Circuit Of Heaven (27 page)

His mom brightened right up. “That would be wonderful, dear. How about pot roast?”

“Anything but rabbit,” he said, and he felt Justine stiffen.

“Is seven o’clock all right with you, dear?” his mom asked Justine.

For a moment, Nemo didn’t think she was going to answer. Finally she said, in a small, flat voice, “Seven o’clock would be fine.”

He felt as if he’d just lopped off Sophie’s head.

THROUGHOUT
THE
BREAK
,
NEMO
AND
HIS
FOLKS
DID
ALL
the talking. He tried to sound happy and upbeat. Justine sat inert beneath his arm until she timidly excused herself and went back on stage. She did another set, singing all the songs to the spotlights, never saying a word between songs. It was like watching a virtual. After the set, she went into the green room and never came out. His parents pretended nothing was wrong and tried to cheer him up with anecdotes from their last cruise. Winston and Lila didn’t have much to say, but Nemo still felt Lila watching him.

When the band came back on stage, Justine wasn’t with them. The guitar player and the bass player traded vocals, lots of Stones and Grateful Dead. Nemo sat through the set, completely numb. When they finally finished the last song, Nemo bolted after the guitar player as he was leaving the stage and grabbed him by the arm.

“Did Justine leave?”

Rick looked at Nemo’s hand on his arm and smirked. “What are you, the jilted boyfriend?”

“Did she leave or not?”

“She split. Very unprofessional, don’t you think?

“Where’d she go?”

“She didn’t tell me.” He shrugged off Nemo’s hand and grinned. “I think she had a date with an angel, lover boy.” He turned and walked away. Nemo started to go after him, but this was the Bin—he couldn’t beat the crap out of him in here.

Nemo stopped by the table, mumbled quick good-byes to the family, and hit the street as fast as he could. He headed up the sidewalk, debating whether to try to catch up with Justine at her hotel, or just find a bar and get drunk.

He heard a woman’s heels clicking on the pavement at his back. He turned around, and it was Lila, running toward him. “Hey, nephew,” she said. “Wait up.”

He stopped, and she caught up with him, leaned on his arm, catching her breath. “She really loves you, you know that?”

Down the street, Winston came out of the club and was looking up and down the street. “I thought I did,” he said.

“You
thought
you did. What you don’t know would fill a truck. You love her?”

“Yes, I do. But what’s going on? Why’d she run off?”

“Lila!” Winston called.

“She has to tell you that. Just don’t forget you love her, okay? Guys have a way of forgetting that sometimes.”

“Lila,
now
!” Winston shouted.

“Asshole!” she hissed, and ran down the street to join Winston.

As they went back into the club, she called back over her shoulder, “Don’t forget!”

He stood there a while, trying to sort things out, but nothing made any sense. He headed off in the direction of Justine’s hotel. She was probably halfway to New York by now, but he could torture himself with a few drinks in the bar. Hell, he thought, maybe I can follow it up with a trip to Real World Tours, drown myself in the river.

AS HE
APPROACHED
DUPONT
CIRCLE
,
THERE
WERE
MORE
people in the streets, mostly couples out for a night of fun. A few even seemed to be having it. Nemo heard the rumors about the real D.C.—that there were snipers policing the boundaries of psycho-fiefdoms of all stripes. One wrong turn, and you’re dead. It probably wasn’t as bad as the rumors. But then there were
no
rumors of people having fun.

The lobby of Justine’s hotel was almost empty. He found a house phone and called her room, but there was no answer. He checked the hotel database, and she was still registered. He rode up in the elevator, starting at the numbers, remembering her standing there beside him, wishing he could just turn around and she’d be there again. The doors opened on her floor, and he stepped out into the empty hall. He remembered her a half step ahead of him, him dying to reach out and touch her. He remembered her hands, her lips.
Don’t be afraid of me
, she’d said. Now she was the one who was afraid, who was running away. He knocked twice on her door, but this time it didn’t open. He listened at the door, but there wasn’t a sound. She was gone.

He took his time walking back to the elevator. He rode down to the
Grotto
and took a stool at the bar. He searched the crowd, but he didn’t see Justine. Another couple were sitting where he and Justine had sat. They were staring at each other, not speaking. Nemo couldn’t tell whether they were mad or in love or both. The same bad piano player was torturing old songs. Too bad you couldn’t shoot piano players in here.

Nemo jumped as a live bartender wiped off the bar and set a napkin in front of him. “What’s your pleasure?” he asked.

There was a wall of bottles behind the bartender, rows of glasses beside him, and a bin of ice. This man actually made drinks. Bless him, Nemo thought. “Double scotch, the best you have. Single malt. Twist of lemon.”

Nemo watched the man make his drink with practiced efficiency. He wore a name tag on his vest that read
Gene
.

“You like being a bartender?”

“Oh, yeah.” Gene set Nemo’s drink on the napkin, and leaned on the bar. “I used to tend bar outside when I was in college. Best job I ever had. Decided to go back to it. I’m kind of weird, I guess. I have to be doing something. What about you? You work?”

“Yeah. I fix things.”

Gene gave Nemo a puzzled look. “Fix what things?”

“Old electronics. I live outside.”

“No kidding? You’re a visitor? How about that. I haven’t talked to a visitor in…jeez, I don’t know when. What’s it like out there?”

“Empty,” Nemo said.

Gene nodded thoughtfully. “You thinking about coming in?”

“I was. There’s a girl in here. But things are kind of up in the air at the moment.”

“Too bad. But you’re young, healthy, right? Maybe you should stay out for a while. I sometimes wish I’d stayed out a little longer. I used to have this dream. I was going to sail around the world, just me and my sailboat. I drew plans, read books about it. I was going to build it in my garage. A couple of times I’ve started to build it in here, but I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem the same.

“Oh well.” He wiped the bar again. “If I’d stayed out I’d be too damn old to go anywhere by now. You need another drink?”

“Sure.”

Gene talked and made the drink at the same time. “Well, if you ever decide to come in here, let me give you a little tip: Women go for a guy that works. It’s kind of funny, really. Some kind of genetic memory or something. I mean, it doesn’t matter in here, right? But I get hit on five, six times a week. It’s weird.”

All together, Nemo had four double scotches talking to Gene, the bartender. Gene liked to talk. He told Nemo about his other jobs over the years. He’d only gone back to bartending about six months ago. Before that he’d been a dog trainer. When he first came in, and for several years after, he’d been a comedian.

“But I had to give it up,” he said, polishing the bar again. “I finally had to admit I wasn’t funny. I mean, I’d stand up there and tell my jokes, and nobody would laugh. Well, that’s not quite true. I had one line, at the end of the routine, that usually got a laugh. I’d get to talking about the Bin, tenth wife jokes and crap like that, and then I’d do this impression of Newman Rogers.” He held his ears out and spoke in a whistly voice, “
Turn the damn thing on, and make me tall
!” He laughed at his own joke and Nemo smiled politely. “But then I’d start talking about what I’d change about the Bin if
I’d
been Newman Rogers. Stupid stuff, you know—no mothers-in-law, a war once in a while to spice up the news. And then I’d say, last line of the show—‘But
most
important, I’d make me funny!’ They howled at that. You need another drink?”

“Sure.”

This time Gene made himself a drink as well, a martini up, three olives. “You ever been married?”

“No. I lived with someone for a while.”

“That’s not the same thing,” he said. “Close, but not the same.”

Gene was about to remarry Sally, his first wife. They’d been married and divorced outside, before he came in. He told Nemo all about it. How they met and fell in love, how great it was, and how bad it got. But they ran into each other last Christmas after all these years and started dating again. They fell in love with each other all over again. He’d had five wives in the Bin—all together Gene had been married thirty-seven years—but none of them were as good as those good years with Sally. “Sally feels the same way,” he said.

“Maybe you and Sally should build that sailboat,” Nemo said. “Sail around the world together.”

Gene lit up. “That is a
great
idea!”

Nemo finished his drink, and Gene started making him another one before the glass hit the bar. “So, if it works out with you and this girl, do you think you’ll get married?”

Nemo was startled by the question. He hadn’t really thought about it. He’d just assumed they would. He’d apparently assumed a lot of things. “If it works out,” he said.

Gene nodded his approval and sipped his martini. “You know one other thing I’d change in here? I mean, this wasn’t in the act or anything, cause it’s not really funny. But when you get married in here, you don’t say ‘till death us do part.’ It’d be stupid, right? That’d mean
never
part, and that’s too much for most people. But I’d make it that way. Sally and I are going to say that, in the ceremony, I mean. We said it once before, of course, but we’ve changed a lot since then. I heard about this couple the other day. They were married seventy-five years already when they came in here—some of the first ones, back in ‘50. Anyway, they just celebrated their one hundred and sixth anniversary. Can you believe it? Some day that’ll be me and Sally. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

“Justine.”

Gene held up his glass. “Sally and Justine,” he said.

“Sally and Justine,” Nemo said. They clicked glasses and drank.

Nemo was thoroughly drunk by this time. “She went to New york,” he said. “I don’t know why or what for. Wouldn’t tell me. For all I know she lives there. She’s a singer. Travels around.” He made a circle with his glass and sloshed half his drink on the bar. Gene kindly wiped it up.

“You don’t know where she lives?”

“I don’t know shit,” he said. “‘Cept I love her. Crazy about her.”

“Why don’t you look her up?” Gene pointed to a phone a couple of stools down.

Nemo managed to walk to the phone and sit down in front of it. They only number information had for Justine was the hotel he was sitting in.

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” Gene asked.

Nemo shook his head. “I don’t care.”

“How come you’ve stayed out so long? you a fundie or something?”

Nemo learned across the bar and beckoned Gene closer. “Saw everybody burn up. Hundreds of ‘em.” He picked up a book of matches from a bowl on the bar, struck a match, and lit the book. He watched it burn for a while as Gene eyed him warily, then dropped it onto an ashtray.

“You know what Justine thinks?”

Gene was still eyeing the burning matches. “What?”

“Thinks I oughta look up my old girlfriend. Serve her right. Wha’d‘you think?”

“I think maybe you ought to call it a night.”

“Can you give me a cup of coffee to go?”

“Sure, pal.”

As Gene went to get his coffee, Nemo accessed information again, and there was Rosalind, living in Bethesda. He knew he should just get his ass out of the Bin before he overstayed his welcome, but he wasn’t ready to go home. He’d be sober in the real world. He didn’t want to be sober just yet.

ROSALIND
LIVED
IN A
SMALL
CAPE
COD
IN AN OLD-fashioned neighborhood, fairly modest by Bin standards. It hadn’t taken Nemo that long to find it, just a short train ride, and a few blocks walk, but it was long enough for him to wonder what in the hell he thought he was doing.

It was 1:30 in the morning, he hadn’t seen Rosalind in almost two years, and here he was about to drop in on her. And for what? Some conversation they should’ve had four years ago? Justine had said,
Are you sure? Are you sure?
And then she’d run out. Fine. He’d talk to Rosalind. He’d get things straight. Be one hundred percent sure, if Justine ever bothered to ask him again. And just maybe, if he told her,
Yeah, I went to see Rosalind
, Justine might feel half as bad as he did when she told him she didn’t want him to come in.

There were lights on upstairs and down. The porchlight was on. If she had a husband or a boyfriend, he couldn’t shoot Nemo in here. He rang the doorbell and fought the urge to run away. What would Lawrence advise me to do? Nemo asked himself. But that was no help. Sometimes Lawrence told him to let sleeping dogs lie. Other times he urged him to wrestle with the bear. Before Nemo could decide which bit of Texas wisdom to follow, Rosalind opened the door.

She cocked one eyebrow and gave him a faint ironic smile. It was the closest he’d ever seen her come to surprise. “Nemo. Come in.”

He followed her into the den. She shut off the kick-boxing virtual she’d been watching and flopped onto the sofa. Nemo sat down in an armchair. “So what’s up?” she said, trying to be cool, though she looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin. She looked terrible. She’d grown her hair out, but hadn’t trimmed it or apparently even combed it, so it looked like a hatstack. She had a wide-eyed look, like she never slept.

“I’m thinking about coming in,” Nemo said.

She looked at him with hollow eyes, her hands buried in her hair. “Why?” She sounded almost angry.

“I met someone in here. I’m in love with her.”