him.
“Always Something There to Remind Me” starts, its uniquely ‘80s keyboards and chiming bells invading the jazz-only event. Beebop guy doesn’t seem too upset, still waving his lone finger around as conductor.
“How’d you do that?” asks Ruby.
“You know by now—I’m a magic man.”
She dances slowly up to me, brushing against me, “You just get us all out of here tonight—that’s all the magic I need to see for awhile.”
I nod and look around.
Her slim fingers reach up and slide over my chin, “Not that I don’t love the magic you’ve shown me, or the sparks in your fingertips.”
I smile and look at something moving over her head near the stage. It’s the emergency door—it’s not all the way shut.
I pull her around to the other side of me.
“What? What is it?” she asks.
I bang my hand on the bar as I call out, “Angie?”
The bartender shuts the lid of the cooler she was stocking with beer bottles and bops her way over toward me.
“What’s the big dea—” she starts to ask before I interrupt.
“Keep her behind the bar—don’t say a word,” I say grabbing Ruby at her waist and lifting her up onto the bar.
“What? Why should I kee—”
“Please, no questions—someone’s here that wants to hurt her—bad.”
“Okay. Okay. Try to keep things cool. Please.”
“Thanks, Angie.”
I turn to the emergency exit.
“Wait!” calls from behind me.
I look over my shoulder and see Ruby behind the bar now and watching me intently.
“I’ll come back for you,” I say.
She looks slightly relieved.
“Now, down,” I say pointing, “Stay below the bar.”
I look back to the door and rush toward it. Quick hop on the stage, pass up the door, lean on the wall with my ear close to the crack between the door and the sill.
Hear voices, but nothing clear.
I look up to Jeff and see him watching me curiously—again nothing much else to look at in the bar but bebop guy’s soul patch and his finger waving. I motion for him to turn the volume down. He looks pained, but turns the level down for me. Voices become clear.
“…been here three nights in a row—what makes you think she’s ever coming back?”
“Trust me,” this voice is Roderick’s—definitely Roderick’s, “She can’t stay away much longer—this is her drug.”
A third voice chimes in, “Look, I’m starting to get the itch, man—can’t be here all night.”
Third voice is Edgar’s. Those words could be his epitaph. Definitely him.
Roderick again, “You’ll stay as long as I tell you, junkie. She’ll be here: trust me.”
“Not here now—wasting our time. Could be anywhere in the city if she even came back at all. This place ain’t even gonna get going for another hour—playing freakin’ ‘80s music right now—it’s supposed to be stupid jazz night. Ain’t even started yet.”
“All right,” barks Roderick, “We’ll go check out the damn market, and if she ain’t—isn’t—see you’ve got me talking like an imbecile—if she
The door slams roughly—right beside my ear. Probably kicked by Roderick. Just glad that they didn’t come back inside.
Time. At least we have a little time. Don’t know how much or what good it’ll do, but we’ve got a little. Hope it’s enough to keep her alive.
I see her two defiant and gorgeous eyes peering over the edge of the counter full of concern, and I know I need a way to save her from all this—even though my mind has no idea how to do it.
Like being trapped in a glass tomb, I press my hand against the clear pane blocking me from the burgeoning life on the other side that I’m not a part of. Dark blue, the color of a dream, and muffled on my side—loud, bouncing, and alive on the other.
It seems that with every new song, the crowd below grows out of itself, people spawning out of people—filling in every tiny bit of available space with another sweaty, dancing body.
Hard to believe so many people would show up for a jazz night at a wild place like this—and on a Sunday at that, but as the night’s progressed, the jazz has gotten funkier and people have started dancing. Some of them seriously over-dancing. Never seen people gyrate to this style of music, but they sure seem to be having a good time.
I recognize a lot of the more flamboyantly dressed people from ‘80s Night. I think this bar’s regulars would show up for a combo Do-Your-Taxes/Root-Canal Night as long as it was here and there was going to be some dancing.
Despite the undying enthusiasm of the usual crowd, I don’t really want to be here. Only here looking for my crazy friend—my crazy, innocent friend who’s gotten herself tangled up with a monster. Until her blue hair bounces into the bar, I’ll be here—hiding behind the upstairs bar, pretending to be a bartender. The girl who is the legitimate bartender is none too thrilled to have another female crowding her workspace, but she smiled and agreed right away when Simon asked her to keep us here.
The upstairs bartender certainly hasn’t minded having Simon within her close quarters, having found countless opportunities to brush up against him while fixing drinks and taking orders—her hands sliding across his back, her hips rubbing against him as she passes.
Simon’s stayed with his eyes to the window all night, taking no notice of her behavior—not even a flinch—as if his body’s lost all feeling.
The lights from the dance floor reflect and flash in the window, falling on his unmoving reflection. He’s like a jagged mountain in the middle of a lightning storm, light explosions and thundering carnage falling all around him, but he remains still and certain.
It all moves in his eyes—all the frantic activity mirrored inside his beautiful blue irises, but his stare moves not. A stillness usually only reserved for the dead.
He’s only taken his sight off the window a few times in the two hours we’ve been up here. He’s blinked as if remembering something, and then he’s turned to me and given me a smile or a kiss. Immediately, he’s turned right back to the window, and the bartender’s given me a sneer.
Whenever I could, I’ve taken a few orders, filled some cups with ice, grabbed some beers out of the iced bins —not so much to help her out, although I wouldn’t mind helping her if she’d keep her hands off my man, but to give me something to do and to keep the illusion that I have some unsuspicious reason for being here behind the bar.
Most times she’s said nothing to me when I’ve helped her; sometimes she’s graced me with a nasally, “I got it,
Maybe I should just tell everyone the unbelievable truth: I’m hiding up here from bloodthirsty vampires that are after me and my blue-haired friend. No one’d believe me anyway—this place never has a shortage of delusional eccentrics. Then I could just stand here and put my arms around Simon—wouldn’t need to pretend to be a bartender, and I could block her nasty hips from touching his delicious body again…yeah…maybe just push her down the crooked, old stairs. Two rounds of free drinks and everyone up here’d forget all about it…
Despite it all, the upstairs bar is a great place to hide. There are no signs letting people know they’re allowed
