If Somers were here, she would call this all into procedural question, two key witnesses left alone in the interrogation room and then interviewed together. A more generous take is to allow that the two main witnesses were sisters and their dad had just been murdered right in front of them. The police paired them up out of sympathy. But it doesn’t matter, Somers would say. A witness is a witness. Kavita lowers her head, her shoulders shaking with tears. Charlotte seems annoyed but rubs Kavita’s back anyway. Clare is too absorbed by the moment passing between them to notice Austin until he is upon them.
“Look at this trio!” he says, arms open to the table. “Have I won the lottery?”
“Fuck off,” Charlotte says.
“Come on, Charlotte.” Austin drags over a stool to join them. “You love my company. You, me, and Kavita. We’re like Three’s Company but with a twist.”
In their previous meetings, Austin had seemed almost wispy to Clare, small, a pushover. But his air is different tonight. Cold, assured. He tugs his phone from his pocket and lifts it.
“If you take a picture of us,” Clare says, “I’ll break your phone.”
“Whoa,” Charlotte says, shooting Clare an admiring glance.
“We’re in a public place,” Austin says. “No rule against—”
“Austin?” Clare holds her hand across the front of his phone to block the shot. “Don’t.”
The low register in Clare’s voice stops him. She glares at him until he sets the phone screen down on the table. Clare will not break her stare until he is suitably unsettled. Both Kavita and Charlotte slide off their stools and disappear to the bathroom. Clare sips her drink, silent.
“You’re touchy tonight,” Austin says.
“You don’t know me,” Clare says. “It’s been a really long day.”
Austin points towards the bathroom door. “It’s been something else, watching Charlotte fall from grace,” he says. “She was never the smart one, the pretty one. It was hard to be the ugly duckling Westman daughter, I’m sure. But she got her fair share of attention. Married this musician when she was what? Nineteen? Had a kid. For a while she kept this blog about life on the road, life as a musician’s wife, carting a kid around on tour. Got herself into some drug trouble. Her husband quit the band and went to law school! Jesus Christ. Talk about a one-eighty. Anyway, after Jack Westman was murdered, Charlotte really dove down the well. Her husband left her. Took their kid as far away from her as he could. I’m pretty sure she’s switched teams now.” He makes a sexual gesture with his hands. “She and Kavita? That’s what I’m thinking.”
“I don’t think they’re trying to hide it,” Clare says.
“I think they’ve got plenty to hide,” Austin says.
Clare stands and heads to the bathroom. “Keep that phone in your pocket,” she calls back to him.
The women’s bathroom has three stalls. In the largest one Clare spots two sets of feet. The door is not latched. Clare presses it open and finds Kavita seated on the toilet leaning over a line she’s about to snort. She looks up at Clare as if bored by her arrival.
“You shouldn’t be mixing that with alcohol,” Clare says.
“Okay, mom,” Kavita says.
“Want some?” Charlotte asks. “It’s not going to kill you.”
The tightness returns to Clare’s chest. She listens to Kavita’s inhale and can muster the exact sensation that comes next. The euphoric hit, the lightness, the dizziness if you lift your head too fast. She can taste the bitterness in her mouth. She doesn’t want to be here, witnessing this. She wants to slap Kavita, Charlotte, both of them. Get yourselves together. Clare must grip the stall door to stop herself. Kavita and Charlotte switch places, Charlotte seated and hunched over. Clare exits the stall and the bathroom. Back in the bar Austin is still at their table, a beer in front of him. The lights have lowered, loud music playing for the benefit of a small dance floor at the center of the bar. Austin smirks as she approaches.
“I’m guessing they’re not in there reapplying lipstick.”
“Hey.” Clare lifts herself back onto the stool. “I saw Douglas Bentley today. Thanks for passing on his information.”
“He’s quite the character, isn’t he?”
“He actually seemed pretty levelheaded to me,” Clare says. “He claims you’re the moron.”
Again, Austin smirks, his jaw tense. He doesn’t like to be mocked, or questioned. Jason was the same, Clare thinks, an ego too outsize for his actual life accomplishments, an inability to take any kind of joke at his own expense. Clare lifts her glass in cheers and touches his arm in an effort to bring him back onside.
“We can share a cab home if you want,” Austin says.
“What?”
“You and me,” Austin says. “We could share a cab home.”
But Clare isn’t listening. When the bathroom door opens, she watches Kavita and Charlotte as they stumble laughing to the dance floor. Austin leans in and recounts his entire past for Clare, the odd jobs taken to put himself through the first years of school before his brother struck rich, speaking free flow on the assumption that Clare is riveted by every word. She nods occasionally, sipping the last of her soda and glancing at Kavita and Charlotte. Clare is so tired. She closes her eyes, but Austin keeps talking. Several minutes must pass before she looks to the dance floor again and notices the women are gone.
“Where’d they go?” she asks Austin.
“I think Charlotte left.” He points. “Kavita’s over there.”
There is a commotion at one end of the bar. Clare’s eyes are pinned on Kavita. Three men surround her. One has her propped up, Kavita unsteady on her feet, swaying to the music, giggling. But Clare sees something so familiar in the vacancy of her expression. She’s not herself. The men are laughing and leaning in to each other, one hand up to
