The possibility that Jess loved this guy shifted something, and for the first time in seventeen weeks, for the first time since putting his head down and deciding he’d just keep going until she came around, he looked up and noticed that he’d long since wandered off the path he was on, that he didn’t have any idea where he was. To distract himself he did his ritual calculations, his morning routine, like daily affirmations but with the opposite effect: What was left in the freezer? What was left in the storeroom? He was still standing at the window with the comforter around his shoulders, but in his mind he could see everything. The drop bag had some heft to it for the first time in ages, and of course it was the one day he probably wouldn’t be able to get to the bank. First, he had to retrieve it from the safe at the bar. It had been a few years since he’d skied, but his gear was still in the attic, unless Jess had tossed it in a purge. Would the bank even be open?
Gas, electric, and cable for the bar were all scheduled to go through on Monday. Those same bills were due on the house the following week. The minimum payments were due on two credit cards. Jess’s student loan would auto-deduct from their joint checking. He was behind with Hugh once again. The first time he fell behind, Hugh’s guys had come by the bar, asked for Malcolm. Roddy fetched him from the back, but when Malcolm emerged, they nodded a greeting, nothing more, as if they just wanted to lay eyes on him and make sure he knew they were there. They sat at the bar, had a drink each without speaking to anyone, and then left without paying.
It was fine, he figured, all good, at that point it had been not quite a year since he bought the place, and Hugh was like an uncle to him, and like an uncle he was probably just reminding him of what they’d agreed upon.
Malcolm decided to move money around and get square with Hugh, carry a balance elsewhere. He did inventory of their shed one morning and itemized everything worth anything. He had expensive saws, a nice road bike he hadn’t used in years, a retro ceramic barbeque, a collection of power tools. He had a stack of expensive bluestone pieces under a tarp, leftovers from when he put in the walkway around front. Two hundred square feet of mahogany flooring, a kayak. He had two fifty-pound coils of bright copper wire that they found in the basement after they bought the house. He sold it all and arranged pickups while Jess was at work. But even as he was clearing things out, accepting cash, he knew he’d have the same problem the following month, and the one after that.
He couldn’t ask his mother for help. He imagined her trying to comprehend the amount of money he owed. She didn’t know anything about his deal with Hugh. All she knew was that he bought the place and she was thrilled for him. And then to that amount he added Jess’s student loan debt, which never seemed to get any lower, and what they owed the third fertility clinic they’d used. Their sessions with Dr. Hanley added up to a small fortune every month, and Jess’s insurance covered only a quarter of what he charged. “But that’s a necessity,” Jess said, when they were trying to figure out what to cut, and Malcolm knew better than to ask if she was sure Dr. Hanley hadn’t made things worse.
The world was different now, he’d tell his mother. But she wouldn’t buy it. His sister had given her a set of expensive face creams years ago, and those creams had been in a position of pride in her salmon-tiled bathroom ever since, never used. One day, when she died and he was in charge of clearing the place out, he’d probably throw them in a dumpster along with everything else she cherished. She worked in the kitchen at the local elementary school, and every Friday she brought home some of the food that was going to be discarded. She always had an assortment of little cling-wrapped bagels on her counter, boxed strawberry milks, and yogurt squeezes in her fridge. He imagined telling her the situation he was in while she arranged for him a mismatched sandwich: peanut butter and jelly on white bread to the left and bologna on a roll on the right.
Do your best, she’d say. But he was already doing his best. He was at the bar in person sixty hours a week. He booked live music. A DJ. Live music followed by a DJ. Eighties nights. Dance instruction. Ladies’ nights. Paint and sip. Speed dating events. Trivia night. Guest bartenders. On and on and on. He took out ads in the local paper. He bought a sign that was hung on the fence of the Little League field, along with several other local businesses. He was cheerful. Welcoming. He never let on that things were tough because who wanted to hear that? No one. Not when they were out to forget troubles of their own.
“How’s it going at the Half Moon?” his mother asked him from time to time. “Getting a good crowd?”
“It’s spotty,” he admitted about a year in. “The new place that opened on Oak didn’t help. They pull the same crowd.” Which was really surprising, he didn’t add. The place on Oak was a brewery, gleaming stainless steel drums of their own lagers and witbiers. He predicted the guys in their thirties would go for that, but he didn’t expect the other age groups to like it over there, too. It didn’t make sense that the old-timers who were annoyed at him for updating a few things at the Half Moon were over there studying hops and unmalted wheat. It didn’t make sense that the near-broke twenty-two-years-olds were forking over ten dollars for a pint.
“Yeah? But you’re okay?”
“Oh fine. Yeah. I’m doing fine. Don’t worry.”
Malcolm was eighteen when his father died, nearly an adult. Everyone seemed to have liked Darren, but Malcolm’s clearest memory was of him getting pissed once when there was no milk in the house. He slammed the fridge so hard that the half-empty bottles of condiments stored on the door rattled. Malcolm also remembered his dad making fun of him for getting March and April mixed up on a test he took in—what? Second grade? Charm was a performance for other people, Malcolm had learned. He came alive as soon as he stepped inside his bar every night.
* * *
Malcolm fell behind with Hugh again, just a few months after the first time. He still didn’t quite understand how; the money was there and then it just wasn’t. The laws of simple addition and subtraction didn’t seem to apply to the Half Moon’s checking account. He’d look at the balance, jot down the amount, run a few quick calculations. But then he’d look again and there’d be only a third of what had been there the day before.
Hugh’s guys came to his house. One of them knocked, though the doorbell was right there. His clothes and the stench of tobacco seemed totally out of place against Jess’s hydrangea, the bold turquoise of their welcome mat. Jess came downstairs when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize, took one look, and knew everything. She was quieter than normal, listening. The tall one—Billy was his name—smiled like it was a regular social visit, while the other one hung back.
“Listen,” Billy said. “Malcolm.” He tried to steer Malcolm outside to talk privately, but Malcolm shook him off. His house. Jess looking on. Their laundry tumbling in the dryer. He was livid.
“What’s the plan?” Billy asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Malcolm said.
Billy laughed. “I’m not worried about it,” he said. “Are you?”
“I’m working it out with Hugh.”
“You’re working it out with Hugh? I talked to him this morning.”
“Great.”
“He didn’t mention it.”
What would they do? Malcolm wondered. What would they really do?
* * *
“Why did you ever agree to his terms?” Jess asked at least one hundred times.