Just One Night, Part 3: Binding Agreement (10 page)

CHAPTER 13

T
HE REST OF
the day has a surreal quality. Mr. Costin had been flustered as he wavered between glee and terror. Was Mr. Dade upset about something? Was I?

No, I had answered. Everything was fine. But the office didn’t suit me; no, not the room, but the position, the firm, the life. . . . I had reassured him again after that, stumbling over my words as he fumbled his platitudes. There are logistics to think of, too. In a very short period of time I have taken to my job. Things are getting done; new approaches are being explored. It would be such a shame to throw all that away, and Mr. Costin knows it.

But he also knows that my leaving is a gift. It’s a gift to him and to many others who work here, people who don’t want to structure their lives and careers around the ocean’s tide. Understandably they’d rather live where they’re safe from the impending tsunami.

So we arranged for me to stay the next three weeks, to help with the transition. Having so much turnover in such a short period of time never looks good but we’ll make things as smooth as possible.

My only requirement is that Mr. Costin not give my job to Asha. I forced him to agree to that stipulation. It’s the last time I’ll flex my muscles here, in this office in this building. Surely this last abuse of power will add another chink in the delicate remains of my cracked morality.

It’s worth it.

I don’t go home when the day is done, and I certainly don’t go to him. Instead I drive around the city, let the lights of the night lead me in random directions, toward this shopping mall, this restaurant, this event that shines its spotlights into the air as if calling for Batman.

I don’t park, never stop for anything other than a traffic signal. I just keep driving until I get to a vaguely familiar alley, away from the lights and glaring marketing campaigns. I stop for a speakeasy called Wishes.

I’m hesitant when I get to the door. It’s just as white as I remembered it; the letters of the name are still just as red. As if wishes were made of blood.

I open the door. A man stands behind the bar, cleaning a glass with a cloth. Men and women talk among themselves; the music in the background comes from speakers, not live musicians. As I approach the bar the bartender makes eye contact with me, offers me an appraising smile. “What can I do you for?”

“What do you have in the means of scotch?” I ask as I prop myself up on a bar stool; my eyes only briefly flicker to the small plastic cube behind the bar, the one that overflows with precut slices of lime.

“I got a few,” he says, naming off a few brands, nothing as grand as what Robert and I indulged in while we were in Vegas. I shake my head and opt for a vodka tonic instead.

He places the drink in front of me in short order, a wedge of lemon in my glass, not lime. I pick it up, look at the little ring of wetness it leaves on the bar. I lay on that bar not long ago; salt had tickled my skin.

“Is Genevieve working tonight?” I’m not sure why I’m asking, not even sure why I’m here. Perhaps it’s because I want to understand. What happened to me? Was my night here really the turning point or a manifestation of a bigger decision that I had made even before Robert had led me through that door? A decision to embrace excess and abandon the conventions of society that I was taught to cherish?

Or maybe I was here for a more basic reason. Maybe I wanted to know what Robert and Genevieve had going on. Maybe I wanted to know how many women had been laid down on this bar, how many lovers they had shared. Had there ever been a time when it was just the two of them? Was it just the two of them now that I had walked away?

I smile up at the bartender, who is too busy counting out change to hear my question. I ask again and he looks up in confusion.

“Genevieve? No one by that name works here.”

“No?” I put my glass down, suddenly feeling a bit off balance. “The woman with the red hair—what’s her name?”

“We don’t have anyone here with red hair. We got a Janey; she’s Asian. Oh and there’s Andrew . . . guess you could call him a strawberry blond although most just describe him as balding. And there’s Henry and me, oh and Elsie . . . she’s Haitian. She’s something to look at. Black as the night with cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself on them. When she starts speaking French, the tips start rolling in.

“But no Genevieve?” I ask meekly.

“Only Genevieve I know of lives in Camelot,” he says with a smile before stepping away to address the woman waving her credit card in the air.

He doesn’t hear me when I reply quietly, “You’re thinking of Guinevere and Camelot . . . it doesn’t exist.”

I glance around the room, study the patrons more carefully. They look normal enough. There are a few hipsters, a few women and men who have worked a little too hard to emulate the visual perfection of Hollywood’s stars. But mostly they’re everyday folks, people who probably live around here and just wanted to go to their neighborhood spot, a place with little pretense, a place that seems more dedicated to comfort than image. Last time I was here Robert and I were the center of attention. Everyone seemed to be somehow tuned in to us, hyperaware of our presence even before . . . things happened.

Tonight I get a few looks but only the kind you would expect. Glances of hopeful men and competitive women. The energy’s different.

And the music comes from a stereo.

When the bartender looks my way again, I crook my finger, beckoning.

“Need another?” He asks, eyeing my drink that I’ve barely touched.

“No, I was just wondering if you’ll be having live music tonight . . . you know, later.”

Again he gives me a funny look. “We don’t have live music here. We did a karaoke night once, for a holiday weekend . . . think it was Memorial Day . . . maybe Columbus. Anyway, that was a few years ago. It didn’t really catch on.”

I shake my head, now impatient and a little frightened. “I was here. I heard the music. A woman and a bass player. He played, she sang. I heard it!”

Another quizzical look, and then finally the dawning of comprehension. “You must have been at that private party the owner had a little while back. Yeah, I heard a little somethin’ about that. Mr. Dade hired talent, used his own people to tend bar. I was kinda pissed because, you know, I can’t afford to just lose a whole night worth of tips but Mr. Dade, he made it like a paid vacation for all of us so you know, no complaints.”

I suck in a sharp breath, feeling once again unsteady on my stool. The bartender is watching me more closely, a new twinkle of interest in his eyes. “Did he pay you?” he asks.

“Excuse me?” The response is too quick, too visceral. I can’t keep the note of offense from my voice.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. One of my friends told me all about it. He got paid, too.”

“Your friend . . .” my voice trails off as a new, horrible thought occurs to me. “Your friend the bass player?”

“Nah, I don’t know anything about the musicians. My friend was one of the patrons. Mr. Dade doesn’t have a clue that I know him and he was sworn to secrecy and everything . . . even had to sign some confidentiality agreement but like I said, we’re friends. You break those kinds of rules for friends.”

“We have rules for a reason,” I whisper. “There’s something to be said for following the rules.”

“Yeah, whatever.” The bartender laughs, mistaking my statement for lighthearted teasing. “He says he got paid three hundred bucks just to show up. He just had to sit here and look like a regular ol’ barfly and then, when the bartender rang the bell for last call, well he had a choice, he could spend some of that money on getting one last drink here or he could head out. But if he got the drink, he couldn’t dawdle. And if he didn’t, he couldn’t just run out the door, he had to get up all leisurely like. Like a real barfly.”

“Why?” I ask. There’s still emotion in my voice, not offense this time, something weaker that speaks to a deeper pain. But once again the music and the hum of the bar drowns out the nuance and the bartender continues.

“Beats the hell outta me,” he says. “But my friend? He says that when Mr. Dade arrived, he came with this really hot chick . . . not like a hooker or anything. He said she was dressed in expensive brands and holding a designer purse. Sounds like one of those uptight Rodeo Drive types looking for a little downtown adventure, you ask me. You know what I think . . .” He falters and then looks away, suddenly awkward.

“What?” I ask.

“Nah, what I think probably shouldn’t be said in mixed company.” He laughs.

I hesitate before goading him on, trying for my best lecherous leer. “Come on, I’m dying here! Tell me the dirty details. What do you think happened?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Fuck yeah!”

This is not a part that I know how to play well but the bartender isn’t very smart so he continues without picking up on that.

“I bet you anything Mr. Dade and this lady were acting out one of those kinky rich-man’s fantasies,” he says, leaning forward. “I bet once all those fake guests got outta here he fucked her, I bet he fucked her right here on this bar. I bet that bartender . . . whatcha call her, Genevieve? I bet she got in on it, too. And those musicians . . . my friend said they got to stay. Maybe they were part of the little orgy or maybe they got to watch.” He shakes his head, no longer here. Instead he’s lost in his own little fantasy, a fantasy that is so much more than a fantasy for me. I feel my cheeks heat up; anxiety accelerates my heart.

“Can you imagine it?” he asks dreamily. “Two hot girls going down on each other in front of an audience right here on my bar. Man, what I would have given to have seen that. Man, he wouldn’t have even had to pay me. I would have bartended for free and I would have recorded the whole damn thing for him, too! You must have seen the girl though, right? You really were there? Was she hot?”

My cheeks are flaming now; I’m clutching my drink like it’s life support. The bartender gives me a strange look and then a slow grin spreads over his face. “You
were
here. It was you, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You had sex here, on my bar, by a chick while he watched! Oh man, my friend said the girl was hot but I never dreamed she was as hot as you.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I spat.

“No, tell me, what was it like? Did that bartender, that Camelot girl, did you two strip each other down in front of everyone? And the musicians, did they get a turn with you, too? Or was it just you and Mr. Dade? You know, I’ve always wanted to have sex in front of other people . . . but hey, you know, I like to watch, too. If you ever—”

I get up abruptly, almost tripping as my feet hit the floor, and then I bolt for the door. My movements are so tactless, it attracts the attention of the patrons who had been ignoring me. I feel their eyes on me as I leave, but mostly I feel the eyes of that bartender.

People in that bar, they’ll ask him what that was about. And
that
bartender? He’ll tell them. He’ll tell them in demeaning detail, making up the parts that he doesn’t know . . . which is all of it. But his imaginings are so close to the truth, I can’t say that my reputation is being unfairly sullied.

My hands are shaking so much, I can’t get my keys out of my purse. I lean against my car, try to steady myself, try to catch my breath and get rid of this feeling of humiliation.

You could get him fired.

It’s the voice of my devil. I’m so very familiar with it now.

One call to your Mr. Dade and that bartender won’t ever work here again. He won’t work anywhere! Mr. Dade will discredit him to the point that no one will believe anything he says! You have that power, Kasie! Just dial the numbers and ask for the moon.

And my devil has a point. That’s why Robert’s ways work. He’s able to live without consequences. The only truth that touches him is the truth that he’s fond of. People who deviate from his preapproved version of reality pay the price and so in the end you are left with only followers. I can use that power now. If I stay with him, my mistakes and indiscretions will never come back to haunt me. No one will ever dare to shame me again!

And more lives will be ruined. People will be punished for being outside our circle of two.

This from the increasingly unfamiliar voice of my angel. Tom and Dave . . . they both stepped over the line with me. It wouldn’t be so outrageous to say that I had the right to retaliate.

Stalin, Mao, Mary Tudor, Napoleon, Caligula, . . . how many times did they tell themselves the same thing before they began to retaliate against people who hadn’t done anything at all? These were men and women who ruled by fear. For years, sometimes decades, they got exactly what they wanted. No one was allowed to speak of their mistakes or failings; those were erased from the pages of the newspapers, banned from public discourse.

But behind her back Mary Tudor was called Bloody Mary. You can stop the speeches but you can’t stop the whispers. That’s the cost of ruling by fear.

Can I afford to pay that price? Do I want to spend my life justifying the destruction of others?