All's Well(109)

“Just some people fooling around in the dark,” I tell Grace. I smile at her. “You know.”



* * *



After I say goodbye to Grace, I walk over to the bar. A drink while I wait, why not? Might as well wait. Not like I can run, am I right? Not from this, not from them. ’Tis time, as they say. ’Tis time, ’tis time. I feel them coming. In the crackle of the air. In the static around the music. In the wind that keeps blowing the door open, then shut. Grace said I should leave with her, go home, get Hugo to take me to the hospital. She even offered to come along. She said I can’t be too careful. It was quite a fall, after all. She doesn’t know about those doctors who said I hadn’t broken anything. I mean really, how do they know? Well, they are doctors, I told Grace. I told her I feel fine. I told her not to worry. I told her go home, get rest. She shouldn’t push it, what with her recent illness. These things have a way of rebounding, I said. They have a way of coming back around. I hugged her then. Breathed her in one last time. Goodbye, Grace. Hard to let go of her. I held on for a long time.

But what about the storm coming? she said. You should get home before it really hits.

I should, I said. But I sat back down in my seat, eyes fixed on the table, ears tuned to the storm. I could feel her hesitating before she turned away. I looked up, managed a smile. Soon.



* * *



At the bar, there’s almost no one. Just another woman sitting alone. The songs Grace selected are still playing on the speaker. What song is it now? “Me and My Shadow” again, sounds like. Or maybe it never stopped playing. Perhaps it’s a long version. Maybe there’s a long version of this song that I don’t know about. There’s a roar of rain overhead now. A wind blowing all around. The windows flash white with lightning, lighting up the bar as I take a seat. The bartender’s back there. I’ve seen him here before. Middle-aged. Thinning hair. Somber eyes. He was the one who was here the night I first met the three men, and then again the night I learned there was a downstairs to this place. And I went down and down and down.

Tonight, he’s wiping down the bar with that same dirty rag. Shelves of amber bottles gleam dully behind him. Just as I’m about to order, he turns away from me toward the woman sitting a couple of seats over.

She’s around my age probably. Long, dark hair. Some bone-white hairs among the black. Faded red lipstick. Pale face etched with misery lines. Looking at her, I feel a sudden tingle of recognition at the base of my spine. Do I know her? No, of course not, she’s a stranger. And yet she’s familiar to me. Something in her grim gaze. The downward turn of her red lips. I smile at her. She doesn’t see me. She’s staring straight ahead, into the middle distance. Eyes glassy and sad and faraway. Unwell, I think. Definitely. Her eyes are glassy from drugs. I know what kinds.

The bartender smiles at her. I watch her come back to herself. Feign a smile through the pain. She orders her drink quietly. I can’t hear her over the sound of Judy’s singing and the roaring rain and the now shrieking wind. The storm and the singing are like a singular music. The bartender sets a single napkin down before her that reads THE CANNY MAN. He pulls up a bottle from under the counter and pours her a glass. Places it on the napkin with great ceremony, then bows a little at her like she’s a king. The drink is a golden color, I see. It glows with its own light. The golden remedy. She thanks him with a nod of her head, and he bows again.

I watch her reach out for the drink, bring it to her lips. She’s got a bandage on her forearm, quite like the bandage on my shin. When she takes a sip of the drink, she closes her eyes. And I can almost feel the gold of it from here. The brightness of its blue, blue skies.

She smiles to herself.

A cough. I turn to find the bartender standing over me, waiting. No bow. No ceremony. Drumming his hands on the bar. Performing his impatience with his eyebrows. Well? What’ll it be?

I look back at the woman hunched over the golden drink, glowing between her cupped hands. She’s smiling brightly now.

“The golden remedy,” I hear myself say.

Why not, right? Might help. Might delay whatever is about to descend.

For a moment, he stares at me. “We took that off the menu,” he says. “Limited supply. Limited time only.”

“What? But didn’t you just give her—”

“Limited supply,” he interrupts. “Limited time only.”

I stare at him. He stares right back at me, not even flinching.

“A Scotch, then,” I say. He pours it quick, then slides the squat, sloshing glass in my direction. I have to catch it with both hands before it slides right off the bar.

I stare down at the spotty glass filled with the dull amber drink. He’s filled it to the very brim, I see. A generous pour at least. Perhaps he thinks I’m celebrating. What am I celebrating?

The wind howls again outside. It sounds like a man’s scream. Not just one man. Three.

A spectacular crack of thunder that makes the whole bar shudder. I whip my head toward the door. Nothing. Yet. A small purple flower tumbles from my hair into the glass. How many flowers were in that bath anyway, Ellie?

Maybe it saved you, Miranda.

I look at it floating limply in my Scotch like a fly. I’m about to fish it out, but something in the look of those tiny petals stops me. The memory of baby Ellie holding it out to me like a gift. I take a long drink, leaving the flower in there. A blunt warmth runs through me. A sharpness dulled. A sense of things inside dimming, dimming. Like a light being turned very slowly out. I can see the hand on the dial, turning, turning. There now. That’s better, isn’t it?