Last Call at the Local by Sarah Grunder Ruiz EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Sarah Grunder Ruiz
- Language: English
- Genre: Family Life Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 4.4 MB
- Price: Free
RAINE
When I step inside the pub, the first thing I notice is the music. It’s punchy,
with layered vocals and a thrumming bass that makes me want to hum
along, even though I don’t know the words. The Local is emptier than I’d
expect for a pub on a Friday night in Ireland, but maybe this is normal. The
only thing I know about Cobh is that it was the last port of call for the
Titanic before it sank. That and, according to a woman I met in Dublin who
makes her living hula-hooping, the cruise ship terminal is an excellent spot
for busking.
I cross the pub, take a seat at the bar, and after ordering a Guinness from
a polite but grumpy-looking bartender, pull my phone from the pocket of
my coat to use my song-finder app. When the screen doesn’t illuminate, I
instinctively reach for the giant backpack I always keep by my side, only to
remember that I no longer have my backpack. Or my guitar. Or the travel
case I use to carry my gear. Or any of my gear, for that matter. No street
amp. No microphone stand. No phone charger.
I am usually calm in a crisis, probably because I’m so good at getting
into one. But my face is numb after searching for my stolen things in the
January cold, and I am one wrong turn from snapping like a too-tight guitar
string.
The problem: I am stuck in this town I know nothing about, with
nothing to my name but the contents of my pockets. Lip balm. My train
ticket to Cobh from Dublin. A Ziploc bag with some cash from my guitar
case. A foot tambourine. Old napkins with scribbled lyrics. Old receipts
with scribbled lyrics. A piece of chewed gum inside of a crumpled receipt.
(A lot of receipts, really.) My passport and phone, thank God.
The solution? Yet to be determined.
When the song ends, I’m resigned to the fact that I will never know the
name of it. Just as I am resigned to the fact that after a year abroad, I will
likely be moving back to Boston sooner than I planned.
The bartender fills my pint glass halfway, then sets it aside and
disappears through a door to the kitchen. While I wait, I peer around the
pub. It’s clean and well-lit but sparsely decorated. Other than two Irish flags
on the ceiling, a chalkboard menu, and some black-and-white photos of
boats and buildings, it’s not decorated at all. And speaking of sparse, there’s
hardly anyone else here. I wish I’d stumbled upon somewhere livelier to
take my mind off of things, but now that I’m seated, I simply don’t have the
will to get up.
The bartender returns a few minutes later and sets my Guinness before
me. “There you are, love,” he says.
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