Peach Schnapps Peach

Most of the staff hated the holiday pub crawl crowd. “Take the bar, Marty,” they would say. “College kids home for the holidays and alcohol are worse than the usual drunk idiot crowd.” It was no matter to him. Drinking was drinking, booze was booze, he enjoyed both in his time and would not judge another for doing the same.

The first few groups came and went, leaving Marty a generous tip each time. A new group entered. “Peach schnapps all ‘round.” The leader of the group was the stereotypical fraternity boy. He had the huge smile, shoulders back stance, half bravado and half genuine confidence about the world. Good take on things, Marty thought. Good take. The peach schnapps was a surprise. He had to say so.

“Pub crawl peach schnapps?”

The frat boy smiled again. “We had a complainer about the last stop, so figured this would go down easier for her.” Marty looked over the group for the first time. Seven of ‘em. College juniors by the looks of them, but maybe seniors. Probably the last trip home before the final semester. The home stretch. He shook his head quickly as if to shake the cobwebs loose. Marty poured seven shots and slipped each across the car. “Oh, we need one more." Fratboy peered around. "Sarah disappeared?” he asked.

“She isn’t throwing up,” offered a rosy-cheeked young man that struck Marty as a future store manager somewhere. "She promised she was just peeing.”  

Frat boy handed the shots around while Marty poured one more. “Here she comes.” Marty slid the drink over to the girl; she looked younger than the rest. She stared reluctantly at the drink. “It's just schnapps, Sarah,” Fratboy said.

“Hmmm,” she sniffed the drink. “Peach?” Frat boy nodded. They lifted the small glasses and downed the shots quickly, a few gasping slightly after. Lightweights, Marty thought with a mental smile. He liked the type.  

Sarah held her glass up to Marty. “You are a peach, good sir.” He had not been told that in a long time.

Claire said the same thing - years ago. That was her phrase. Well, one of them. “You are a peach, Martin. A peach.” No one else ever called him Martin. It wasn’t even his name. Martik was his given name, but Marty he became. Claire thought it was witty to call him Martin sometimes. He loved it.  

“Six months and we graduate, Marty. Six months. We should celebrate?”

“Celebrate not graduating yet?” But he knew he would celebrate. Claire was worth celebrating. Claire was a miracle; everyone said so. It wasn’t a metaphor either. Only a few people ever survived cancer as she had, or so her parents would whisper to him.  

She was a genuine miracle to him. He was failing five classes, about to drop out, and head back to the bar to the job he knew best. “There is good money in it, you know,” he had told Claire one of the first times they met. “My dad and brother both tend bar. The pay is good if in the right place.”

“Martin, you paid good money for the classes here too?” He was going to correct her - she probably did not know he was a Martik, not a Martin - but she was so wide-eyed and concerned he did not have the heart to do it. “At least finish the semester, " she said.  

He did finish the semester. Then five more. And for the whole time, Claire was by his side. Those early meetings with mutual friends turned into dates, and dates turned into commitment. They lived together senior year. “Your senior year plus one,” she joked. “Cause you needed me to finish this.” He could not argue that. “So we need to celebrate.”

They drank, laughed, and had a few more drinks. “Student teaching starts in a few weeks, Martin. No more drinking then.”

Student teaching. She came home those first few days and could not stop talking about the kids in her class. “I will get to start actually teaching them in another week. Just one more week.” And a week later she did just that and had even more stories to tell.

It was in the third week of student teaching she started coming home and telling Marty how tired she was. “I hope I get used to this,” she smiled. “How do teachers do this every day?”

A week later he found her asleep at the kitchen table. Marty had to drive her to school before his classes started. “This doesn’t feel right, Claire.”  

She reluctantly agreed to go to the doctor under great protest.

“I am supposed to be teaching, Martin,” she said in her sternest voice. But she could not deny that she was too tired to be doing much of anything at all.

The doctors were kind, and when her parents arrived, Marty felt himself being pushed to the back of the room while the family discussed treatment options. He had been with her three years now, but he felt a sense of blame being shifted to him from her parents. “How did you not notice,” they asked once while Claire was sleeping? “You were there every day? The doctors said it is -”, their voices trailed off, “- well, she never said anything to you?” Marty could only shake his head.

Only when they left to get coffee or when Claire was alert enough to ask was he able to sit by the bed. “Come see me, Marty,” she whispered one day. Her father glared at him but vacated the chair by her pillow. “I will have to do student teaching next semester.” She took a ragged breath as if the words exhausted her. “Those kids are gonna miss out on me.”  

“You will get a new group to teach next semester,” he said with more conviction than he felt, perhaps trying to make a demand of the world. “And that group will be lucky too.”

Marty held her hand. “Oh Martin, you were always such a peach to me. The sweetest peach ever.” There were other words said after, but those were the ones he carried with her after she finally passed. He graduated, one of the final demands she placed on him. He tucked the degree into a drawer and forgot about it. It was easier that way.

Nights at the bar moved quickly; the constant flow of customers kept him from thinking too much. A year passed, a second year followed, then it was five years since things changed. The apartment was kept; he could not bear to change a single thing. Even a broken dish crushed him. She once ate from that dish. Her favorite glass was untouched, her dresser still filled. The only concession he made was to change out the sheets and blankets. It felt like sacrilege to sleep in them. They were sealed away.  

Five years.

He tried not to dwell on things, yet dwell was all he did.

And now, a girl - Sarah, he had heard her called - Sarah called him a peach. She downed the shot, and the frat boy paid up and they went out, laughing, perhaps celebrating that they would be graduating in another semester.  

The night passed. He closed up the bar as he always did, but went to sit at a table instead of heading out the door. He put two glasses down and pulled out a bottle of peach schnapps. He never really liked peach schnapps, but tonight was different. He poured two shots. The first he lifted over his head. “Claire, I graduated.” He didn’t think he had told her before, though he was pretty convinced she knew. He held up the second shot and toasted the heavens. “Spent good money on that degree, suppose your Martin had better use it.” He put the still-full glass on the table and walked the few blocks home.  

He had some things to take care of but was pretty sure Claire wanted him to take care of those things. He was a peach after all.