Friday Nights

Chapter 1: Cherokee Rose Bar

Beth Greene crossed the threshold of the Cherokee Rose Bar, the dead weight of her guitar case hanging from her small hands. From outside, the low-slung building was tucked in between a pizza parlour and a derelict parking lot. It was nondescript in all aspects of the word: red-bricked, with an overhead neon sign shining like a beacon in the night, frantic insects buzzing around the garish source of warmth and light. The interior wasis filled with a vibrant, if dim, red light that didn’t quite reach the dark corners and shadows of the bar. The floor was a polished hardwood, worn from a thousand footsteps of the sober, the drunk, of the lost and hurt and bleeding souls. Traces of acrid cigarette smoke forever clung to the air. Spilt alcohol—liquor, cocktails, beer—had seeped into the surfaces of tables and chairs and bar runners.

Beth’s caught at the pungent scent of something like urine, her delicate nose wrinkling. But Hershel Greene had also taught her daughter to not judge a book by its cover, that everyone started out good and were just lead astray at one point or another. She also toldells herself that every famous musician started out in places like this—with a few bedraggled business-type men and the usual crop of drunkards scattered across the room, their ties loosened and hair rumpled—and all it takes is one person in the crowd with the right connections to make it big.

Beth had glimpsed a flyer for open mic night at the Cherokee Rose Bar last week, so she’d called the owner Carol Peletier on the spot. The voice on the other end of her cell phone was maternal and soft, although the underlying quality of tough-edged hardness didn’t escape Beth. Mrs. Peletier—she insisted on being called Carol despite the firm set of manners instilled into Beth as a child resulted in calling her Mrs. Peletier—said she had a few openings, so the younger Greene sister promptly filled the 8:30 slot.

There were’s only two women in the bar, one behind the counter and the other in the back looking like she’s had three gin and tonics too many. Beth strode towards the bartender with as much stiff-necked courage of her sister that she could muster. The slim, grey-haired woman glanceds at the approaching girl, not having noticed her standing there before, and was momentarily stunned by her face-splitting smile and fresh, youthful appearance. She looked too clean, too shiny and new to be in the place like this, no matter how much Carol tried to fix the Cherokee Rose Bar up real nice.

“Excuse me,” Beth said, laying her arms on the counter, “Iis Mrs. Peletier around?”

Carol grinned at her behaviour—how she didn’t treat the bar like a cesspool of sin and germs, the fact that she was smiling open and warm at her. “You’re looking at her,” Carol replied, hands on her hips and a subtle tease evident in her tone.

“Oh,” Beth faltered for a second, recovering quickly. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Carol waved at her to stop her fussing, unable to hide her good-natured amusement. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I was just making a joke—and not a very good one at that.” She adjusts the bandana around her head, which was a usual fixture in the heat of a Georgian night. “Beth Greene, I presume?”

Beth nodded, raising her hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. The jumble of bracelets around her wrist slips down and Beth is quick to cover the strip of bare skin—the action didn’t go unnoticed by the sharp eyes of Carol.

“Yeah, I’m Beth.” She looked at the ground shyly, staring at the toes of her pale cowboy boots. A wave of uncertainty and doubt flooded Beth’s senses and she couldn’tan’t help but feel out of her depth. She hadn’t told Maggie or Daddy where she was going tonight, only offering a vague story of how she was meeting up with her high school friends in town, travelling all this way with her guitar case in the passenger seat of her truck and a ball of nerves in her stomach. She’d basically lied to her family just to come all the way out to an unfamiliar bar and sing into the night, only with only a few drunkards for an audience—all who probably didn’t care one bit for her stupid little musings.