Ann Patchett - Commonwealth

“That’s why people come to Chicago,” Franny said, “To get away from wives.” She was thinking of divorce law, thinking now there was a practice she’d never touch, before she remembered that she’d never touch any of them.

“You sound like a bartender.”

She shook her head. “I’m a cocktail waitress. I can’t mix a drink.”

“You’re the bartender to those of us who don’t need their drinks mixed, and I’d like another scotch. You did a very good job getting that first one in the glass.” He studied her then as if she had only now stepped in front of him. “You’re taller again.”

“You told me it might improve my tip.”

He shook his head. “No, you told me it might improve your tip, and it won’t. I don’t actually care how tall you are. Take off your shoes and I’ll buy you a drink.”

When had Leon Posen finished his scotch? It was a remarkable trick. She hadn’t seen a thing and she’d been watching. Maybe it had happened while the whiskey sour was being made. She had been distracted for a minute. Franny took the bottle from the counter behind her. “You can’t buy me a drink. It’s against the rules.”

Leon leaned forward. “Verboten?” he asked quietly.

Franny nodded. The ice in the glass looked bright and undiminished so she didn’t see the point in changing it. She didn’t measure out the scotch either, she just poured it in on top of what had been there before. The silver spout made her overconfident and she poured the scotch from too great a height and spilled some on the bar beside the glass. She wiped up her mistake and set the glass on a fresh paper napkin. In truth, she wasn’t a good bartender, even for drinks containing a single ingredient. “So why are you in Chicago?”

“Maybe you’re an analyst.” He took his cigarettes out of his jacket and shook one free from the pack.

“When I tell people I waited on Leon Posen they’ll ask me what he was doing in Chicago.”

“Leon Posen?” he asked.

This was a possibility she hadn’t considered, but it wasn’t as if she’d ever met him. She was working off jacket photographs, old ones at that. “You’re not Leon Posen?”

“I am,” he said. “But you’re younger than my regular demographic. I didn’t think you’d know.”

“Did you think I was just an extraordinarily helpful cocktail waitress?”

He shrugged. “You could have been trying to pick me up.”

Franny felt herself blush, something that didn’t usually happen in the bar. He waved his hand as if to dismiss the observation. “Strike that. A ridiculous thought. You’re a smart girl, you read books, and now you’ve poured a scotch for Leon Posen, but you should call me Leo.”

Leo. Could she call Leon Posen Leo? “Leo,” she said, trying it out.

“Franny,” he said.

“It isn’t just that you’re Leon Posen,” she said. “Leo Posen. I’m interested in people in general.”

“You’re interested in why I’m in Chicago?”

Somehow this wasn’t going the way she had intended it. “All right, I’m not interested. I’m conversational.”

He lifted his glass and took the smallest sip, dipping in his upper lip as if he were only tasting it to be polite. “Are you a journalist?”

She put her hand on her heart. “Cocktail waitress.” Actually, Franny had been saying this to herself every day in front of the bathroom mirror, after she brushed her teeth, before she left for work, I am a cocktail waitress. Practice had made perfect. She took the heavy Zippo lighter out of her apron pocket and flipped open the lid with her thumb. He leaned forward and then back, shaking his head.

“No, you don’t look at the cigarette, you look at me. When you light a cigarette you have to look the person in the eyes.”

So Franny did this, even though it was nearly impossible. Leo Posen leaned towards the little flame in her hand and kept his eyes steady on her eyes. She felt a rocking in her chest.

“There,” he said and blew the smoke aside. “That’s how you get a better tip. It isn’t the shoes.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said, and shut down the flame.

“So I’ve come to Chicago to have a drink,” he said. “I’m living in Iowa City for now. Have you ever been to Iowa City?”

“I thought you lived in Los Angeles.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be slippery. I asked you a question.”

“I’ve never been to Iowa City.”

He took another sip to see if his drink had improved now that he had a cigarette, and obviously it had. “It’s not the kind of place you go unless you have specific business there. If you grow corn or trade in pigs or write poetry then you go to Iowa City.”

“That’s why I haven’t been.”

He nodded. “The bars are full of students. It wouldn’t be my choice to drink in a bar full of students, but that isn’t the real problem.” He stopped there. He was waiting for her. Leo Posen liked a straight man.

“What’s the real problem?”

“It turns out the ice in the drinks contains a certain amount of herbicides — herbicides, pesticides, and what I think must be liquid fertilizer. You can taste it. It’s not just the ice in the bars, of course, it’s in all the water, all the water that doesn’t come from France in bottles. I’ve heard it actually gets much worse in the spring when the snow starts to melt. There’s a higher concentration. You can taste it on your toothbrush.”

She nodded. “So you come to Chicago to have a drink because the ice in Iowa has agricultural chemicals in it.”

“That and the students.”

“You’re teaching there?”

He took a casual pull off his cigarette. “One semester. It was a mistake I made. It sounded like a lot of money at the time but nothing’s a lot of money when you weigh it out against the costs. Nobody sits you down and explains the situation with the water before you sign the contract.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to make ice at home? Use the water from France. You can brush your teeth with it, too.”

“In theory, yes, but there’s no good way to implement it. Either you have to carry your ice bucket with you to the bar or you have to drink at home by yourself, which I don’t do.”

“So come to Chicago and have a couple of drinks,” Franny said, because she was glad he was there, she didn’t care about his reason. “It’s good to get away.”

“Now you’re seeing it,” he said, slapping the bar with his open hand. “Cedar Rapids doesn’t solve the problem.”

“Des Moines doesn’t solve the problem.”

“You’re shorter again.”

“You told me to take my shoes off.”

“Are you saying that I told you to take your shoes off and you did it?”

“I’d rather have them off.”

He shook his head, though whether to marvel or despair she didn’t know, then he crushed what was left of his cigarette into the small glass ashtray. “Did you ever want to be a writer?”

“No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.”

He patted the top of her hand, which she had left close by on the bar in case he needed it. “I appreciate that. I’ve come a long way so that I could have a drink and not be anywhere near another writer.”

“Can I get you another drink?”

“You’re a great girl, Franny.”

The problem, and it was one she took seriously, was that Franny didn’t know how long Leo Posen had been sitting at the bar before she saw him, how long Heinrich had been doing his job before she took his job away. Because while Leo Posen appeared to be perfectly sober, she would bet that he seemed that way regardless of how much he had drunk. Some men were like that. They went from sober to more or less dead without intermediate steps. “Are you staying here at the hotel?” she asked, her voice gone small.