Once my shoes and socks were back on, I stood up. My leg knocked against an upright bottle, which swayed and threatened to fall. When I leaned forward and steadied it, the label caught my eye. It read AMBERMOUNTAIN ALE, but the name wasn’t what drew my attention. It was the pattern—a brightly colored series of intertwined geometric shapes. The exact same pattern as the coasters on Anna’s bedside table. The ones I’d set aside, not giving much thought to where she might have gotten them from, not then knowing how much she’d kept from me.
I stared at the bottle.
The world, I felt, was giving me some very mixed signals.
One night, we were in the bar’s parking lot, ready to go home. When Lily turned the key, the car only stuttered.
She tried it once, twice, three times. Nothing. She started to panic. I had to talk her down, make sure she didn’t flood the engine. I told her it would be okay, that someone would help us.
ONLY ONE RESTAURANT IN BIRDTON had a liquor license, and when I called and asked if they sold AmberMountain Ale and used its coasters, they told me they weren’t a “coasters kind of place.” Which left me with bars.
I looked up all the ones within an hour’s drive and started calling them. Only one stocked AmberMountain Ale, and they were pretty sure they had some coasters lying around. Unfortunately, that bar wasn’t accessible by foot or by bus. Which meant I’d have to get someone to drive me there. Someone I trusted.
It was not a very long list.
—
“YOU WANT ME TO TAKE you to a bar?” Sarah asked, loud enough that I was worried the whole bus had heard her.
“Yes,” I said. “And could you keep it down, please?”
She raised a single eyebrow skyward, but she did lower her voice. “I didn’t think you drank. You been holding out on me, Cutter? All those books an elaborate charade—just props to hide the party girl underneath?”
“I’m not going to drink.”
“You want to go to a bar but you don’t want to drink. Okay, mystery wrapped in an enigma, I’m going to need a bit more than that,” she said.
“No, this is me calling in a favor for going to the basketball game. I want you to take me to a bar and not ask me why I’m asking you.”
“That doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me, especially given how you enjoyed going to the basketball game,” she said.
“Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy driving me to the bar,” I countered.
She was not amused by that. Still, she did—eventually—agree to do it.
—
THE BAR WAS A GOOD half-hour drive out of town, on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. It was long past sundown when we got there, and the parking lot was dark.
Sarah peered out her window at the bar. “God, this looks like the kind of place where when someone slumps over dead they just put a bowl of peanuts on top of them and use them as furniture.” She turned to me. “You sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
“No. I mean, thanks, but no. I shouldn’t be long. Probably not much more than fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll give you five.”
“Ten.”
“Fine. Ten minutes. Any longer than that, though, and I’ll start honking the horn and embarrass you in front of your new biker friends.”
—
I COULD HEAR THE MUSIC before I opened the door, but the smell of stale smoke only hit me after I walked in. The lighting was dim enough that it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. Once they did, I could see the tall wood bar in the back, where three people, two men and one brawny woman with a large neck tattoo, were vying for the bartender’s attention, raising their voices to be heard above the music. I looked around, half expecting some bouncer to swoop down and demand my ID. While some of the men seated in booths looked up, watching me, none of them moved.
I grabbed a stool at the end of the bar, assuming that the bartender, a guy in his forties with a ponytail and a ripped T-shirt, would be the best person to talk to. So I waited patiently for a lull and watched him as he took an order from one of the men, reaching down behind the counter for two beers, which he uncapped on the counter with a smooth, quick flick of his wrist. He nodded at me. “Be with you in a minute,” he mouthed.
Four beers later, two bottled, two from the tap, the bartender walked over and leaned his hairy forearms on the bar.
“So,” he said with a smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
He thinks I’m Anna, I realized with a start. Which meant I’d found the right place. Anna had been here. I looked at his face. It was broad and open, and he had a large nose and curious eyes. Could it be him? I thought. Was he the reason Anna came here?
“No,” I said. “I’ve been…busy.”
“Fair enough,” he said, with a lack of interest that inclined me to rule him back out. “You want the usual?”
I nodded. He put up his finger and walked away. A minute later he brought me a glass. “That’ll be four bucks, but you can pay at the end if you like.” He looked around. “Where’s your friend? Parking the car or something?”
“Friend?”
He laughed. “Dark hair? Pretty? Looks like trouble? The one you always come with?”
Lily.
“Right,” I said. “She’s just on the phone, outside. She should be in, in a few.”
“Good,” he said. “I wouldn’t really recommend you hanging out solo for too long.” He paused. “It really has been a while—I kind of figured you guys had gotten bored with
