Chapter 14 #2
With only minutes before opening, the doors swing open, and a breathless Cecelia jogs in.
I have worked with her when she covered for Joey on a couple of shifts.
She wears an incredibly short pink sequined jumpsuit—no doubt from Mabel’s—contrasting with her bronzed skin, her hickory locks and bangs.
Yet while she’s a lovely girl, she’s incredibly work-shy, while speaking a hundred words a minute.
All I know is I do not have the energy for her as she scrambles to join me behind the counter.
“Oh, sorry I’m late! I couldn’t find my eyeliner anywhere! So, I…”
She continues for what seems like an age, without taking a breath.
I know all about her morning—every detail—and at no point did I ask.
When a new doorman enters, it confirms that Smith was fired for covering up the incident with Krick’s nephew.
When the customers arrive, Cecelia persistently speaks over them, which, fortunately, deflects any questions away from me.
Most of the regulars offer pitying stares, while a few dare to comment: “I can’t believe that about Donnie,” and “I’m sorry about Joey. ”
The shift continues as Cecelia babbles in my ear, largely bitching about the other women she lives with.
I try to continue as normal, and when the customers settle down, I rest against the back bar, staring at the floor.
Then she stops. The silence is deafening, like the sudden absence after hearing a fire alarm for so long, the world seems muted when it ceases.
She touches my arm and whispers, “You know, you can talk to me about it. About what happened to you?”
It is so insincere—an attempt to pry details of the event from me. With no more energy for niceties, I pull my arm away and escape to the back room.
The evening rush brings our true regulars, including Hector. He was there the night of the fight, when he and his friends covered for us. As the queues of customers clear, he leaves his group to stand across the counter, and I usher myself away from Cecelia to talk to him privately.
He says, “Hey, I know you’ll be hearing it a lot, but we’re all real sorry about what happened to you guys.”
I nod. They knew Joey and me for the friends that we were, and I appreciate hearing it from him.
“Is there anything we can do for you, Lee?”
I clear my throat before reaching into my bag beneath the counter.
“Actually, Hector, I have two favours to ask of you.” I offer him a pair of folded letters.
They were painful to write, but I knew I could count on him to deliver them for me.
“If you can, please get these to Seth. You know Bernstein’s on Wentworth Avenue? ”
One letter is addressed to Seth. Now that I’m escorted to and from work, I’ll no longer be able to visit Seth—another goodbye I was unprepared for.
The second letter is to Joey’s brothers—an apology for them losing their brother, and how being unable to save him will eternally haunt me.
I’ve reassured them that he still does and will continue to mean the world to me.
Hopefully, it will help them find comfort, or maybe it will at least help relieve some of my guilt.
“And the other favour?” Hector asks.
“Leave. Please. Leave with everyone you can. Never give Krick another dime.” My vision falters, and I attempt to rein in my quivering breath.
“Hurt him by killing his businesses. Spread the word. Anything to get people to stop coming in here and into his other bars. Can you do that, please? For Joey. All of you?”
I expect him to think about it, to question it, but he doesn’t. Standing tall, he salutes me. “Consider it done.”
I widen my eyes to dry out the tears, and he offers his hand to shake mine, while I mouth a thank you to him.
“We will miss you, Lee. I wish you all the best.”
He returns to his table and sits among his friends.
They converse shortly before standing, tipping the last of their drinks into their mouths, and dispersing to talk to the other small groups around the bar.
They slowly filter out, each waving or blowing a kiss as they leave, and as many familiar faces exit the bar, it becomes a perfect, touching tribute to their loyalty to Joey.
It is barely nine, and the bar is eerily quiet.
No hustle, no bustle, with only a fraction of the customers.
The Unity Sirens come and go, but each time, I keep my eyes closed through the entire event.
I cannot even bear to see the anger anymore.
I clear tables, jumping at the opportunity to escape Cecelia’s droning chatter.
The outside brings me no comfort. I had hoped being by the river would take me away like it once did, my little window to the Wilds, but—nothing.
I loiter on the terrace while the warm summer air fades with the setting sun painting a pink-hued sky.
With the rising temperatures, the river level has dropped, and I have to look through the fence to see it below its tall bricked banks.
I stare at the reflection of the crescent moon, wavering with the dark, shallow peaks of the surface, and when I look up, I’m reminded of Joey saying it looks like a smile, but I tilt my head, relating to the frown shape before reluctantly returning inside.
My head hangs low as I carry my tray of bottles.“This is Lee,” Cecelia says, and my ears prick at my mention.
She points while a man looks towards me, who’s pulling up a seat at the counter, and his eyes follow me as I place my tray on the surface.
Cecelia sits herself down, leaving me to serve him, since she must be exhausted after handling the bar for a whole ten minutes by herself.
“What do you want?” I say flatly.
He smirks before saying, “Just a whisky sour, please.”
I’m slow to turn my back on him, since I wasn’t asking about his drink order; I wanted to know why he was asking about me.
With discreet glances, I gulp in the features of his face, wondering if I know him, but maybe he is a stranger who has heard the local gossip.
He is tall with a broad frame as he leans on the counter, peering beneath the low peak of his baseball cap, where his long umber hair flicks around that trunk of a neck.
Some men on the farms would get them—the same kind who could lift a hay bale like a purse and saunter through the fields.
Although his eyes are dark, they appear uncorrupted, while something about him offers a softness.
Maybe it’s the slight curl of his lip, which tilts his eyes.
As I prepare his drink, watching him in the reflection in the mirror, he scans the bar and sits with his fingers interlocked, but he doesn’t track Cecelia when she leaves to move the dirty glasses into the back room with an exhausted sigh.
I slide his drink before him. I’m not sure why he wears so many layers in this heat.
His sleeveless denim jacket is frayed and discoloured with age, over a hoodie with the sleeves cut short and a long-sleeved top beneath.
When he smiles, his beard and moustache almost hide his cartoonish grin, revealing impressively uniform teeth.
When I glance at the tickle of tattoos upon his wrists, he pulls the sleeves of his top down, which brings his dirt-dusted knuckles to my attention, and the noir-stained nail beds, just like Joey’s.
He used to say no amount of scrubbing would get the motor oil off—or that was his excuse.
The man takes a sip of his drink before replacing it on the bar. “Thank you, Lee. My name’s Leon. Nice to meet you.”