But I find I can’t describe them. “One’s fat and sort of red in the face,” I say at last. “One’s middling with alcoholic eyes. He has a red handkerchief. He wears a suit the color of night.”
“The color of night, does he?”
“Yes, and then one is tall and slender. He never looks you in the eye. He sits off to the side. You can only ever see a sliver.”
“A sliver, is he?”
“Exactly.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Not much to go on there, lass.”
I feel myself flush. “They’re usually sitting right here,” I say, waving at the empty seats. “Just here at the bar. They drink the golden remedy.”
“Do they now?”
“Yes, and they sing. On the stage. Well, the fat man does, anyway.”
I realize now that I sound insane. The bartender shakes his head slowly, but he’s beaming at me, clearly entertained.
“I don’t usually work karaoke nights, I’m afraid. The golden remedy. That a drink?” Why do I feel like he already knows this? Knows the three men. Knows everything. He’s looking at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m vibrating.
“Yes, it’s golden. It glows with its own light.”
Why am I telling him this?
“Does it?” He leans forward, interested. Why is he so interested? Like he’s an audience member. On the edge of his seat.
“Yes,” I tell him. “In fact, I’d love a glass if you’ve got it.”
He has a tattoo sleeve on his left arm. Floral. Some sort of shining black script like a winding path among the flowers. What does it say? I wonder, but just as I lean in to look closer, he steps back.
“Why don’t you have a seat? Let me ask around.”
He pours me a water and disappears. I sit on the barstool in my windbreaker. Like I belong here, absolutely. I’ve done nothing wrong, no. Just a drink after a long day. Long day, very long. I watch my legs swinging back and forth in front of me. Wildly, like I’m a child on a swing. I sip the iced water, which is sweet, like water from a well. My hands hum lightly against the glass. I stare at the empty stools where the three men should be. Explaining everything to me. About what I’ve done. What to do next. I think of Mark pale and slumped over, sitting on my clothes and coat, breathing quickly into his knees. Do you like tricks, Ms. Fitch?
Mark was breathing when I left him, wasn’t he? I recall his rib cage rising and falling. Yes. Still alive. Not like I killed him, of course not. Since when do you kill someone by touching their wrist in a certain way, that’s absurd. Laughable. I’m laughing now, because it is so funny. It’s a strange trilling laugh that stops and starts. I wish the three men were here to laugh with me. We’d laugh and raise our glasses filled with the golden drink, wouldn’t we? We’d laugh into the night. Laughable that I could hurt anyone. If anything, Mark was the one hurting me, wasn’t he? He was breaking me, anyone could see that. The three men would agree, absolutely. PTs will break you, Ms. Fitch. Bank, bones, spirit.
“Surely you could see,” I say to the stale air all around me. My audience of smoke and dust.
Above me on the ceiling, a headless statue of a woman hangs suspended from a web of rope. Was she always there?
As I look back down, I catch my reflection in the mirror behind the bar, between the bottles, before I can stop myself. I never look in the mirror when I’m here if I can help it. Because I’ll look and find death. But what I find there takes my breath away. Hair gleaming. Eyes bright. Like actual stars are in them. The blue in the medical gown, the purple of the windbreaker, bring out roses in my skin. Roses I didn’t even think were there. Roses I thought had long dried up, dried out. Nothing but a husk, this skin. But tonight, I’m luminous. I’m glowing. I’m the girl in the glossy Playbill photo, a girl I never thought I’d see again. There she is right there in the mirror. Breathing as I am breathing, right on the other side of the glass.
“I’m sorry, lass,” says the bartender, back again. “No golden remedy tonight. Fresh out, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.”
He smiles. And now the way he’s looking at me makes sense. How far he’s leaning forward against the bar. How close he seems to want to be. I smell leather, sweet smoke, whiskey. That script tattooed down his bicep catches my eye again. He’s close enough that I can read it easily now. The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. Shining blackly under the bar light like a snake. Surrounded by golden flowers. He grins at me.