Mark?
No answer. I watched him breathe rapid, shallow breaths.
Panic fluttered in me like the wings of a great black bird as I stood there on straight legs. No pain anymore. Concrete gone. Foot light as a feather. Looking at Mark slumped in the very chair where I had sat so many times before, softly explaining my symptomology to the floor, to the dust.
Mark, I said again. Are you okay?
Nothing.
Mark? I sang, for my head was suddenly flooded with music. I watched his polo-shirted back rising and falling. Just like Briana’s rib cage rising and falling. Shallow. Quick. Gripping his wrist where I’d touched him.
Fear filled me then. Bright fear. Golden as the golden remedy. What have I done what have I done what have I done? Yet I was smiling at Mark. Was I smiling? Yes. From ear to ear. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help the blue skies breaking in my blood. Neither leg screaming, for both legs were light as air. Mark was sitting on my coat, my sad dress, my tights, so I left them there.
Mark, I sang again.
Mark waved me away weakly. Not looking up. Not speaking.
So I slipped on my shoes. So I told Mark I’d see him in forty-eight hours. I agreed, we had to stay on top of this. I shut the door softly behind me.
And then I ran.
I jumped through the obstacle course of orange cones, I hopped through the ladder of rope still laid out on the floor for the old man, who was gone now. Easy it was. I could’ve done it a thousand times if I didn’t want to get the hell out of there. No one in the gym anymore but one therapist with teased-out hair, hunched over a computer station, glaring at the monitor. Tapping her foot to Aerosmith playing staticky on the radio.
“Do you need to make another appointment?” she said to me, not even batting an eye at me in my medical gown. Not even looking.
“I’ll call in,” I said, grabbing the windbreaker from the rack by the door.
And now I’m here, in my car in the frozen lot, gazing at the empty dark, my humming hands on the wheel. Trembling, my whole body trembling still, though I feel my head nodding along now to a song on the radio, a smile wavering on my lips. Oh god, what do I do? I need a drink, I do. I need to talk to someone, who?
And then I know, of course I do. Black leather shoes tapping. Suits the color of night. Each pair of hands cupped around a drink that glows golden in the red bar. The three men. Drinking that gold drink right now at the Canny Man.
What have I done? I’ll ask them. To Mark? To Briana? What is this humming in my hands? What is this tune on my lips? What is this smile on my face? What is this lightness?
* * *
At the Canny Man, no three men. I look around the nearly empty bar, the filthy air from which they seem to have vanished. No one at all at the bar apart from a few singles at the high tables against the red walls. Their heads bent low like Mark’s in his chair. Is he still there in the treatment room? Don’t think about that now. Get a drink. I walk up to the bar, lightly, quickly, I can’t believe how lightly, how quickly. I walk a few circles around the bar just to check, just to be sure I haven’t missed the three men, that they aren’t hiding in a corner somewhere, not here or there or here. How easily I can walk these circles. No dead leg, no hip pain, no back twinge. No hobble, no hunch, no limp. I walk around the bar one more time for good measure. A few more times for good measure. Skipping a little? Yes, I’m skipping a little, I can’t help it. I’m skipping, skipping—
“Everything okay there, lass?” says a voice now. Male, deep, lilting.
I freeze.
A bartender watching me from behind the bar. One I don’t recognize. Tall. Black hair slicked back. Scottish, apparently. And handsome, I can’t help but notice. Looking at me and grinning. When has a bartender ever noticed me in here before? When have I not had to flag one down again and again, Hello, hello, sir, do you see me? But here is this handsome Scottish bartender gazing at me intently with pale eyes. Me, I’m the lass.
Suddenly I become very aware that I’m in a medical gown and a stolen windbreaker. I draw the jacket more tightly around my body.
“Yes, fine, thank you. Just looking for someone.” I’m about to try to smile, my attempt to convince, but then realize I’m already smiling.
“You didn’t happen to see three men here tonight, did you?” I ask him.
He shakes his head slowly. He’s wearing one of those black pirate shirts, shirtsleeves rolled, and a black kilt. He looks like he participates in Ren fairs. He’s the one who roasts the pig, who cranks the spit.
“Three men? I’ve seen a lot of men here tonight. All professions. But three together? Don’t think so, lass. Not tonight, anyway. What did they look like?”