It was almost midnight and the tavern was unusually busy. The young woman with the blonde hair and the man with the secret sat at opposite ends of the old oaken bar. She was alone, nursing a glass of white wine under the dim glow of a brass gasolier. A cigarette dangled from long, alabaster fingers and a beaded shawl draped her narrow shoulders. Her dress was of the deepest scarlet, a satiny cocktail gown from another time and place. Indeed, so was the tavern, whose dark wooden walls, old oil paintings and parlor stove nestled in a brick hearth all belied the modern cosmos that lay beyond its mahogany doors.
The velvety baritone of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" rang sweetly through the bar. It could be heard even over the clink of glasses, din of laughter and murmurs of conversation. The man with the secret watched the slim blonde girl very carefully, but she did not seem to notice him. When her head emerged from the shadows, it was barely discernable, seeming in an odd way to have been a part of them. Her light blue eyes saw everything and yet seemed to focus on nothing.
What was it about her? Could anyone have really said? Perhaps it had to do with her affect: she was there, yet she was completely detached from her surroundings. Her perch was almost one of voyeur, an ambivalent, vicarious eye not quite peeking into the lives of others. She had paid for her drink with a crinkled bill extracted from a small beaded purse on her lap. Other than the bartender collecting the money from the counter, no one else in the bar, except the man with the secret, seemed to notice her. Was she there for him alone, her presence altering something inexplicable that hung in the air?
The man with the secret moved closer when the stool next to the young blonde woman became vacant. He waved from a few feet away, but she, absently fingering the beaded edges of her shawl, was lost in a plume of smoke and shadows. Her head bobbed in and out of view, and as her profile became more definable, the man with the secret realized that something about the cast of her features was familiar.
Unexpectedly, the young woman turned her head ever so slightly and smiled at the man with the secret. Her unusual shawl glittered even in the semi darkness. Quickly, the man signaled to the bartender to give her another drink.
"Beautiful shawl," he said, daring to move his stool a few inches closer. "What's it made of?"
"Special, secret things," she replied mysteriously. "And thank you." Nervously, she fingered the edges of the topic of discussion. "It's been in my family for years. It belonged first to my grandmother and then to my mother."
