Bunches (3 page)

The bar’s getting busy. Lizzy
gets up to head to the bathroom twice, needing to fix her makeup. I enjoy
watching JJ move behind the bar. You would think the TV or something on my
phone would be more interesting, and I’ll be honest, normally I use my phone like
it’s a shield against evil invaders - meaning anyone who wants to make friends.

My phone helps me look busy (I
mean, of course, I really am busy. Obviously), but now I just watch him take
money from a customer here, talk to one of the other bartenders there, or pour
a drink. He looks relaxed and confident. I would feel overwhelmed in the
extreme if I were trying to bartend. All that noise and all these people . . .
I shudder just thinking about it.

Whenever Lizzy’s gone JJ comes to
check on me. He doesn’t ask me how I’m doing. He doesn’t ask me anything at
all. When I tell him we’re fine he nods.

“Just flag me down if you need
anything,” he yells in my ear. I nod again. He disappears and I feel the pull
again. Moon and tide and a little bit of heat mixed with longing.

I take another sip of my rum and
coke. If I’m not careful I’ll finish it.

“What did I miss?” Lizzy yells in
my ear as she hops back into her seat.

“Nothing,” I yell back. I tell
her what the bartender said and she shrugs. “Nice of him.”

I’m well into my second drink and
definitely tipsy when Lizzy decides she’s had enough. She taps me on the
shoulder and points to her phone, indicating the time. She wants to go home. I
look around, feeling a little light-headed.

The bar is dark now, and there’s
a crush of people behind me. I see two girls angling for our bar seats. I
glance at Lizzy and look for the bartender. I don’t feel comfortable calling
him JJ, even though I know his name.

There’s no sign of JJ, so I just
wait. He frequently disappears around the bar.

When he reappears I make eye
contact. I flush instantly. I hate asking for anything, but he comes over. He
doesn’t say anything, the music is too loud. I ask for the bill. He shakes his
head. Frowning, I lean forward and ask again. The music is thumping around me
and there’s a ring of voices. I can’t hear a thing.

He shakes his head again and I
shrug, trying to tell him I don’t understand. He leans forward and I sit
forward. Right in my ear he says, “They’re on the house.”

Then he’s gone.

Lizzy comes back from the
bathroom and slides into her seat. She looks around in confusion.

“I tried to pay,” I yell to her
over the din.

She frowns. “Good. I ask you to
do one simple thing. You should be able to accomplish it.”

“He wouldn’t let me,” I say.

“He thinks someone’s cute,” she
says, winking.

“Yeah,” I say dryly. “You.”

She giggles and shakes her head.

“Nope, he only came over to talk
to you, not me, and he was really nice about the spilled wine.”

“He wouldn’t let me pay,” I say
again, totally at a loss for what to do. Damn rum making my head fuzzy.

“Let’s go,” she says, grabbing my
arm. “Hot bartender doesn’t care about me at all. He doesn’t care about any
girl in here tonight but you. I’m jealous.” She fans herself for emphasis.
“He’s so hot he’s making me hot.”

There’s a crush of girls behind
us, so it takes us a long time to make our way out of the Remember.

I hear one whisper something
about our sexy bartender. Lizzy would obviously agree. I realize that he’s the
reason all the females are down at this end.

I follow Lizzy as closely as
possible, as if I couldn’t find my way by myself. I keep my head down and try
to get my bearings.

“Come on,” says Lizzy once we’re
outside. “Let’s go home.”

Lizzy lives with a girl named
Aimee, while I live with a girl named Nancy. I haven’t even met her yet,
because she works a lot and then disappears. Aimee seems really nice. She’s a
friend of Lizzy’s from college, so they know each other pretty well, but Aimee
works a lot. Lizzy and I talked about living together, but then we decided that
we’d meet more people if we each lived with strangers. So far it’s working out
better for Lizzy than it is for me, just like everything else.

“Did you think he was cute?”
Lizzy demands, turning to me. “You did, didn’t you? I saw you staring at him,
and vice versa, of course.”

“Lizzy,” I say with exasperation,
“he just gave me free drinks because we were cute girls at the bar or
something. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Of course
he meant something by it. He thought you were adorable. Aww.”

She hooks her right arm through
my left. I’m glad for the contact, because despite the early summer weather
we’ve been having, the late evening is a little chilly.

“At least we can walk home,” says
Lizzy cheerfully. “No need for a cab.”

Just as she says it I stumble, my
foot catching on the uneven red brick pavement. Lizzy steadies me.

“Hey,” she says, her voice
softening. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I shrug, trying to pretend I’m
fine. It’s an act I’ve been putting on for five years, and I know Lizzy can see
through it.

“His sister’s getting married
this summer,” I say quietly. “Amelia’s getting married.”

“I know,” she says soothingly.
Lizzy has vowed not to go home this summer; she’s determined to immerse herself
in Portland instead. But she’ll probably be going to that wedding with her
boyfriend Steven, whose older brother is a friend of Amelia.

“I-” I cough and my eyes feel
heavy. With her free hand Lizzy pats my back. “He did something nice,” she
says. “He liked having us there. It was sweet. We had a nice night. Don’t ruin
it with memories.”

I pull away from her. “It’s not
like I can help it,” I say defensively. “I don’t deserve to be happy.”

Lizzy is quiet for so long I’m
afraid she’s mad at me. We’ve strolled into a more residential neighborhood,
away from the noise, the bars, the restaurants, and the crowds of people. Both
Lizzy and I have apartments in houses in this neighborhood. Hers is first, and
mine is a couple of blocks past it.

When she eventually speaks, it’s
not what I expect.

“I think we should have a bucket
list,” she says.

“Huh?”

“A summer bucket list,” she says.
“We went to a bar and you ordered your first drink, that’s a start, but you
need to start living. Otherwise. . . .” She trails off, as if the alternative
is something horrible. What she refuses to realize is that the most horrible
thing already happened.

“I just can’t,” I say quietly.

“Yes, you can,” she says. “It’s
time you started to forgive yourself. It wasn’t your fault and you still feel
so much pain I can feel it with you. And it’s hard. Let’s make a summer bucket
list. Michael doesn’t blame you.”

“I know,” I whisper. I do know
that it wasn’t my fault. I do know that. I just can’t get past what happened.
It feels like I’m betraying his memory every time I try. Every single time I
smile, I remind myself that Michael would like to be smiling too, and he can’t,
because he isn’t here to smile anymore.

“Come on,” Lizzy cajoles,
elbowing me. I sigh, staring hard at the ground.

“Okay, a bucket list, but I get
to agree to all the stuff on it.”

I know that’s a small deterrent
to Lizzy, but I have to try and set some limits. She’s liable to make me go sky
diving or something crazy.

She starts ticking items off on
her fingers. “Here we go:

“One. Do something you wouldn’t
have done a year ago.

“Two. Dance with a stranger.

“Three. Smile when it hurts.

“Four. Go on a date.

“Five. Forgive yourself.

“Six. See a concert, like we used
to.

“Seven. Introduce yourself to the
hot bartender. He obviously wants your name. Well, actually, he obviously wants
a lot more than that.”

“Okay,” I cut in sharply, holding
my hands up in surrender. “I was thinking more along the lines of visit a museum,
see a movie once a week, finally get that pedicure.”

Lizzy glances at my feet as if my
hidden toenails offend her, and rolls her eyes. “God, I’m such a terrible
friend. How are you ever going to get a guy with feet that look like that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure they stare at my
feet,” I say dryly, cracking a genuine smile.

Lizzy’s face brightens and she
grins along with me. “Good point.”

“I like the concert idea,” I say.
Michael, Steven, Lizzy, and I used to go to concerts all the time, but I
haven’t been to one without Michael. I know Steven and Lizzy still go together
and even sometimes take other friends, but they stopped inviting me years ago.

Lizzy isn’t terribly drunk, so
she goes into her apartment and I walk home by myself. For once I’m not
desperately trying to calm the whirl in my mind. I’m thinking of the eye in the
storm, the calm in the chaos. He has gray eyes.

Summer’s the busiest time at the
Remember, and I work a lot. When I’m not working, I hang out with my friends.
If I get a chance, I do some woodworking. I love building things, anything from
shelves to tables and chairs.

My girlfriend, Jessie, also takes
up a lot of my time. We’ve reached the point in our relationship where she
wants to talk seriously. Her friends are moving in together and getting
married. We have done neither of those things, because there’s something that
holds me back. It might be what happened to my mother, and the real fear that
deep down I’m more like my father than I want to think. Or maybe it’s just that
I don’t love her.

The big event of this summer, so
far, is the opening of another bar right across the street from the Remember.
The Black Jack is more rough and tumble, and I hate it. I hate everything about
it, and today I’m having a meeting with its owner, Cuben, to talk about it.
After that Jessie is coming to my place and I’m making her dinner.

I haven’t see the girl I gave
free drinks to again. Part of me is terrified that she’s just passing through.
The more I think about it the more I worry, especially because when I think of
her face I think I see something familiar.

The curve of her mouth, the way
her eyes crinkle at the corner when she’s smiling, the tiny mole at the corner
of her eye (one of the many things that make you look twice at her), the way
her hands talk for her and the way her hair is curliest at the nape of her
neck. They are all things I feel like I’ve seen before.

I’m so angry after my meeting
with Cuben that I consider canceling my dinner plans with Jessie. But in the end,
I know that wouldn’t go over well.

“He refused to do anything,” I
fume as a chop onions that evening. Jessie is sitting on the counter, her feet
dangling. She’s taken off her sandals and left them by the door. I’m kind of a
clean freak. When she smiles there are dimples.

“I’m sure he’ll come around,” she
says, shrugging. “He can’t just let absurdly drunk and large men leave his bar
and brawl in the streets. It’s dangerous.”

“I swear, he doesn’t seem to
care.”

“What’s with you being all
noble?” Jessie asks. Jessie’s the kind of girl who doesn’t like to dwell on
problems. She likes everything wrapped up in a neat, little bundle. Her father
didn’t kill her mother.

I shake my head. She jumps off
the counter and comes to lean her chin on my shoulder and her chest against my
back. For a little while after that I’m distracted, but once we’ve made dinner
and eaten it, and Jessie has curled up on the sofa to watch TV - about as far
away from my cat as she possibly can be - my mind drifts back to the Remember and
to a specific customer, new this summer. I’m hoping she’ll come back soon.

The next weekend I head over to
Lizzy’s with Snick in tow. He’s already escaped from my apartment once and I
don’t want to risk leaving him alone. I can’t imagine what I’d do if something
happened to him.

“I don’t want to go home this
summer,” I tell Lizzy as we sit in her living room. “I can’t handle it.”

“I don’t want to either,” she
says. “I already told Mom I refused. She was really mad and went on a rant, but
there’s not much she can do about it.”

“Because of The Wedding,” I say.
That’s how we’re referencing Amelia’s wedding.

“Right,” she says. “Her mom is
really happy about it. Obviously. She thinks she’s going to get grandkids
soon.”

“And because of me she only has
one shot at that,” I say bitterly.

Lizzy makes an exasperated noise.

“It wasn’t YOUR fault,” she says,
her voice breaking.

“Not directly,” I argue. “But he
still wouldn’t have been in that water if not for me.”

Lizzy just looks at me helplessly.

“His mother just misses him,” she
says. “She doesn’t blame you.”

“His mother hated that he dated
me,” I say, my voice getting higher with emotion. “She never approved.”

“You didn’t need her approval.”

“But if we’d waited until we had
it, maybe he wouldn’t be - - -” I don’t finish what I was about to say. My
throat closes and my eyes sting. I spin on my heel and dart to the bathroom.

Lizzy chose this apartment
because of the bathroom. When the school year ended she spent a weekend at
home, and she took that Saturday to drive up to Portland and look at a few
apartments.

This bathroom is an eye-watering
pink and green. It’s large, and it has a tub that doubles as a shower. There’s
a wide window overlooking the water. Lizzy’s family is wealthy, which is why
they’re friends with Michael’s family.

I take a breath and examine my
reflection. The bathroom isn’t what I would call peaceful. Michael would have
said that it looked like cotton candy had exploded all over the walls. I can’t
believe that after so many years I still think about what Michael would have
said.

I turn the water on and watch the
steady stream grow. I take a deep breath and turn it on a little more. For a
while after he died I couldn’t even look at water. I showered with my eyes
closed. Now I can. Now I can see it and breathe.

What’s my secret?

Well, it can’t remind me of
Michael dying, because everything else already does. There’s just no point in
treating water as if it’s different from everything else.

Lizzy knocks on the door.

“Nora? Come on. Are you okay?”

My hands are shaking less. I
don’t answer.

I pick up Snick, who followed me
in here, and cuddle him. He’s large and fluffy and black. The very best cat. He
curls up in the sinks of bathrooms, at least until you turn the water on.

Mom was angry when I told her I
wanted Snick to live with me for the summer. She told me it wasn’t good for
him. I informed her that it wasn’t good for us to be apart. She relented, but I
had to promise to take good care of him. I think Mom thought I’d gone to college
and become all normal, going out and getting drunk. The truth is, the Remember
was my first drink.

At that, my heart beats faster
just at the thought of those stormy gray eyes, the eyes that were so attentive
to me. I remember again the sea of calm and take a breath.

I roll my shoulders and order
myself to relax. Thinking about the bartender helps. Still holding Snick, I
open Lizzy’s bathroom door. She’s standing there looking gorgeous, as usual.
And worried.

“Sorry,” I say.

She looks at me sympathetically.
“No worries.”

“So,” I say, trying not to sound
suspicious. “What did you have in mind exactly?”

Lizzy smiles wickedly, rubs her
hands together, and coos. “Oh yes. It’s time we go out again, and the Remember
is just the place.” She winks at me. “I don’t want to pay for drinks.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s been almost
a week. He’s not going to remember me.”

Lizzy gapes at me. “Of course he
will.”

“No,” I say, my heart still
drumming inside my ribs. “He sees so many cute girls at the bar he won’t even
care.”

“You have to try,” says Lizzy.
“If you never try, how will anything ever change?”

Maybe I’m not meant to change.
Maybe I don’t deserve to have the best love twice.