“I wish I could answer that,” I replied. “I just do. If it’s any consolation, I’d rather not.”
“Aspirin,” she murmured.
“Let me see if I can get you some,” I told her as I started up from my seat.
“Purse. Side. Tin,” she told me, exaggerated economy in her selection of verbiage.
I pulled her purse across the table and rummaged about in the side pocket. Under any other circumstances I wouldn’t have dreamed of sticking my hand into the carryall. As I had told my wife countless times before, a woman’s handbag seemed to me to be a kind of tame black hole: a place where an impossible number of items disappeared and could only be found by the woman who owned the receptacle in the first place. At the moment, hers was definitely living up to that assessment.
“Left. Bottom. Yellow tin.” She offered another set of terse instructions.
I pushed my hand deeper into the pocket and finally managed to withdraw the sought after container of aspirin. I sat it on the table and pushed it over to her then started sliding out of the booth as she slitted her eyes and reached for the tin.
“I’ll go get you some water,” I told her.
“Black Bush,” she asserted.
“No whisky with aspirin,” I replied. “Water.”
“Black Bush,” she repeated.
“Water.”
She tossed the tin in front of her and it bounced across the table, tablets noisily rattling around inside. Then it slid off the edge and clattered to the floor.
“Black Bush.” This time it was a demand.
I knew exactly where she was coming from, and I didn’t fault her a bit. The truth was that the aspirin really wouldn’t do much good for the kind of headache she had anyway. Not that booze was any better remedy, but it would help take the edge off.
“Shot or rocks,” I conceded with a soft sigh.
“Bottle,” she replied.
“Slow down,” I said to my wife as she drained the tumbler and clacked it back onto the wooden table with a heavy thunk. “That’s your second double.”
Her hand was still wrapped around the glass, and her head was tilted back, face pointing upward to the ceiling. She drew in a deep breath and then exhaled heavily, puffing out her cheeks as she did so.
“Aye, but I said bottle, not double,” she stated as she lowered her gaze down to meet mine.
“Give those a chance to work,” I told her. “They aren’t even in your bloodstream yet.”
She frowned back at me but didn’t argue. She slouched down in her seat, and a moment later I felt her sneaker-clad feet slide up onto the bench next to me. She reached up and pressed her palms against either side of her head as if she were trying to squeeze it back into shape.
“This sucks,” she moaned.
“I know,” I replied.
I was fully aware that the words were of little consolation, but they were the best I had to offer at the moment. I wanted desperately to ask her about the experience. But, she needed some time to come to terms with what had happened, so I didn’t broach the subject.
Usually such an ethereal event came with some manner of built-in, albeit obscure, reference to something in the here and now-although, admittedly, mine from earlier this day had held no such prize. Neither had the similar ones I’d suffered through at the beginning of the year.
Patrons were starting to fill the establishment as round one of the dinner rush came upon us. It hadn’t reached the point of obnoxious as yet, but the noise level was rapidly approaching that of annoying static. It didn’t seem to be bothering Felicity, though.
“You look like shit.” Ben’s voice cut through the hum of the growing crowd.
I looked up to see him standing over my shoulder, his gaze locked on my wife.
“But you’re still a hell of a lot prettier than paleface over here.” He jerked a thumb at me as he added the comment.
A waitress sidled up to the table and shot me a questioning look. “Do you folks need anything?”
“I’m good,” I replied.
“Black Bush, neat, double,” Felicity chimed in.
“Felicity…” I admonished.
“All right then.” She cut me off with an annoyed tone lacing her words. “Jamieson, neat, double.”
I shook my head and waved my hand in surrender as I looked up at the waitress. “Give her whatever she wants.”
“Black Bush,” my wife chirped.
The waitress craned her neck and looked up at Ben. “How about you?”
“Beer,” Ben told her.
“We have Guinness on tap,” she offered.
“No honey.” Ben shook his head. “Beer isn’t s’posed to be black. Bring me somethin’ in a mug that’s cold, fizzy, and beer-colored.”
“Whatever you say.” She shook her head back at him then before she turned and walked away, she added rhetorically, “Do you want me to bring you a straw with that?”
“Friendly place you picked here.” Ben made the sarcastic comment as he slid into the booth next to Felicity.
“Aye, you’re in a pub, Ben,” my wife informed him, still lounging in her seat. “Quit bein’ a Colleen.”
“She’s doin’ the accent,” he remarked as he looked over at me. “The Twilight Zone thing do that to her?”
“Leave me alone,” Felicity muttered.
“I’m sure it wore her out, but I think the two double Irish whisky’s are to blame,” I replied.
“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, glancing over at her then back to me. “She’s not gonna start talkin’ that gibberish is she?”
“Duairc,” Felicity chimed.
“That answer your question?” I asked.
“She just called me a name, didn’t she?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“I said you’re a rude man,” she offered.
“Well, at least this time you got the gender right.” He shook his head and looked back to me. “So explain it to me. What’s up with the squaw doin’ the la-la land thing? I thought that was your gig.”
“Me too,” I answered with a nod. “I’m not sure what’s going on there myself.”
“Will you quit talking about me like I’m not here, then,” Felicity insisted.
“Okay. Chill.” Ben jumped the tracks and boarded another train of thought. “So what about this mornin’? What’s up with that?”
“Again, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “The episode was almost exactly like the ones I had back in January.”
“You mean when you were floppin’ around like a fish outta water when Porter was…” his voice trailed off at the mention of the name.
“Yeah,” I acknowledged and finished the sentence for him. “When Porter was trying to kill me.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to dredge that up.”
“No problem. It’s not something I’ve managed to forget yet anyhow.”
“So I thought those stopped after he was locked up?”
“They did. Until today that is.”
Ben frowned hard and stared back at me. Without a word, he reached to his belt and pulled out his cell phone. After an aborted attempt, he managed to key in a number with his thick finger and tucked the device up to his ear. I had a feeling that I knew what he was getting ready to do, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the
