But we never saw him come out.
My stomach starts rolling again, and I force my attention back onto the sidewalk in front of me. I have enough presence of mind to wonder whether eventually, we’ll run into someone who demands to know why Mateo is carrying an unconscious girl. Seems like minimum responsible adult behavior on a city morning, but the only person we pass is a drunk old man slumped against the side of a building.
Mateo turns another corner, then pauses at the edge of a large metal door. “Keys are in my right pocket,” he says. “Can you get them?”
“I…what?”
“Get my keys,” he says, his voice edging into impatience. “My hands are kinda full.”
“I know, but…where are we?”
“Garrett’s,” he says. “Back door. They don’t open till five, so it should be deserted.”
I stop asking questions and extract the keys as quickly as I can. “It’s the big, round one,” Mateo says. I find the right key, and fit it into the lock with shaking hands. It turns easily, and I pull the heavy door open as the sound of sirens starts up again. I startle so badly that I would’ve dropped the keys if they weren’t dangling from the lock. Mateo ducks inside with Ivy and I follow suit, slamming the door closed behind me.
We’re in a dim, musty-smelling room piled high with cardboard boxes and what look like empty kegs. There’s only one other door besides the one we just came in, and it opens into a small stairwell. I follow Mateo upstairs and find myself in a room dominated by a bar on one end and two pool tables at the other. One side of the room is all windows, but they’re covered by shades that let in only a faint, yellowish light. The tables nearest them have bench seating covered with faded red cushions, and that’s where Mateo finally deposits Ivy.
Once she’s down, he shakes his arms out and rolls his neck and shoulders a few times, then carefully straightens an edge of her skirt that rode up during the transfer. Ivy murmurs something but doesn’t wake.
“Is she…shouldn’t she be conscious by now?” I ask. The last time I saw Ivy pass out from her needle phobia was in seventh grade, when somebody found a discarded syringe on the soccer field at school and started waving it around during gym. My memory from that time is a little hazy, but I could swear she woke up within minutes.
“I don’t know,” Mateo says. “She was pretty freaked out.” He leans over her, pressing his fingertips against one side of her neck. “Pulse seems normal. Breathing’s normal. Maybe she just needs a little more time.”
“You know Ivy,” I say. “She can probably use the rest.” Mateo gives me a tight-lipped smile in recognition of the weak joke. Back when we hung out with Ivy, she never slept more than five hours a night. I’d miss texts from her after I went to bed, and then a bunch more before I woke up the next morning. Now that I think of it, I feel kind of nostalgic for the weird, random facts that used to strike Ivy while everyone else was sleeping.
Did you know it would only take one hour to drive to space?
THERE ARE PINK DOLPHINS (YouTube link)
Cal you have to get a friend for Gilbert. In Switzerland it’s illegal to own only one guinea pig because they get lonely.
She had a good point about Gilbert. My guinea pig was a lot happier after my parents agreed to let me buy a second one. Except then George died, and Gilbert was so inconsolable that he died three days later—so. Not sure it was a win, in the end.
I gaze around the dim room, nervously biting the inside of my cheek. I’ve never been in a bar before, which is the sort of thing I’d mention under different circumstances. “So this is where you work, huh?”
“Yeah,” Mateo says. “The owner doesn’t usually show up till around two, so I think we’re okay for a while.” He crosses over to the bar and ducks behind it, grabbing a couple of glasses that he fills from a small sink. He hands one to me, then sits down at a table close to Ivy. I lower myself into a chair across from him and take a long sip. My mouth tastes slightly less horrible when I’m done.
“You okay?” Mateo asks.
“I don’t know,” I say weakly. “You?”
“Same.” Mateo shakes his head, then drains half his water in one gulp. “That was a nightmare, back there.”
“I know.” I wipe a hand across my mouth. “Not really what I had in mind when I suggested we re-create the Greatest Day Ever.”
“We should’ve gone to the fucking aquarium,” Mateo says.
I can’t help it: despite everything that just happened, I snort out a laugh. A semihysterical one, sure, but it’s better than crying. “Cosigned,” I say.
Then Mateo’s expression shifts. It’s still tense, but more focused, like he’s getting ready to peer into the hidden depths of my brain. It’s a look I remember well from his mother—which is ironic, since he always hated it when she gave it to him.
I know exactly what’s coming next.
“Cal,” he says. “Who’s the girl?”