The next evening, Saturday, Laraine Breyer was on a date with Sam Quackenbush. She considered it something to get over with. She looked forward to it about as much as she might look forward to an I.R.S. audit.
But it would get her mother off her back. Her mother, Lane, naturally thought that the preacher at her church (Sam) was the best possible man for any girl to land. Somehow, Lane must have given him her number. He had called Laraine at work and asked her if she wanted to go and see a movie.
It wasn't as bad as Laraine had thought it was going to be. He didn't wear any kind of clerical collar, just a button down shirt. Laraine got a feeling that he too was doing it just to be able to tell Lane he had gone out with her. It was probably common for him, as a single preacher, to have mothers of single women want him for their daughters.
They saw a movie rated PG and he didn't act shocked or anything. When she experimentally suggested a drink at the London Underground, he said that sounded fine. So he wasn't above going into a nightclub/bar.
Laraine knew it was not a night that her brother's band would be playing the London Underground. If it had, she'd have suggested Luke's bar. But she really liked the London Underground, since she'd had a great time there the last time she'd gone, with Gia and Cheryl from work.
On the way there, Sam asked Laraine about her family. He knew from Lane that she had two younger brothers. One played in a rock band.
"Yeah, Mom doesn't approve at all," Laraine said. "I guess you don't think that's such a good idea."
"It's not a bad idea in itself," he said. "There are Christian rock bands."
"The Dissentors are not a Christian rock band, believe me," Laraine said.
Sam just smiled.
"Your family must be proud of you," Laraine said. "I'm sure they wouldn't be involved in rock music, unless it was Christian."
"My family is more colorful than you would think," he said. "And none of them are Christians."
Laraine resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, even though he couldn't see her for driving the car. Lane was like that, too. The rest of the family were all baptized Christians, but it didn't count with them unless you were "born again." Obviously, Sam looked at it the same way.
A little mischievously, and just to test him, she said, "So are they Muslim or Jewish or what?"
He grinned. At least he didn't get mad. Laraine noted that.
"My sister, Misty, got involved with drugs," he said. "She had a court date for sentencing and she was out on bail. She faked her death and ran off to Texas."
"Wow," Laraine said, amazed. "Did you know it was faked?"
"No," he said. "We thought she might have been abducted and murdered. The cops were looking for her, because she was missing too, not just the warrants. Then they found her abandoned pickup truck. There was blood all over it. They found her wallet and identification. They were looking for the body. About five weeks later, a Texas cop who happened to have moved there from Port Charles and become a cop there, had read about Misty's disappearance, and he knew her from school, so it stuck in his mind. He spotted her in Texas. She was arrested again and brought back."
"Must have been a relief to your family, though."
"It sure was. I was trying to accept that they were just looking for a body."
"So she went to jail?"
"Yes, with an extra year on her sentence for jumping bail."
"Is she out yet?"
"One more year."
"Do you visit her?"
"As often as I can. She always says she must have been meant to get caught, because what were the odds of some guy who knew her from PC being a cop in Texas and in the same town she was in? So I try to get her to see the Lord's hand guiding that."
"But she doesn't?"
"Not so far," he grinned.
At least he had a nice attitude toward it, Laraine thought. He wasn't down on his sister.
"Is she older or younger than you?"
"She's older. I think my decision to go into the ministry had a lot to do with her disappearance, and her troubles."
At the bar, Laraine volunteered to get the drinks. Maybe since he was a minister, he wouldn't want to order at a bar. "Sure," he said, good naturedly. "I'll just have a lemonade. That is, if it's allowed in a bar."
Laraine smiled at his humor and made her way to the bar.
It was moderately crowded. Laraine went to the edge of the bar. She looked at a woman who was at the end, working on some papers. Skye Quartermaine, the one who had run over her brother Toby. She still had her job at the bar.
"Can I help you?" Laraine heard someone say, rather slowly.
She looked up to see a bartender she had never seen before; he was the very definition of tall, dark and handsome. Such things didn't usually floor her, but somehow this one did. It wasn't like you expected the bartender to be a knockout.
"I, uh," she said, recovering and feeling idiotic. "I need a Chardonnay and a lemonade."
"Lemon?" he looked confused.
Clay Delaney was a few feet away. "Hey, Clay," her confused bartender said, "what is Lemon - "
He looked at her, questioning. "Lemonade," Laraine said, hearing enough of a foreign accent to understand that he just didn't know the word. Well, it was a bar. This must be the first time someone ordered lemonade.
"Sorry," he said, with a slight grin. "My English."
Laraine nodded and tried to smile, to reassure him she wasn't annoyed. To make things more awkward, he looked familiar somehow. Where did she know him from? She would feel like an idiot to ask, too. Wasn't that the oldest dumb line in the book?
"Lemonade," said Clay, "Well, uh, yeah, we can do lemonade. We might have to run out to a convenience store, but we could do it."
"Go upstairs to Kelly's," Skye suggested.
The handsome foreign bartender disappeared up the stairs that were behind a door at the end of the bar.
"What else did you need?" Clay said to Laraine. "I'll get it while Mikhail tracks down the lemonade."
Laraine told him. She watched as Clay poured her a glass of Chardonnay. He set it down in front of her, saying, "Mikhail just got off the boat. Thought he knew all the drinks by now. Just goes to show there's always something new."
Laraine nodded. Mikhail came back from the stairs with a glass of lemonade.
"Sorry," she said, as he handed it to her.
"No problem," he said. "I learn a new word."
She smiled and he smiled back. She paid and then walked off with the two glasses. As she walked off, she looked back once. He was taking another order.
"Thank you," Sam said to her, as she got to the table.
"You're allowed to drink lemonade in this nightclub," she said, trying to smile.
"Sometimes, God just gives you a sign," he said, smiling, as he took a sip.
Laraine glanced back at the bartender. Her stomach did a few flips. She took a sip of the wine, hoping it would somehow clear her head and return her to normalcy. "Like what happened to your sister inspiring you to go into the ministry?" she said.
"More like what my sister did," he said. "She made it all happen. That's what you've got to take control of."
"Oh, sure," Laraine said. Suddenly Sam and his sister weren't as interesting as they had been.
"That was a sign from God all right," said Gia, laughing, on Monday, at work. "Just perfect. Good looking and does not speak English and you already know him from somewhere."
Laraine laughed too. "If I could just figure it out. It's too much of a line to say where have I seen you before? If I knew, then I could mention it."
"Now what will you do? And you have to use simple English."
"Well, I liked the LU before," Laraine said. "I can go in there without feeling like I'm just doing it just to hit on the bartender. Besides," she said, ruefully, "that must go on every night. There are a lot of women who will notice that guy. But maybe it will come to me why he looks familiar."
"In the meantime, you'll be the one to buy the drinks," Gia laughed. "I can't drink now, so I'll order the lemonade. And all those other women you're worried about? Forget them. They don't have your appreciation for bad English."
Laraine smiled. It was all a joke, really.
"I can't wait to see how this one goes," Gia said.