Aqua shook his head. “I taught class. I thought perhaps he spoke to you.”
“No,” she said. Then, remembering that she wasn’t dealing with the most dependable mind in the free world, she tried to let it go. There was no way Jeff was in Central Park six months ago, watching their class from behind a tree. It made no sense.
“I’m so sorry, Kat.”
“Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“It changed everything. I didn’t know it would.”
“It’s okay now.”
They were half a block from O’Malley’s. In the old days, they would all hang out here—Kat, Jeff, Aqua, a few other friends. You would think O’Malley’s would have been a rough place for a biracial cross-dresser back then. It was. In the beginning, Aqua dressed like a man at O’Malley’s, but that didn’t really stop the sneers. Dad would just shake his head. He wasn’t as bad as most from the neighborhood, but he still had no patience for “fruits.”
“Gotta stop hanging around those types,” Kat’s father would tell her. “They ain’t right.”
She would shake her head and roll her eyes at him. At all of them. People often referred to these cops now as “old school.” True enough. But it wasn’t always a compliment. They were narrow and insulated. Excuses could be made (and were), but in the end, they were bigots. Lovable bigots maybe. But bigots nonetheless. Gays were treated with derision, but to a lesser extent, so was pretty much every other group or nationality. It was part of the lexicon. If someone negotiated with you too hard, you complained that they “Jewed” you down. Any activity not deemed macho was for “fags.” A ballplayer choked because he was playing like an N-word. Kat didn’t excuse it, but when she was younger, she didn’t really let it get to her either.
To his credit (or maybe patience?), Aqua hadn’t seemed to care. “How do you think we get views to evolve?” he’d say. He took it as a challenge even. Aqua would breeze into O’Malley’s, either not caring about—or, more likely, making himself ignore—the sneers and snickers. After a while, most of the cops moved on, got bored, barely looking twice when Aqua strolled in. Dad and his buddies kept their distance.
It pissed Kat off, especially coming from her father, but Aqua would shrug and say, “Progress.”
As they reached the pub door, Aqua pulled up short. His eyes went wide again.
“What is it?” Kat asked.
“I have to teach class.”
“Right, I know. That’s tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “I need to prepare. I’m a yogi. A teacher. An instructor.”
“And a good one.”
Aqua kept shaking his head. There were tears in his eyes now. “I can’t go back.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere.”
“He loved you so much.”
She didn’t bother asking who he meant. “It’s okay, Aqua. We are just going to grab a bite to eat, okay?”
“I’m a good teacher, aren’t I?”
“The best.”
“So let me do what I do. That’s how I help. That’s how I stay centered. That’s how I contribute to society.”
“You have to eat.”
The door to O’Malley’s had a neon sign for Budweiser in the window. She could see the red light reflecting in Aqua’s eyes. She reached for the handle and pulled the door open.
Aqua screamed. “I can’t go back!”
Kat let go of the door. “It’s okay. I get it. Let’s go somewhere else.”
“No! Leave me alone! Leave him alone!”
“Aqua?”
She reached out for him, but he pulled away. “Leave him alone,” he said, his voice more a hiss this time. Then he ran down the street, back toward the park.
Chapter 17
Stacy met her at O’Malley’s an hour later.
Kat told her the entire story. Stacy listened, shook her head, and said, “Man, all I wanted to do was help you get laid.”
“I know, right?”
“No good deed goes unpunished.” Stacy stared a little too hard at her beer. She started peeling off the label.
“What is it?” Kat asked.
“I, uh, took the liberty of doing some of my own investigating on this.”
“Meaning?”
“I ran a full check on your old fiancé, Jeff Raynes.”
Kat took a quick swallow. “What did you find?”
“Not much.”
“Meaning?”
“After you two broke up, do you know where he went?”
“No.”
“You weren’t curious?”
“I was curious,” Kat said. “But he dumped my ass.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“So where did he go?”
“Cincinnati.”
Kat stared straight ahead. “That makes sense. He was from Cincinnati.”
“Right. So anyway, about three months after you two broke up, he got into a bar fight.”
“Jeff did?”
“Yes.”
“In Cincinnati?”
Stacy nodded. “I don’t know the details. The cops came. He was arrested for a misdemeanor. He paid a fine and that was that.”
“Okay. And then?”
“And then nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is nothing else on Jeff Raynes. No credit card charges. No passport. No bank accounts. Nothing.”
“Wait, this is preliminary, right?”
Stacy shook her head. “I ran it all. He’s gone in the wind.”
“That can’t be. He’s on YouAreJustMyType.”
“But didn’t your friend Brandon say he used a different name?”
“Jack. And you know what?” Kat slapped her hands down on top of the bar. “I don’t really care anymore. That’s in my past.”
Stacy smiled. “Good for you.”
“I’ve had enough of old ghosts for one night.”
“Hear, hear.”
They clinked beer bottles. Kat tried her best to dismiss it.
“His profile said he was a widower,” Kat said. “That he had a kid.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But you didn’t find that.”
“I didn’t find anything after that bar fight almost eighteen years ago.”
Kat shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“But you don’t care, right?”
Kat gave a firm nod. “Right.”
Stacy glanced around the bar. “Is it me or is this place extra douchey tonight?”
She was trying to distract me, Kat thought, but that was okay. And no, it wasn’t just Stacy. O’Malley’s seemed to be a verifiable United Nations of Douche Baggery on this fine evening. A guy in a cowboy hat tipped the brim toward them and actually muttered, in a Brooklyn accent no less, “Howdy, ma’am.” Dancing guy—there is one in every bar who has to do the robot or moonwalk while his buddies egg him on—was working his stuff by the jukebox. One guy wore a football jersey, a look Kat disliked on men but loathed on women, especially the ones who cheer too loudly, trying too hard to prove their fandom is legitimate. It always came off as too desperate. Two steroid-inflated, overwaxed muscleheads preened in the bar’s center—those guys never went to the dark corners. They wanted to be seen. Their shirts were always the same size—Too Small. There were hipster hopefuls who smelled like pot. There were guys with tattoo sleeves. There was the sloppy drunk who had his arm over another guy he’d just met, telling him that he loved him and that even though they had just met that night, they’d be best friends forever.
One biker wannabe wearing black leather and a red bandanna—always a no—made his approach. He had a quarter in his palm. “Hey, babe,” he said, looking directly between the two women. Kat figured that this was a take-two-shots-with-one-line type deal.
“If I flip a coin,” Bandanna continued, arching an eyebrow, “will I get head?”
Stacy looked at Kat. “We have to find a new place to hang out.”
Kat nodded. “It’s dinnertime anyway. Let’s eat someplace good.”
“How about Telepan?”
“Yum.”
“We’ll get the tasting menu.”
“With the wine pairing.”
“Let’s hurry.”