said to her when he caught sight of her, which hadn't been long after Duke turned away to prepare a complicated new drink. Karen snorted; she'd heard all about how guys used stupid pickup lines in the city.
"Well, you don't look familiar," she replied. Step one in sending him home rejected, heh heh. She put on that false, friendly bartender's smile, that one she'd learned from Duke. It was the kind of smile that showed you innocent friendship, but at the same time you felt that the bartender knew all of your personal affairs and wanted to just be nice in public. "I suppose it doesn't matter, though. You won't be here long anyway," she continued speedily.
Jack looked perplexed. His face took on not only a confused look, but he burst into a little chuckle when Karen turned sharply on the heel of her boot and stalked off to a table in the corner to wipe it down with a rag.
"O-kay.... Well, just so you know, I'm Jack," he offered a slight tone of kindness and bewilderment at the same time. He swiveled the leather top of his stool to face her, gripping it with both of his gloved hands. He dangled his legs and feet from it like a young boy, but his face had that seriousness of a man.
Karen pretended not to hear him and concentrated hard on wiping the tabletops.
"A rather cold girl, isn't she?" Jack turned to Duke. Though with her back facing them, she could feel Duke nod in those short, quick bobbing movements she knew so well. Duke presented him with a glass of wine made specially from the vineyard and Karen listened intently, leading the rag in the same slow circles in that same spot.
'So he thinks he can come around here and be a do-gooder', she thought gloomily. 'I'll just have to see what he can make of me.'