Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge (18 page)

“Vincent is no Hortense LaRue,” said Zane. “If he’d kept his eyes on what was in his glass instead of on what my uncle had, they’d still work. He could’ve—look, we can’t afford to wait, Mona. I was useless last night. Never again.”

Bailey thought briefly of Vincent: his blank eyes, his letterless keyboard, Poppy curled in her bed. “Wait,” she said. “If that’s how Vincent lost his sight, then maybe Mona’s right. That rum is crazy old. Maybe there’s a reason no one drank it.”

“Bailey,” Zane said, “it’s
me
we’re talking about here. This is my life’s work. You’ve seen that I know what I’m doing. I’m just asking you to trust me one more time.”

Bailey wished she could’ve just taken him at face value. But right now she didn’t know how the hell to feel about Zane Whelan. Not even when he was in his sweatpants.

“I don’t think you should,” Mona said, folding her arms. “No, you shouldn’t. Full stop.”

But whatever Bailey did feel, she wanted it to be more than what Mona felt. “Let’s do it,” she said quickly and then tried not to worry about what she’d gotten herself into. “Let’s mix ourselves a proper Long Island.”

Zane’s face broke out into the crazy, contagious grin that made Bailey smile, made her feel proud and a little special. “That’s what I like to hear,” he said. “I’ll start measuring ingredients. Mona, there’s a special glass I keep in the top cabinet. Bailey, I’ve got some lemons in the fridge. Grab one, slice it, and shave off a few twists. There’s no way we’re making a Long Island without a garnish. And Bucket—”

Bucket sat up, eyes filled with hope.

Zane stopped. “Actually, I’m so used to having only three people, there’s kind of not anything for you to do. Uh, you can handle the music.”

Gravely the Canadian drew his phone from the pocket of his biker jacket and held it aloft like a battle standard. “This is why God put me on this earth.”

Zane pulled out a collection of tiny old bottles. Each shape was radically different: one was round as a teakettle; one so thin it looked as if it barely held a needle, let alone a dram of vodka; one curved into a loop and stopped with a cork. Apparently he’d been collecting them for a while. Carefully, as if they contained nitroglycerin, he poured the contents into special brass jiggers.

Mona retrieved the glass: a highball, plain in design but with a particular curvature to the sides. She washed it so clean that it looked invisible in her hands.

Bailey found a cutting board and laid waste to two lemons, giving Zane every kind of option for slice size and shape, as well as peels for garnish.

With a few flicks of his thumb, Bucket filled the apartment with appropriately ominous punk rock. Over machine-gun drums and a tight spiky guitar, a singer wailed about digging up the bones of his lost love. Satisfied with the atmosphere, Bucket picked up a towel and polished the bar, lifting each bottle Zane had set down.

Bailey took a plate and spent a moment arranging her peels and slices. It probably didn’t matter, but it made the task feel more like a proper arcane ritual. She figured that if she was investing in magic, she might as well go for broke. Admitting it to herself untangled a knot of unease. They were going to do it, goddammit, and she was going to help them. She wasn’t a tech millionaire at twenty-two, but she’d be part of the dev team responsible for a historic and delicious mystical breakthrough. Only she probably couldn’t put that on a résumé.

The three Alechemists brought together their collective effort. On the space Bucket had prepared, Mona placed the glass filled with ice cubes. She didn’t have Zane’s or Bucket’s fervor or Bailey’s
nervous excitement, but she moved with the same decisiveness she’d had last night, when she’d taken on the last tremens by herself.

Wait, holy shit, that happened
, Bailey thought. But before she could explore the memory in greater depth, Zane nodded for her to approach. She placed the plate of garnishes next to the glass, then out of instinct gave the bar a reverential nod before stepping back. She could’ve laughed. She was a barback again. It didn’t matter. Maybe it was their group enthusiasm, or maybe just Bucket’s choice in music, but she felt something palpably electric.

When Zane saw that everything was in order, he nodded. In turn he reached for each jigger and poured the contents into the glass. The ice cracked and shifted. Eyes blazing, he intoned:

“Does the chant do anything?” Bailey whispered to Bucket. She’d never needed to chant over a cocktail.

“No,” said Bucket. “But pretty cool, though, eh?”

Zane layered in the triple sec, the lemon juice, and a sweetener called gomme syrup. The mixture was still transparent, albeit a little yellow from the lemon juice. Apparently it was going well because triumph was written all over Zane’s face as he threw in the last liquid ingredient, a splash of cola, which stained the glass a soft brown. He caught Bailey’s eye, and they shared giddy grins that said,
Holy shit, we’re doing this
.

He inserted an old-timey straw: straight and white, with a thin red stripe spiraling like a candy cane. He stirred seven times counterclockwise, then once clockwise, before releasing it. The liquid swept the straw around the glass rim before it came to a rest. Then, with
a nod of thanks to Bailey, Zane selected a long twist of lemon peel and carefully slid it into the glass.

No one breathed as they waited for the telltale glow.

All four of them jerked forward as a light sparked inside the liquid. It died, but less than a second later another light popped in and out. And then a third, as if the drink harbored a cigarette lighter refusing to catch.

The Long Island iced tea lit up for a seventh time, then guttered again. This time there was no spark.

Zane’s hands fell to his sides. “No,” he breathed.

Bailey’s heart broke. All the artifices of manliness had fallen away, and he looked more than ever like the boy who’d been her friend. She wanted to throw her arms around him, even if it was awkward, just so he wouldn’t be standing there alone and crestfallen. “Zane …”

He seemed not to have heard her. “I was so close.” The goth punk music, so fitting a moment ago, now seemed to mock his sadness.

“Yes,” said Mona, stepping forward. “Closer than anyone has ever come since the last time someone succeeded.” For once Bailey could read her: Mona hadn’t expected it to work, but she hadn’t expected it to be nearly as successful as it was. She looked, for the first time, rattled.

“I was so close!” Zane pounded a fist on the table. The drink shook but didn’t spill.

Bailey nudged Bucket. He spread his arms helplessly
—And what should I say, exactly
?—so Bailey took a deep breath and gave it a shot.

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not
okay
,” she said, putting up her hands defensively. “But you still have your eyes. You still have your mind. If you got this close, the next time will be closer. The next time will be
it
.”

“What next time?” Zane said. “I had a single shot of LaRue’s
private stock. That’s a chance I’ll never get again, and I fucking blew it.” He really was like a teenager again—enraged and sullen at the same time—and she was the grown-up, sensible but with no idea how to end the exchange nicely.

“You found some once, you can do it again,” she said. She’d thought it sounded good, but Bucket gave her a tiny but violent shake of the head. She decided to take his advice and change tack. “Besides,” she said, “the important thing isn’t the Long Island iced tea. Bartending is about protecting Chicago from deliriums or whatever else is happening. It’s about service.”

“Bailey, you don’t know the first thing about bartending,” Zane said. “You’ve been doing this for, like, a month, and for once I actually know more about something than you do. So no offense, but shut up.”

The words hit her like a slap.

Zane’s face fell. “Wait, I—”

“No,” Bailey said, her voice as calm and unwavering as she could make it.

“I didn’t—I’m just—you have no idea how frustrating—” He paced, glancing from Bailey to the drink on the table while Bucket and Mona stood silent on either side.

“No,” Bailey said again, “you’re right. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll shut up.”

“Bailey.” Zane’s voice was practically pleading. “Don’t—”

“She
doesn’t
know what she’s talking about,” Mona said, arms folded and eyes cold. “I’ve been doing this a long, long time. Longer than any of you and certainly longer than
her
.”

That was ridiculous. Granted, Bailey had no idea how old Mona was—it was hard to guess when you didn’t have a four-year academic paradigm to fall back on—but she didn’t look that much older.

“Don’t talk about me that way,” Bailey snapped. “I’m right here.”

Bucket stepped back as far as he could. Zane stared blankly at the floor—with Mona’s hand on his shoulder.

“Well, then,” Mona said coolly, “maybe you shouldn’t be.”

Two minutes later Bailey hit the sidewalk and stomped toward home. She was unshowered, stringy haired, wearing smeared makeup and clothes covered in garbage. Everyone she passed, even the dogs out for a walk, gave her wide berth.

Something buzzed in her purse. Bailey swore and dug around for her phone without breaking stride. She heard it clattering but of course couldn’t find the damn thing. If it was her parents, she wouldn’t answer. If it was Zane, she would answer and unload invective so blistering it would set his ears on fire.

But when she finally unearthed the phone, the screen said
JESS
.

“Bailey Chen!” a cheerful and familiar voice crackled. “What it is, girl?”

“Um, fine,” Bailey said, scrambling to flip on her brain’s small-talk switch. “Fine. It is … just … fine.”

“Right on,” said Jess. “So I know this is
super
late, and out of the blue, and on a weekend and stuff, but I just wanted to know: what’re you up to this Monday?”

“You mean for, um …” Bailey struggled to remember what normal people did to socialize. “Drinks?”

“No, dummy. To come in for your sit-down.”

“My what?”

“Your interview! At Divinyl!”

Bailey looked back over her shoulder at the distant apartment building. It wasn’t a bar, and it wasn’t Zane. But it was symbolic enough.

She cradled the phone on her shoulder and flipped off that symbol with both hands.

“As it happens,” Bailey said, “I’m free all day. When should I come in?”

Divinyl’s offices were in the beating heart that was Chicago’s famous Loop, a district named for the aboveground train lines that encircled the block inside Lake, Van Buren, Wabash, and Wells. Bailey rode in on Ravenswood’s own train, the Brown Line, which she’d always thought of as her line. Whenever she’d wanted to venture outside the neighborhood, the Brown Line was always her first step. She’d never ridden it like this, though. Back in the day, she and her friends had been just another group of loud kids swinging on poles, jumping from seat to seat, and generally annoying the commuters. Today
she
was the commuter.

Bailey wore a blue pantsuit, matching heels, and her hair in a tight bun. She looked, in other words, sharp as hell. Total corporate villainess. Inside her purse she was toting twenty fresh copies of her résumé, ready to pass them out like candy the second she got through the front doors. She was a Spartan girded for battle. She was ready.

Get used to this commute
, she told herself, glancing around the quiet train car.
Play your cards right, and you’ll live to see the day you get bored of it
.

She’d given herself enough time to find the building without rushing, and security was helpful in pointing the way.

“Oh, yeah,” said the desk attendant, “I’ve been up there. Cool office.” She eyed Bailey’s outfit. “You with the IRS or something?”

“What?” Bailey frowned. “No, why?”

The woman shrugged. “No reason. Go on ahead to the elevators. Eighteenth floor.”

Well, that was … whatever
. Bailey put the exchange out of her mind and tried to focus. This was her life now. This was what she was born to do. Not cutting lime wedges or salting margarita rims.
Business
. Spreadsheets, accounts payable, profit margins, spreadsheets …

Okay, so she wasn’t even sure what her role at Divinyl would be. But she was showing up, and that was, according to a poster from the UPenn career office, half the battle. (The poster had also featured, for reasons Bailey never quite divined, an eagle winging its way across a rainbow.)

Right off the elevator she got a good vibe. Instead of the austere white or beige or eggshell paint in most offices, Divinyl’s lobby walls were covered with, well, covers. Album art spanning six decades of pop culture had been jigsawed into a giant mosaic, connected by stylized vines, chains, and wires. At the center of each wall, like a red island in the swirl, was one of the four stars of Chicago’s flag.

“Isn’t it just the coolest?” A young woman sidled up. “They commissioned Logik—you know, the graffiti artist?—to do the lobby. We think it’s a good way to let people know what we’re about. If they’re into it, we’ll be into them. And if they’re not, at least it’s close to the elevator, right? And also,” she added, finally taking a breath, “hi!”

Like Zane, Jess had changed since high school, but not nearly as much. She still had the same honey-blond hair—cut into an aggressively angular bob—and the same Easter-egg-colored wardrobe. Only two things stuck out to Bailey. The first was that in the four-year interim, Jess had adopted a pair of retro glasses that gave her a mischievous, catlike air. The second was that despite working for a firm powerful enough to change the way people listened to music,
she wasn’t dressed like a corporate player. She rocked a bright pink T-shirt with Divinyl’s logo splashed across the chest, plus a skirt and sneakers. No wonder the security guard thought Bailey was there to audit them. Next to Jess’s casual-casual ensemble, Bailey’s sensible, graduation present pantsuit felt like full-plate armor.