“What power?” I ask her.
She screws her face up in deep thought before she finally says, “Do you know how in Pirates of the Caribbean when Calypso…”
I’ve never met anyone who delivers Disney analogies with such a punch. I get it. I think. It makes me laugh in any case.
I’m different. Kit showed me things, so I focus on that—the things I’ve learned rather than the things I’m not getting to experience. I’ve noticed that people don’t really look you in the eye, because their eyes are somewhere else. Pointed inward. I make it a point to look everyone in the eye so they know I’m seeing them. That’s how Kit made me feel—seen. I want to see people. I’ve also noticed that the more you see people the more they want to trust you with their secrets. Phyllis tells me that she gave a baby boy up for adoption when she was fifteen. A customer tells me that she collects rocks the color of her ex-boyfriend’s eyes, and that her husband thinks her rock gardens are just a love of minerals. A stranger tells me that she was raped two weeks ago. It goes on and on. When you care, people can feel it. And then, in my new position as town secret carrier, I realize that Kit made me a better person.
Contrast is important in life. We understand what light is because we can compare it with what we know is dark. Sweet is made sweeter after we eat something bitter. It’s the very same with sadness. And it’s important to experience sadness, to embrace it in order to truly know happiness. I was just a flat line until he came along. And maybe now I’m hurting. But isn’t that what love is supposed to do? Make you feel, make you brave, make you look at yourself more carefully?
A month after Kit’s swift departure back to Florida, a package arrives for me at the cannery with his return address scratched in the upper left corner. I weigh it in my hands, and let my fingers explore through the envelope. Pages. Pages, and pages, and pages. I don’t open it, because I know what it is. The words that he wanted to say. That we didn’t have time to say. I have those words too. I’m not ready. For weeks, I carry it in my purse just to feel the weight of it on my shoulder. Unopened. A little bit ignored. I’m afraid to touch those pages. They could tell a very different story than the one I’m expecting, but Kit’s approach and appearance in PT makes me believe.
One day, shortly after Christmas, I walk to a bar on Water Street—called Sirens. There is still tinsel draped across the back of the bar. One side of it has come loose of the tape and loops down lower than the rest. It depresses me. I slide onto a barstool and order whiskey straight up, turning my back on the droopy tinsel. The bartender slides the glass over without meeting my eyes. Seasonal depression. Yeah, me too, buddy. I take a sip and flinch. Drinking is a good plan. You want to ignore your inner pain and pour fermented corn down your throat so you can ignore your pain some more. It’ll burn harder than your heart.
“Bad day?” A man’s voice—chalky, rich. He’s sitting directly across from me on the other side of the bar. He’s in the darkest corner, which makes it hard for him to be seen. I wonder if he planned it that way.
“Did the whiskey give it away?” My voice is raspy. I lick my lips and look away. The last thing I feel like doing is bullshitting with a stranger in a bar.
“Plenty of women drink whiskey straight up. You just look like you took a sip of battery acid.”
I laugh.
I turn to him, despite myself. “Yeah. It was a really bad day. But, they’re mostly like that.” I spin my glass on the counter and narrow my eyes on the shadows, trying to see his face. His voice is young, but his presence is old. Maybe he’s a ghost. I make the sign of the cross under the table. I’m not even Catholic.
“A man,” he says. “And a broken heart.”
“That’s fairly obvious,” I say. “What else causes a woman to walk into a bar at three o’ clock on a weekday and drink battery acid?”
Now it’s his turn to laugh. Young—definitely young.
“Tell me,” he says. And that’s all he says. I like that. It’s like he just expects you to spill all of your secrets, and I’m sure many do.
“Tell me,” I say. “Why you’re drinking alone in the darkest corner of the bar, trying to pry the hurt out of strangers.”
For a minute he’s quiet, and I think I’ve imagined the whole conversation. I take another sip of whiskey, determined to keep my face still as I watch the place where he sits. A ghost!
“Because that’s what I do,” he finally says.
I’m surprised he answered, though it’s a cheap, noncommittal answer.
“What’s the point of making conversation if you’re going to be guarded and give me rehearsed answers?”
I can feel his smile. Is that even possible? It’s like the air carries everything he does and lets you know.
“Okay,” he says slowly. I hear him set down his glass. “I’m a predator. I wait for women to tell me what they want, and then I convince them that I can give it to them.”
I laugh. “I already know you’re a man. Tell me something new.”
He shifts on his stool and light hits his face. For a moment I see a beard and a very sharp blue eye.” My heart races.
“What’s your name?” he asks. I blink at the terseness in his voice.
“Helena,” I say. “And you’re right. I do have a broken heart. And I don’t drink whiskey. What’s your name?”