“I know.” This time, her smile seems downright mischievous. I tell myself not to read into it. “I left it on purpose. Something you could remember me by.”
The room feels unbearably hot. I have to loosen my tie, just to get enough air.
“Yeah,” I manage, and pick up the remote again as she returns to her spot on the chaise. “I kind of suspected as much.”
I don’t dare tell her what I’m really thinking: that with or without a garter, photo, or any reminder Mara ever existed, I could never have forgotten her. No matter how hard I tried.
11
“Hi, um...my name is Collin. I’m trying to reach Mara Peterson. Not sure if this is her number anymore, but...if you could call me back either way, just so I know—”
Delete. He can go bark up some other tree.
“Mara, there you are.” Penelope, one of the servers, pokes her head out of the window to the bathroom. She’s a sweet girl. Too sweet. One look at the joint in my hand, and you’d think she caught me doing crack back here. “Doug wants you inside.”
“Tell him I’m on break.”
“Sorry,” she shrugs, offering a cringing smile before disappearing back inside, the window stuttering shut behind her.
I exhale a long, beautiful curse. The bar’s been slammed all weekend, thanks to the downtown marathon coinciding with a tech expo, and I stupidly signed up for a double shift today. It means good money—which I sorely need, if I’m going to move out of Levi’s into an apartment bigger than a Wheat Thins box—but it also means lots of drunken assholes. I’ve just about hit my limit, today. And it’s only four o’clock.
Inside, I’m shocked to find Levi at the bar and my manager nowhere in sight. Penelope passes by with a tray of bread baskets and winks at me, laughing behind her hand.
“Hey.” I fold my arms on the bar top in front of him. “What are you doing here?”
“My idea.” Cohen wanders over from the Pac-Man machine and raps his knuckles on the bar. “Two glasses of your cheapest beer.”
“Oh, so you’re buying, then.” I grab two glasses and fill them with our second-cheapest beer; it’s thirty cents more expensive, but significantly less shitty. “How was the honeymoon?”
Cohen catches his glass when I sling it to him, saloon-style. “Amazing.”
“Except?” Levi prompts, and turns when I hand him his beer normally. Our hands brush for a second, which makes his eyes drift just beyond my head.
Cohen sighs, “Except for Juliet sobbing at least twice a day because she missed Marisol. I mean, I missed her too—but we’ve never had a trip together, just us. I was not about to cry over it.”
“Juliet’s a sensitive soul,” I remind him. “She’ll never admit this, but you know that coffee commercial they play every Christmas? Where the girl’s older brother comes home and she sticks the bow on him, like, ‘You’re my present’?” They nod. “See, I think that’s the corniest shit ever. But Juliet got teary every single time it came on. Clockwork.”
The boys laugh and thank me for the beers. I pretend to busy myself wiping things down, checking on other customers, and running dish racks to the back, but I find myself itching to pull up a barstool and join them. Damn these doubles.
As the evening goes on, the crowd swells and shrinks, people milling through bars and pubs all along the district. The Outpost isn’t really the kind of bar where people hang out: it’s tiny, even in the booth area, and our menu is your basic drunk fare of fried food and mediocre burgers. We’re rarely a destination—more of a pit stop.
Still, Cohen and Levi stay for hours, eventually caving to my suggestions for the Drink of the Day.
“So what’s in this, exactly?” Levi makes a face when I pour the liquid out of the shaker into their glasses. “It looks like window cleaner.”
“Mixed with antifreeze,” Cohen adds.
“It’s called a High Dive. And it’s only that color because it’s got some blue curaçao and Midori thrown in.”
“Gross. It’s probably pure sugar.”
“I invented it, thank you very much. So it’s just a little sweet, with a really big bite. Watch yourselves.”
They hesitate, take the glasses, and clink before slinging them back. They both wince automatically, until the taste actually settles on their palettes. I can’t blame them. This concoction does look like some tropical drink you’d get on vacation, the equivalent of melted candy. But, like I said: I made it.
“Rum,” Cohen notices.
Levi coughs into his elbow. “A whole lot of rum.”
I smile and wipe down the bar in front of them. “Told you.”
When they finish, Cohen sets his glass on the runner. “Guess it’s time I got home to the wife.” Maybe it’s my imagination, but he sounds downright giddy to use that word.
While I cash out his tab, I glance at Levi. If he’s offended by his brother’s phrasing, he’s not showing it. Maybe he’s just letting the alcohol numb him, like a rum-soaked sponge.
Cohen invites him to split a ride-share to his and Juliet’s house, but Levi declines. “I’ll, uh...I’ll hang out here, a little longer. Tell her I said hey, though.”
I focus on my imaginary cleanup while they say goodbye. Pretty soon it’s impossible to keep my back to him; I know he’s watching me.
“Hey,” he says, when I turn.
“Hey, back.” Like a magnet, his section of the bar draws me in and pins me to the spot. “You sure you want to hang around this place all night? Gonna be a while before I’m out of here.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
I smile again and start on my side work. Thankfully, I’m not the closer: all I have to do is wrap one of the garnish trays and stick it in the fridge, restock a few bottles, and take another rack to dish. I finish so quickly, I even have time to help Penelope roll silverware in the back.
“Levi Fairfield,” she muses, elbowing me. “You finally settling down?”
“Hell, no.” I elbow her back. “You know my stance on relationships.”
“You’ll change your mind, one of these days.”
I shake my head, then pause, butter knife and fork poised over a napkin. “How’d you know his name?”
Penelope adds her bundle to our growing pyramid, then grabs another stack of napkins to fold. “My boyfriend works for him in the summer.”
Of course: even average-wealth Fairfields have widespread connections. Everyone knows them.
“At least, he used to,” Penelope goes on. “This past year was so slow, Chris had to get a different job. He felt so bad giving Levi his notice, but...you know how it is.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I force my focus back to her and nod. “Gotta go where the money is, right?”
In the six days I’ve been living at Levi’s, I’ve heard him mention the business “slowing down,” “scaling back,” and a host of other euphemisms I assumed meant “slowly spiraling down the toilet.” Apparently, I was right. If he’s losing employees—even summertime temps—it’s worse than I thought.
Penelope and I finish the silverware and carry it to the trays. “Thanks for helping,” she exhales. “You hanging out, for a while? Your Fairfield doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry to leave.”
I peek through the bar shelves. Levi’s still nursing the drink I made him, eyeing a television overhead. A hurricane’s sweeping over from the coast; we’re due for extreme rain and wind, this week.
“Sure,” I tell Penelope, shrugging. I must be way more exhausted than I thought: I don’t even bitch at her for calling him “my” Fairfield. “Not like I’m in a hurry, either.”
* * *
“All right. What about that guy?”
I swivel on my barstool in the direction Levi’s pointing, but he laughs and spins me back. “Don’t look look!” he whispers. “God. Be subtle.”
“I don’t do ‘subtle,’” I retort, but make my next glance a little more stealthy, anyway. The guy he’s asking about is in a corner booth, wearing a heavy camo co
at, plaid hat, and fleece-lined gloves with the fingers cut. Halos of fuzz surround every knuckle.
“Oh, that’s Dale the Deer Hunter.”
“Dale the Deer Hunter,” he repeats. I watch him take a drink from his last-call order: brandy stirred into hot cider. He caught plenty of hell for it, until he slid the mug my way and demanded I try it. One sip, and I ate my words. Now we both have one, our tongues sweet and fuzzy like the first bite of a peach.
“The guy always dresses like that,” I explain, “all year, no matter the weather. There’s a rumor he’s terminally ill or something. Always cold.”
“Wow.” Levi studies him a little longer, forgetting about his own “be subtle” rule for our Spot the Regular game. We’ve been playing ever since Penelope left. “Poor guy. If the rumor’s true, I mean.”
“To be fair,” I add, “he usually skips the hat. But it is getting colder out, with that storm coming.”
“And it’s officially fall now.” Levi’s dress shoe kicks my sneaker. “Hats and cider everywhere. And pumpkins. Get used to it.”
I roll my eyes. This week alone, I’ve seen about twenty confirmations that Levi really does love pumpkin spice anything. Last night, when I ordered pizza for us to split, he said he’d cover dessert…then came back from the store with a half-gallon of pumpkin pie ice cream.
“That guy,” he says, and nods to the other side of the bar. “What’s his story?”
“He’s not exactly a regular, but I’ve seen him in here before. He always orders a White Russian, just one. Drinks it in about two minutes, pays, and heads out. Never stays to watch TV or meet up with friends.”
We watch the guy place his order. Sure enough, he gets a White Russian. Levi smirks behind his coffee mug.
“Oh, God.” If I could slump down in a barstool, I would. “Look at the door. That blonde that just came in? She’s a huge, huge bitch. Comes in about once a month with her friends and announces that they’re ‘slumming it.’ I know this place is a total hole, but like...really? Who says stuff like that out loud, right in front of the employees?”
Levi cranes his neck. When he spots her, he sucks in a breath.
“That,” he says, setting down his mug, “is my cousin. And she’s exactly the kind of person who says stuff like that.”
I look again. She’s gorgeous, which I already knew—but now I can see the pedigree. She looks more like Jeannie Fairfield, straight out of a charity ball, than her dad or the other blood Fairfields, but there’s no denying where she comes from. And even if there were, that Burberry coat and Hermès scarf combo would drop a massive hint.
“I’ve never seen her pay for her own drinks,” I tell Levi. We watch as the gaggle floats their way to a booth in the farthest corner. “She and her friends always get some guys to join them, then stick them with the bill.”
“Sounds about right.” Levi drains his mug and leans close. I hold my breath at first, it surprises me so much.
Then I inhale anyway, wondering if his breath smells like apples and the barrel musk of brandy. It does.
“She’s going to embarrass me if she sees me. Guaranteed.”
“Really? Your own family?” This is a stupid question, coming from me. Of all people, I know genetics don’t serve as a barrier for all kinds of shit. Still, other than general snobbery, she seems harmless.
“That’s the worst part: she doesn’t even do it on purpose, half the time. She just says stuff without any forethought. She’s like her mom, that way. Like last Christmas, she told me one of her friends works with Lindsay’s boyfriend.”
“The guy she...?”
“Yeah. The guy she cheated on me with. Well...one of them.” He wets his lips, glancing at the bar top. “Anyway, she started telling me all this stuff about him. Random crap, like what he looks like, where he took Lindsay on vacation—”
“Why the hell would she think you’d want to hear any of that?”
“Thank you!” He laughs. “But like I said, no forethought, zero tact. She just says it because the thought is there in her head, at that exact moment.” Levi gives the group another glance, then nods behind the bar. “This place have a back exit?”
I smile as I finish my drink, stand, and pull my purse onto my shoulder. “I’ll sneak you out.”
We pay our tab in record time. I motion for Levi to follow me through the hinged section of the bar.
“Don’t worry,” I assure him. “She’ll never know you were here.”
Suddenly, we hear a voice behind us: “Levi?”
“Shit,” he says, at the same moment I laugh, “Run!” I reach back and find his hand. We bolt through the prep galley, slipping our way across the freshly-washed tile. Steam rises out of the drains and traps our laughter.
“Well,” he pants, when we’re finally in the alley, “she saw me.”
“My fault,” I say around the cigarette in my mouth. “I should have created a diversion. Maybe sent White Russian Guy her way.”
“For the record, she’s not that bad to be around. She’s just.... You know how you can only take certain people in small doses?”
I nod; most of the people I encounter fit into that category.
But not, I notice, Levi.
We walk through the alley together, steps loping and synced. He puts his hands in his pockets, so I do the same when my cigarette’s done. My arm keeps hitting his.
“This was fun,” he says. “I know it’s only been a week, but...”
The space between that “but” and whatever comes next gets my heart pumping like a drilling rig. This is where the cling comes in: the moment I have to lower the boom and remind guys I’m not the cure. More like a nicotine patch, easing you through the early days.
“...I think I can safely say you’re the best roommate I’ve ever had.” Levi elbows me and grins. “Weird YouTube obsession aside.”
My laugh crawls from my throat like a piece of food that slid down the wrong way. “Yeah,” I manage. I don’t have the breath to tell him, as I’ve done several times this week, I’m not obsessed with YouTube, just makeup tutorials in general. I don’t have the energy to nudge him back.
I don’t have the brainpower to wonder why the hell I’m disappointed in the way his sentence ended.
Roommate. That’s what I am to Levi.
Well…good. I sip the chilled air and straighten my shoulders. We are roommates, and nothing more. That’s the gist of what I was about to tell him, right?
“I’ve been thinking—your ideas for the living room were so good, maybe...maybe you can help me with the rest of the house?”
Rearrange his ex-wife’s shitty design work? I guess that service does fall somewhere between Professional Rebound and What Friends Would Do, even if I have far more experience with the former. No harm in a little redecorating.
“Sure,” I tell him, as we turn the corner onto Main Street, the quiet and quaint little section of the city. It has those old-fashioned string lights between those old-fashioned lampposts; trendy boutiques and restaurants mixed with cute mom-and-pop shops. If you’re on a date, it’s the kind of place where you’d finally get the guts to hold the other person’s hand.
And, if you’re just roommates, it’s the kind of place you make sure to put a little more distance between your arm and theirs.
12
“You’re wrong.”
I drop my arms, which were motioning to the desk in the corner of my office, and swing my head to Mara with a strained smile. “I thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder.”
“It is. But good workflow is a science. Indisputable.” Her hands grip the edge of my desk and yank it across the carpet. “Every room has a natural flow to it, and you have to arrange things so they don’t hinder that. Like in a kitchen, you need paths from the fridge to the stove, to the sink, to the cabinets—”
“But this is an office. The only path is from the door to my desk chair. What’s there to fix?”
“You also have to focus on lighting and th
e space as a whole...and a bunch of other things. Thanks for helping, by the way. This wasn’t heavy at all.” She turns the desk until it’s facing the center of the room, then lets go with a sigh. “See? Now you can access the file cabinets and door just as easily, and sunlight won’t hit you right in the face while you’re working. And,” she adds, tugging on her shirt to fan herself, “that vent isn’t covered anymore. No more slaving away in a sauna.”
I try to protest again. True, I asked for her help, but I’m still having trouble accepting it. Even if she is, apparently, always correct.
“It...looks much better,” I mumble, and pull my chair over to the desk to sit. Like the couch in the living room, this one change shocks me with its impact.
“All right.” Mara flips her head upside-down and combs her fingers through her hair. The early sunlight makes it glow like honey. “What’s next? The master bedroom?”
The unblocked vent doesn’t stop my face from getting hot. I feel an itch crawl up my neck. “Uh…not today. I’ve got that bridal shower booked at noon.”
“I thought you just, like, oversee events. Cohen runs them now, doesn’t he?”
“He’s still technically on vacation until tomorrow. I usually don’t book Sundays anymore, but....”
But I need the money. I don’t say it. I’m tired of even thinking it.
“Well, if you need help,” she offers, sentence trailing.
“Thanks. But Andres and I should have it covered.”
Barely a minute passes before my phone rings.
“Hey,” Andres coughs, and I immediately go limp in my chair. I should have seen it coming. The last couple years, I’ve developed some transcendent ability to jinx myself. “I’m sorry, man, but there’s no way I can make that event today. I’m hacking up a lung, I think the kids picked up some virus at school—”
“It’s fine,” I say, lying through my teeth. Of course it isn’t fine, which Andres knows, but I know he’d never call in sick unless he felt like absolute shit. If he needs a day off, he really needs it. “Maybe I can get Cohen to come in today.”
Honey, When It Ends: The Fairfields | Book Two Page 7