Page 3 of The Lies I Told
I glanced at the clear liquid. “No.”
A brow arched. “That tradition, too?”
“It is.” Or it had been for the last 365 days—I’d earned my one-year AA token at a meeting. And because I was now sober, I could keep the truth locked away.
He held out his hand. “Alan Bernard.”
A collection of silver bracelets covering tiny white scars jangled on my wrist as I accepted his hand. His palm was faintly calloused, and his grip was strong. “Marisa Stockton.”
“Do I know you?” His grasp and stare lingered, as if searching for the puzzle’s corner piece.
The worn pickup line would have rolled off my back two months ago. Now it unsettled me. Since the car accident, my memory had been sketchy, like a video uploaded on spotty Wi-Fi. Missed words, frozenscreens, blurred images dispersed among the coherent and clear. “Your name isn’t familiar.”
“Neither is yours,” he admitted as he released my hand. “It’s your face.”
I smiled uneasily. “Maybe I have one of those faces.”
He leaned forward a fraction, as if to share a secret. Hints of a cigarette and the warm spring air outside clung to him. “No, yours would be hard to forget.”
The jazz piano blended with clinking glasses and conversations. My talent for small talk had never been great, and now it was rusty to the point of dilapidated. “It’s been good to meet you, Alan.”
“I’m going to be a regular here. Beer’s good and beats an empty apartment.”
“Food’s also decent. Burger and fries are great.”
“Care to join me?” He was not quick to accept a no.
“There’s a birthday party in the back room, and if I don’t show, I’ll have a very unhappy sister hunting me down.”
He didn’t look particularly rushed. “Do you live around here, Marisa?” My name rang with a familiarity, as if we’d known each other for years.
“A few blocks.”
“Me too. Maybe I’ll see you again.”
“Maybe.”
As I rose, he glanced toward the shot glasses, mulling over their pristine status.
“They’re yours if you want them,” I said.
He held up his beer. “I’m never one to challenge tradition.”
“How do you know offering the drinks to a stranger isn’t part of the routine?”
“Somehow I don’t think it is.”
“Have a good one, Alan.” Sliding my purse strap onto my shoulder, I touched him briefly on the forearm. The touch was spontaneous butreminded me of just how long it had been since I’d had human contact beyond an EMT shoving an IV in my arm or a surgeon cracking open my skull. Curling my fingers into a loose fist, I left him and the untouched drinks and made my way to the banquet room’s open double doors. Above the entrance was a silver Mylar banner that readHAPPYBIRTHDAY!
“Let the fun begin.”
3
MARISA
Friday, March 11, 2022
8:00 p.m.
