Blessed Assurance by Lyn Cote Page A

tomorrow ist Sonntag .”
    Lee concurred with the raucous but friendly agreement to this sentiment rippling through the line of men along the length of the bar. With genuine satisfaction, Lee anticipated tomorrow, his day off. Jessie had invited him for the first time to Sunday dinner, to celebrate Linc’s eighth birthday. Lee was making progress toward his goal.
    Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his pretty boss enter from the rear of the tavern. Several voices around him called out greetings. One man ventured, “Hey, Pearl, you look grand!”
    Lee grinned ruefully. He should have expected Pearl to drop in. He forced himself to use a light tone. “Checking to see if I’m pocketing some of the gold from these gentlemen-about-town?”
    More laughter approved his sally. One thing Lee had learned about bartending was that the rough men who came into the tavern were starved for amusement.
    As Pearl came behind the bar, she exchanged several teasing comments with the customers. He allowed his ironic gaze to rove over Pearl in a charming cranberry red dress with wide bands of ivory lace across her low-cut bosom. He had noticed whenever she visited during his shift, she always made herself a treat to see. That was becoming the problem.
    She turned to him. “I came in to pay you.”
    â€œSo early?” He dried his hands on the towel tucked into the waistband of his white apron. “Are you sure I won’t close up and take a nap in the back room as soon as you leave?”
    â€œHe’s a sly one!” the men warned Pearl. “He’s as lazy as a dog with a lame leg!”
    â€œPooh!” Pearl waved a dismissive hand to them. Lee listened with only half an ear to the banter that continued until the workmen reluctantly went back to their jobs in the nearby factories. Then Pearl took the cigar box into the back room where she had a desk.
    While she was gone, Lee served the two drunks who were sprawled at a table in the back. They weren’t carrying on a conversation. They were just sipping, slowly and steadily drinking themselves into their daily stupor. He didn’t mind serving workmen beer with their lunches. Many of them were German immigrants who had drunk a glass of beer at lunch their whole lives. But these two drunken faces haunted him more every day. Had any bartender ever pitied him?
    â€œMr. Smith,” Pearl called him back to the bar. “Here’s your wages.” She handed him four one-dollar bills.
    Outside, a wagon rattled by and a flume of dust floated over the double swinging doors. Pearl paused, just as he did, to watch the particles dance in the rays of sunlight and finally drift down to the tabletops.
    Worry was plain in Pearl’s voice. “Yesterday a neighbor boy almost started his father’s barn afire.”
    Lee shook his head. “Everything’s as dry as tinder.”
    Pearl’s tone sharpened. “I used it to put the fear of fire into my two.”
    Two widows had become important in Lee’s new life in Chicago. Jessie had been left a house as a means of support. Pearl had been left a saloon.
    â€œI’m off to the bank, then home,” Pearl said. “My boy broke another window playing that baseball.”
    He grinned.
    â€œThis time he’s going to have to work it off. He’ll be coming here every afternoon next week and mop the place.”
    Red flags waved inside Lee, but he said gallantly, “As you wish, ma’am. I will miss doing it myself, but…”
    She chuckled. “I’d give anything to know who taught you such pretty manners and how you ever let me hire you as a barkeep.”
    â€œIt was my lucky day.” He grinned broadly to hide his uneasiness.
    Pearl shook her head at him. As she left, femininely swaying herhigh and ornately be-ribboned bustle, he knew she was flirting with him. Pearl teased him with a practiced subtlety and great finesse—in contrast to