Sam stayed for the length of the drink, the two of them chatting some more about what her childhood had been like at the Windward. She had a good memory, and he liked listening to her talk. But he was hungry, and he also wanted to get back to his laptop in his motel room and search for both of the incidents she’d told him about, so he left as soon as he could. He stopped at a seafood restaurant in a strip mall and had another gin and tonic while waiting for them to prepare some grouper tacos to go, then went back to the motel with the food, turned the air conditioning to high, and began to hunt the internet to find out how good Cynthia Hopkins’s memory really was.
3
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 8:22 P.M.
Caroline had texted to say that she had too much work to do and maybe they should take a night off from talking with each other, and Ethan felt as though she’d slid a long knife into his gut. He wrote back: sure thing, work hard. Then he dug out his denim jacket and walked to Casino el Camino. It had been a long while since he’d been there, which was exactly what Lauren, the bartender, said to him as he ordered a mule.
He’d been asked by Officer Resendez to limit the time he spent in public places, but he hadn’t been explicitly told to stay home. And he didn’t care tonight, even though a day earlier he had googled the name Jay Coates, as he did every day, and found out that a Jay Coates had been murdered in the city of Los Angeles the previous weekend. The list was getting shorter.
On his third mule, Ethan spotted a pair of women in a back booth who looked familiar. It took a moment, but he figured out they were both servers at a club he used to play at when he’d been in a short-lived band called the Buckets. He wandered over and they invited him to join them; he bought a pitcher of Lone Star and slid into the booth. An hour after he’d sat down it occurred to him that he’d hooked up with the prettier, chunkier girl at the table, about two years ago after one of his shows. Her name was Alicia, but she pronounced it with four syllables instead of three, and it seemed like she remembered their night together because she kept pressing her knee up against his under the table.
They all left together at closing time. Jennifer had already ordered a Lyft, jumping into it as soon as they were out on the street, leaving Alicia and him together. They walked to his place, Ethan telling her about a new song he’d written for a female vocalist, and maybe she’d sing a little of it for him if he played it on his guitar for her. He’d used that line before, and for a brief, panicky moment he thought he might have used it on Alicia before, back when they’d first hooked up, but if he did, she didn’t show it.
Back at his place Alicia rolled a joint while he tuned his guitar and printed out the lyrics he’d written. She actually had a pretty voice, and the song was better than he remembered. They went through it a couple of times, then made out on the couch, Alicia asking him if he remembered doing this before. “Why do you think I came over to say hi to you?” he said.
After they’d moved to the futon and turned out the lights, Ethan thought of Caroline for the first time since getting back to the apartment. He had a sudden longing to be alone, to open his laptop and see if she’d join him on Skype. He looked at Alicia, visible enough in the moonlight coming through his window for him to see that her eyes were barely open. Her breath was sharp with alcohol.
“Hey, Alicia,” he said. “I’m going to go put on a record. Close your eyes but don’t fall asleep on me, okay?”
“Of course not,” she said.
He got up, put on a Rachael Yamagata record, then sat for two songs on the sofa. When he crept back into the bedroom, he was happy to find Alicia on her stomach, one leg kicked out from under the covers, and gently snoring.
He went back to the couch, opened up his laptop, and looked for a halfway point between Austin, Texas, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. There were some nice cabins near the Shawnee National Forest that seemed as good a spot as any. He texted Caroline:
I missed you tonight. Want to meet at Rolling Brook Cabins in Makanda, Illinois?
4
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 11:15 P.M.
Caroline looked at the text from Ethan and wrote back: Yes. When?
You pick a date, he wrote. I’m always free.
Caroline opened up her calendar, although she pretty much knew her schedule. She’d be free the following weekend, and even though she had a ton of grading to do, she’d gotten a lot done tonight, and she could do extra all week. The thought of seeing Ethan face-to-face was tying her stomach into knots, but not necessarily in a bad way. She told herself that if it was awkward, that if they had no physical connection, or something, then at least they could stay friends. That much had been established.