Conflicted feelings

By the time we reached the little basement bar, the parking lot was overflowing. Pickup trucks. SUVs. A couple of motorcycles.

Music drifted up the stairs before we even opened the door. Tessa stopped halfway down. Her eyes lit up, “No way.”

The basement was packed shoulder to shoulder. Locals in work boots. Vacationers tropical button downs. A handful of counselors from other camps. And plenty from my own camp I hadn’t met yet. Colored lights blinked above a tiny plywood stage.

At the front of the room, the owner sat on a stool with a microphone in one hand and a karaoke remote in the other, enthusiastically working his way through an old country classic while the crowd sang the chorus back to him.

Tessa grabbed my arm. “This…” She laughed. “…this is exactly what I imagined.”

The smile on her face made the long drive worthwhile.

She wasn’t pretending. She genuinely loved it.

The bartender looked up from wiping down a glass. The tall blonde. She recognized me immediately. She pointed a finger. “Nope.”

I stopped.

“Not tonight.”

“I wasn’t—”

“No fake IDs.”

“No flirting.”

“No speeches about meeting my father.”

Amanda stepped up beside me. Without a word, she folded a crisp hundred-dollar bill in half and slid it across the bar. “For you,” she said.

The bartender glanced down.

Then back up.

Amanda smiled. “For you.” A beat passed. “…Not your dad.”

The bartender disappeared the bill beneath the register with practiced speed.

Her expression changed completely.

“So…” She smiled brightly. “What can I get you?”

Amanda didn’t miss a beat. “Old Fashioned.” She pointed to a bottle on the top shelf.”

“Tessa?”

“A pitcher of the cheapest beer you’ve got.”

The bartender looked at me.

“And for Romeo?”

“The same.”

She laughed. “Coming right up.”

⸻

The first pitcher disappeared surprisingly quickly.

Mostly because Tessa could apparently drink like she’d trained professionally. The second pitcher arrived. Then a third.By the middle of the third, the room had begun tilting in slow, gentle circles.

“I’m spinning,” I announced.

Tessa looked perfectly steady.

“We’ve only just started.”

“That’s concerning.”

She laughed loud enough to earn a few smiles from neighboring tables.

Amanda, meanwhile, remained composed with the same Old Fashioned she’d been nursing for nearly an hour. She seemed perfectly content to watch the room. Or maybe study it.

Every so often some local man wandered over. Mostly older. Friendly. Each convinced he possessed exactly the right opening line. Amanda dispatched them with remarkable efficiency. One got a polite smile. Another received a dry joke that sent him laughing back toward his friends. A third lasted barely thirty seconds before retreating with an apologetic shrug.

“You’ve done this before,” I observed.

She looked over her glass.

“What?”

“Turning people down.”

She smiled. “It’s an important professional skill.”

Eventually the karaoke host pointed toward our table.

“Who’s next?”

Tessa’s hand shot into the air.

“We’re singing!”

“We are?”

“We are.”

She grabbed the songbook. “What do you want?”

I flipped through pages without seeing any of the titles.

Then one caught my eye.

“Sister Hazel.”

She leaned closer.

“‘All for You?’”

I nodded.

“I know that one.”

A minute later we stood beneath the stage lights.

The opening guitar filled the room.

Tessa nudged me. “Relax.”

Easy for her to say.

The first verse came out rough.

By the chorus, the crowd had started clapping along.

Tessa sounded surprisingly good.

I mostly concentrated on reading the words. Then, somewhere during the second verse, my eyes drifted across the room.

Amanda stood at the bar.

One elbow resting on the polished wood. Empty Old Fashioned in hand. Watching.

When our eyes met, she gave the smallest, almost imperceptible smile before lifting her glass in acknowledgment.

For reasons I couldn’t explain, the rest of the song suddenly felt easier.

When it ended, the room applauded. Not because we’d been especially talented. Because karaoke rewarded enthusiasm more than perfection.

Back at the table, Tessa was glowing. “I can’t believe I finally did karaoke in an American bar.”

“You survived.”

“I thrived.” She leaned closer. “Want to get some air?”

“Sure.”

She lowered her voice.

“I found a quiet path down toward the lake.”

I understood what she meant. The noise of the bar faded for a moment. The invitation hung between us. ‘Wanna fuck’

Almost instinctively, I looked toward Amanda.

She was still at the bar. Except now she was talking with someone new. A broad-shouldered man in a faded work jacket who looked like he’d spent half his life splitting firewood. Salt and pepper beard. Exactly her age. They were laughing about something. She seemed relaxed. Comfortable.

She caught sight of me looking. Just for a second. Then returned her attention to the conversation.

Tessa slipped her hand into mine. “So?”

I looked toward the lake. Then back toward the crowded bar. Toward Tessa. Toward Amanda.

For the first time since arriving in Maine, I realized the hardest decisions weren’t about finding possibilities.

They were about choosing one.