The Better Liar(66)

“The way I danced with you!” Mary sang through laughter, coming to the end of the microphone’s cord and twisting past Amos.

“Turn off the music,” the manager was saying, loudly enough for me to hear. I slung both our purses over my shoulder and wove through the chairs and tables under his gaze.

“You don’t have to kick me out,” Mary said, her voice echoing over the backing vocals. “I wasn’t hurting anybody. Sheesh.”

I pushed the door open and stepped out into the night. Stubby cigarettes littered the asphalt around the entrance.

“I don’t even have it anymore,” I could hear Mary saying inside, still into the mic. “I could get you guys arrested.”

    I waited, tucking Mary’s purse under my arm and checking the time on my phone.

After a few seconds, Mary appeared in the doorway, giggling. “I lied about your heart line,” she said to Amos before shutting the door behind her and stumbling over to me.

“You’re drunk,” I said.

“So are you.”

“No, I’m not. You spat in my drink.”

“Oh, right.” Mary braced one palm against her thigh and flapped the other at me. “Sorry about that. Can I get my purse back?”

“I thought you wanted to be in this together,” I said, still clutching my phone. It was colder outside in the evening. My jaw clenched.

Mary straightened. “I do. What are you even talking about?”

“You almost got arrested,” I whispered. “What if you’d gotten arrested?”

She frowned. “They wouldn’t have arrested me,” she said. “Just for doing palm readings? Come on. They only kicked me out. Now I’m banned from the”—she tipped her head as far back as it would go and read the sign upside down—“Sunset Grille and Bar in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Probably for good. Whatever will I do?”

“You were sharking,” I snapped. “And you’re not taking things seriously.”

Her face dropped. “I’m taking things very seriously, Leslie,” she said, overenunciating to make up for the soft slur that had entered her voice somewhere around the third G&T. “You don’t even know how seriously I am taking it. Now give me my fucking purse.”

I let her take it from my shoulder. “But you—”

“But it’s just a little stressful,” she continued, hoisting the purse onto her own shoulder and feeling around for the money inside, “that my partner doesn’t trust me at all. So why don’t you go home to your giant house, and your nice husband, and your baby, and I’ll find somebody else to have fun with.”

I turned away from her on the pretense of digging for my keys. “Just get in the car,” I said, when I found them. I unlocked it and had my hand on the driver’s-side door when I realized she wasn’t beside me anymore.

    “See you tomorrow, Leslie,” Mary called from the far end of the parking lot. I watched as she disappeared around the side of the building.

Maybe she can use all that money for a cab, I thought. I got in my car and pulled out of the lot. As soon as I made it to the light I thought better of it and turned around, but she was already gone.





42


    Mary


I walked in circles until I felt sober enough that I probably wouldn’t die in the car and then I drove home mostly fine, except I had an awful time trying to remember which back street I was using to park the rental. I found the spot again after having to do a three-point turn and almost knocking somebody’s garbage cans over, and trudged around the corner down the sidewalk feeling pretty low.

When I saw him outside I thought he was a bobcat, maybe; the blanket he wore over his shoulders had distorted his shape so that he resembled only a black mass with flat, reflective eyes.

“You’re home late.”

“Sh— You scared me.” I laughed, but it was more like a series of exhalations. Dave shifted under the blanket. “What are you doing on the porch?”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. What are you doing in the street? Did you walk here?”

“Took the bus,” I said, because I didn’t want him to get mad at me. I sat down next to him, and he let the blanket slip down his shoulders, so he wore it as a kind of fuzzy evening wrap.

“Leslie’s worried about you,” he told me. “She went out looking for you for hours. She only got back like forty minutes ago.”

    I cocked my head. “I didn’t tell her I needed a ride. She decided to go look for me. I didn’t ask.”

“You’re not telling her where you’re going, sneaking out…” He let his head fall forward and rolled it gently from shoulder to shoulder, stretching the muscles in his neck. “You couldn’t call her from time to time?”

I shrugged. “Does she call me?”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second, then grinned, looking over at me. “That’s immature.”

There was something infectious about his smile. I meant to give him an insincere one back, but a tiny bit of real amusement crept in. “Sisters,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. Sisters.” He stuck his thumbnail in his mouth and worked at it with his teeth. “Is something wrong with Leslie?”