Welcome to Downwinders—a lonely roadside bar in the Nevada desert—where a bartender and a motorcycle courier decide tomorrow might be worth the effort...
Penelope flipped the final oak chair off the four-top table and set it upright, giving the marred tabletop a final swipe with the long white rag she always carried draped over her shoulder. She'd inherited her position as a one-woman bar tender/business owner from her father, a die-hard prepper and the only human on the planet still convinced Nevada was allowing the U.S. Government to test bombs in the desert.
He'd started the dive bar in the '50s, a five-table deal with a fifteen-foot bar, a single unisex bathroom, and a small apartment up top, way out on Harris Highway. The two-lane snake of a road wound itself alongside Highway 95—somewhere downwind of the fallout from the next bomb tests. Somewhere to start over after Penelope's mom passed and the government failed to qualify their family for the payout program for those exposed to radiation from the test bombs. Other projects proved too crucial for such tax dollars, like advancing tech—and more methods of war—at any cost.
At eleven, Penelope was commissioned to wait tables, mop up dust, dirt, and drunkenness from the floors and shine the chrome trims along the bar top.
As she grew, so did her responsibilities until the dusty desert oasis was half her world. Keeping her father just this side of sane was the other half. When he passed, Downwinders remained exactly half her universe. She filled the void her father left with other activities.
She unlocked the entry door and flipped the open sign around, its chain clanking against the glass. The mid-morning sunbeams bounced off the grime and highlighted the fact she'd not had a spare moment to wipe down the doors—inside or out—for quite some time. A splintery picnic table no one bothered to sit in marked one side of the bar's dusty lot and the other side by a lone Joshua tree that had seen better days.
Penelope turned her attention to the display cooler at the end of the bar, which, unlike the front door, she kept sparkling clean. She rearranged the still-good sandwiches and salads crammed into clear clamshell packaging to the front and added the fresher ones to the back. She added a few more tiny bottles of milk and pulled one that was expired.
The folks who partook of the facilities or the food at Downwinders never did it twice. There was no grill at the saloon, but over the years, her dad had felt sorry for the famished travelers. It was the only food for miles, and it was better than nothing.
"As long as we don't have to take out the jukebox. I don't want a cooler so big that the jukebox has to go." So they opted for the smallest refrigeration model and kept the old-style jukebox that only the rarest of customers ever even bothered to mess with. Penelope allowed herself the luxury of hunting down odd music to place in the box. When the bar was empty, sometimes she'd drop the salsa or tango LP and practice moves she'd learned from YouTube; she remembered her parents dancing to the folky music, both at home and in the ballroom, where her mother would always wear a flowing red dress…
But Penelope only owned jeans with slit knees and a plain black t-shirt instead of a sexy gown with a slit up the thigh.
And she didn't have a partner. But, if her parents' story and those overheard by her patrons held true, love makes you nuts.
Straight up certifiable.
Her first-hand romantic experiences consisted of a few one-night stands when loneliness got to her, and she let a guy she deemed safe enough up the backroom stairs to her apartment.
Then she'd promptly kick him out early next morning to Harris Highway and watch the dust roll up over his vehicle, the grit washing the night away.
Those who bellied up to her remote bar were always on their way to somewhere else, desperate for a quick bite to eat or even a lukewarm beverage—be it beer or water. Or one of those tiny milks. Sometimes a haggard family would stumble over the threshold, desperate for a bathroom, disappointed that they'd have to go at it one at a time. They should have paid attention to the signs a hundred miles back claiming that Harris Highway was indeed a scenic byway and sparse on the facilities.
Gravel against metal signaled the arrival of her first business of the day. She closed the cooler and moved behind the bar, pulling her curly dark mop into a bun on her head and adjusting her shoulder towel.
As she flipped on the three little neon beer signs behind the bar, the door swung open, and in stumbled two slender men in their late twenties, both dashing for the bathroom on legs wobbly from having sat too long in their vehicle. By now, Penelope could almost pinpoint at what exit her patrons had entered Harris Highway by how badly they limped as they came through the door.
"It’s in the back, guys, but one of you’ll have to go out back—just not against my building.” She sighed, wiped out two glasses, and placed them on the bar top for when the men returned. There was a short scuffle about who should exit through the back into the desert, but not a long one. Soon both men, looking a bit shaken by their close call, were parked on the barstools and ordering drinks.
Like so many others over the years, this pair was making their way from Silicon Valley to Vegas for a conference or some weekend road trip. Guests like these were money in the bank.
Penelope filled the dark-haired guy’s glass with just-above-room-temp water and the other’s with soon-to-be lukewarm Pabst.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a dump like this?” One guy asked and took a sip of his beer.
Pretty, she wasn’t sure about, though she’d heard that line and a hundred variations of it her whole life. Capable, she was certain of. Capable in business. Capable in love—in that she avoided relationships at all costs, despite needing a partner for the tango. Capable of being sly enough to remove the mirrored backsplash of the bar and replace it with a desert-motif tile so truckers and techies couldn’t gawk at her ass as she worked.
She was certainly capable of shutting down endless flirting and heckling from over-tired travelers. If need be, she had a little help from the more-than-capable baseball bat and its friend, a .22 tucked in a holster under the bar. About once a month or so, some guy would try to get handsy across the bar, reaching for her.
But no one ever tried it twice.
After a while, the pair of travelers forgot about her and launched into a conversation about work. Microchips this. Business policies that. She flipped a tiny switch next to the cash register, telling the hidden analog recorder to listen up. Her employer was a bit put off by her insistence that her bar not be full-on bugged. She was old school—using small microcassettes that required a courier to fetch once a month or so.
Her dad may have started her on the barmaid path, but a lucrative deal with a top-paying tech company in LA kept the middle-of-nowhere saloon up and running and a roof over her head. Bonus: several of the LA firm’s Silicon Valley competitors were passing along advancements to governments—plural—for weapons development.
Over the geeks’ chatter, Penelope heard the rumble of tires in the distance.
Fast approaching.
Then gravel flew, popping onto the windows and glass door. She rushed out the door to see a jet-black Suzuki dance sideways through the gravel to avoid a Ford Escort ripping in sideways from the other direction. The cyclist executed a fancy spin on his bike, splintering a chunk off the picnic table. The rider skillfully remained on his bike.
She rushed to the biker’s side as the driver of the Escort stumbled out with a little girl, clearly unsure whether to head inside or stay outside. The girl was wailing.
Penelope pointed to the door. “Go in before you get soaked. Toilet’s in the back. Take a couple of milks after. I’ve got this.” The dad gladly did as he was told, relief washing over his face.
The courier pulled off a brown neck gaiter from around his face and removed his sunglasses. “No worries, I’m good.” It was the first time Penelope had seen this courier. Typical black leather jacket and riding pants. A soft face marked by light stubble. And blue eyes the brightest sky would envy.
Nothing much phased her after so many years running Downwinders, and she never broke a sweat in an emergency. But she was noticeably sweaty standing in front of this man.
She wiped her hands on her pants. “Where’s your helmet?” She looked for it under the picnic table and the Escort to keep herself from staring at him.
“No need to search. I don’t wear one.” He sat on the tabletop and worked his riding gloves off. “Sorry about the picnic table. My next time out, I’ll bring you the cash to replace it.”
“You can’t be that big of a moron.”
“It’s moronic to want to replace your table?”
“I’m not talking about the table. I’m talking about the helmet. Protective gear.”
He was working his riding gloves off one at a time as if nothing had happened.
“Oh, that. Yes, yes, I can be that moronic. I’m Neil, by the way. Neil the Moron.” He extended his hand. Penelope didn’t take it.
“What if you wreck? What if a semi truck sends a rock flying at your head? What if—”
“What if you properly introduce yourself?” His hand was still extended.
This guy didn’t seem rattled at all. She wasn’t either, she told herself. Not about the incident. Only about the out-of-the-blue effect he was having on her.
She glanced over her shoulder, cursing herself that she’d not cleaned the glass. She couldn’t keep an eye on the two techies or the father/daughter duo from here.
She shook Neil’s hand, and it enveloped hers so completely—
Get it together, Penelope.
“Penelope. I’ve got your package inside. Let’s get this done.”
“I’m Neil.”
“So you’ve said. If you don’t wear a helmet, you’ll be wearing nothing more than a toe tag.”
He laughed and slid off the table, brushing dust and wood splinters from his pants. “Oh, I have a helmet. I just don’t wear it out here.” He waved a hand toward the wide-open desert landscape. Penelope looked back at his bike, and indeed, a black helmet was strapped to the seat, blending in perfectly with the black frame. “And it messes up my hair.” He winked and ran his fingers through the blond shag on his head. “I’m Neil, Penelope.”
“You’ve said that.” Usually, that type of flirting would irritate the fire out of her, but it seemed different somehow. They entered the bar, Neil sat on the stool closest to the register, and Penelope poured him a Coke.
Her employer rotated guys capable of hauling ass on their speed bikes through the desert, stopping at checkpoints to hand off Penelope’s packages. Usually, they’d come in, sit for a minute, have a water or soda at the bar, and then leave with a package tucked securely inside a leather riding jacket. They weren’t to engage with anyone—not even Penelope past the soda and the exchange. She didn’t care so long as the money kept coming, and she felt like she could do her part to avenge her mother’s unnecessary sacrifice—her father’s too, for that matter.
But if one of them were so careless as to not ride with the proper gear and get hurt or killed, it could delay her next payment and maybe even jeopardize her standing with the firm that had contracted her.
“Thanks, Penelope.” Neil took a sip of his Coke.
The flirty tech guy piped up again, the beer on an empty stomach slowly eating away at any filter he may have had. “Penelope, is it? Can I call you Penny Dearest or Sweet Pen?”
“Sure, but you’d only do it once,” she snapped.
His buddy told him to cool it, and the pair finally laid cash on the bar, stood and stretched. The father and little girl came out from the back, exchanged apologies and “my bads” with Neil, paid for two milks and then left. Penelope flipped the recorder off and ejected the small cassette. Neil watched her with those sky blues as she fumbled, trying to get the cassettes wrapped securely to hand off to him.
She never much minded being alone in the bar with a sole customer. After all, she had her protection, and she wasn’t half bad at self-defense— her father had seen to that before his dementia set in. But she was acutely aware of Neil’s presence. As she finished up the package, Neil made his way to the jukebox. He fished out a coin from his pocket, and the clink of the coin against the machine's innards echoed in the empty bar.
The lights along the box’s edges sprang to life and a salsa selection came on.
“Really? Ballroom? Here? I thought the label next to the button was a joke. I was expecting Hank or Willie. Randy Travis, even. But the salsa?” He bent closer to read the labels. “Tango, too?”
He fed the box several more quarters and cued up five more LPs. All her parents’ favorite dance numbers.
Penelope finished fumbling around and met him at the jukebox, shoving the package into his hand. Their fingers touched, and for a split second that lasted an eternity, they held each other’s gaze.
A gaze she’d seen before.
When her father looked at her mom as the two held each other in their living room or on the dance floor.
Penelope swallowed hard. All she wanted was for Toe Tag to be on his reckless way with her tapes.
She wasn’t sure now that the package tucked inside Neil’s jacket would make it to LA. The two buddies today didn’t likely give off any huge trade secrets, but the trio of travelers from a few days ago certainly did. The payout and the damages would be huge. But with such a cavalier rider—
“Want to dance?”
Penelope had lost her focus. That split second had turned into more than a few seconds.
She cleared her throat. “Why? We’re not supposed to engage. You’re supposed to be on the road now.”
“I’ll get it there.” He patted his ribs where the tapes rested. “I just need a moment. I mean, I almost died out there.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You could die out there.” She backed away and sat at one of the tables, absentmindedly wiping the still-clean table with her towel. Neil took the seat across from her and grabbed the hem of the towel. A minuscule tug-of-war ensued.
“Want to know why I don’t wear a helmet?” He tugged.
“I suppose you’ll tell me regardless.” She shrugged and pulled, but not so much as to take the towel back.
His blue eyes clouded. “I feel alive with the wind in my hair. The view of the mountains is clearer with just my shades, and I feel more grounded. I took this job to be away from the city.” He wrapped his end of the towel around his pinky and pulled. “Away from the losses. My parents are gone. Brother passed. Girlfriend of five years broke up with me. You know,” he paused and exhaled slowly. “I’m in a nothing-to-lose sort of state.” The blue eyes glistened with tears, though none fell.
Her heart melted. Behind the flirt was genuine hurt. A hurt she could understand. Right after her dad died, she’d hit a dark patch where more alcohol made its way upstairs than what stayed behind the bar. Night after night. Caution to the wind. Nothing to lose. It took her quite a while to pull out of the funk.
Until she directed her energy toward a more productive activity.
And now that very “activity” pulled up a chair for her.
Penelope attempted to mask her sympathy. “Not having known you from before your losses, did the experiences also make you cocky, or is that a default setting?” The salsa was winding down. It was her turn with the towel. She wrapped her wrist once with her end. Her wrist against his pinky. It was no match. He managed to tug her arm to the middle of the table.
“I suppose that depends on who you ask.” His fingers found hers among the folds of the towel. “Life’s too short not to go after what you want when you see it.” His eyes held hers again.
“Or say what you mean when you think it, clearly. And I say you should wear your helmet.”
“If I had something to look forward to, I just might start.” He grinned. The LPs in the jukebox switched, and a still silence fell over Downwinders for a few seconds.
Then the tango started.
“Want to dance?” Neil asked.
More than anything in the world. She nodded.
So they tangoed. Ripped jeans and riding pants and leather jackets and a bar towel. Back and forth. Fast and slow. Not speaking. Just movement and rhythm, letting the music set the pace. He led her expertly around the bar, avoiding tables and chairs as if he’d done this dance in this place a thousand times. How totally different from the thousands of times she’d danced alone with her grief.
She was so glad he’d chosen the long version in the jukebox.
“Can I call you Penny?” He whispered in her ear.
“You’d only do it once.” She whispered back.
Neil laughed. He dipped her as the music stopped, then set her upright again. They untangled the towel from around their hands, and he placed it back on her shoulder, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear that had fallen out during that last dip. He patted his jacket pocket as he backed away from her. “I’ll keep them safe.”
To her surprise, she replied, “I’d rather you keep you safe.”
“Got it. See you in a couple of weeks?” Penelope smiled and nodded. He went to the door, and she followed, leaning on the frame. He mounted his bike and adjusted in the seat. Gloves on. Glasses on. “I’m Neil, by the way.”
“Toe Tag!”
He kicked the motorcycle to life and balanced it with one leg as he reached behind him, removed the helmet from its strap...
And put it on to ride away from Downwinders at the speed of hope.
