Page 21 of The Love of My Afterlife
“Aaaaargh.”
I slump back to the bar. “One shot of tequila and another Liza please.”
“Did you find your man?”
I nod, knocking back the tequila. “It was the wrong one.”
“Been there.” The barman expertly mixes the cocktail and nudges it over to me. “This one’s on the house.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch.” He shrugs. “You just look like you need it.”
I nod my thanks, leave a five-pound tip on the bar, and head over to the piano man, who is just finishing up a song that even I—with very little theatre experience—know is fromHamilton.
I nudge my way through the crowd surrounding the piano man and lean in close.
“Can I…can I put in a request for ‘All That Jazz,’ please?”
He rolls his eyes. “No Sondheim? A little Tesori? Or god, at least any other Kander and Ebb song would make a nice change.”
I have no clue what he’s talking about.
“Name?” he eventually says with a little huff.
“Delphie Denise Bookham.”
“Only need your first one, but fine!” He hands me the mic. I take it from him with a trembling hand, down the cocktail that’s in the other.
The piano man starts to play the opening vamp of the song. Shaking, I lift the microphone to my lips.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“You have to actually sing!” the piano man hisses, playing the same opening vamp once again.
The surrounding crowd looks at me, blank-faced, but then the sequin-vested bar guy walks over to stand next to me and quietly starts singing the song, his voice unreasonably beautiful. He gives me a nod of encouragement. But despite that and the tequila and the threat of Merritt taking a day away from me, I can’t do it. I think my ears are sweating. Just yesterday my life involved interacting with as few people as I could get away with. And now, somehow, I’m standing on a platform in front of a bunch of total strangers being forced to sing a song I only sort of know for a pushy Afterlife Therapist who wants to laugh at me before she kills me.
Just when I think things can’t get any worse, I spot a woman towards the back of the room. She’s with the group wearing the feather boas and is clearly the leader—her alpha energy creating a sort of aura around her.
My breath catches in my throat as it dawns on me that the woman is Gen. Best friend turned evil tormentor Gen. She’s pointing at me and saying something to her friends, smirking.
Bile jets into my throat. How is she here?Whyis she here? My stomach swoops and I worry I’m going to be sick. I drop the microphone onto the piano, where it makes a discordant jangle on the keys.
“Hey!” Piano Man scolds. “That’s a premium Sennheiser 430!”
“S-sorry,” I call back as I dart away from the piano.
My jaw tightens as Gen starts to walk towards me. And it’s only then that I realise that the woman is not Gen at all. Just a skinny, confident-looking woman with blond hair but, actually, a completely different face. I wait for my heart to stop pounding, but it doesn’t. The very notion that it might have been Gen has set waves of cortisol off in my bloodstream. My heart drums.
“Are you alright?” I hear the sequinned barman ask, though his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.
“Sorry,” I mutter again.
Then I whirl around and race as fast as I can out of the basement bar and onto the crowded street.
I don’t stop running until I reach the bus stop.
11
