29. Anika
ANIKA
I slam my forehead back onto the sticky table with a melodramatic thud. The cool wood feels nice against my skin, which is probably why I’ve been face-planting here for the past hour. The wood grain has probably tattooed itself onto my forehead, but I don’t care. Let it mark me.
I become one with the table as “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by The Smiths starts playing for what must be the fortieth time today.
“ Gott im Himmel !” Lars throws his Jass cards down. “Anika, please. We cannot take any more of this sad English man singing about his problems.”
I lift my head just enough to glare at him. “Music helps me process my emotions.”
“Process?” Colin cries. “You’ve been processing the same four minutes of music for three hours.”
“It speaks to me,” I mumble, dropping my forehead back onto the table with a dull thunk.
Evan rises from his chair, marching toward the stereo’s remote control. “This ends now.”
I scramble upright. “Touch the control and I will ban you from S’Holzfass for eternity.”
“We’re your only customers right now,” Lars points out. “And we’ve endured sixty-seven plays of this misery anthem.”
“Would you prefer I put The Hurting album on again instead?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.
“NO!” all three men shout in unison.
Colin clasps his hands together in prayer. “We beg of you, no more Tears for Fears.”
“I feel like it is raining inside S’Holzfass,” Lars adds.
I slump in my chair. “Good. The outside should match my inside.”
“Why don’t you try something more upbeat?” Evan suggests gently. “Like ABBA?”
“ABBA?” I sputter, sitting upright now. “Do I look like I’m in an ABBA mood?”
The three men study me from across the room, taking in the dark circles under my eyes.
“Are you going emo?” Lars asks, squinting at my black sweater, which matches my black jeans and black boots.
“Perhaps.” I run my fingers along one of my braids. “I’m considering coloring my hair black. To match my soul.”
“Oh good Lord,” Colin mutters.
“I could channel my inner Wednesday Addams,” I continue.
“Wednesday who?” Evan asks.
“She’s my role model,” I say without a trace of irony. “Emotionally unavailable and dead inside.”
Their faces transform into masks of horror.
The Smiths song finally ends, but I’ve set it on repeat, so Morrissey starts crooning about misery again. Lars throws a coaster at the speaker, missing by a mile.
I plop my forehead back onto the table with unnecessary force.
“Ow,” I mutter.
“Anika,” Colin says, walking over to my table. “This has gone on long enough.”
I flop my head to the side and press my cheek against the wood. The grain pattern makes these little swirly designs if you stare long enough. It’s mesmerizing in a sad, pathetic way.
“I told him I love him,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “Like an idiot. And he didn’t say it back. He said NOTHING.”
Colin sits down across from me, folding his hands like he’s about to deliver a sermon. “Men are stupid.”
“The stupidest,” Lars says with authority. “We don’t process emotions in real time.”
“Griffin’s probably kicking himself for not saying it back,” Evan adds.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s back in Toronto now. The lockout is over. He’s returned to his glamorous hockey life with his glamorous hockey friends.”
“Anika,” Lars says firmly. “Griffin is coming back, ja?”
I lift my head, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “It’s been almost a month. He said he’d be gone for a week, maybe two.”
I stare into the distance. “It’s a very, very mad world.” Then I plop my head back down with a theatrical thump.
“Oh for the love!” Lars starts.
“Does Griffin at least call you?” Evan asks.
I mumble something into the table.
“What was that?”
I sigh. “Three times a day,” I admit begrudgingly. “Sometimes four.”
“And he texts you constantly,” Colin adds.
“It’s only a matter of time before he forgets me.”
“So, the man calls you multiple times daily from another continent,” Colin summarizes slowly, like he’s talking to a child. “And you think he’s forgotten about you?”
My chin wobbles traitorously. “Memories fade, but the scars still linger.”
“Oh no, she’s quoting lyrics again,” Colin mutters.
“Are you quoting Tears for Fears right now?” Lars asks incredulously.
I ignore him. “Will I ever love again?”
Evan stands up abruptly, almost toppling over his chair. “This has gone far enough. We’re staging an intervention.”
“I don’t need an intervention.” My lips slide over something sticky on the table surface as I speak but I’m too dramatic to care.
“Lars,” Evan continues. “You know what to do.”
Lars shoves his chair back and vaults over the bar. He adjusts his collar, rolls up his sleeves, and cracks his knuckles.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demand, lifting my head fully off the sticky table.
Lars just winks, tossing a bottle over his head in an arc and catching it with his other hand. He’s not even looking! He starts pouring various liquids into a cocktail shaker.
My jaw drops. “Since when can you…”
He rolls the shaker behind his neck, over his shoulder, catches it with his elbow, bounces it to his other hand, and shakes it like a maraca.
“Are you secretly Tom Cruise?” I mutter, watching him flip two more bottles in the air at once.
Colin and Evan clap enthusiastically as Lars continues his bartending spectacle, juggling tumblers, spinning in place, catching bottles behind his back, and tossing ice cubes into glasses from three meters away.
“I am so confused right now,” I say, wiping what I think might be beer residue from my cheek.
Lars finishes with a flourish, pouring the colorful drink into a hurricane glass and decorating it with a pineapple wedge, a cherry, and one of those tiny umbrellas I didn’t even know we had.
He slides it across the bar, then carries it over to my table when I don’t make a move to get it.
“For you, Fr?ulein ,” Lars says, placing it in front of me with a bow.
I eye the drink suspiciously. “What’s in it?”
“Happiness,” Lars replies. He does this interpretive dance thing with his hands, waving around the drink as he scoots backward.
“What’s going on?” I ask, suddenly alert. “Why are you all being weird? Weirder than usual, I mean.”
Lars goes back to the bar to clean the tumblers. “Who else will keep the bar running while you’re not here?”
I blink at him. “My mother.”
The three of them burst into uproarious laughter.
“Your mother?” Colin wheezes, wiping tears from his eyes. “She smokes out all the customers with her incense. Then falls asleep.”
“I have no customers. Just you three.”
Evan snorts. “Not when Lars is behind the bar. He draws in the tourist crowd.”
“Americans love it,” Colin nods enthusiastically. “They leave enormous tips.”
“Wait until Saturday night. Standing room only.” Lars grins, spreading his arms wide. “Welcome to S’Holzfass After Dark.
“The…what?” I sputter.
“While you’ve been going to hockey games, working with spies, and catching criminals, we’ve been running the place,” Colin explains.
“You’ve WHAT?” I screech.
“Lars does his bottle tricks; the tourists love it,” Evan continues. “They take videos, post them online. The place has gone viral.”
“Viral?” I stare at Lars. “You run my bar when I’m not here?”
“Someone has to,” Colin says. “Last Saturday, we had people lined up outside. Lars did that fire trick thing.”
“Fire trick?” I echo weakly.
“ Ja , with the cinnamon and the whoosh.” Evan gestures wildly with his hands.
“We’ve had to hire two more servers just to keep up with the crowd,” Colin adds. “They’re all coming in later. We open at seven now.”
“You HIRED people? For MY bar?” I’m practically shrieking now.
“Your mother approved it. To be fair, you weren’t exactly in a hiring state of mind,” Lars points out. “You’ve been too busy listening to your sad songs.”
“I’m being replaced,” I murmur, staring into the middle distance.
“No,” Lars protests. “We just wanted to help you out, really.”
I slump in my chair, feeling even more dejected than before. Not only am I lovesick and abandoned, but my bar is apparently thriving without me. Lars has been secretly extreme bartending while I’ve been playing the part of a Bond Girl.
“You’re a better bartender than me, Lars.”
Lars softens. “Anika, nobody makes a Schorle like you.”
“A monkey could make a Schorle,” I say flatly.
A profound despair mixed with a measure of rebellion hits me, and I might be losing it, but I stop the music mid-song and just as quickly switch to “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” by R.E.M. and crank up the volume full blast.
I feel like I could scream, but all I do is laugh maniacally.
This might scare the guys more than anything, but at this point, I have no cares. Just abandon.
I take a sip of Lars’s cocktail (which turns out to be delicious), and shout over the music.
“Hey,” I yell, pointing at each of them in turn. “If you ever see aliens in the sky, don’t believe it!”
They stare at me blankly.
“It’s MIND CONTROL!”
I half expect them to take me to the loony bin when the door opens from outside. Cold air rushes inside and in walks my mother, wrapped in multiple colorful scarves. Her presence instantly fills the room with the scent of patchouli.
She surveys the scene of me sprawled at the table, the blaring music, my puffy eyes, and narrows her gaze.
“ Liebchen ,” she says, studying me with her head tilted. “When was the last time you showered?”
I ignore her question, taking another sip of Lars’s excellent cocktail. “The government is using holograms to stage fake alien invasions, Mama. I’ve seen the technology.”
My mother purses her lips. “This is worse than I thought.” She rummages through her massive woven bag and produces a small amber bottle.
I watch in horror as she uncorks the bottle. “Mama, no!”
“Mama, yes.”