Everything You Are(23)

God. Allie. What the hell am I doing?

Before he can do any more thinking, he’s off the stool and out on the street, physically shaking with the craving. He staggers as if already drunk, desperately scanning storefronts for the one labeled Fins and Feathers.

There it is, a mirage in a desert.

A soft chime signals his entrance. He pauses, one hand still on the door, sure that either Phee played a joke on him or he’s managed to find the wrong place. Birdcages hang from the ceiling, containing a living kaleidoscope of color. A chorus of trills and chirps and warbles overlays the sound of bubbling water. Directly in front of him, artfully illuminated, is a fish tank holding, unexpectedly, seahorses. The air feels tropical.

Before his doubts take him right back out the door again, Phee emerges from a back room, her face lit up with a smile of welcome that must surely be meant for a more deserving man.

“Braden! You made it.”

“Barely.”

“That bad?”

He can only nod.

“Well, come on, then,” she says, and he follows her.

A circle of people sit around a folding table set up in the stockroom behind the storefront. Shelves all around them hold birdseed, fish food, water treatment products, and an array of empty fish tanks and birdcages.

“Hey, everybody, this is Braden,” Phee says.

Five faces turn toward him: two women and three men. The youngest must still be in her teens, the oldest close to eighty. The only thing they have in common is that their expressions are engaged and interested and alive. Braden feels like a zombie in comparison, dull and slow.

“Hey, Braden, I’m Len,” the oldest man says. “We don’t bite. And the piranhas are all contained for the moment. Let me guess, Phee conspired to get you here without telling you a single thing about this clandestine meeting.”

Good-natured laughter follows from the rest of the group. Phee sticks out her tongue at the speaker.

“True,” Braden manages. “She has magical powers of persuasion.” He hesitates, unsure how to proceed. He knows how to do AA, but “Hi—I’m Braden Healey and I’m an alcoholic, now and forever, amen” is probably not the right opening for this group.

“Have a seat,” Phee says.

Braden lowers himself into the empty chair across from her.

“Welcome!” A youngish man unfolds himself to standing and holds out his hand for a shake. “I’m Oscar. Glad you’re here.” Black hair, a serious face, an accent that is faintly Latino.

“Oscar owns Fins and Feathers,” Phee informs him. “If you ever need fish or birds, he’s your guy. You want coffee?” She’s already pouring two cups out of a stainless-steel carafe. It smells fantastic, nothing like the church-basement brew served up at AA meetings.

“Katie is our barista. She always brings the coffee. She’s opposed to what Oscar brews. Or even what the rest of us sometimes import from Starbucks.”

“Life’s too short to drink shit. That’s my motto.” The young girl doesn’t look like a Katie. Her face is more metal than skin. Nose rings, eyebrow hoops, lip rings. Full-color serpent tattoos coil around both of her forearms. But her smile is sweet, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “I hope you don’t require cream, because I didn’t bring any. We are all black-coffee people, except for Dennis. Dennis doesn’t drink coffee at all.”

Dennis shrugs and toasts Braden with a half-empty bottle of water. “Burned beans. Not my mojo. Welcome to the party, Braden.”

“Nothing burned about Katie’s coffee,” Oscar says.

The other woman at the table says nothing, watching the proceedings with eyes that look a little wild. She’s thin to the point of skeletal, arms wrapped around her rib cage, hands disappeared inside too-long sweater sleeves. A knitted hat is pulled down low over her forehead. Her body is shaking visibly.

Phee lays a hand over her arm. “Breathe. It will pass.”

The woman nods, her lips twitching into what is almost a smile.

“Time to get this meeting underway,” Oscar says. “Phee, you want to start?”

Phee tilts back in her chair and savors a mouthful of coffee as if it’s a French wine at a five-star restaurant. “It was sort of a boring week, I’m sorry to report. My saving grace is that I enticed a stranger to the meeting. Does that count?”

Everybody laughs, with the exception of the thin woman, who remains huddled inside herself.

“Nice save,” Oscar says. “Thank you for that. Rather an adventure for Braden, too, I’d guess, to be dragged into our weirdness. So yes. Points for you.” Beside Phee’s name on a whiteboard propped up beside the table, he writes a 10.

“Anybody else? Jean?”

To Braden’s surprise, the woman beside Phee lets go of her death grip on her own body and holds up two fingers. Oscar smiles at her. “When you’re ready, love.”

She nods. Takes a breath. Her voice begins tight and small. “There’s this girl in my building, crazy about horses. Has read every book in the library that features something with four hooves. Hadn’t ever even seen a real horse, though, you know? So I made some calls, and this weekend I took her and her mom to a riding stable. All I’d asked of the owner was could this kid come down and look at the horses, maybe pat one on the nose or something.”