The Glasses Between Us

Belinda Gonzales was fifty-two years old and she held views about tip jars. Mostly that Perry Hayes moved his closer to the register every time she went on break.

"Move it back," she said, wiping down the bar. "You're poaching."

"I'm not poaching. I'm positioning." Perry didn't even look up from the espresso machine. "There's a difference."

"Uh huh. And last Tuesday when your jar ended up on my side of the counter?"

"That was wind."

"Indoor wind."

He shrugged, which was his answer for everything, and rang up a pina colada for a guy in a fishing shirt. Sunday shift at The Sand Pit was slow in the shoulder season, two blocks off the boardwalk, bayou breeze coming through the back patio doors. Which meant the regulars had nothing to do but watch them argue.

Burt, seventy if he was a day, nursed his third beer and waved a peanut at them. "You two fight like an old married couple."

"We are not a couple," Belinda said. "Old or otherwise."

"Married couples fight about money and kids," Perry added, sliding his tip jar a full inch toward the register while he said it. "We fight about jurisdiction."

"See, that's what I mean." Burt laughed into his beer.

The thing was, Belinda didn't hate the Sunday shifts. She'd figured out, somewhere between the divorce and the whole mess with Adaeze (which was its own story, involving a paddleboard and a very awkward brunch), that she liked having someone to spar with who could keep up. Perry had been doing his dry, infuriating thing at The Sand Pit for three seasons now. He also ran a fireworks stand out on Route 17 in the summer, which explained exactly nothing about his personality but made for good trash talk.

"Your ghost walk thing start tonight?" he asked, casual, wiping the steamer wand.

"Seven o'clock at the old ferry landing. Full tour. Twenty-two souls."

"Souls. Cute."

"It's a ghost walk, Perry. Word choice is half the job."

"Other half being standing in the dark asking strangers for money."

"Which you would know all about, fireworks man."

He grinned at that. He had a good grin and he knew it, which was the worst part.

Her phone buzzed against the bar. Her niece Stephanie, twenty-six and relentless, texting in all caps like always.

"Ugh." Belinda read it twice.

"What."

"My niece. She's been on me about dating again. She's got some coworker's uncle she wants me to meet."

"Hard pass?" Perry asked.

"Hard pass. Obviously."

Except then Stephanie called, and Stephanie on the phone was a different animal than Stephanie by text. Stephanie had, in fairness, watched Belinda mope through a long divorce and one very bad paddleboard-related heartbreak, and she did not let up.

"He's fifty-one, Aunt B. He owns a business. He's funny. Nick says he's the only uncle he's actually liked."

"Nick says that about everyone who buys him beer."

"Please. One date. One. If it's terrible I'll never mention it again and I'll still come to Thanksgiving."

Belinda looked at the ceiling, which had water stains shaped like states. "When."

"Friday! Seven. The new taco place on Cypress. His name's Perry."

The glass she was holding stopped halfway to the rack. "Say that again."

"Perry. P-E-R-R-Y."

"That's," she said, and then stopped, because how did she even explain it. "That's my coworker."

"What? No way. Nick's uncle tends bar on the boardwalk and owns a fireworks..."

"Route 17 stand."

"Oh my god." Stephanie was cackling now. "Oh my GOD. Aunt B. You have to go now. This is fate. This is the funniest thing that has ever happened to this family."

"It is not fate. It is a small town with too much networking."

"You have to go. You literally have to. If you don't go I will never know how it ends and I'll think about it every day of my life."

So that was how Belinda Gonzales, fifty-two years young, recently divorced, owner of a ghost walk that had exactly four real ghost stories and fourteen filler ones, ended up agreeing to a blind date with a man she already spent every Sunday arguing with about a tip jar.

She told herself she'd cancel. She told herself that all week.

---

Friday she showed up at the taco place still in her ghost walk jacket, because the tour ran late and she had exactly zero time to change. The jacket was black velvet with a lantern pin on the lapel and she'd decided years ago it made her look mysterious instead of middle-aged, and she was sticking to that.

Perry was already at the table. He'd dressed up, sort of, meaning a clean shirt instead of the Sand Pit apron, and when he saw her walk in he put his menu down slowly, like he needed a second to process.

"You're wearing the jacket," he said.

"The tour ran long. Sit tight."

"You do the jacket and the lantern?"

"The lantern stays in the car." She sat down across from him. "Don't start."

"I'm not starting anything. I think it's great. Very on brand."

"Your nephew and my niece set this up, you know that, right? Stephanie and Nick, tag team."

"I know. Nick called me Tuesday, very cagey, wouldn't tell me who. Said, and I quote, 'she's got great energy.'" Perry shook his head. "I thought he meant a yoga person."

"Disappointed?"

He thought about it, which she appreciated. Perry actually thought about things before answering, even dumb ones.

"No," he said. "Mostly relieved. I was worried it'd be somebody I'd have to make small talk with."

"So instead you get me. Whom you argue with for money."

"For tips. There's a difference."

She laughed before she could stop it. He looked pleased about that, smug even, and she kicked him under the table, not hard, and he kicked back, and the waiter came and they ordered margaritas because it felt wrong to order anything else.

The date was, annoyingly, good. He asked about the ghost walk and listened to the answer. She asked about the fireworks stand and he told her about the guy who came every July and bought the same three boxes and tipped in loose change and had done so for nine years, and she laughed twice, actually laughed. He paid without making a thing of it, and the money part was settled clean at the table, check taken care of, no weirdness, and she noted that because she'd had dates who turned a check into a whole negotiation.

They walked out to the lot and stood between her Corolla and his F-150, neither one moving toward a door.

"So," Perry said.

"So."

"That was not small talk."

"No. It wasn't." She looked at him. He was a tall man, her age almost exactly, gray coming in at the temples like he'd planned it. "Do you want to come to my ghost walk sometime? See the competition up close."

"The competition."

"Free ticket. Twenty-two souls. One real ghost story, the rest is delivery."

"I'll come," he said. "Sunday's tour?"

"Sunday's tour."

"Can't. Fireworks season prep, I've got inventory all weekend." He paused. "Tuesday?"

"Tuesday. Seven o'clock, old ferry landing. Wear something dark, tourists get weird when they can spot the plants."

"Plants. You plant people on your ghost tour?"

"Belinda." She put her hand on her chest. "I would never."

"You absolutely do."

"Buy the ticket and find out."

He laughed, and it was a real laugh, and she got back in the Corolla before she could do something dumb like enjoy it too much, and drove home with the windows down.

---

Tuesday's tour was fine. Perry showed up in a black hoodie like a person on a stakeout, hung at the back of the group, and heckled exactly once, during the story about Captain Renner's lantern, and she shut him down with a look that got a laugh from the tour and made her feel weirdly warm for the rest of the night.

Afterward the group dispersed toward their cars and Perry stood by the old ferry landing railing, looking out at the black water.

"Okay," he said. "The lantern story is good. The rest is delivery."

"I told you."

"But here's my problem." He turned around. "You know the tour's over. I know the tour's over. And now we've got no reason to be standing here, and yet."

"Yet," she agreed.

They stood there a second, the bayou slapping against the pilings. Then she lost her nerve about something, so she said the first thing she could grab.

"Have you seen my reading glasses? I had them at the taco place Friday. Chain and everything."

"Reading glasses."

"Fifty-two, Perry. Eyes go. Don't make it a thing."

"Nope. No thing." He patted his pockets anyway, out of politeness or maybe not politeness. "Not on me."

"Well. If they turn up at the bar, you'd have a reason to find me."

"I would, wouldn't I." He smiled, slow. "Same Sunday shift this week?"

"Same Sunday shift. Bring my glasses if you find them."

"And if I don't?"

"Then bring yourself, I guess."

He nodded like that settled something, and walked to his truck, and she watched him go and hated herself a little and liked it a lot.

Sunday shift was back to business. Which meant war.

"I moved my tip jar back," Perry said, lining up limes. "To where it was."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Your jar was two inches from the register, Belinda. Two inches. Burt put a five in mine by accident and had to do a walk of shame back over."

"Sounds like a Burt problem."

Burt, seventy and on his fourth decade at the same barstool, looked up from his gumbo. "I know exactly what I'm doing," he said, and put another five in Perry's jar.

Belinda pointed at him. "Traitor."

By close the weekend crowd had drained off and the bayou breeze was doing its thing through the open shutters, and Perry wiped down the back bar and said, without looking up, "I'm starving. You starving?"

"Always."

"There's a diner up the road. Waterfront. Sits right over the water on stilts."

She should have said no. She thought about saying no. "I could eat."

The place was called the Pilings, and it was the kind of diner where the menu was laminated and the coffee had been going since morning. They got a booth by the window and the water sat dark and flat under the lights, and then came the part she'd been dreading. The silence.

Because what did you talk about with a man you'd been professionally mean to for three seasons? At the bar there was always something. A ticket to argue about. A regular to make fun of. Here there was just the menu and the water and him studying his laminated card like it might change.

"So," she said.

"So," he said.

"Chicken-fried steak," she said, because it was the first thing she saw.

His head came up. "You're a chicken-fried steak person."

"I'm a chicken-fried steak person, yes."

"With cream gravy."

"Obviously cream gravy. What kind of monster do you take me for."

He put the menu down flat. "I've been ordering the chicken-fried steak at this diner for eleven years. I have never once seen another soul order it."

"Then you've been eating alone in a room full of cowards."

He grinned at her, this slow lopsided thing she'd only ever seen in glimpses across the well, and she felt it land somewhere under the ribs and had to look at the window.

They both ordered it. Medium, extra gravy, and the waitress, who clearly knew Perry, said "two CFS, one's for company" and winked at Belinda, which was embarrassing for everyone.

The food came and it was exactly right, crust shattering under the fork, and for a while neither of them talked because the food deserved respect.

"Okay," Perry said, halfway through. "Test question. What do you do on a Tuesday night when the tour's dark?"

"Watch terrible horror movies and yell at the screen."

He stopped chewing.

"What."

"I own," he said, "every movie the Megashark series ever made."

"No."

"Megashark versus Giant Octopus."

"No."

"There's a scene where the shark jumps out of the ocean and bites an airplane. Mid flight."

"I know the scene," she said, pointing her fork at him. "I have seen that scene forty times and it gets better every time."

"It does not get better."

"It gets better, Perry. That is the entire purpose of a terrible movie. It rots in a beautiful direction."

"That is the most wrong thing anyone has ever said to me, and I work with Burt."

And then it was ninety minutes of them arguing over the worst movie ever filmed, and whether bad horror was better in a theater or a living room, and she held views, real ones, and so did he, wrong ones, and at some point she realized her cheeks hurt from laughing and that she'd told him about Adaeze. The whole Adaeze thing. The paddleboard. The brunch.

Perry set his coffee down. "So she took you paddleboarding. First date. And you fell in."

"The water was cold."

"And then she made you go to brunch anyway, wet, and told you her whole family history."

"Two uncles and a dead dog. I got the eulogy."

"That's when you knew."

"That's when I knew." She shrugged. "It was a year ago, almost. Right after the divorce papers cleared. I think I wanted it to go well so bad I didn't notice she was talking at me instead of to me."

He nodded. Didn't make it a lesson. Just nodded, and drank his coffee, and said, "I dated a woman for eight years. Twenty-two to thirty. Never married. And I've spent the time since being casually annoyed by people at dinner, so