VenCo(48)

Freya rolled her eyes. “Stella, your mom says you have to put your shoes on.” She squatted to help her tie the long laces in extravagant bows; then they headed for the bar, laughing conspiratorially.

Opening the door, Freya yelled inside, “Buzz Bay!”

“Buzz Bay, wooo!” The response echoed back before the door slammed shut behind them.

Lucky sat for a moment in the new quiet of the old car and looked around. The tavern was covered in dark wood siding that was stained white with salt and warped at the edges. The windows were thick and dim, and the door was scratched red metal with silver showing through. Behind the building was an expanse of scrubby sand and a strip of ugly trees that couldn’t find the right kind of purchase to get tall. Above them, screeching seagulls circled on strong winds over grey and roiling water she couldn’t see.

Tap. Tap.

She jumped. Morticia was at her window, her pale face made more stark by her choice of black lipstick.

Lucky climbed out. “Jesus, you’re a ghoul sometimes, you know that?”

Morticia just shrugged. Lucky followed her.

They entered a wide room with a bar on the far wall, a row of stools spaced along it. The rest of the place was filled with a dozen wood tables and chairs, the seats red pleather padding patched with duct tape. The theme was obvious: taxidermied fish and plastic replicas were nailed up haphazardly on the panelled walls, and the low beams were draped with dusty nets holding more fish and multicoloured pairs of panties thrown up there by randy last-callers. The place looked greasy and old, like every bar in daylight. The tables hadn’t been set yet, and bottles of ketchup and vinegar sat at the end of the bar, ready to be wiped down and placed, still sticky, on tabletops. They were the only ones here.

Meena and Wendy were perched on stools. Morticia slid onto a seat at the end of the bar and pulled out her phone. The bartender was a woman who could have been thirty or seventy—it was impossible to tell. The only thing for certain was that she was very tall and very intimidating. Meena waved to Lucky impatiently, patting the stool beside her.

“Lucky, this is Lucille. Lucille, this is our newest member, Lucky—the holder of the spoon with the single pin.”

As she approached, Lucille smiled, slow and even. By the time she slid onto her seat, Lucille had both hands resting on the bar, two gold incisors catching the dim light.

“Let me see her.”

Meena put a hand out. It took Lucky a moment to realize she was asking for her spoon.

“Oh, sorry.” She dug into her jacket and pulled it out, placing it on the bar between them. Lucille bowed her head so low her nose almost touched the metal, her mass of black curls pinned with strategic knots under a rust-coloured bandana. She began to hum, a low throaty sound like an animal about to eat—a hungry, wild animal.

“Lucille is a Tender. Descended from a long line of Tenders,” Wendy said in a loud whisper. “We need them. They tell us what we need to know, put us on the right path. Plus, a good Tender gets you just as drunk as you need to be to follow it.”

The women laughed, except for Lucille. Lucky wasn’t sure she could even hear them right now. Then her head snapped up, and her face was only an inch or two away, her eyes vivid green and narrowed, peering directly into Lucky’s.

“Jesus!” Lucky jumped but tried not to give an inch. In her experience, people who showed fear got made fun of. So she held the strange woman’s gaze, but not before noticing a thick scar across her neck, disappearing into the curls at her nape.

“Vodka,” Lucille announced, showing those gold teeth once more. “Vodka, then we talk.”

She lifted her hands off the bar, then paused, tapping her long, stiletto-shaped nails together. “But I also think gin. For some reason gin is involved. We’ll have both.” She spun on her heel and started gathering bottles and glasses from the cloudy mirrored shelves behind her, like a mad scientist struck with a theory.

Lucky preemptively shivered, swivelling to face Meena, and whispered, “My mother drank gin. I can’t stand the smell of it, even now.”

Meena leaned in. “I’ll have the gin, then. I like a cold gin on a rainy day.”

Outside, the rain fell, plinking on the tin roof above them like piano notes from another room.

Lucille slapped down fourteen heavy-bottomed shot glasses, ran a vodka bottle over half of them, then a gin bottle over the others.

“Whoa, whoa, Lucille. We need to drive outta here at some point today,” Meena said.

The Tender raised her head, her eyes jumping from spot to spot. She tipped her head to the side like a broken doll, listening to something that wasn’t speaking to anyone else. “No, no. Tonight we have to get incredibly inebriated. Tomorrow you leave.” She lifted her hands, crisscrossed them, and pointed. “In two different directions.”

Meena sighed and started pulling off her jacket. “Fuck. Okay, then.” She raised her eyebrows at Wendy, who mimicked the movement. Then she leaned over and called down to Morticia, “Can you grab us some rooms at the Sailor’s Inn? We’re here for the night.”

Without looking up, Morticia flashed her a thumbs-up and started typing on her phone.

Meena draped her jacket over the back of her stool and rolled up the sleeves of her silk blouse. She took a deep breath in and sighed it out, then shrugged. “Alright. Time to get fucked up, I guess. Who am I to argue with the universe?”