CHAPTER ONE: Rebecca Monroe

I glanced at the neon Budweiser clock hanging over the bar when I saw Carl Wilson coming in the door. Carl was as regular and dependable as that old clock. It was nine o’clock on the dot; the same time he’d come in every night for twenty-five years ago.

Carl was one of a handful of locals left who frequented The Snowcap Bar & Grill on a basis so regular that you could set your watch by it.

The Snowcap, as it was called (because saying Bar & Grill required too much effort, I suppose), was a little dive bar - slash - greasy spoon my dad opened here in Snowcap, New York the year before I was born.

Dad told everyone that mom gave birth to me behind the bar. It wasn’t true, of course. I was born at the Snowcap Clinic, the only medical facility within a hundred miles at the time. Telling everyone that I was born inside the bar made my dad happy, so I never said otherwise.

I started helping out in the kitchen when I was just ten; flipping burgers that contained more cracker crumbs than hamburger meat. Over the years I bussed tables, washed dishes, swept the floor, cleaned the only bathroom (DISGUSTING!), and started tending bar when I was eighteen.

I grew up in the bar business. It was all I knew. I had even planned to go to community college to study hotel management after high school, but that thing with Charlie happened, and then my dad died the day after my twentieth birthday.

My world suddenly became the ten-by-three foot stretch of floor behind the bar. All thoughts of going to college were laid to rest with my dad.

Dad had a massive heart attack and died on the very spot where I now stood swiping a damp rag over the bar.

His pals said he died doing what he loved: pouring drinks for the locals and shooting the shit about Jets football. That was bullshit, plain and pure.

He died doing what he had to do to keep food on the table and the lights on in the little apartment where he and I lived upstairs. Mom left us when I was just two. Ralph Monroe was the only parent I ever knew. That’s why I’ll never left Snowcap and will never close this ratty old bar. This bar was the only thing of my Dad’s that I had left.

Carl was going to come in for his nightly three mugs of beer come hell or highwater. Not even an early winter snow storm like the one that was kicking up out there now would keep Carl away. I looked through the big front window that had Snowcap Bar & Grill painted on in fading letters. The window was starting to ice over. The weather man was predicting a foot of snow. It would be an early night; and that was just fine with me.

I filled a cold mug to the rim with draft and set it on the bar in Carl’s spot so it would be waiting when he got there. Carl didn’t move too fast these days. He was an old man when I was a young girl. I had no idea how old he was now because he had looked the same for years.

He had been driving his snow plow and pulling people out of ditches in these mountains for thirty years. Storms like this didn’t frighten Carl. He said every snowflake sounded like money falling from the sky.

Carl stood at the door for a moment to stomp the thick snow off his rubber boots. He took hold of the lapels of his hooded parka and shook off the heavy flakes that had gathered there. He tugged the thick mittens from his gnarled hands and shoved them into the parka’s pockets, then hung the parka on the wall to dry.

He moseyed toward the bar, pausing to say hello and ask the guys who were shooting darts who was winning. He nodded at the pool players and blew out a long breath as he hoisted his boney frame onto the bar stool. He gave me a smile that was missing its front teeth and asked the same question he’d been asking me every night for ten years.

“How’s the world treating you, Becca Boo?”

“The world is treating me just fine, Carl,” I said with a smile. Old Carl had called me Becca Boo for as long as I could remember. I had no idea why he called me that and he couldn’t remember the reason. I set the beer in front of him and nodded at the pass-through behind the bar that looked into the kitchen.

“The usual, Carl?”

“I might try something different tonight,” he said, grinning at me as he brought the beer to his lips. When he smiled, his eyes disappeared behind a single line of bushy white eyebrows. He took a long drink and smacked his lips. “I was gonna order fries and a burger. But on second thought, burger and fries will do.”

“That’s good, since that’s all we sell,” I said, winking at him.

I stuck my head in the pass-through and yelled at Pete, the old black gentleman who had been the fry cook at the Snowcap since the place opened. Like Carl, Pete had always looked old to me. He stood at the grill with a greasy spatula in his hand, always at the ready, and waited for me to yell out the orders. And I do mean yell because Pete was as deaf as they came.

I cupped my hands to my mouth and yelled, “Burger and fries for Carl!” Pete gave me a slow nod and saluted me with the spatula, then reached into the freezer for a hamburger patty and dropped it on the grill. The meat immediately began to sizzle.

I picked up the bar rag and started wiping down the vacant end of the bar. As I swirled the damp rag over the Formica bar top, the little voice inside my head returned. It came every night about this time to taunt me. The little voice always said the same thing.

Welcome to your life, Becca Boo. You’ll die behind this ratty old bar. Just like your dad.

I never bothered to argue with the voice, because I knew that it was right. It would take a miracle to get me to leave this place, and miracles weren’t doled out to people like me. The Snowcap would be my home until the day I died.

The place was small, with just enough room for a half dozen tables and a couple dozen chairs; a ten-foot bar and eight wobbly stools. In one corner was the old bumper pool table with the felt nearly worn off and its one pool cue that everyone shared. In another corner hung the dart board that only had two darts left.

The plank floor creaked with every foot fall and the coal heater in the corner barely kept the place above freezing.

It was hard to believe that my entire world was encompassed within these four falls, and the mountains surrounding the little town of Snowcap, population two hundred until somebody dies from frostbite or old age.

I knew there was a big world outside that front door.

All I had to do was open the door and step out into it.

The last time I’d done that, it hadn’t worked out so well.

I came crawling back to Snowcap with my tail tucked between my legs like a whipped dog.

I’d love to have a man in my life, but not if it means getting my heart or nose broken again.

Once is plenty enough for me.