“Everyone clear out,” the bartender finally shouted. People ignored him until he brought his fingers to his lips and split the air with a whistle that got everyone’s attention. “I said get out.”
I’d already paid my bill, so I grabbed my purse and went to walk out with everyone else. Was it some political thing? Was the president coming in? Oh my god, was it the mob? It hardly mattered, I was just happy to get out of this suddenly tense bar. But the silent man at the door stopped me. “Not you,” he said and pointed me back towards the bar stool I’d just left.
“But—” I looked up at his face and shut up. This unassuming man was nothing but dark inside. Dead. His eyes were reptilian. A chill ran down my spine.
I turned and sat back down on my stool.
“You know every time this shit happens, I lose thousands of dollars,” the bartender said.
“Abe,” a woman said as she came walking in the door. If I was dressed down, she was dressed to the nines. A fur coat and long dark brown hair. Diamonds in her ears, more on her fingers. Leopard print Louboutins. “Every time this shit happens, I pay you more than this place makes in a year.”
“It’s the principal, Eden.”
“It’s a shithole, Abe.”
“Well, it’s my shithole. And I’ve got some pride.”
“Here.” Eden made her way over to the bar and pulled from her Coach+Billy Reid Crocodile Tote a stack of bills and put it on his bar. “That should help with the pride. And bring me a bottle of whatever passes for vodka back there.”
Abe rolled his eyes but pocketed the bills and brought over to where I was sitting a bottle of Grey Goose and two rocks glasses filled with ice. He set them on the bar, and I sat back like they were alive and going to bite.
So, clearly, I’d made a few mistakes in asking for this meeting.
“Thank you, Abe,” she said in a sing song voice as she walked across the bar to me. Prowled really. I felt like I was being stalked by some jungle cat.
This was my sister’s Morelli. She had the signature dark looks and the same frantic energy just under her skin. The same fuck-you-world way of moving through a place. The fur coat parted as she walked, sliding down over a shoulder. The mink grazing across the floor, through the peanut shells.
I winced on the mink’s behalf.
“You look like a tourist,” the woman said. Eden? That was what the bartender called her.
“I’ve never been here,” I said with a shrug.
“No shit.” The skintight black dress poured over her impressive Morelli curves and ended at the very tops of her legs. She was sex walking, and I felt stupid in my jeans. In my body.
She walked past me to the jukebox in the corner, and I swivelled on my stool to watch her. It felt dangerous to take my eyes off her.
She held out her hand towards me.
“Quarter?” she said, still looking at the jukebox.
“I . . . ah . . . I don’t have any change.”
“Jacob?” Eden said, and the man standing at the door put a hand in his pocket and pulled out some change. He walked across the room and put a quarter in her palm. “You like Dolly?” she asked.
I glanced at dead-inside Jacob and then looked for Abe who wasn’t behind the bar.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Oh my god, honey, yes. I am talking to you. And now you don’t get a vote.”
Eden punched the buttons with a lot of enthusiasm, and within minutes Jolene was coming through the speakers.
“You know, if I wrote music,” Eden said turning away from the jukebox. “I would write a song called Dolly entirely from Jolene’s point of view and it would be like, why do you want such a shit guy? If I can take him, just because I can, don’t you think it’s worth looking for some other dude?”
Eden sat on the chair next to me. Her knee hitting mine. Her fur slipping over my leg.
“I don’t honestly understand why no one has done that yet,” she said, looking at me with her eyebrows up.
“Me neither,” I said, having given this question zero thought.
“You must be Poppy,” she said, filling each glass with Grey Goose. She picked hers up and held it out for a cheers. But I didn’t pick mine up. This was all moving a little too fast. She tapped the edge of her glass against mine before draining hers. “You don’t look at all like those pictures of you in the news.”
“No?” I asked, oddly curious if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
“You look like a human. In the news you looked like a paper doll.”
I laughed.
“Did I say something funny?”