Page 4 of Stay Awake
A few hard-core drinkers remain, swilling their drinks as they perch on stools. None of them talk to each other. They keep their eyes firmly on their liquor glasses as if that’s their only source of solace. Behind the bar is a 1930s-era triple-paneled mirror.
It feels as if I’m looking at a distorted version of myself in a carnival mirror. My hair is very long and much darker than my natural honey-brown shade. It’s the color of coffee: Americano. I plait it to get it out of the way, surprised at how practiced I am at a skill I don’t remember learning.
A bartender with a dark goatee and white shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows to reveal a tattoo pours a drink for a man slouched on a barstool. The bartender looks directly at me, flashing a broad smile filled with warm recognition.
“Liv!”
I’m so surprised this stranger knows my name that I instinctively glance behind me to see if some other woman with the same name happens to be in the vicinity.
“I knew you’d come back before we closed.” It’s as if he’s picking up the thread of a previous conversation.
“What can I get you, Liv? It’s on the house.”
“Thanks, but all I want is water,” I tell him as I squirm onto a vacant barstool. “I’m not drinking tonight.”
“That’s not what you told me a few hours ago,” he chuckles, handing me a glass of ice water.
“I was here earlier?”
The bartender’s eyes dance in delight at my brain freeze. “Sure. At around ten. You had a few drinks and then you left.”
“Alone?”
“You were with a dude, Liv,” he says, watching me carefully. “You don’t remember?”
My chest tightens with unease. The bartender clearly knows more about me than I do right now.
I must have been here with Marco. Maybe we were drinking. That would explain the out-of-body sensation I’ve felt since I woke in the cab.
“Everything’s fuzzy right now,” I explain. “What did he look like, the guy I was with?”
“I only saw the back of your heads as you left. The place was jam-packed. You know what it’s like when we have a live band playing.”
I smile knowingly, even though I don’t remember anything. Not the bartender. Not this bar. Not the man I left with last night. I change the subject and ask whether I left my purse or my cell phone when I was here earlier. They both appear to be missing.
“Not that I’ve seen, but I’ll ask the staff once we close and let you know when you come in tomorrow.” He pours liquor into a cocktail shaker.
I’m so focused on trying to reconstruct last night from the tiny scraps of information he’s given me that I jump when he puts a cocktail glass in front of me and asks me what I think.
“It’s a new take on a gin and tonic. I use ginger ale instead of tonic. Try it.”
I shudder as the liquor hits my throat.
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s pretty good, actually. It’s just that I’m not in the mood for alcohol tonight.”
I stifle an exhausted yawn. The brass clock on the wall says it’s close to four in the morning. “I should go. It’s way past my bedtime,” I joke.
“You’re never in bed at this time,” he assures me.
“Then where am I?”
“Here. Drinking. Talking to me. Taste-testing my new cocktails. Anywhere but in bed.”
“Why?”
“You hate sleeping. Especially at night.”
