Chapter 1: The Bar on the Edge of the City

 

There wasn’t much to her first visit to the bar on the edge of the city. A few hundred miles away from home, it was a perfect escape. They had suitable red wine. The company was fine – mostly middle-aged people who made small talk pleasantly and didn’t ask too many questions.

                She paid with cash.

                By the third time she visited the bar, the bartender knew her drink before she asked for it. She was honored to be remembered, even if the whole point was to be forgotten. The bartender was attractive enough – tall, broad shoulders, short hair – that it felt validating to know she had been noticed.

                The fourth time she visited the bar, she arrived as he was closing. She met him at the door as he was turning off the “OPEN” sign and locking up.

                “You have to let me in for a drink,” she said with some urgency, knowing that he at least remembered her.

                He paused but only for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside so she could come in. “You can drink until I’m done closing,” he said simply, and poured her a glass.

                “Thank you,” she said, sitting at the barstool closest to the register and slapping a fistful of ones on the bar.

                “What’s your name?” he casually asked as he counted out four ones. It was the first time he had asked.

                “I’m nobody,” she replied, unzipping her coat.

                “But what’s your name?” he asked.

                “Tabitha,” she said, watching him for a response. She went on. “Hecate. Mona Lisa. Lady MacBeth. Daisy Buchanan. Endora.” She shrugged. “I always pay. Does it matter?”

                He came around to her side of the bar to pick up some glasses from the table behind her. “You know, I could get in trouble,” he said. “We both could. I’ve never seen your ID. I could kick you out.”

                He stood next to her barstool for an instant.

                She stood up from her barstool to be a little closer as she faced him, but still wasn’t tall enough to be eye-to-eye with him. As she looked up at him she felt the beginning of something moving in her spirit that wanted to be alive.

                “Are you going to?” she asked.

                He stared back at her for a moment, looking amused. Then he shook his head and turned away. “Nope,” he said, going back to the dirty glasses.

                She watched him. “Do drunk girls hit on you all the time?” she asked.

                “Yeah,” he replied without thinking about it.

                “Do you ever go home with them?”

                He shook his head. “Nope,” he replied.

                “Why?”

                “Power dynamic,” he said, lifting a tray of clean glasses out of the dishwasher and setting it on the counter. “It wouldn’t be fair… for them. I’d be taking advantage.” He started putting the clean glasses away.

                “You’re getting paid,” she said. She eyed him. “Sounds like they have the power.”

                “You’re right,” he said easily without protesting. “Either way, no. Do people hit on you at your job?”

                “Sometimes.”

                “Do you go home with them?”

                “No.”

                “Why?” he asked, pausing what he was doing to look at her.

                She took a long sip from her glass. “I can’t.”

                He didn’t ask her to elaborate.

                When she’d finished all the wine she was going to drink, she said farewell and went outside to smoke in the courtyard behind the bar before heading home. He came out with a load of trash for the dumpster and saw her. “Can I walk you home?” he offered.

                “I’m not walking,” she said. “I’m flying.”

                He laughed. As soon as he looked away, she took off.

 

                He didn’t mention it the next time she visited the bar on the edge of the city. He had her drink ready for her as she fished out the cash to pay him. “What’s your name?” he asked jovially.

                “Xena,” she said.

                He eyed her for a moment, then shook his head as he took her money. “No, it isn’t.”

                “Why do you ask?” she demanded.

                He didn’t reply, just went back to taking the next order.

                That night, some guy she had never seen before was particularly friendly. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what he was all about, and she knew how to take care of herself. She made casual conversation with him, didn’t leave a drink or her money unattended, and maintained a physical distance from him.

                Nonetheless, he kept creeping closer. She wasn’t worried. She didn’t have to flaunt her power, but she also wasn’t afraid to use it in front of people. Unlike her brothers. No, she knew that if he got too close she could make him back the fuck off really quickly. Plus, she was in a room full of people, including at least one who was sober.

                “You smoke,” the man told her at one point. “Come out and smoke with me.”

                She laughed out loud. “No, thanks,” she said, unwilling to go outside with him. “You go ahead.”

                “I know you smoke,” he insisted.

                “I know I smoke, too,” she said. “So what?”

                “Come outside with me,” he demanded again.

                “Why?” she asked flippantly, looking away from him to pretend to be interested in whatever was on the television. A reality show in the jungle somewhere. She was not interested. But she pretended to be.

                “I want to talk to you.”

                “You are talking to me.” She was getting bored.

                “I want to…”

                He was interrupted by the bartender, who slapped his hand down on the bar in front of him. “She said no, John,” he said. “Let it go.”

                She looked at the bartender, more in surprise than anything else. She hadn’t ever heard him raise his voice before.

                His forcefulness was effective for the moment. The creeper went outside on his own.

                She shared a momentary look with the bartender to acknowledge it had happened. She wasn’t sure she appreciated it.

                When John came back in, it was more of the same. He tried to buy her shots, which she turned down and which the bartender thus would not pour. It was all innocuous enough until it wasn’t. When she had her back to him, hoping he’d leave her alone and find someone else, watching the television, she felt a hand on her shoulder from behind.

                Her senses prickled and she forced herself to pause a moment. It wasn’t a real threat; she didn’t need to respond harshly.

                It didn’t matter. The bartender was over it. “You’re out, John,” he said, coming out from behind the bar and pushing him away. “Time’s up. Let’s go.” John resisted, but the bartender was able to effectively guide him out of the bar. It didn’t make too much of a disturbance. The bar was about half full, but John didn’t resist too loudly.

                A few moments later, when there was a bit of a lull and he was standing near her on the other side of the bar, she told him, “I didn’t need you to save me.”

                The bartender looked surprised. “I wasn’t trying to save you,” he said, washing a glass in the sink.

                “I don’t need your help,” she rephrased.

                He paused and looked down for a moment, thinking about his words. He looked up. “I saw things you didn’t,” he said. “I’ve seen things you haven’t. From back here, when you’re out there.” He shrugged. “Next time… you don’t… need to be treated that way.” He abruptly moved on to fulfill someone else’s drink order.

                Later that night, when she was sufficiently buzzed and he was closing, he asked her, “you’re not driving, are you?”

                “No,” she said. “I’m flying.” She left before he could say anything else.

 

                The next time she visited the bar on the edge of the city, the bartender greeted her by putting her glass of wine in front of her before she’d even sat down, and asking her what her name was.

                “Flora,” she said.

                He eyed her for a moment, considering. Then he shook his head. “No, it isn’t,” he replied.      

                “So why do you ask?”

                “How old are you?” he wondered aloud, taking her money.

                “Let’s see,” she began. “I died around two hundred years ago, so that would mean…”

                He walked away.

                She watched him with curiosity each night, noticing how the other girls in the bar treated him. They smiled at him and touched him and laughed with him. She wasn’t one of them, but she didn’t want to be.

                At the end of one night after everyone else had left, he let her stick around as he worked on closing the bar. When he came around behind her, she moved in her stool just enough to bump into him and knock him off balance. He dropped a glass, and it shattered on the ground. She started apologizing and stood up to clean it up, but he had already waved her off and was picking it up on her own.

                Predictably, he started bleeding.

                “No, no, no, I’ve got this,” she insisted. When she saw the blood, she turned and reached into her bag, slung across her barstool. She got out band-aids. “Let me help. I can fix this.”

                She reached for his bleeding hand, and he held it out to her. She gently and painlessly put a band-aid over his cut. She held it down for a minute to keep pressure on, and then released the pressure. Still, she let her fingertips linger on his hand for a moment longer than they needed to. She was grateful for the human connection.

                “Do you just happen to have band-aids on you?” he asked curiously.

                “Always,” she replied, shrugging and releasing his hand.

                “My blood is all over your hands,” he pointed out.

                “It’s OK. I’ll wash them.”

                She reached back and smoothed the band-aid over the cut.

                “Tell me something real about you,” he requested as she pulled her hand away.

                She paused for just a moment, then relented. “I play the flute,” she said. “I have, since I was a kid. I’m good at it.” She shrugged. “Recently I played at…” She looked at him, then looked away. “I played in front of some people. A little girl was there and saw…” A smile crept across her face. “Her mom texted me that she said she wants to be like me when she grows up. So she can play flute in front of people, too.” She looked back to him. “I can’t stop smiling when I think about it.”

                He kissed her. She didn’t resist. She leaned in and touched him, savoring the moment of physical connection. It had been so long.

                As she pulled away, she kept her eyes closed for an instant longer as she relished the physical response of her body.

                “Let me walk you home tonight,” he said as she opened her eyes.

                She didn’t want to belabor the point with him. She didn’t walk. She didn’t need or want him accompanying her home. And yet… “Let me walk you home tonight,” she said, not wanting to get back to her home, not wanting to say goodbye. She wanted to have sex with him and felt confident that she could.

                “I don’t live in this neighborhood. I’m driving.”

                Well, that was that, then. She couldn’t walk home with him if he also was not walking home.

                He turned away and went back behind the bar, finishing up on whatever it was he did to close the bar. Without looking back at her, he asked, “Do you want to come over?”

                She leaned on the bar, considering. Of course she did. “You don’t do that,” she contested.

                He turned back to look at her. “That’s what I told you. Before I knew that you play the flute.” He smiled at her. She smiled back.

                The drive to his home was quiet.

                “How far is it?” she asked as they started down the road.

                “15 minutes or so,” he said, turning on the radio.

                She settled into the feeling of anticipation as they sat quietly listening to music. It was a comfortable quiet; she didn’t feel that there was pressure to fill the space with chatter.

                When they arrived at his house on the other side of the city, things escalated very quickly. He parked in the driveway. They got out of the car. She followed him into the house. As soon as they got inside, before he could turn on any lights, she started kissing him. The lights never did come on. They stumbled to his bedroom in the dark, taking off clothes as they went.

                As things were happening, a naysaying voice in her head said that she shouldn’t be doing this. She dismissed the thoughts, consciously aware that although there were others who would think that she should not be having sex, they were wrong. There was no reason not to. And those who thought she shouldn’t, had no reason to know that she was.

                It was new and exciting, but there was also something familiar and comforting about being physically connected to someone in a sexual way again. For no legitimate reason, she felt safe enough to be vulnerable with the bartender in this way – even if it was the only way that she was willing to be vulnerable with anyone. She knew she had no reason to trust him, which was why she generally kept her distance. But she was willing to take the risks involved in trusting a stranger enough to have sex with him, if it meant she got to experience the blissful release of it in the process.

                When it was over they stayed in his bed in the dark, laying on their backs side by side. She turned toward him, rolling onto her side to curl up against him. He put his arm around her as they basked in the post-orgasmic glow.

                “What’s your name?” he whispered.

                “Circe,” she breathed without hesitating.

                He paused before replying, as he always did. “No, it isn’t.”

                She followed suit, playing into the script. “Why do you ask?”

                “I thought it might be different now,” he said, running his fingertips down her back.

                “What do you think my name should be?” she asked, genuinely interested in the response.

                “Guinevere,” he said at first. Then, “or the lady Amalthea. Or Valkyrie.”

                “What’s in a name?” she wondered aloud, quietly amused at his literary and mythological references.

                “No, you’re not a Juliet,” he replied, and she was pleased he got the reference. “What do I call you?”

                “Whatever you want,” she said, and she meant it.

                He didn’t press any further, nor did he offer an alternative for what he would call her. She was too relaxed to care.

                A few minutes later, she got dressed again to go outside and smoke. He came with her. When she told him she had to go, he protested briefly. “You can stay,” he said. “I’ll take you home tomorrow.”

                “I can’t,” she said simply. She kissed him one last time and took off into the night sky without saying goodbye, without caring if someone saw her.

                No one did, except for him.

 

                It became a routine. She came to the bar on the edge of the city every so often. At first it had been every few weeks. After the first night that she went home with the bartender, it became more like once a week. Then it was a few times a week. It was never every single night. That would have been too much. Every time she arrived, he first asked her what her name was. She always told him something that was wrong. He always knew it was wrong.

                Every time, she came to the bar toward the end of the night so she could be there at closing time. Every time after that, he took her home with him. They had sex. She lingered a little longer each time before taking off. She grew more and more affectionate toward him each time – the sound of his laugh, the way he smiled when he saw her, the feel of his skin against hers.

                Every time, after they had sex, he asked the same indulgence: “Tell me something real.”

                Every time, she told him something different. He never asked follow-up questions. He was content to know something that he at least thought was true about her, in spite of how often she obviously told him things that were false while they were at the bar.

                She told him truths that were deeply personal and usually sad, hoping that would be enough for him to not probe any further:

                “I am a widow.”

                “My parents both died when I was a teenager.”

                “It has been six years since I slept with someone.”

                “I was taught that women are to keep silent and submit.”

                “I killed someone in self-defense.”

                She never planned ahead what she would tell him, even knowing he would ask. She didn’t have the mental energy to come up with something and hold onto it until he asked. She always waited until the moment presented itself, and then spoke whatever truth came to her first.

                She learned about who he was, too, because he volunteered information. He usually told her about himself while they were at the bar, at the end of the night, waiting for the last few customers to finish their drinks.

                She learned that he was from the area, had left for college, and came back after graduating. He had wanted to start his own business, but instead had taken over someone else’s business when they retired. He ran the bar. He didn’t live nearby because he wanted to keep distance between himself and the people he saw there. She understood that part. She didn’t tell him that she also ran her own business, or that she also wanted to keep distance between herself and the people she saw at the bar. But he knew the latter.

                She learned that he was an avid reader who collected first editions. She was tempted to start bringing him treasures from the store, but knew that she couldn’t. It would give too much of a clue as to who she really was. She didn’t need to lose this or put him at risk, at least not yet. It was too early to walk away or have him suffer.

                The more time went by, the more they talked in the darkness at his house.

They talked at length about books, debating which writers were the most skilled in which categories and which characters were the least realistic and which movies lined up most with the books they had been based on.

They talked about the weather and climate change, genocide happening around the world, and issues of social justice. They tended to agree on most issues of politics but on the occasions when they didn’t, they danced around conflict by disagreeing respectfully.

They talked about movies and music, celebrities, sports, and pop culture. She learned that he had been an athlete in high school and had taken hockey with him to college, but that he’d never had a desire to play professionally.

He volunteered a lot about his own life, but she didn’t. She spoke to him about things that were deeply important to her, and deeply revealing about who she was – in ways that did not require her to actually give him any real details about her own life.

She could tell him how the Dragon Tattoo series was massively impactful for survivors of violence and he never asked why she felt that way.

She could discuss how important it was to her that people be aware of the ramifications of the Evangelical Christians’ alignment with the 45^th president and she didn’t have to explain how she got there.

She could discuss local politics and not tell him where she lived.

                At first, he didn’t protest when she left rather than sleeping over. As time went on and the visits became more frequent, though, something shifted. She felt it in herself and she felt it coming from him. She knew that her own feelings were starting to become more intense, and that what she wanted to be a casual sexual relationship was maybe not going to remain that way forever. She also knew that he was developing feelings for her. Both of these truths made her nervous, and she started drinking less to avoid the potential that her nervous stomach would make her get sick as it had in the past.

                A few months into their relationship, one night, he finally asked about why she always had to leave. She was devastated when he did because she knew they were approaching the end of the time when she would be able to maintain the distance she had so carefully cultivated. He had been so compliant in not asking too much of her.

                “Is it because you’re married?” he asked into the dark as they lay naked in his bed. She had her back to him and he had his arms around her. “Is that why you don’t tell me anything about your life?”

                She thought about it for too long, trying to come up with an answer that would be both accurate and satisfactory to him. She knew there wouldn’t be one. “No,” she said. “That isn’t why.”

                He paused. “Well… are you married?”

                She had to hesitate and think about it again. “The answer depends on who you ask,” she said warily, wondering at what point he might turn on her.

                She felt something move behind her, but he didn’t seem upset just yet. “You,” he said. “I’m asking you. Why… how is it not a yes or no question?” His tone wasn’t anything but calm and mellow.

                She took a deep breath and finally said what she hadn’t said yet over the last couple months. “You won’t get it. Believe me.”

                He was undeterred. “Try me,” he challenged, stroking her hair.

                She took another deep breath and decided to try him. “According to some people, I’m still married. According to others, I’m not.”

                “What?”

                “I told you already the answer to this, a long time ago. You know I’m a widow.”

                “Doesn’t that mean you’re not married anymore?”

                She didn’t answer at first. “It depends on who you ask,” she said again.

                “Do you consider yourself to still be married?”

                “Sometimes,” she answered without worrying that he might be bothered to hear it. They were past that point. “If someone is supposed to be your soulmate… that doesn’t stop because they die.” She knew this was not the conversation he had expected to have, and wanted to acknowledge it. “I think you’re asking if… you’re asking, do I keep secrets because I don’t want you to know that I have a husband, a living one, waiting for me at home that I go back to when I leave?”

                “More or less,” he said in reply.

                “I don’t,” she said.

                She waited, wondering if he was going to ruin everything by finally asking the open-ended question – “Why?” She had been able to avoid walking away because he had been able to avoid asking that question. She knew that the minute he asked, she would never see him again. He would have become too curious. He would start searching, and, even without knowing her name or any other vital details, she knew he would be successful in finding her other life. And she couldn’t allow that to happen.

                But he didn’t ask. And she was relieved.

                As she flew home, her mind came back to the topic of discussion: marriage. It nagged at her a little, for some reason. She had given up on trying to live by the rules of the community she was a part of; that was a lose/lose and she no longer believed in the core tenets that motivated the ethical standards. That wasn’t it. She wasn’t concerned that something she was doing might violate the rules.

                But she kept wondering if her affair with the bartender meant she was being unfaithful to Thomas, her soulmate who had died. She did believe what she had told the bartender. There was no doubt that Thomas was her soulmate, and that wasn’t something that ended with death. They were meant for each other. Their souls belonged together.

                Did that mean that she was wronging him by having sex with the bartender?

                She knew she had some books that could help. When she landed at her home, she went first out to the barn. She had a stash of books there that weren’t in the store for circulation. Every time she got a donation of books that she might want to read herself, she kept them in cases in the barn. She knew she had put aside some books on biblical marriage at some point over the last few years. She hadn’t felt ready to read them before, in her grief; yet now she felt like she could move forward enough to see what they had to say. It was important now.

                When she got into the barn, she instantly forgot about the books.

                There was a pickup truck inside, with the license plates already removed.

                She felt a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

                It was that time again.

                She went inside grudgingly, knowing both her brothers would still be awake. They were. The lights were on, and they were scheming at the kitchen table.

                She greeted them as she walked into the kitchen. “Amnon. Absalom.” She knew they hated her nicknames for them, but she refused to stop reminding them that she knew exactly who they were.

                They stopped talking when she came in. They didn’t ask where she’d been. She knew they wouldn’t. They didn’t mind that she took off, and they weren’t interested in where she went – as long as she always came back. They knew she always would.

                She had to.

                They used to make up claims of what they thought they could smell on her. She had had to keep cigarettes a secret, and had to be careful where she went. But since both her brothers had gotten covid, they’d both lost their sense of smell completely. Neither one could smell the sex or the smoke on her anymore. It was a small freedom, but she relished it.

                She walked past them and filled a bottle of water to take to her room. She turned her back and started walking away as they resumed their conversation. Then they called out to her.

                “Jordan!”

                She stopped and winced, hating the sound of her own name, hating the reminder of everything it meant. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at them. “What?”

                Her brother Peter stood. “Tomorrow,” he reminded her.

                She stared at him. “Yes?”

                “We’ll ride together. Leave at 8.”

                She hadn’t forgotten. “I know,” she said simply. She could have asked if they were going to be driving the new truck when they went to church in the morning, in just a few hours, but she chose not to. She had been happy when she arrived home. If she could make it to bed and avoid a fight, that would be ideal.

                She waited to see if Peter or her older brother, Mark, would say anything more. They didn’t. She turned and went to bed, barricading the door, clipping her hunting knife to her pajamas, wishing for the first time in a long time that everything were drastically different.