The Love of My Afterlife(20)

“I’m looking for a man,” I tell him distractedly, scanning the room for any sign of Jonah.

“Yeah, not sure this is the best place for that,” he laughs, sliding over my drink. It’s decorated with a curly silver straw, a sticky maraschino cherry, and a cocktail umbrella. I fight my way through all the accoutrements and take a tentative sip. I immediately take another.

“Holy shit.”

“Right? I put in a dash of apple sour to give it that extra zazz.” He wiggles his fingers when he says zazz.

I take another gulp of the drink and feel soothed by a mellow sensation loosening my limbs. At the piano, a woman starts to sing a song about someone not being able to pay their rent. She’s terrible but no-one seems to care; instead they just gather around the piano and join in. This is such a weird place. I order another drink and start to make my way around the basement bar, eyes on stalks for a sighting of Jonah. Every toffee-haired man catches my eye, but not one of them is him. I wander across the bar, trying unsuccessfully to tune out the wail of terrible singing. I peek my head into each seating booth as I pass by. Jonah isn’t in any of them.

My phone vibrates in my purse. I pull it out. A text from Merritt.


Bonjour, belle! I LOVE this place! I used to go all the time. You have to sing All That Jazz for me.



“No way,” I hiss. “I’m here to find Jonah.”


PLEASE. If I was there I would do it myself. But I can’t. Because I’m dead. So tragic. Taken away in my prime.



I turn to face the wall so that the surrounding revellers don’t think I’m talking to myself as I answer her.

“I don’t even know that song. And even if I did, there’s no way I would ever get up and sing in front of other people.”

I spot a tall man with Jonah-coloured hair on the other side of the piano. I speed walk in his direction, but he disappears into the men’s bathroom before I can reach him.

“Damn it!”

As I stand outside the men’s room and wait for him to finish his business, my phone continues to vibrate in a frenzied way.


All That Jazz! I demand it. If you don’t I will take off a day.



“What the fuck? You can’t do that!”

A man coming out of the loo gives me a cocky look. “I just did, honey,” he drawls.

“Not you!” I call after him, but he’s already disappeared into the crowd.

“I don’t need another day,” I say to Merritt. “I think I might have found him.”

At that moment, the tall Jonah-haired guy exits the bathroom. My heart sinks. While this man is roughly the same height as Jonah, with identical hair, his face is less sharp, his eyes much closer together and not at all cobalt blue.

“Is your name Jonah Thompson?” I ask.

“Nope, not me.”

“You looking for Australian Jonah?” a woman asks, sidling up to the man from the bathroom and swingling an arm around his waist. “He moved back to Sydney six months ago. Visa ran out. We miss him. He did a mean Jean Valjean.”

“Wait…Jonah Thompson is Australian? With an Australian accent?”

Bathroom Guy grins. “That’s how it tends to work.”

My Jonah had a British accent. And he currently lives in London. So my Jonah is not Jonah Thompson. Damn it. I thought I at least had a name.

As the man and woman wander off towards the group wearing feather boas, my phone buzzes again, and I hear the faint sounds of “Jump Around” beneath the jangling piano music.


Looks like losing a day would be terrible right about now!



“Why are you insisting on this? I thought you were trying to help me? Look, my Jonah isn’t here. Has probably never been here. Just let me go home so I can make a new plan.” I lift my phone to my ear so it looks like I’m talking into it, lest any passersby think I’m fully insane.


If I cannot live, let me live vicariously. All That Jazz or you lose a day.



“I don’t know ‘All That Jazz.’?”


Everyone knows All That Jazz.



She’s right. Somehow everyone does know “All That Jazz.” Via osmosis or something.


Come on. Be brave, Delphie. Don’t you at least want to live a little, while you’ve got the chance?



“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 from Hamilton.

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.”