Chapter 11
Alisa wandered off; she didn’t even change out of the costume she was wearing, only threw a sports jacket over it and walked out of the TD Garden arena where they had performed only a couple of minutes earlier.
After an hour of walking back and forth between the skyscrapers along the street, she came across a bar — The Hill Tavern.
Everything inside was dimly lit and the music was playing loudly, the place almost packed because today there was a hockey match: the Snow Leopards, where her friend Hermann played, against the White Panthers, and everyone had gathered to watch the battle between the Canadians and the Russians, two winter worlds colliding once again in what was supposed to be a legendary match.
Alisa immediately noticed a familiar face on the screen.
The man looked serious; his blond hair could barely be seen beneath his helmet, but his bright gray eyes assessed the situation around him in an instant, while his hands carried the puck with the same impossible speed with which he skated, like lightning on the ice… the fastest striker on the team.
Alisa sat down at the bar and waited for the bartender to serve the others first; he was busy making another cocktail, and there was only one person working in the entire crowded bar. It had to be rough.
Alisa felt heartbroken, to be honest.
Her dream seemed to have just shattered — her partner was in the hospital with a fucking knee injury, they had lost the medal, lost the quota for the country…
it was humiliating, maybe even the end of her career as a figure skater.
She didn’t know what to do. Alisa desperately propped her head up with both hands, trying to stifle her own thoughts that were hurling insults and curses at her, but whose voices were they? Did she really hate herself that much?
Worthless.
Nothingness.
Pathetic.
Jerk.
Loser.
Nobody.
Amateur.
No, no, these were not her own voices, but the voices of her parents and coaches who had always been unhappy with her, mixed together with other unknown voices that were impossible to make out in that endless noise of insults.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push them away.
And then a voice cut through both the music in the bar and the noise in her head.
“What will you order, miss?”
Alisa raised her eyes and looked wearily at the bartender.
He was an adult man, around thirty-five years old, his beard clean-shaven and perfectly, almost geometrically trimmed, the dark hairs seeming as though they had been drawn into place one by one.
He blinked at her with blue eyes and raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
“Oh, I… I’m sorry, I haven’t chosen yet. Can you recommend something to numb the pain and despair in my soul?”
“Oh, it’s a shitty day, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” Alisa only nodded sadly, glancing toward the TV where Hermann had just scored a goal and the audience was anything but thrilled; everyone here was rooting for the Canadians, apparently.
“I can recommend a ‘Strawberry Panic’ cocktail.”
“It sounds… interesting… but if there are strawberries in it, then go ahead. Sweetness won’t hurt.”
The bartender winked at her, but there was no flirtation in it, and Alisa immediately understood that he was gay; something about his aura simply said safe, everything is fine, he is good.
How would I even know it? Did I acquire some sort of a gay radar now and can determine people in this community?
So Alisa exhaled and turned her attention back to the match. When the Canadians scored and the score became even, everyone cheered and jumped from their seats as though they were dancing the same dance of support. Alisa didn’t move from her chair, only sat there and waited for her cocktail.
The bartender made it quickly and placed it in front of her. Alisa picked up the semicircular glass with strawberries hooked over the rim and said cheers to no one in particular. The bartender only raised a finger, and Alisa took a sip.
The cocktail really did taste like strawberries with something else beneath them; vodka, probably… what an irony.
After one cocktail, Alisa ordered another. She liked it, and watched the Canadians win the match while sitting perfectly still, never showing by so much as a look that she had been rooting for the enemy team in this bar.
Then the devil made her pull out her phone. It was nine o’clock in the evening.
And just as she was about to put it away again, she saw a notification from her mother.
Mother: Today is the anniversary of your grandmother’s death, I hope you haven’t forgotten.
Alisa felt a lump rise in her throat, and tears got stuck somewhere between the barrier of her eyes and her brain… and as soon as the next cocktail arrived, she drained half of it in one gulp.
So the bartender by witnessing this despair offered to pour her vodka shots directly and add a few tiny cocktails to them, and why had Alisa agreed so easily?
But she had nothing left to lose. She wanted to forget, to turn off the meat grinder of thoughts that was chewing through her soul at that moment.
The anniversary… today…
And how could she have forgotten?
Alisa ran a hand over her forehead, feeling how hot it was and how icy her own fingers were; it seemed that her whole body had turned to ice after reading the message. She felt terribly ill.
Mother: Order pancakes in your America, remember your grandmother with a kind word.
Alisa squeezed her eyes shut as she read the next message and shoved the phone back into the pocket of her sports jacket.
“Do you have any pancakes?” she asked the bartender.
He nodded, and a couple of minutes later he returned with a plate of hot pancakes, round and thick, with butter on top slowly melting and running down their sides.
They were American pancakes of course, not the kind her grandmother used to make, not the thin Russian ones, but Alisa was in no state of mind to make those now.
She picked up a fork, broke off a piece of pancake and put it into her mouth.
“For you, Grandma…” she said quietly to herself while chewing. “I hope… I hope you’re doing well there…”
She swallowed nervously.
The subject of death had always frightened Alisa.
Ever since childhood she had imagined it as something terrible, only darkness and emptiness forever, nothing else…
darkness forever, and because of that she had always avoided the subject as much as she could.
But every year, on the anniversary of her grandmother’s death, she returned to that same moment and cried.
Tears rolled down her cheeks from hopelessness, sadness and grief.
She ate all the pancakes and did not even notice how quickly time had passed. The match was already over. Canada had won, taking the cup for itself.
She closed her eyes for only a second, but felt the voices in her head finally dimming into quiet after ten shots and, apparently, five cocktails. Everything in front of her eyes had become blurry. Her body floated as though she were on a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean.
She hated that feeling.
I think I’ve had enough for today, she told herself.
She paid the bartender and left the bar.
Outside it was incredibly cold, but she decided to walk back to the hotel; according to the map it was somewhere nearby. Hugging herself with both arms, Alisa made her way through the night, feeling the cold ease her head a little.
At the same time she wanted to disappear, but she also wanted to be in someone’s arms, to feel support and love… love…
Her feet dragged her all the way to room 7010.
* * *
When Alisa reached the seventh floor, she did not find room 7010 immediately. The hotel was large, and she had to wander through the dark corridors for a while, which only clouded her head again after the cold walk through the streets.
But when she finally found that door, she slowed down and did not hurry to knock.
What was she even supposed to tell Tora?
Like… give me a hug, I feel so fucked up? Damn. What a stupid thing to do.
She exhaled loudly and hissed to herself, holding her head with one hand and wincing at the pounding inside it.
And then the door opened on its own.
“Why are you hissing?”
Tora pulled Alisa inside.
The hallway was dark, only one lamp glowing somewhere in the distance near the bed. Alisa only managed to notice that Tora was wearing nothing but a white T-shirt, barefoot except for hotel slippers, and she smelled faintly of alcohol… or maybe that smell was coming from Alisa herself.
Tora led her farther into the room and sat her down on the bed.
“How much did you drink?” she asked seriously.
Alisa closed her eyes and shook her head.
“I don’t remember.”
Alisa felt Tora crouch down in front of her and begin untying her sneakers. When she finally pulled them off, Alisa exhaled at once, as though they had weighed a hundred kilos, as though everything in her body had become unbearably heavy.
And then Alisa started crying all over again, because she could not bear any of it anymore.
Tora sat down beside her and wrapped her arms around her.
“I’m here. It’s okay.”
“No… nothing is okay…” Alisa clung to Tora from behind, burying her face against her neck and crying hard.
“It’s over, Tora… I’m a loser.”
“A loser? Are you serious?”
“No, I’m not joking… Lev and I fucked everything up… we won’t be able to perform anymore.”
“Well, maybe the injury isn’t that serious. Maybe it’s only a tear…” Tora pressed her lips together and stroked Alisa’s back, trying to calm her rival from the ice.
“I don’t know. There hasn’t been any news yet. Pike hasn’t written anything about his condition, and Lev hasn’t either.”
Tora did not ask who Pike was. She guessed it was probably their coach, one of those strange nicknames athletes gave each other. The thought almost made her smile.
When Alisa finally let go of Tora, her hands slipped down onto the bed. She had cried out everything she could, and now there was only weakness left in her body.
“How do you feel?” Tora asked quietly.
Alisa only nodded tiredly.