by Nicole Bross
My interest is purely personal. I have no intention of sharing my findings, whatever they might be, with Bill or anyone else. I’m curious about how the cycle of reincarnation—if that’s what it even is—works: the frequency, the time lapse between lives, the method that draws the same people together, over and over again. I’m a researcher at heart, and it’s a mystery that with enough sleuthing, I can solve, or at least fill in most of the blanks. It’s questionable whether I’ll ever get to the ‘why’ of it all. I’m less interested in the ‘why’—that’s one I’ll leave up to the philosophers. I’m a ‘when’ and ‘how’ person.
Once the birth certificate application is filled out and sent off to the state office, I wander back to the inn. A young woman, Jana according to her name tag, is at the front desk now. She tells me Cora has gone home for the day, but I’m welcome to stay with her until the paperwork is completed, and hands me a piece of paper with an address on it. Well, that’s one problem solved. I step into the pub. The same kid in the headphones is waiting at the host’s station, but this time he pushes them down around his neck when he sees my face. With them off his head, I notice for the first time that the black hair on one side of his head is cropped close to his skull, and he has an intricate linear design shaved into it.
“You’re back,” he says. He half-hides his smile self-consciously with the back of his hand, but I catch a glimpse of crooked teeth that don’t match the rest of his sleek urban style. “I’m Drew Segura, server-slash-busboy-slash-dishwasher-slash-host at the Public House.” He does a little bow, and I grin.
“Nice to meet you, Drew. Audrey Eames. You wear a lot of hats around here.” I offer him my hand, and we shake. The brief vision of Drew’s past tells me that at some point, he was an amateur entomologist, and particularly enjoyed studying butterflies, spending hours poring over them with a magnifying glass and pinning their delicate bodies to canvas. I wonder what he collects in this lifetime.
“Your hand feels cold,” he remarks. “But I don’t see a pint in it yet.”
“Poor circulation,” I tell him. “They’ve always been that way, even on days like this.”
“Mine too,” he says. I’d noticed, but assumed it was from serving the drinks.
“Have you worked here long?” Drew looks like he might not have hit his twenties yet, but if he’s serving in the pub, he has to be at least twenty-one.
“A couple years,” he says. “Your aunt sort of rescued me, in a way.” He lowers his voice, and his face turns serious. “I’d been hitchhiking down the coast, camping on beaches and sort of wandering wherever my feet and my thumb took me. I thought I was on some sort of adventure like I would find my purpose in life, or at least have enough interesting things happen to me so I could write a book about it. I thought I’d be the next Kerouac.” The corner of his mouth lifts briefly. “The only incident of note was when a dude in a pickup truck beat the shit out of me, took all my stuff, and left me half-dead by the side of the road in the middle of the night a couple miles south of here.” He begins fidgeting with the stack of menus, straightening them compulsively. “No one would help me when I made it into town. No one but Roz. She was at the night desk when I stumbled in, covered in blood and swearing loud enough to wake the entire inn. Did I mention I’d smoked a pipe before the guy in the truck made me his personal punching bag? Yeah. Anyway. There I was, tripping balls, bleeding all over the carpet, ranting away, and she looks at me and says, ‘You look like you need a hot shower and some coffee.’ I’d expected her to call the cops, or at least kick me out, but she showed me into an empty room, held a cool cloth on the back of my neck while I puked, and called the doctor in to stitch me up and tape my ribs. All before she even knew my name.
“After a couple days, once I was feeling a bit better and could move around, I decided to bail. I didn’t have any money to pay for the room, or the doctor, and figured the best thing to do was get lost before anyone handed me a bill. There was Roz, right outside my door, waiting for me. She knew what I’d been thinking, and did she ever give me shit. Not because I wasn’t going to pay, but because as far as she could see, I didn’t have anywhere better to be, she thought we were friends, and who the hell was I to leave without saying goodbye.
“I remember feeling so surprised she didn’t want me out of her hair. I thought I was a burden and a deadbeat one at that. When I told her that I didn’t have any money to pay her, she said there was plenty of handy-work that needed doing when I was up to it, and she was happy to offer me room and board, as long as I stayed sober.
“I figured I’d stay for a week, maybe two, until I’d worked off my debt and had a bit of cash in my pocket to head out onto the road again. A couple weeks turned into a month, then two, then Roz told me one day that Kellen was moving behind the bar and there was a server position open, and coincidentally Carrie McMahon had her upstairs apartment for rent if I was interested. I’ve been here ever since.”
“Wow,” I say because there aren’t any other words. It was what I had thought Roz might do for me one day, although probably with fewer drugs involved—to reach out to me at a point when my life was aimless and give me purpose. It was what she was trying to do now, I could see, but she was ten years too late. “Are you going to stay, now that she’s—now that she’s gone?” I ask, just for something to say.
“I guess that’s your call.” Now he’s lining up the pens on the host’s station, arranging them in perfect order, refusing to meet my eye.
“Oh, no, I’m not…” I falter. “It’ll be up to Cora. I’m not staying.” There, I’d said it out loud. I had expected it to feel freeing, but the words fall like lead from my mouth. “I can’t,” I continue. “I have…” A short-term lease on a shitty apartment? A contract that just ended? What exactly do I have? “I have stuff. It’s complicated. I’m sure Cora will keep you on though. I mean, you must know the place inside-out.”
“I’m surprised she hasn’t given me the boot already.” The corner of his mouth twists downward into an ugly sneer. “Cora’s not on Team Drew, you might say. My bags are already packed. I’m waiting for the word to come down.”
“Do you want me to talk to her? Maybe if she knew…”
“It’s fine,” Drew interrupts. “Without Roz, there isn’t really anything keeping me here anyway.” His voice has lost all its warmth. He grabs a plastic tub from under the counter and moves to clear some empty pint glasses from a recently vacated table. “How long are you in Soberly for then?” I give him a brief rundown of the property transfer process, along with the delay while I wait for my birth certificate to arrive. “I hate that legal bullshit,” he says with unexpected vehemence. I wait for more, but that’s all he has to share. “Are you staying to eat?” he asks. I shrug. It’s been a few hours since the massive plate of fish and chips Naomi fed me, but I’m not all that hungry. However, working my way through some food, and maybe a cold pint or two, will kill time before I have to make my way to the house Roz and Cora shared, a scenario I’m dreading, so I sit down at a table.
“That one’s reserved,” Kellen calls over from behind the bar.
“Sorry, I didn’t know. There wasn’t a sign.” I shift one over.
“So’s that one.” I raise my eyebrows and point at one vacant table after another. He shakes his head at each one. Apparently, there’s quite a supper rush on weekends.
“All right, can I order some takeout, then?” I can eat it on one of the benches overlooking the beach, I guess.
“We don’t do takeout.”
“I just saw—” Not two minutes earlier, while Drew and I had been talking, a man had picked up a bag full of Styrofoam containers, paid, and left.
Kellen shrugs. “There is one seat free at the bar,” he says with a poorly concealed grin, and I realize he’s teasing me.
“Jerk.” I smack his arm with a menu but take the bar stool he pointed out. Just to provoke him, I pull my earbud headphones out of my pocket and slip them in while his back is turned.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, and tugs one out. “I don’t care if you do own the place, you have to follow the dress code like everyone else. Headphones are strictly forbidden.”
“Does Drew know?” The man in question has his firmly in place again—head bobbing as he busses tables.
“His are regulation. These are not. If I see them again, I’m going to confiscate them.” I’m biting back a laugh by now, remembering the stern-but-kind mannerism of the school teacher I saw in the vision of his past. Conceding, I push them back into my pocket. As I’m about to ask him for a pint of the local microbrew, he slides a large wine glass full of ice in front of me and starts pouring something ruby-hued from a pitcher into it.
“I was going to—” I start, pointing at the taps, but he shuts me down with a scorching look that dries up my words. Even my thoughts are lost in his gaze, which is two parts exasperation and three parts lust. What does this guy want from me? Whatever it is, I’m half-tempted to give it to him, as imprudent as that would be.
“You are the most contrary, argumentative, difficult woman I’ve ever met,” he says. He’s leaning forward over the bar, and it wouldn’t take much for me to meet him in the middle. “Just this once, stop trying to get the best of me and trust me. Okay?” I purse my lips and raise an eyebrow, but I don’t reach for the glass. Even though it looks delicious. Even though I feel like the icy drink is the only thing that will keep me from spontaneously combusting on the spot. “It’s sangria,” he tells me in a more conciliatory tone. “Special of the day. I’ve been brewing it all afternoon, just for you, as a welcome-to-town.”
“No, you haven’t.” The words come out before I have time to think, and his stare intensifies. One eyebrow arches above the other. Wordlessly, he points at the chalkboard over his shoulder, where the specials are scrawled. Underneath the catch of the day, it reads “The Apple of Audrey’s Eye: a cabernet sangria infused with three types of Oregon-grown apples, fresh California citrus, and a slug of gin.”
“Yes, I have. Now taste it and tell me how it is. I wanted you to be the first, so I’ve been telling everyone else it isn’t ready yet.”
The sincerity behind the gesture evaporates my playful defiance and brings me perilously close to tears. I’m not used to being treated so kindly by a near stranger, even a too-flirty-for-his-own-good one.
“Well?” he asks after I down a healthy mouthful, rolling it over my tongue and allowing it to cool my heated cheeks.
“Dangerously good,” I tell him, and I mean it. “This could become a serious addiction for me. You need to tell me how to make it.”
“Absolutely not,” he says with mock outrage. “A good bartender never shares his recipes, but there will always be a bottomless pitcher here, waiting for you. That’s a promise.”
“Bottomless pitcher, you say.” I’ve already drained my glass, and I’m starting to feel lightheaded.
“You just tell me when to stop.” That look again. I’m burning up inside. What else to do, but keep on drinking?
6
“Ihave made a critical error in judgment,” I mutter to myself as I stand outside the door of Cora’s house. My knuckles are poised an inch from the wood, painted a cheery yellow. The sun slipped down below the horizon as I left the pub, and I am none too sober. Dangerously good indeed, Kellen’s sangria and the pitcher was bottomless, as promised.
I’d thought Cora’s offer for me to stay with her was generous at the time, but now that I’m here, I wish I’d snuck up to the office for a quick rest and a chance to sober up a bit. I’m not sure which is worse—showing up drunk or showing up in the wee hours of the morning. At least my bloodshot eyes I can pass off to grief, but there’s no way of explaining the smell of wine on my breath, or that I’m a bit unsteady on my feet. If any of the neighbors had noticed me weaving up the sidewalk on my way here, the local gossip mill would be in full swing tomorrow.
With a sigh, I rap three times on the door and step back, hoping the fact that I’m a good six or seven inches taller than Cora will work in my favor. My plan is to collapse into bed immediately anyway. I’d barely slept on the night bus from New Mexico. That said, if Cora wants to talk, especially about Roz, I’m all ears. There was so much I didn’t know about my aunt, and who better to tell me than her life partner? Maybe we could chat over tea, and she could tell me about how Roz came about owning the inn, how they’d met, and all the things I’d missed out on over the past eighteen years. I could tell her about what Roz was like when I knew her as a child, her dreams for her life, the way she’d taken me under her wing in a way. Maybe we could find common ground there, and start working together to—
Cora opens the door, a terry bathrobe wrapped tightly around her frame and an irritated look on her face. Immediately I feel like a child caught out past curfew, even though it’s only a few minutes before ten p.m. She’s been waiting up for me.
“I hope I haven’t kept you up,” I say as I step into the modest bungalow. “I grabbed some food in the pub and got caught up talking to a few people. I didn’t notice how late it had gotten until I saw the sun starting to set and Naomi said I’d best be getting home—I mean over here.” This is not your home, I tell myself sternly. None of it is.
“Well, come on in then.” Cora snaps the deadbolt home with a crack and heads down the hall. Shouldering my duffel, I slip my shoes off and follow her. We pass the living room, illuminated by a single lamp in the corner, and I spot a paperback on the couch. The lamp throws just enough light into the adjoining room for me to identify it as the kitchen. Cora turns a corner and flips a light switch in the first room on the left.
“The bathroom is across the hall. I’m an early riser—I need to be at the front desk by six a.m. You can fix yourself breakfast when you’re up.”
I mentally smack myself in the forehead. If she needs to be at the inn at six a.m., then she likely goes to bed a good hour earlier than I’ve kept her up.
“Umm, thank you,” I say as she heads to her own room at the end of the hall. “I really appreciate you welcoming me into your home.”
“You’re welcome.” This, followed by a faint sniff, is her only reply before she shuts her door. I vow to be as silent as possible while I’m getting ready for bed and set my duffel gently on the carpeted floor. Two white stripes from the straps stand out in stark detail on my shoulder next to the angry red covering my arms and chest, and I wince at the pain. I’d forgotten to get some aloe gel. Now that I don’t have anything to distract me, I can feel the blood throbbing right under the surface of my skin, adding another layer of misery to my situation.
Cora had left a set of towels folded neatly on the bed for me, a bit frayed at the edges but clean and tidy. I pluck up the washcloth and tiptoe across the hall into the bathroom, noting that the light is already off in Cora’s room. The cool cloth provides momentary relief, but as soon as I lift it the burning sensation resumes, and after a couple minutes, I give it up as a bad job, brush my teeth, and return to my room. My phone’s been dead for hours, something that would normally be a crisis for me, but today I’d barely made note of it. I plug it in and set an alarm so Cora can’t add laziness to the list of faults I’m sure she’s compiling and turn down the quilt. As I slip between the cool cotton sheets, I can already feel sleep overtake me, despite the sunburn, everything on my mind, and the way my head is spinning from the sangria. I slip away into unconsciousness.
***
Cora is at the desk in the front office, looking back and forth between a stack of papers and the laptop’s screen when I walk in at half-past eight. She glances over her glasses at me and back down to her paperwork.
“Good morning,” I greet her, and extend the travel mug I’d brought with me. “I made some tea when I woke up and thought I’d bring you some.” The label on the cream Earl Grey in the cupboard was from an upscale shop in Seattle, one I recognized from my time there. “I didn’t know how you take it, so, umm, sorry for that. Anyway, here you go,” I s
tammered, my words falling out of my mouth. She’s looking at me with an unreadable expression until her eyes fill with tears. A litany of curse words runs through my mind. What had I done now? It was supposed to be a peace offering. Now I’m not sure if I should set it down on the desk like nothing’s wrong, or if I should leave the office, the town of Soberly, and the state of Oregon, never to return. Instead, I stand frozen, my arm half-extended, and what’s supposed to be a warm smile, but feels like a grimace, plastered on my face.
“I’m sorry, Audrey,” she says, swiping at her eyes. “Roz brought me tea every morning too. I was always the first one up, you see, and she’d come by later with a mug for me and a mug for her, she’d pull up a chair, and we’d go over the day’s business.”
Is there anything I can do right around this woman? I withdraw the mug and begin spewing a torrent of apologies, assuring her I had no idea, but she holds up her hand to silence me and gestures for the mug with a weak smile.
“It’s actually the nicest thing anyone’s done for me since…since she’s been gone. Thank you.” She flips the top of the lid up, inhales the aroma of the tea, and her smile widens slightly. The thudding in my chest begins to slow.
“I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help out around here over the next few days,” I ask her. “Mr. Blackmoor says the transfer of ownership and everything will take a bit of time—Roz’s will must be probated, and I need a second form of photo ID. I’ll be here for a week or so. I’ll do anything. Cleaning, painting, filing, whatever you need done. Nobody will let me pay for my food in the pub,” I add. The annoyance I’d felt last night when I’d attempted to settle my bill with Kellen returns. He’d been unrepentant that no one there would take my money, nor would they at any point in the future. The last thing I want to look like to Cora is a freeloader.