Reaching out, she put her finger to his forehead on the screen. All at once she could see him coughing and shivering, alone and sad in the generically furnished unit he rented in Vancouver. It made her insides loose and hollow. She remembered how, when her brother died, Adam drove all night in a snowstorm to see her without a thought to his own career, and she felt even sicker.
Sliding her ring back on, she decided to go to USC. If a spot didn’t open up for her on the waiting list, she’d pad her résumé with more volunteer work and get in the next year. She was already a decade older than everyone else; what was the difference?
Wanting to tell Adam in person, she bought a ticket online for the first flight from LAX. Initially she planned to surprise him but figured it was best to let him know she was coming to avoid a rom-com-esque missed connection. Phoebe was already through airport security when she called his cell, hoping to catch him on his way to work. He told her he was at the hospital with Cecily and hung up on her again. She was stunned, everything she thought she knew about their relationship suddenly in question.
In a daze she’d walked back through the gate and out the door to the taxi line. It was 9:00 A.M. in Ann Arbor, so she’d called the University of Michigan from the cab, told them she was accepting their offer, and asked about starting in winter term. By the end of the week she was gone.
* * *
Still in front of Virgil’s, Phoebe puts her phone back in her purse.
Of course she and Adam have been talking since she left, mostly practical things about the condo and Kraken and scripts she’d been looking over. The parameters of their break remain rather loosely defined—something about reevaluating when she’s home in March. Deep, deep down she thinks (or maybe needs to believe?) that they’ll eventually get back together after he’s had the opportunity to whore around a bit as penance for her leaving. Perhaps it’s a testament to how she herself needs therapy, but she misses him enough that she’s pretty much okay with that (well, unless he really does sleep with Cecily).
Phoebe decides she’ll tell Adam about her odd interview and the job in a few days.
* * *
Cole Fleming had told her black clothing was preferred, so Phoebe selects one of the short dresses she used to wear at Rosebud. It’s the first time she’s worn anything but jeans since moving to Ann Arbor. Because she’s not sure if she’s supposed to be wearing it anymore, and because her fingers are shrunken from the cold, she leaves the sapphire-and-platinum ring in its velvet box in her apartment.
She arrives early, and the other bartender—a man of about sixty named Eddie, who claims he’s survived three different incarnations of the space—shows her where everything is. Virgil’s uses the same computer system Rosebud did, and the layout makes sense. By the time the first early birds drift in for happy hour specials, it feels old hat. The restaurant does a consistent, if not max capacity, business, with a stream of people coming in for dinner or to drink beer and watch the hockey and basketball games.
Phoebe knows she’s an excellent bartender. Part of it’s simply that she’s been doing it so long, but she’s always had a knack for putting people at ease (a trait she hopes makes her a good counselor). Seamlessly she slips back into the rhythm, knowing which customers to pour heavy and which to pour light, which ones to flirt with and which will take it the wrong way and lean too long on the counter. Eddie sheepishly admits that he usually clocks out around ten, so she tells him she can handle things on her own.
At the end of her shift, she’s tired but surprisingly content. She’s starting to break down the bar—packing up the fruit and garnishes—when Cole appears and takes a seat at one of the bar stools.
“How was it?” He’s still in his chef garb, now freckled with sauce splatters around the sleeves.
“Everyone ordered Bud Light and merlot.”
“Yeah, there’s a decided lack of imagination here.”
“Can I make you something?” she asks, surprisingly nervous. It was common practice for Rosebud staff to have a drink after close, but maybe things work differently here?
“Like a Manhattan?” he asks, and she wishes she’d made the joke. “That’d be great.”
Even with her odd insecurity around Cole, Phoebe’s hands are steady and sure as she pours, eyeballing the right amount of each ingredient.
Taking a sip, Cole pronounces it “the best Manhattan ever served at Virgil’s.”
“It’s the first ever served, isn’t it?”
“Quite possibly.” He winks a moss-colored eye.
Rumpled and sweaty, members of the kitchen crew come over to say good night to Cole. Everyone seems to like him. They’re followed by the waitstaff, looking to cash out credit card tips from the bar.
A redhead named Kayla smiles and tells Cole that a group of them are going someplace in the Old Westside if he’s interested. And Phoebe remembers exactly what it felt like to hang out with Burke and Melissa after long shifts at Rosebud. Those nights that spilled into mornings. Rarely eating, always drinking, and being hopelessly in love with Adam even if she couldn’t admit it to herself.
“You should come, too,” the waitress says to Phoebe without enthusiasm.
“Thanks, but I’m beat,” Phoebe offers diplomatically.
“Not tonight, Kay.” Cole gives the waitress a peck on the cheek, and Phoebe wonders if they’re dating.
Cole goes over paperwork as Phoebe finishes, and when she’s done, he insists on walking her to her car.
For a solid ten seconds, they stand in the cold by her Jetta. “Well, have a good night,” she says, hands jammed in her pockets.
As she waits for the engine to warm up, Phoebe wonders if Cole throws her off because he’s young (she’d overheard a waiter talking about his twenty-fifth birthday party last month), eight years her junior.
She’s still wondering about this when Adam calls with a question about where he might find his baseball equipment.
* * *
Phoebe is tidying up the bar after midnight a few weeks later when Cole comes through the kitchen’s swinging doors and plops down a plate bearing some type of grilled sandwich, says he’s made it for her.
“Thanks?” she says, eyeing it curiously.
“It’s grilled Fontina with onion marmalade,” he says. “You’re probably going to want a nice pinot noir to go with that.”
Phoebe reaches for the cheaper of the two varieties they sell by the glass. Cole shakes his head, so she picks up the slightly less cheap Elk Cove and pours two glasses.
Other than a couple lingering over dessert plates in the corner and three men in suits finishing a round of beers, all the customers are gone.
Cole sits at one of the empty bar stools. There’s a spot of something tomato-based on his brow and a few light freckles around his nose that she hadn’t noticed before. She looks from him to the sandwich.
“Just try it. I promise it’s good.”
It is good, great even, like French onion soup on toast, and she finishes nearly half, aware the whole time that he’s watching her.
“You don’t like it?” Cole asks.
“It’s delicious. Thank you.”
“Then what? You’ve been here eight hours; you’ve got to be starving.” Releasing his hair from an elastic band, he shakes out chin-length chestnut waves. “You’re in the Midwest now, Ms. Fisher. People actually eat here.”
“I’m from the Midwest.” Phoebe feels herself smile. “I know about your kind.”
“Ree-ealy,” Cole stretches out the word. “The mystery deepens.”
Sipping his wine, he asks where she’s from, and she tells him about the Chicago suburbs. Decides she likes him well enough, even if he does occasionally look at her as if she’s a high-end truffle.
“So you escaped the land of strip malls and chain restaurants for manifest destiny. Why come back?”
That’s probably a good idea; I slept with Cecily anyway.
“The MSW program at Michigan.”
; “And what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Something with grief counseling,” she says, watches his face change.
“Really?” he asks, all affectation gone.
She doesn’t have to explain, but for some reason she wants to. “My kid brother died four years ago. It sorta changed stuff for me.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and she thanks him.
“You keep the important things,” Cole says, seeming much older than twenty-five. “My best friend was in a car accident after prom. I couldn’t tell you what color his eyes were or if he was left-handed, but he’s still with me, you know?”
Phoebe nods, wishes, as always, that she felt more of her brother’s presence—that she could believe all the well-meaning people who spoke of better places and angels watching over the living from beyond.
“I still have his last voice mail.” Cole shakes his head. “It’s him panicking because he forgot to order his girlfriend a corsage, but I play it every now and again.”
“For months I called my brother’s apartment to hear his outgoing message.” The only time Phoebe’s ever told anyone about this; a sip of wine.
Patting her briefly on the forearm, Cole nods.
Untying apron strings, Kayla comes to the bar, and Phoebe goes to the register to ring out her tips.
“You guys coming out tonight?” Kayla asks, bubbly with a hint of desperation, and Phoebe finds herself unfoundedly annoyed. Maybe it’s that they both have red hair, but she thinks of Cecily.
“Maybe next week.” Cole gives her a hug that seems slightly more familiar than friends.
When the waitress is gone, Phoebe raises an eyebrow at Cole. “Somebody likes you.”
“Who, Kay?”
“Um, yeah.”
“She’s sweet, but not my type.”
“Cute redheads don’t do it for you?”
“Redheads, blondes, they’re all swell, Chicago,” Cole says. “But I’m not into girls who don’t know who they are yet.”
* * *
It becomes a pattern. At the end of her shift, when nearly everyone is gone, Cole brings her a snack, has a drink at the bar, and walks her to her car.
Sometimes a cool old movie comes on the TV that’s always set to TCM, and they’ll watch it as they shut everything down for the night. If it’s anything with Humphrey Bogart, they’ll stay until the end.
Cole tells her about culinary school in San Francisco, how he was actually supposed to start a job in LA, but then his uncle got sick, so he came home.
And Phoebe tells him about her family, her years as a failed actress, that moment when she can feel a patient trusts her.
“So who’d you leave behind in LA?” Cole asks one night as she’s finishing one of his upscale tuna melts.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says lightly. In all their chats, she’s never once mentioned Adam, though he’s always light dressing coating her thoughts.
“Chicago, girls like you are always leaving men behind,” Cole says, and she wonders, no, she knows, he’s wanted to ask about this for a while. “You never go out with anyone who asks—not that all the Virgil’s customers are winners—but you’re not rushing out to meet someone after work, either. So you must have a guy in Cali.”
She says nothing, and he smiles.
“So who is he?” Cole asks, and she notices that he’s had three drinks tonight instead of his usual one. He’s not drunk per se, just looser. “Rich producer? Center for the Lakers? Big-time movie star?”
She means not to say anything.
“He’s an actor.”
“Anyone I’ve heard of?”
“Adam Zoellner.” It might have been the first time she’s said his name aloud since she left LA.
“Sounds familiar.”
“He’s the bald guy on E&E: Rising.”
“Him? I thought that guy was gay.”
Phoebe almost chokes on her wine. “You and a lot of fan fiction writers.”
“But you can vouch he’s not?” Cole jokes, tinged with disappointment. “So what happened? He didn’t want to give up life as a TV star to come to glorious Ann Arbor?”
I’m not trekking across the country on a goddamned red-eye every weekend. Cecily’s in surgery.
“Something like that.” Lowering her eyes, she feels her face burn. She shouldn’t be talking about this. Not with this twenty-five-year-old chef who’s technically her boss and clearly into her.
Cole puts a light hand on her shoulder, maybe the first time he’s touched her since patting her arm when she told him about Chase six weeks ago.
“Hey,” he says gently. “I’ve got a past spattered with carnage and property damage, too.”
Then, as quick as that, his hand is gone and he’s slipping on his coat.
“You ready?” he asks. She nods, and they walk to the parking lot.
Even in the icy air, her cheeks are still warm, heart still sprinting.
Before she starts her car, she’s dialing Adam. He doesn’t answer his cell. It’s nearly midnight on the West Coast, but she’s never known him to turn in before one or two in the morning. Even if he were in bed, he’d probably answer. She wonders if that means he’s out (or in) with a woman.
Seven hours later, when she’s in her counseling hours listening to a sophomore’s concerns that she’s letting down her parents by majoring in education, Adam leaves a message: “Hey, Pheebs, sorry I missed you last night. I forgot to turn my ringer on after work, so I didn’t see you called till this morning. I think you’re in class, but give me a shout when you get a chance.”
Maybe he’s that good of an actor, or maybe it’s true, but it almost sounds believable.
* * *
Saturday afternoon’s patrons come to Virgil’s to watch the games, the exact opposite of Rosebud’s clientele. There are supposed to be no less than three bartenders on the schedule from 11:00 A.M. until close, but one calls in sick (code for a big exam the next day), and Eddie shows up with a disastrous cold that no amount of decongestants and cough syrup can make palatable to customers.
Phoebe’s doing a decent job on her own—it’s almost all bottled beer or sodas during the afternoon—when Cole comes through the kitchen doors, announcing he’s there to help.
“Shouldn’t you be, you know, cooking the food?” Phoebe asks.
Waving away her concerns, he smiles. “It’s game day; the line cooks can handle burgers and wings.”
He’s wearing jeans and a black shirt, and Phoebe realizes it’s the first time she’s seen him in anything other than a chef’s tunic. It makes him look taller and less like someone on the run from a mental institution. Before she can say anything, he flips a beer stein like Tom Cruise in Cocktail and begins filling orders.
There’s a quiet harmony working with Cole. She reaches behind him for a new bottle of chardonnay; he pats her hip squeezing by her in the narrow space. Winking, he tosses the glass she needs and lets out a sigh of mock relief when she catches it. Hours pass like minutes, the changing colors of the team uniforms on TV marking time.
As the games finally end and the crowd thins, the music (so much like Rosebud’s) amps up. Every now and again, Cole sings an odd line. By midnight she could easily deal with the few remaining patrons, but Cole stays until everyone’s gone, and then after that to help her clean up and cash out the waitstaff.
Frank Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town” comes on, and Cole points to her, raising his eyebrows up and down.
“It’s your song, Chicago; you’re required to dance.” He reaches for her hand and keeps a nonthreatening distance as he leads her in a box step made tight by the space.
“And each time I roam, Chicago is calling me home,” he sings. Even though he’s moving and not really trying, the tone in his voice is rich and a little rough. “Why I just grin like a clown; it’s my kind of town.”
In her arms, he’s solid but softer than Adam ever was. This close she notices his green eyes are flecked wit
h gold. The noncommittal facial hair tickles her cheek.
“My kind of razzamatazz, and it has all that jazz.”
It shouldn’t be earth-shattering, but Phoebe realizes it’s been a really long time since she’s danced with anyone but Adam. A whole lifetime since she’s touched anyone but Adam in a way that wasn’t perfunctory.
After Cecily recovered and Phoebe told Adam she was going to Michigan, she’d spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of women he would be dating during their break. Trying to make herself okay with the idea of sharing him. Not for a sliver of a second had Phoebe considered the kind of person she would like to date. She never wondered if she might like to feel frustrating facial hair between a beard and goatee against her skin.
The Sinatra song ends, but neither Phoebe nor Cole immediately let go. She feels dots of sweat on her brow from the exertion, sees them on his forehead, too. Her hand still in his, Cole meets her eyes and smiles.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.” She grins back.
“Don’t go; let me make you dinner.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“Let me make you breakfast.”
“Okay.”
“For serious?”
She laughs at his confused look. “For serious.”
Her hand still in his, Cole leads her through the swinging doors to the kitchen. When Phoebe’s had occasion to go back there during the day, it’s always buzzing—line cooks, expediters, and waiters shouting back and forth in cooking shorthand and Spanglish, lively music blasting from an old boom box. Now everyone’s gone, everything clean and silent. Her footsteps and Cole’s echo on the linoleum.
“Do you like eggs?” he asks.
“Who doesn’t like eggs?” She giggles, feeling light.
“Good answer.”
In a smooth swoop, he lifts her at the waist and sits her on the counter. Telling her he’ll be right back, Cole disappears into the walk-in refrigerator, emerges with arms full of vegetables, cheese, and pancetta. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him cook, and she’s entranced by the rapid, sure movements of his hands as he dices, chops, and sautés.
In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel Page 25
