by T. D. Fox
Tanya planted a fist on the desk. “Some of those eyewitness reports had video footage to back them up—”
“Footage!” Pat guffawed. “You hearing this, Kim?”
“Viral videos are insufficient evidence for a claim of the supernatural,” said Kim, braving the conversation again. “Ten years inside a Wall will affect anyone psychologically. The phenomenon of Freak Week and its aftereffects are the products of a large population of traumatized human beings enclosed for a prolonged period of time.”
“Chickens in a coop!” Pat affirmed. “Or should I say loons?” He chortled at his own joke. “Our Orion City mascot is a Loon, for crying out loud. Kooky Midwestern wildlife.”
“But—” Tanya started.
“Look, the real Freak stuff in this city is the fact that we’ve got so many people dead set on propagating this nonsense. The crazy reports, all the videos and whatnot circling around before our clear-headed real news cleaning staff takes them down? Those are the freaks. It’s been a decade, people. An urban legend gets going this long, it gets perpetuated by every nut job and pot-stirring teenager with a cell phone and basic video doctoring skills. Folks live like a goldfish long enough, they’ll start to go crazy even without a virus.”
Kim delicately arranged her notes on her desk. “To circle back, and get to the heart of today’s question: no, the word Changer is not a term taken seriously by the scientific community.”
“The scientific community,” Tanya repeated with a growl. “Now there’s a joke.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Pat snapped.
“Has the Wall come down?” The young host spun to him. “AITO’s claimed to be working on a so-called cure forever, but have we gotten a single whisper about the Changers they’ve snatched off the streets? These ‘victims’ of the virus supposedly taken in for rehabilitation and acute quarantine, but who has actually been rehabilitated? Have you heard from any of them? Have you known anybody who just suddenly up and vanished without a trace? Because I—”
“These scientists sacrificed their freedom and their lives to help us within the Wall.” Kim’s voice sliced out on a firmer edge than usual. “The members of AITO are heroes—”
Tanya’s chair skittered back on its wheels. “AITO is duping us!”
Courtney leaned forward, remote slipping off the couch as she stared at the panting young speaker, holding her own breath as Tanya’s explosion mounted.
“You all think we’re keeping the rest of the country safe staying inside these big, stupid walls,” she cried. “But does nobody stop to think that—”
The talk show table vanished. A half second later, a bright wax replica of a cheeseburger rolled across the screen.
Apparently even Pat’s controversial talk show, whose popularity came from their bold ventures into the shadiest topics, could still go too far.
Unable to take her eyes from the TV, Courtney listened to the bouncing advertisement music as her own heart slowed down.
Dammit, Tanya, she thought wearily.
Just when she’d found a “reporter” she liked.
She wondered what the headline would be. Promising young talk-show host quits after outburst on citywide network. The Orion Times featuring her tiny headshot on a back page, with the words missing beneath in small print.
Anxiety crawled in her gut. What would happen to her?
Don’t think about it, came the insidious thought. She cringed, but listened to it play out, the dark logic of it warring with the place in her mind she usually didn’t give the floor to speak. The place Tanya’s impassioned words had triggered. A place she’d learned to mute, like everyone else in this city.
The soft, quiet headspace of the little girl she’d dreamed about, who soared on swings and wanted to help people. Before she’d woken up.
Keep your head down, whispered the base instinct of every person still standing this side of the Wall. Keep your head down, and survive.
Tanya didn’t.
Which meant, Tanya might not...
Her phone bleeped, and Courtney jumped. The alarm to leave for work rang through the living room. Snatching up her yogurt, she downed her breakfast in a few quick spoonfuls and jogged to the kitchen to toss it in the sink. She strode to the door and glanced at the notification lighting her phone while she grabbed her shoes.
Max’s text blinked onto the screen. You’d better get here before he does.
A tingle of amusement drove away the uncomfortable edge leftover from Tanya’s shutdown. Courtney swiped the screen and tapped out her reply.
All of you are chickens.
A week. Only a week of this new regular customer, and they’d already lost all their professionalism.
The phone buzzed again with urgency. I’ll take chicken over crazy any day. Please. Come. In.
Sighing as she reached for the door, Courtney pocketed her phone and pinned on her name tag. She’d take someone else’s crazy over her own any day.
⬥◆⬥
He ordered a different thing every time. Came in a different time every day. But two constants remained: the long gray coat, and the obscene amount of sugar requested.
Courtney’s coworkers always left her to take his order. He seemed to make everyone else uncomfortable. He leaned too far over the counter, held eye contact too long, and made too many off-the-wall remarks. One of the newer baristas, a small wisp of a girl named Madeline, so dreaded his Cheshire grin that she hid behind the espresso machines whenever he walked in.
“Think maybe he’s an escapee from the White Coats,” Max muttered his latest theory in Courtney’s ear, as the customer in question strolled into the café.
Courtney stiffened. “That’s not funny.”
“What? You’ve never met one. How would you know?” He looked sideways at her. “You haven’t, right?”
She pushed him away. “Be nice. He tips well.” Thank God he hadn’t left any more switchblades in the tip jar.
“Maybe he’s a drug dealer. Reels in the cash, but snuffs a little too much powder. That’d explain the...” Max tipped his head to one side and gave her a bug-eyed grin. Madeline giggled.
“Not everyone from Westside deals drugs, Max,” Courtney said.
“Just sayin’. It’s a lucrative side business.”
She frowned, at the same time Madeline hid behind the espresso machine. “Shh! Here he comes.”
Max winked. “You’re up, Court.”
She traded places with him to stand behind the cash register. Their odd customer stepped up to the counter.
“Hey there, C,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. W. How are you today?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Mister.”
“What can I get for you today?”
He leaned across the counter a little, which wasn’t unusual—but for the first time Courtney was distinctly aware of their height difference. At least eight or nine inches separated their gazes, so she had to tilt her chin up to maintain eye contact.
“Quad espresso, thirty sugars.”
Courtney looped the letter “W” on a cup and passed it back to Max. When she turned back around, W held two fingers out, a folded paper bill between them. She caught the numbers on the corner and froze.
“Problem?”
“That’s a little much for a tip,” she blurted.
Behind her, Max made a funny noise in his throat. “She means it’s very generous of you. And we’d be more than happy to take it.”
Those pale gray eyes remained on Courtney’s. She tried to pull off a shrug, but her eyes kept straying back to the hundred-dollar bill.
“Well,” W said. “Don’t want to step on your integrity. I’d say half’s a fair amount, right?”
Before anyone could stop him, W took the bill in both hands and ripped it cleanly in half. He dropped one piece in the tip jar and pocketed the other. Then he strode away to pick up his coffee.
“Nice going, Court,” Max grumbled.
She turned to him with a glare.
“How was I supposed to know he was going to tear it up?”
“You questioned the crazy. You never question the crazy.”
“Do you want to take his order next time?”
Max threw up his hands and muttered something about college drop-outs. Courtney winced. She wished she’d never told him about that.
She went back to grinding coffee beans, while Max took over the register. Glancing up from time to time, she noticed that W hadn’t left the café like usual. He’d found a corner booth by the window, in the shadow where the hanging lamps didn’t quite reach. She watched him dump one packet of sugar after another into his coffee. A smile sneaked across her lips.
“He’s not leaving,” Madeline whined at her shoulder, peeking around the espresso machine. “Why isn’t he leaving?”
Courtney shrugged. “It’s an open café, Madds.”
“He doesn’t scare you, does he?”
“Scare me?” Courtney looked across the tables of customers toward the darkened corner. “Why should he?”
“Are you kidding? I mean... look at him.”
Courtney was. He’d pulled a book from under his coat and was randomly thumbing through the pages. Pausing in the middle somewhere, he tore out a page and started folding it into an origami creature.
“He’s the most interesting person in this joint,” she admitted.
As if he’d heard her, W looked up in their direction. Madeline squeaked and ducked behind the counter again. Courtney met his eyes. The corner of his lips turned upward.
“I can’t wait for this shift to be over,” Madeline said.
Courtney glanced at the clock. The others might be off soon, but she still had another five hours. She’d have to close alone tonight. That might’ve bothered her once, but these days she volunteered for closing shifts. The sun setting behind the Wall made her quiet apartment feel darker than usual. Lately, she’d found it harder to stand, and she didn’t know why.
The shift dragged by. Customers trickled out one by one. Madeline went home. Then the other barista whose name Courtney hadn’t learned yet. By the time ten o’clock finally rolled around, Courtney felt dead on her feet. It was just her and Max.
“You sure you got this?” He paused in the middle of putting on his jacket. “I can stick around and give you a ride home.”
“Thanks, Max, but I’ve closed every night this week. I think I’ll be okay.”
He paused. “Hey. Take a night off this week. Do something for yourself.”
She blinked.
He hesitated, as if chewing the words over in his head. “Maybe we could grab a drink?”
Courtney stared at him as his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Um. Max, I’m...”
“Don’t answer yet. Just see if you can get a night off.”
Shoes scuffing on the linoleum tiles, he made a beeline for the door. It jingled as he left.
A frown tightened on her face as Courtney set to work closing up. She wiped down the espresso machines, set them through their rinse cycles, restocked the bar for tomorrow.
Max had asked Madeline out when she first started. That hadn’t been that long ago. And Courtney couldn’t remember his last girlfriend’s name. They came and went pretty regularly.
I don’t date coworkers, she could say. That would work.
Better than, I don’t date... at all.
She swept behind the counter, then glanced over the seating floor out of habit. She didn’t feel like sweeping the whole place again tonight. There didn’t seem to be any major messes that demanded attention. She grabbed her hoodie off its peg on the wall, clocked out, and was about to hit the lights when movement at the back of the café caught her eye.
W was still here.
“Hey,” she called. The lanky silhouette didn’t look up. She shrugged on her hoodie and walked toward him, Max’s stupid theory jumping back to replay in her head. Maybe he’s an escapee from the White Coats. It was only the two of them in here, and the security camera on the wall didn’t give her much security. She straightened her spine.
“Hey,” she called again. “We’re closed. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
He didn’t make any sign that he’d heard. Courtney took another step forward. A deck of cards lay scattered over the table, white faces sharp and crisp in the shadow. At first she thought he was playing solitaire, but she noticed half the cards appeared to be cut in half. Diagonal slashes from corner to corner, oblong triangles and half grinning faces of Jacks and Queens.
“You’re bored.”
Courtney blinked at the soft voice. “Sorry?”
W didn’t look up, just took a handful of half-cards in his hands and shuffled. She was impressed he could do so with such deft precision, given the weird shapes.
“Bor-ed. You know, weary, restless, your little world holds nothing of interest. The repetition, the grind, marching toward that same paycheck every week. You’re over it.”
She stared at the mangled cards. “What are you—”
“Wake up. Eat cereal. Work your tail off for eight dollars in tips. Come home to an empty hole in the wall. Pass out and repeat. Sound familiar?”
Something prickled at the back of her neck. He flipped a card onto the table. A three of hearts, with two of the hearts cut out.
“I really have to close up,” she tried again.
W looked up then. Leaning forward, he laced his fingers under his chin and peered up at her. “Got somewhere to be?”
She opened her mouth, but a picture of her silent apartment filled her mind. Shadows slinking through the tiny space, the stars in the window blacked out behind the Wall. The breath slid from her lungs without a sound.
W motioned to the bench across from him. Without really deciding, Courtney found herself moving. She sank into the booth. Just for a minute. Her knees ached from standing all day. All week.
“Two minutes.” She nodded at the cards. “What are you playing?”
“It’s called Life.” He glanced up at her. “Wanna learn?”
“Does it work with all those broken cards?”
W laughed. “Darlin’, it only works with broken cards.”
He started dealing. As she watched, a little voice in the back of her mind asked what the hell she was doing. He explained the rules of the game, and she found herself distracted by the way his face changed as he spoke. He was a very expressive person. But nothing quite seemed to touch his eyes. Frowns, smiles, laughs. Those frosted eyes stayed the same. At first she’d thought they were gray, but now she could see a faint swirl of color inside them. She couldn’t decide if it was icy blue or green.
In this light, he looked younger than she’d initially figured. The sharp skin-on-bones angles stole some of the youth from his face, but she noticed a boyishness in the crooked grin that startled her. He probably wasn’t more than a handful of years her senior, mid-to-late twenties maybe. The contrast of dark hair and pale eyes made the edged features more striking, not quite handsome, but something close.
He went silent, and she realized with flushed cheeks that she’d been staring.
“My, my, kiddo, you really are bored.”
Defensive felt better than embarrassed. “Who’re you calling kiddo?” She leaned back. “And you keep saying I’m bored. You don’t know me.”
“I know your eyes. They’re the reason I became a regular in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
He peered at her over the cards. “Your eyes. They’re restless. Not something you see every day in this city. You want more.”
“More of what?”
He leaned back, mirroring her position, a small smile playing about his lips. “You tell me.”
Clearing her throat, Courtney picked her own intrusive question. “Why W?”
“It’s the most inconvenient letter to say.”
“No, I mean—why just the initial? You never give your real name.”
“Who’s to say it’s not real?” He glanced down. “C su
its you better than your nametag. An initial has infinite potential. You could be anything. Not ordinary, not a repeat label your parents picked out of a baby book. The possibilities are limitless.”
Again, he’d steered the conversation off an uncomfortable edge. Courtney nodded to the deck of cards. “You were teaching me how to play.”
W chuckled, and Courtney couldn’t decide if the sound was pleasant or unsettling. She paid close attention to the way he laid out the cards, whole and broken pieces alike. Some looked like the other halves of cards cut in two. Others seemed to have no corresponding piece. She wondered if they were all from the same deck.
He dealt, and she did her best to play along. A steady current of doubt hummed beneath her thoughts. She glanced at the clock above W’s head, at the minute hand ticking past closing time. Why couldn’t she bring herself to get up and leave?
Courtney figured out pretty quickly that the rules of this game made no sense to her. Every time she thought she’d gotten it down, something changed. Maybe W was messing with her. Was Life even a real game? Max was right, he was kind of a loon, as he proved more and more throughout the course of their interaction.
“Y’know, C.” He shuffled the cards again, dealing out a different number than last time. Which was a different number than the time before that. Courtney really didn’t get this game. She was starting to think there was nothing to get at all. “I mean absolutely no offense. But I can’t help but notice you’re a little crazy.”
Courtney looked up, choking on a laugh. “Me?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re still here.”
“You’re the one who invited me to play cards,” she started.
“Nah, not here with me. I mean here.”
