You may have guessed that I do not handle spirits well. This surprises people. When they see someone my size, they expect me to drink smaller folks under the table. I can’t. I hold my liquor about as well as a freshman coed at her first mixer.
“Well?”
I knew the type before my eyes even had a chance to settle on them. There sat two blondes who looked good-to-great in low Library Bar light and ordinary-to-frightful in the light of the morning sun. Benedict slid toward them and started chatting them up. Benedict could chat up a file cabinet. The two women looked past him and at me. Benedict signaled for me to join them.
Why the hell not?
You made a promise.
Damn straight I did. Thanks for the reminder. Might as well keep it and try to score me a honey, right? I weaved my way toward them.
“Ladies, meet the legendary Professor Jacob Fisher.”
“Wow,” one of the blondes said, “he’s a big boy,” and—because Benedict couldn’t help but be obvious—he winked and said, “You got no idea, sweetheart.”
I bit back the sigh, said hello, and sat. Benedict “macked” on them with pickup lines, specifically handpicked for this bar: “It’s a library so it’s perfectly okay to check you out.” “Will I be fined if I keep you out late?” The blondes loved it. I tried to join in, but I have never been great with superficial banter. Natalie’s face kept appearing. I kept pushing it away. We ordered more drinks. And more.
After a while we all stumbled to couches near the former children’s section. My head lolled back, and I may have passed out for a bit. When I woke up, one of the blondes started talking to me. I introduced myself.
“My name is Windy,” she said.
“Wendy?”
“No, Windy. With an
“Like the song?” I asked.
She looked surprised. “You know the song? You don’t look old enough.”
“‘
“Wow. My dad too. That’s how I got the name.”
It turned into, surprisingly enough, a real conversation. Windy was thirty-one years old and worked as a bank teller, but she was getting her degree in pediatric nursing, her dream job, at the community college down the road. She took care of her handicapped brother.
“Alex has cerebral palsy,” Windy said, showing me the picture of her brother in a wheelchair. The boy’s face was radiant. I stared at it, as if somehow the goodness could come out of the picture and be a part of me. Windy saw it, nodded, and said in the softest voice: “He’s the light of my life.”
An hour passed. Maybe two. Windy and I chatted. During nights like these, there is always a time when you know if you are going to, ahem, close the sale (or, to stay within the library metaphors, if you are going to get your library card punched) or not. We were at that time now, and it was clear that the answer was yes.
The ladies left to powder their noses. I felt overly mellow from drink. Part of me wondered whether I’d be able to perform. Most of me didn’t really care.
“You know what I like about both of them?” Benedict pointed to a shelf of books. “They’re stacked. Get it? Library, books, stacked?”
I groaned out loud. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Amusing,” Benedict said. “By the way, where were you last night?”
“I didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“I went up to Vermont,” I said. “To Natalie’s old retreat.”
He turned toward me. “Whatever for?”
It was an odd thing, but when Benedict talked after drinking too much, a hint of a British accent came through. I assumed that it was from his prep school days. The more he drank, the more pronounced the accent.
“To get answers,” I said.
“And did you get any?”
“Yep.”
“Do tell.”
“One”—I stuck a finger in the air—“no one knows who Natalie is. Two”—another finger—“no one knows who I am. Three”—you get the point with the fingers—“there is no record at the chapel Natalie ever got married. Four, the minister I saw conducting the wedding swears it never happened. Five, the lady who owned the coffee shop we used to go to and who first pointed Natalie out to me had no idea who I was and didn’t remember either Natalie or me.”
I put my hand down.
“Oh, and Natalie’s art retreat?” I said. “The Creative Recharge Colony? It’s not there and everyone swears it never existed and that it’s always been a family-run farm. In short, I think I’m losing my mind.”
Benedict turned away and started sipping his beer.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.”
I gave him a little shove. “No, come on. What is it?”
Benedict kept his head lowered. “Six years ago, when you went up to that retreat, you were in pretty bad shape.”
“Maybe a little. So?”
“Your father had died. You felt alone. Your dissertation wasn’t going well. You were upset and on edge. You were angry about Trainor getting off with nary a slap.”
“What’s your point?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Forget it.”
“Don’t give me that. What?”
My head was really swimming now. I should have stopped several glasses ago. I remembered once when I had too much to drink my freshman year and I started walking back to my dorm. I never quite arrived. When I woke up, I was lying on top of a bush. I remembered staring up at the stars in the night sky and wondering why the ground felt so prickly. I had that sway now, like I was on a boat in a rough sea.
“Natalie,” Benedict said.
“What about her?”
He turned those glass-magnified eyes toward me. “How come I never met her?”
My vision was getting a little fuzzy. “What?”
“Natalie. How come I never met her?”
“Because we were in Vermont the whole time.”
“You never came to campus?”
“Just once. We went to Judie’s.”
“So how come you didn’t bring her by to meet me?”
I shrugged with a little too much gusto. “I don’t know. Maybe you were away?”
“I was here all that summer.”
Silence. I tried to remember. Had I tried to introduce her to Benedict?
“I’m your best friend, right?” he said.
“Right.”
“And if you married her, I would have been the best man.”
“You know it.”
“So don’t you find it bizarre that I never met her?” he asked.
“When you put it that way . . .” I frowned. “Wait, are you trying to make a point here?”
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s just odd is all.”