Tonight, Friday morning already, the Bean was quiet; there’d be a little rush toward dawn, when the clubs along Twenty-first Street emptied out and the rave crowd, sweatsticky and half of them sizzling on ecstasy, wandered in. But so far, things had been calm, lots of Nina Simone and Alison Moyet sighing through the stereo and a handful of night owls sipping at their pale lattés, hardback books or laptop computers open on the tables in front of them. One conversation toward the back, a black woman and two men with gray beards and pipes, smoke like burning cherries and occasional laughter. And Russell, stomping someone’s ass at chess across the bar.
Daria finished setting out the careful rows of freshly washed mugs and glasses on top of the big silver Lavazza espresso machine, squat mugs the color of old cream and the crystal demitasse like cups from a child’s tea party. The Lavazza was sleek and utterly modern, efficient Italian engineering, none of those antique Willy Wonka contraptions at the Bean. She’d heard enough gripes and horror stories from baristas who’d worked with those funky old brass octopuses to be thankful that Claire had insisted on function over flash. Daria never had any trouble with the Lavazza, except once or twice when someone else had forgotten to turn the thing back on after cleaning it and she’d had to stand around waiting for the boiler to build up steam, watching the pressure gauge’s slow creep into the red as orders backed up and people began to grumble and complain.
“Hey, Daria,” Bunky shouted at her from the register. “Make this guy a double with lemon.” Bunky Tolbert was the worst sort of slacker, scab-kneed board weasel, late more often than not, and Daria couldn’t believe Russell hadn’t fired his ass, that he’d actually hired him in the first place.
The “guy” was tall and lanky, expensive suit that hung off his shoulders like scarecrow rags, and she thought immediately of Keith, of the shitty, spiritless excuse for a rehearsal and the way that he’d finally just packed up his guitar, not a word, and left her and Mort and Theo in Baby Heaven.
Daria nodded, removed the filter and banged it upside-down over the dump bin until the old grounds fell out as a nearly solid disc, miniature hockey puck of spent espresso. She rinsed the filter clean beneath the scalding jet on the far right side of the machine and scooped a cup’s worth of the fine black powder from the can on the countertop. The espresso flowed from the scooper like liquid midnight, dry fluid so perfectly dark, so smooth, it seemed to steal the dim coffeehouse light, to breathe it alive and exhale velvet caffeine fumes.
Daria added a second scoop and packed it down with the plastic tamper, slid the filter back into the machine and punched the “double” button above the brewer. She glanced at the register, and the scarecrow was counting out the dollar-fifty for his drink in quarters and dimes and nickels, a handful of change spilled on the bar and his long fingers pushing coin after coin across the wood to Bunky. He didn’t really look anything like Keith, too healthy despite his thinness, much too alive. Sometimes she thought the only part of Keith that had survived the junk was his eyes, his strange granite eyes trapped in there alone, and that everything else was just clumsy puppet tricks with string and shadow.
The espresso drained from the brewer’s jets, twin golden streams, smooth as blood from an open vein; Daria caught the steaming coffee in a demitasse, waiting for the machine to finish. In the glass, the liquid was as black as the powder had been, black as pitch, and the layer of nut-brown créma thick and firm enough to support sugar crystals. She took a strip of lemon peel from a plastic container and rubbed it around the rim, then passed the glass to Bunky and the scarecrow carried it away.
Daria looked up at the huge Royal Crown Cola clock, vintage plastic glowing like a full moon above the fridge, and the shelves crowded with their heavy glass jars of freshly roasted beans. Half her shift gone already, and she hadn’t so much as stopped for a cigarette, driving herself, finding things to do when there were no orders to keep her busy. No doubt Bunky would think she was just brown-nosing Russell, trying to make him look bad in front of the boss. But the night was catching up with her, Mr. Jack Baggysuit having somehow managed to unravel all her defenses, the rough mantra of movement and distraction that kept the crap in her head and the ache in her muscles from taking hold and dragging her down.
“I’m taking a cig break,” she said, stepping past Bunky, handing him the soppy rag she’d been using to wipe down the bar.
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Bunky said, sounding sullen and supremely put upon.
“Try not to hurt yourself for five minutes.”
As she walked away, Bunky mumbled, muttered something she didn’t quite catch, but enough meaning conveyed in the sound of his voice that the words didn’t much matter anyway. Russell looked up from the chessboard, one white plastic bishop in his hand, flashed her a grandfatherly scowl, his everybody play nice or else face, bushy white Gandalf eyebrows knotting like epileptic caterpillars.
Daria shrugged, dredged up half an apologetic smile that she hoped would pass for sincere. Tonight, it was the best she had and was going to have to do.
She fed two dollars and fifty cents into the cigarette machine, too much to pay, but it was her own fault for not having picked up a pack on the way over after practice. A booth she liked near the back was still empty, back where the two men who looked like professors and the black woman sat talking in their shroud of pipe smoke. Daria slid into the cool Naugahyde, fake leather the unlikely color of eggplant, and tapped the fresh red Marlboro box hard against the palm of her hand before peeling away the cellophane wrapping.
“Mmhmmm,” the woman said. “In the Sumerian and Babylonian fragments. The Semitic tribes were still worshipping their rocks and trees.”
Daria had purposefully sat down with her back to the discussion, had always hated listening in on other people’s conversations, even by accident.
“Watch her, Henry,” one of the men warned the other, his voice low and full of mock admonition. “Let her go and change the subject now and she’ll have you arguing patriarchal conspiracy theories ’til dawn.”
She lit her cigarette and thought about moving back up to the bar, decided instead to concentrate on the music, the big Sony speaker rigged up almost directly over her booth, and not the voices behind her. But the Alison Moyet disc she’d put on was ending, the last song over, and she could see Bunky making straight for the little stereo sandwiched in between the soft-drink cooler and the coffee grinder. Bunky had recently developed a fondness for an old Johnny Cash album that bordered on the fanatic and stuck it in every chance he got.
“I mistrust that word,” the woman said.
“Which word, Miriam?” one of the men asked. “Which word don’t you trust?”
“Demon,” the woman replied.
Daria shut her eyes, holding the first deep drag off the Marlboro like a drowning man’s last, useless breath of air, wishing the smoke was something stronger than tobacco. Overhead, Johnny Cash began to sing, rumbling voice, broken glass and gravel and the time when she was seven, almost eight, and her father had driven her all the way to Memphis just to see Graceland.
She opened her eyes and exhaled, forced the smoke out through her nostrils.
“God, Bunky, we have gotta talk,” and she reached to stub out her cigarette, would finish it later, somewhere free of the song and the argument she’d tried not to overhear. But her hand froze halfway to the ashtray, possum-on-her-grave shudder, and she felt suddenly light-headed, not dizzy, but light, pulled loose, and the pale hairs on the backs of her arms prickled with goose bumps.
How long had it been since she’d thought about that trip, or anything else from that awful year?
You’re just wasted, girl’o, that’s all.
Too much Keith and too much Stiff Kitten, the better part of the night spent pretending that she wasn’t pissed beyond words, pretending that what Theo had said wasn’t the truth. Too much of that weary-ass Little Miss Martyr routine. And any way you sliced it, definitely way too much Bunky Tolbert.
Christ
, you haven’t even eaten anything tonight, have you? Just cigarettes and coffee and great big greasy dollops of denial.
The smoke curling up from the fingertips of her right hand made a gauzy question mark in front of her face. And her hands were still shaking, dry wino jitters; the sense of dislocation had faded to the dullest gray unease.
And is that all it is, Dar? Malnutrition and caffeine, nerves and nicotine? Are you absolutely sure that’s all it is?
Daria finished the cigarette while Johnny Cash sang about Folsom Prison, while the three behind her began to talk about the time, how late it’d gotten and how early they each had to be up in the morning. Slowly, the shakiness passed, and she promised herself she’d grab one of the muffins or poppy seed bagels in the pastry case before she went back to work.
Five minutes later when the Asian girl in the ratty army jacket walked through the door, she was still sitting there.
CHAPTER TWO
Niki
1.
O ne forty-five a.m. by the ghost-green dashboard clock, and Niki Ky’s black Vega drifted across I-20 and rolled off the blacktop into the narrow breakdown lane. The car had been driving badly since she’d left Georgia, crossed the state line into Alabama, and a mile or so before the lights of Birmingham had come into view, the temp gauge had begun to creep steadily, ominously, into the red. She’d stayed on the interstate, trying to keep one eye on the dash and one eye on the road, on the other travelers rushing past in the night, watching for the junction that would take her north. As she’d gotten her first clear glimpse of downtown-more tall buildings than she would have guessed, more of a city-the needle had swung quickly toward the “H” side of the gauge and the oil light had flashed on. A second later the engine had died, no sputter or cough or ugly metal grind, just sudden, quiet nothing.
She turned off the ignition, cut the headlights, but left the flashers on, and for a time sat, slumped forward and forehead resting against the hard steering-wheel plastic, the Pixies cassette she’d listened to since Atlanta still playing in her head. When she finally looked up, Niki caught her dark reflection in the rearview mirror, absolutely convinced for a moment that someone else’s eyes were watching her from the glass. Her hair, which she’d kept shaved down almost to her scalp since high school, had started to grow out, spiky tufts more like pinfeathers and completely uncontrollable. The silver loops that pierced the entire rim of her right ear from lobe to helix caught the light of passing cars and glimmered like the scales of deep-sea fish.
“Pretty mess,” she said, and of course it wasn’t the prettiest by a long shot, but it was bad enough. Broken down, maybe badly broken down this time, in a city that meant nothing more to her than a few grainy news clips from the sixties, fire hoses and snarling police dogs turned loose on crowds of teenagers and children and old men, starch-white shirts and black faces.
And then the mirror filled up with headlights, too bright and she had to look away. Dim purple afterimages swam before her eyes. She blinked, wondering if it was the cops, hoping just this once that it would be cops, even a Birmingham cop. She reached for the glove compartment, for her license, fingers crossed against the chance they might ask to see the Vega’s registration.
But when she slammed it shut and turned back to the window, the face peering in at her wasn’t a cop, some lantern-jawed good old boy instead. His thick fingertips tapped eagerly at the glass like it’d been their own idea. Niki paused, thought seriously about telling him she’d been driving all night, had only pulled over to rest for a while, that was all. But how long would it be before a highway patrol car happened by, or anyone else bothered to stop? And the thought of setting out on foot in a strange city, this city, in the middle of the night, was even less attractive than the face at the window. She checked to be sure that her door was locked, then rolled the window down a cautious crack, barely enough to talk through.
“You havin’ some car trouble?” he asked, cold air and his breath, the sick-sweet reek of chewing tobacco or snuff, leaking in through the crack.
“Uh, yeah. I’m afraid I am.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to take a look at her, if you want.”
The man looked like all the Boo Radleys of the world rolled into one jug-eared, unshaven package. It still isn’t too late, familiar, worried voice that sounded like her mother, whispering inside her head, It’s not too late to tell him that someone’s already gone for help, that the police…
“Sure. Thanks,” she said and smiled, a nervous smile that she hoped looked genuine.
He smiled back, dirty row of crooked teeth, then nodded and tugged at the brim of the grease-stained cap he was wearing.
“No problem, ma’am,” he said.
“I think maybe I let the oil get too low and it overheated.”
“That’d do it.” He pulled a flashlight from the back pocket of his work pants and stepped around to the front of the Vega, fiddled beneath the grille for a moment, hands out of sight, until the hood popped up and all she could see was slick black metal and the streetlights overhead, the windshield reflected in the paint.
You should be home, the mother voice said. It said that a lot. You should come home, Nicolan. Home, where it’s safe.
The man stepped back into view, the Vega’s dipstick in one hand and the flashlight in his other, leaned in close to the window and held the stick up for her.
“See that, how the oil looks all brown and milky?”
The oil clinging to the stick was the color of café au lait or almonds. Niki nodded.
“That means you got water in your oil. Prob’ly means you blew a head gasket.”
Vague, sinking sensation in her stomach, bad news cranking up the gravity a notch or two, and she knew that very soon The Voice in her head would begin its carefully rehearsed I-told-you-so litany.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” and he shrugged and switched the flashlight off, spat at the ground. “It’s pretty bad. Wouldn’t try to start her up again, if I was you.”
“Fuck,” Niki muttered. Behind her eyes, The Voice was busy asking why she hadn’t considered this sort of thing before she’d chucked her old life like last week’s fish heads. Why she never thought any further ahead these days than the end of her nose.
“Look,” she said. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d call a wrecker for me when you get to a phone.”
“No problem,” he said again, staring down at the place where he’d spit. “But I’d be glad to give you a ride. There’s a garage just off the highway over there,” and he motioned toward the next exit, maybe a hundred yards ahead. “Friend of mine’s a mechanic there, and they got a truck goes out twenty-four hours.”
The Voice balked at the notion of her going anywhere with this guy. Niki fingered the little can of pepper spray attached to her key chain; a ride with Boo seemed like a sure way to wind up on next week’s America ’s Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries.
“’Course, they won’t be nobody to have a look at your car ’til in the mornin’. But I guess you already figured that out.”
“Yeah,” she said, pressed the seat-belt release with her thumb and slipped the keys from the ignition. The Voice was just a tired echo, mental tatters. It was all that remained of the old Niki Ky, the Niki Ky that had spent three years table dancing for tips in New Orleans’ seedier strip clubs, lying about her age and waiting for some kind of life to find her.
She reached between the bucket seats and grabbed the big canvas gym bag nestled on the floorboard, melon-pink canvas stuffed and bulging at the seams. Anything she had worth stealing was in there, along with plenty of other stuff that wasn’t.
“You got a deal,” she said, rolling up the window, opening the door and locking it behind her.
Outside the car, the cold had teeth, stinging wind that seemed unseasonably bitter. Niki saw the Ford pickup pulled in close behind the Vega, its front bumper tied on crooked with baling wire and a large set of deer antlers mount
ed for a hood ornament. She set the gym bag at her feet while she fumbled with the snaps on the baggy old army jacket.
When she was done, she held out her hand.
“I’m Niki Ky,” she said.
He looked at Niki’s hand warily, as if he’d been offered a suspicious cut of meat or some strange tool he didn’t know how to use.
“You Chinese?”
“Vietnamese,” Niki replied patiently, this old routine like opening lines from vaudeville; she was starting to shiver.
“ Vietnam, huh? My daddy, couple of my uncles, all fought in that war. One of my uncles got killed over there.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and of course it was a stupid thing to say, but the wind was cutting into her, razor blades and Novocain, and she was still holding her hand out to him, even though her fingertips were going numb.
“Oh, that’s all right. You pro’bly wasn’t even born yet, and they sent the body home.”
Niki’s teeth had begun to chatter, clicking in her mouth like tiny porcelain castanets. She looked longingly toward the waiting truck and tried to ignore the gun rack mounted in the cab’s rear window, the two rifles resting there.
“My name’s Wendel. Wendel Sayer. Pleased to meet you, Niki Ky. ” And Wendel smiled again, finally shook her hand before pointing at the truck. “That’s my truck,” he said.
“Wendel,” she said, “I’m freezing my ass off.”
“Oh,” and he released her well-shaken hand, which she immediately jammed deep into one of the jacket’s spacious pockets. “Well, then let’s go find you that tow truck.”
Before she followed Wendel to the truck, Niki double-checked the door, making certain that she’d locked it. The car was one of the few tangible links back to her old life, and lately, things had had a way of slipping away from her when she wasn’t looking.
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