Ended up back at the same tavern tonight. Seems like I’ve claimed the last barstool down at the end. Nobody asks about the golf club anymore. They just step around it like it belongs there. I guess it does.
Bartender didn’t bother asking this time.
Añejo. Neat. No training wheels.
Progress comes in small forms.
The two suits were there again. Same pressed shirts, same practiced confidence. Talking in the kind of phrases that sound harmless until you listen close: lease adjustments, redevelopment language, “it’s time the waterfront grew up.”
People say that kind of thing when they’re planning to tear something down.
One of them nodded toward the 5-iron and asked,
“You actually play?”
I said, “Only when the fish aren’t biting.”
He didn’t laugh. That made it better.
A little later, Mara came in. Sat a few seats down. Ordered a beer and stared into it like she was trying to read something inside the foam. She looked tired. More tired than earlier. The suits noticed her, both at the same time, in that way people do when someone unexpectedly matters to the conversation.
When she finished, she walked past my end of the bar.
Said her dad got another “offer” today.
Some outfit pushing to buy out their lease “before renewal becomes complicated.”
I asked what complicated meant.
She said, “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” and left it there.
Before she walked out, she looked at the club leaning against my stool.
“Still carrying that thing?”
“Helps me keep balance,” I said.
She didn’t laugh this time.
After she left, the suits got quiet. Then they paid and walked out, one of them giving me a look on the way past. Not a threat. More like a question. The kind you can only answer if you have to.
Finished my tequila. Walked back to my room. Old floorboards and ocean wind rattling the window. Hard to sleep with that kind of quiet.
Sand rating: 0/10 — hardwood floors and shifting intentions.
– BG
Travel light. Swing hard.
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