Never Look Back
I'd only been working at Pythia's for a month, and already the little hole-in-the-wall diner felt like home away from home.
Each night at ten, when I came in from the cold city street outside to work my shift, the smoky atmosphere enveloped me like an embrace. I shrugged into the green-vinyl booths pockmarked with cigarette burns, the cheap, plastic stand-alone tables, as one might shrug into a well-worn, well-loved coat.
It had been so long -- twenty years -- since I'd last held a job of any kind. And, what with my bachelor's degree in ancient studies and my checkered mental record, I hadn't found myself in great demand when I looked for work.
So, here I was serving tables at a diner. But, damn it, it was good to work, good to receive a paycheck, good to be good for something.
That night was a Friday and, when I came in, the diner was bursting at the seams with students -- blonde, beautiful, all-American girl students; edgy, dark-haired artsy male students; late-generation flower-child students and everything in between.
They crowded in noisy gaggles around the tables. Brassy and colorful like tropical birds, they shoved three to a narrow vinyl booth seat, filling the smoky air above with their mating calls, their shrieked arguments, the cackle of their laughter.
They ran me off my feet for two hours, back and forth, for an order of coffee, and an order of pie, and a plate of olives, and a small pastry, and the like — all of it small-change orders, but the massing quantity of them probably enough to justify opening the diner for the night.
Tele, my boss, sat at the cash register, ringing up the bills with a steady hand, and grinning all over his mustachioed, bearded face. He managed to live down, with considerable aplomb, the fact that his parents had named him Telemachus.
Truth be told, I don't think parents, or family, or anything else meant much to him. Watching him look fondly at the crowd of students and the odd, older loner, I had the creeping feeling that Tele was married to the diner, and Pythia's was his true mate.
His dark eyes met mine and a slow smile parted his abundant moustache like a curtain. "Sandra, go, girl. Table eight is signaling for you. You can rest in the slow hour."
The slow hour was actually three hours -- the time between one and four in the morning when the downtown street outside stood empty of all but the barest trickle of traffic and the late-partying students trickled out, leaving the tables empty for use by a handful of regulars — old neighborhood residents, whiling away hours of insomnia; young, haunted would-be artists; a couple of writers with notebooks and vari-colored pens. All of them would order coffee and lots of pastries, but seldom a full meal. Meanwhile, the staff relaxed and talked, and sometimes — rarely — clustered around Tele's register perch, for a chat.
Around four, the morning crowd of early risers and people with early-starting jobs trickled in, ordering breakfast.
The slow hour was a good hour away. "You're all heart, Tele," I flung in the general direction of his amused dark eyes. "Can't a woman be tired? I'm serving double the tables here. Couldn't you have scheduled someone else to work tonight?"
"Hey, don't blame me. I did schedule someone. Your buddy Colin is late."
I just shrugged, and adjusted my dark-purple apron with "Pythia's Place" printed in green on the chest, went to collect two pieces of pie and five coffees from the kitchen, and, with them all balanced on a broad tray, edged my way amid gesturing students.
Colin wasn't my buddy. At least no more than people who'd known each other for only a month could be buddies. He'd worked at Pythia's for six months when I'd started, and he'd shown me the ropes on where stuff was, and exactly how insistent you could be with the kitchen stuff to get your orders expedited without being branded obnoxious and finding yourself at the bottom of the waiting list of chores -- just after polishing silverware.
Of course, all of this was easier for Colin, who was only twenty-something, very easy on the eye, and had an eager, disarming manner to him, than it was for me, a forty-year-old ex-academic, with mousy brown hair and spare features that bore every wrinkle and mark of my years of anguish and guilt.
Colin had laughed when I told him that and dug an elbow into my ribs, and pulled his overlong blond bangs out of his eyes and started demonstrating how to smile, until I cracked up.
That boy could be dangerous. Despite his being young enough to be my son, I might very well have fallen for him as I'd never fallen for anyone since Gene. I could have. But Colin was, rather obviously, not interested in women. Not that he talked about it, but the tension -- the subtle tightening of nerves and expectations -- just wasn't there, not even when he flirted with me, not even when clumsy, artsy young women students made darting passes at him.
So...maybe we were buddies.
And Colin had never been late. Never. He usually came in early enough that he started work at ten with the purple apron securely tied around his limber, tall frame, and his irresistible smile played on that face that still showed babyish features beneath the roughness of a not-too-closely shaven beard.
Worried, I kept an eye on the door, waiting for Colin. After a while, I noticed Tele was watching too. He would never admit to worrying about Colin, with whom he maintained a relationship of strained politeness, as if he were afraid of finding himself too charmed by Colin's smile. But I saw him look. And I saw the shadow of worry in his dark eyes.
Colin finally appeared just after midnight. He arrived on foot. I first saw him through the plate glass window, as he ran down the deserted, dark street, the lone street lights shining on his pale blond hair. I released breath I hadn't been aware of holding.
Tele muttered, "About damn time," then turned away.
When Colin, in a black turtleneck sweater and jeans, flung open the glass door with a tinkling of bells, and said, "Sorry, Tele," Tele, sitting at the register a hand span from the door, just said, "Yeah."
And that was it: "Yeah."
Seconds later, as I was carrying a heavy tray to one of the last student tables, Colin came up behind me. "Shit, Sandra. That's my table. Want me to take over?"
"You just want the tip," I said, and smiled over my shoulder at him. "Look, I know who ordered what. Let me do it."
But, this being only one of two tables still occupied by groups, Colin followed me and helped me get the food off the tray and onto the table. "You can have the tip," he said as we walked away. He smiled at me, but it wasn't his usual smile. His mouth insisted on pulling slightly down at the corners and his dark brown eyes showed not a hint of the spark I'd come to expect. Dark circles surrounded them making Colin look...ill, or tired, or perhaps hung over. We'd talked so little about our personal lives that I didn't even know if he ever drank.
"You look like hell," I said, helpfully. Carrying the round wooden tray down, dangling beside my legs, I headed back to the kitchen.
Colin stayed by my side down the narrow corridor, although, strictly speaking, he should have stayed in the dining room, ready to help any new customers. The flow was slowing towards slow hour, but you never knew. And he had no reason to follow me to the kitchen. No reason at all.
Except maybe he needed to talk. As I set the tray down on top of a pile of similar ones, and one of three big, burly cooks turned from the deep fryer to look at us, Colin whispered, "Yeah. I feel like hell."
This was so non-Colin that I stared at him.
He was pale. Weirdly pale. I've heard of people saying someone was so pale he looked translucent, but I'd never seen it before. Now I did. Colin looked as though, at any minute, he might wink out of existence.
One of the cooks dropped a basket of fries into the fryer with a whoosh. The smell of hot grease engulfed us like a fog.
"You sick?" I asked. Like I could do anything if he were. Like what? Take him home and make him chicken soup? I smiled at the thought. Hell, oh hell. Platonic and useless it might be, but it might be better than going home to an empty studio apartment every morning. On the other hand, I hadn't shared living space with anyone since Gene, and Gene...an image of my late husband flashed in my mind, vivid with his wild red beard and mane of red hair, his more-distinguished-than-handsome features. I chided myself. I wouldn't think of the accident again.
I looked up, to see Colin visibly struggle to express himself. Another first. He wrinkled his forehead, then his nose, drew his eyebrows low over his eyes, sighed. "No," he finally said. "At least I don't think so. Not physical, anyway. I'm...I couldn't sleep for more than about ten minutes at a time. Kept having...not quite...not nightmares, but...."
Oh, boy. Not quite nightmares, but....had initiated at least three of my own bouts of ill health. They'd ended with me in a hospital, under full medication, recovering from suicide attempts. Perhaps that wasn't what Colin meant. Perhaps that wasn't his problem. It certainly wasn't my problem, but....
I looked up at his bruised eyes, his pale face bleached almost to the color of his spun-sugar hair. He hadn't left my side, as if he needed someone near him, as if he were afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid the nightmares wouldn't leave him alone, even though he was awake? "Come on," I said. I put my hand on his shoulder because I sensed he needed it, and pushed him forward, down the narrow hallway, towards the dining area. "I'll buy you a coffee."
He didn't answer, but he walked forward when I pushed him, and he stopped beside the coffee machine, when I stopped to pour us each a cup from the carafe in the server. "Sugar? Cream?" I asked.
"Black," he said.
I put sugar and cream in mine while casting a quick eye over the dining room. The students at the large tables had gone, and only one customer remained — an older man of stately presence and aggressively Mediterranean features -- one of our regulars. He sat at one of the smaller booths, with a coffee and a newspaper printed in odd characters.
I guided Colin to stand by one of the booths. I wasn't sure it would be okay for us to sit. He'd just come on duty. We surely couldn't both take a break at the same time. But I'd deal with that later. I left him standing and told him, "Wait.” Setting my coffee down on the green laminate table, I rushed to clean both tables and take the dishes to the kitchen.
When I returned, Colin was pretty much were I had left him. He leaned on his elbow, propped against the high back of the green-vinyl booth seat. He looked at the cup in his hand, as if not quite sure where it had come from.
Oh, boy.
"Sit," I told him because he was a bit taller than I, and I wasn't sure I could talk to him while he stared into space over my head.
He sat. And I sat across from him and took a sip of my now-lukewarm coffee. "These nightmares. What are they?” Go to enough psychiatrists and you too can put on a decent imitation. "Want to talk about it?"
He nodded, once, then shrugged. "But they're not nightmares," he said.
"All right. What are they?"
"Dreams.” He frowned. "Pretty good dreams, only....only the person I'm dreaming about is dead."
I raised my eyebrows at him.
He looked at me and seemed to wake up at last. Chuckling, he grabbed his cup, and took a sip, and set it down with something more resembling his usual energy. "He was my lover," he said. The words were casual but the tiniest sharpening of his gaze gave away that he was watching me for something, some reaction, a hint of shock. He smiled, at the absence of it, just the smallest of smiles, appearing and then gone. "When I got out of college. He was older than I by ten years. He...his name was Peter. He was a classical composer. Fairly well known. We...traveled all over.” He shook his head, shrugged. "We lived together for three years. He died a year ago."
"How?" My voice came out funny and I cleared my throat. Mutatis mutandis, he could have been telling me my own life story. Only Gene hadn't died a year ago. It had been twenty years since that awful day when I'd stood by his open tomb and flung the handful of dirt down, to splatter the polished rosewood coffin. And Gene and I had been married, of course, for our brief three years of happiness. But that wasn't an option for Colin.
Which, I supposed, left him in worse financial straits than the strained but quietly comfortable ones I'd found myself in when Gene died. But that might have given him an advantage. Had I needed to work for a living when Gene died, maybe I wouldn't have become so depressed, maybe.... I dragged myself away from the thought and looked at Colin. "How did he die, I mean? None of my business, but...."
He shrugged. "No big secret. We were in a car accident. He died. I walked away with bruises and scrapes."
"You were driving?" My voice caught with sympathy and horror, while I wondered how he, so much younger, so much more seemingly vulnerable, could carry with such ease the burden I'd never grown accustomed to. He smiled and laughed, and flirted with customers. Maybe it was being a male. Maybe they felt less.
But he shook his head again. "No. Pete was."
I let out breath I had held in. Yes, that would make a difference. Grief, but no guilt. That would change it all. I managed to ask, in a semblance of calm, "And you dreamed about him?"
"It started right after the accident," Colin said. "The night I spent in the hospital. I dreamed that I'd died, that it had been Pete who'd been uninjured, that he...that he was very angry at himself."
He would be. I'd been angry, angry at myself for twenty years now. Even now, I wanted to punish the little idiot who'd been driving that car, ran a stop sign without noticing, and caused her husband's death. At the back of my mind, the idea seemed to lodge and grow that if only I punished myself enough, I'd be able to go back, re-enact those crucial few minutes. But it never happened. I just ended up in another psychiatric ward.
I realized Colin was still talking and tried to pay attention.
"...he always drank. But not...not to excess. He'd get drunk twice a year or so, usually a happy drunk, and he'd play the piano for me...he played ten instruments and he—" Colin shook his head, and drank what was left of his probably now cold coffee. "But in my dreams, he started drinking more and more and often It was as if...as if in my dreams, I were following him in some other world, where he was still alive. And he felt so guilty. It was...exhausting and frustrating to see him become more and more depressed, more and more...bitter? That was why I got this job here, six months ago. It helped, because I worked at night, and then, when I slept during the day, if I dreamed, I could always open the windows, and see the sun outside, and the people in the streets — I live a couple of blocks away from here — and know, know for sure that it was just a dream."
"Hey, are you two on break?” Tele's solid form loomed over us. "And who's paying for that coffee?"
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, we're on break, and I'm paying for the coffee."
"If you're both on break, who's tending the tables?" Tele asked.
"There's no one at the tables, Tele. For God's sake, lay off," Colin said.
It was the first time, to my knowledge, that he raised his voice to anyone in the diner, much less to Tele.
Tele looked at the one table where our regular still drank his coffee and read his foreign language newspaper, then looked at Colin who glared back at him. "Well, your break better be done soon. Old Philip is going to need a refill."
He walked away with an expression of injured righteousness.
"Old Phillip?" I looked at Colin.
He smiled, a shadow of his former smile. "The old guy with the Greek newspaper. At that, I suppose he does need a refill, but maybe you should do it. He gropes."
"Not me," I said.
He grinned and winked. "Well, yeah."
So much for the innocence of youth.
He got up, picked up his empty cup, reached for mine. I grabbed his wrist just below his black sleeve. "Tonight. Your dreams tonight? You said you've been dreaming all this for a year, so what was so bad about tonight?"
I felt him tense. He took a deep breath, expelled it noisily. "The damn thing is that I don't know," he said. "I just don't know. I know I dreamed of Pete, again. I know he was in it, and he felt guilty and was furious, and depressed and drinking and...I don't know how to explain it, he was...explosive. Like he was about to do something dangerous."
I remembered that mood. The beat of lonely, terrible guilt within you, horrible and tempestuous like a stormy sea. I knew the shores of futility it broke against, those shores of what had happened that could not be changed, that could never be changed.
The rock solidity of never being able to go back and undo the damage of one careless moment. Eventually, the sea overwhelmed the rock, made it crumble, and I lost my moorings in time and forgot what had happened, and when and how, and who I was, and fell headlong into sweet insanity. I shuddered. "Maybe you should see someone?" I asked him. "A shrink?” Which was stupid, because shrinks, all the shrinks I'd seen, had never done that much for me. I'd found my own peace despite them, not because of them.
Colin sighed. "Nah. I don't believe in psychiatry.” He grinned. "Always had trouble with these prophetic religions. Go refill old Phillip's cup and I'll take care of those people.” Two older couples — not regulars — came in and colonized one of the booths near us.
I got the coffee, refilled Phillip's cup and, while I was doing so, a younger man who looked much like him came in and Phillip nodded. "Ah, Alexander. So, your mother finally let you come."
Alexander answered in a language I couldn't identify. Though some clients always spoke Greek, this didn't sound like it. Alexander sat down across from...his father? Moments later, their voices rose in obvious argument. Tele went over and muttered something. They quieted down for a while.
"So, what's worrying our little ray of sunshine?" Tele asked me, so much irony in his voice that I almost lashed out.
But I controlled myself because, if Colin didn't take offense at Tele's moods, it was none of my business. And I liked this job, and Tele was pretty nice to me, most of the time. "He's been having trouble sleeping," I said. And broke it off, with the excuse that young Alexander was waving for me. I got him his order — some roasted lamb with a side of olives — and went to attend to another of our regulars, a young woman who always brought in a sketch pad but never sketched anything.
I was bringing her a coffee and a slice of her customary lemon-meringue pie when the bell behind the door tinkled loudly, as the door was thrown open.
I looked up, startled. I supposed Pythia's had been held up before. I supposed it was always a possibility in this kind of downtown neighborhood of cheap apartments and run-down shops.
To be honest, though, this didn't feel like a robbery. I expected to see someone...well, like the lone gunslinger who quiets the western bar with his entrance.
It mustn't have been only me who felt that, because everyone in the diner stopped talking, or breathing, or whatever they were doing at that moment. Even Tele stood, silent, as if at attention behind his register.
The stranger who walked into this sudden hush was tall and dark-haired and, somehow, stormy. He glared at everything and everyone, from me, standing near the next table, holding onto a small empty tray, to the sparse clientele, to Colin, who had been halfway through refilling the foursome's cups, and who stood, as if frozen in place, the carafe lowered but not pouring.
The intruder's curly hair stood in disarray, as if he'd come in through a wind tunnel, and he dressed much too well for this place, in pants and a dress shirt open at the neck. He carried a large, glossy instrument case in his right hand. And he just stood there, holding the glass door open with his sullen bulk, and allowing the cold air to blow in from the street outside.
From the kitchen came the sound of a timer going, and outside, far away, a siren sounded.
Tele recovered his presence of mind first. He drew himself up, seeming to grow and become even more patriarchal, with his wind-blown salt-and-pepper beard. He lifted the hand that had been resting by the side of the register, pointed at the newcomer.
I thought Tele would tell the newcomer he had already called the police, or perhaps growl at him to get out of the door and let it the hell close because Tele didn't have the money to heat the entire neighborhood.
But, instead, he said, "How did you get in?"
The strangeness of this question percolated slowly through my brain.
The stranger lifted his instrument case, as if this answered everything.
Tele took a step back.
"I came to get him," the stranger said, and looked at Colin who -- seemingly wakening -- stood up and set the carafe down with infinite care, on the edge of the table, and stared at the stranger, and knit his pale eyebrows together in slow, puzzled wonder.
"I came to get him back," the man said. "You don't have a right to him. Not yet."
Tele looked at Colin. Tele seemed, I thought, very sad, his expression drawing itself into a deep shroud of mourning. "But my dear sir," he said, all politeness and awkward appeasing. "He came in. He belongs on this side."
The stranger wasn't having any of this argument. He curled his lip in sneering disdain. "Not the hell without me, he doesn't."
In my mind, a soap opera formed, in which Tele had alienated Colin's affections from someone. But whom? Colin had said his lover had died. He hadn't mentioned acquiring a new one, though I supposed he might have.
I looked at Colin, to see how he reacted to all this, but, after putting the carafe down, he'd just stayed where he was, his hands linked in front of him, staring, staring, as if he couldn't believe any of this.
Understandable, as none of the rest of us seemed to believe it. The sparse clientele and the three cooks who'd made their way from the kitchen to stand shoulder-to-shoulder wedged into the entrance to the narrow hallway, all seemed mesmerized by the confrontation between Tele and this intruder.
Tele, visibly struggling, stepped from behind his register, and stood, his hands open and spread in the ancient look, ma, no weapons gesture. "But, there is a way for you to be with him. I mean...."
"Shut up," the dark haired man said. "I've tried. But then modern medicine is a marvel, isn't it? Can bring a man from the brink of death. Over and over and over again."
Tele raised his eyebrows and opened his hands just a little farther, apologetically.
"Shut up, I said," the dark haired man shouted, as if Tele had spoken. "I came to get him, and he's going back with me. Colin, take that damned apron off."
Colin opened his mouth as if he were going to argue, but didn't. On the other hand, he also didn't remove his apron. He just looked at the newcomer and said, "Pete?” He looked more transparent, more ethereal than ever.
His dead lover? Now I was at a loss.
"My dear sir," Tele said. "The road goes only one way. You can leave. You should leave. You don't belong here. But he—"
"I claim the Eurydice exception," The presumed Pete lifted the instrument case. "The Orpheus precedent."
"Ah.” Tele drew himself up again, and smiled, a little superior smile. "But Orpheus had a divine gift to trade on," he said. "And even he didn't succeed. She looked back, you know. And none of the others who've tried it were gifted enough. Your gift must be worth what you're claiming.” Tele looked at Colin. "And he's worth a lot. He's very young. Very vital."
Pete set his case atop one of the green laminate tables, started unlatching the metal clasps with feverishly shaking hands, and made a sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. Under his breath, he muttered, "Good enough, I'll fucking show you good enough."
Colin moved then. I didn't remember seeing him walk near, but suddenly he was there, his hand tightening around the man's wrist. "Pete. Pete, this is all nuts, but trust me, I know this, I studied mythology in college, and if I understand what's happening...even you being here and alive is insane, but I....I know this — you're not just being asked to play. If you— if you do that and succeed, it will be gone. Your music will be gone. No more music."
Pete shook Colin's hand away, impatiently. "Idiot," he said. "Idiot. You think I don't know that? I read the books you left. I researched. I know."
"But your music," Colin looked up at Pete, and his eyes, always a dark brown, looked even darker. "You can't do that. Not your music. I am not worth—"
"Idiot.” Pete grabbed Colin's shoulder, and shook him, like someone shaking someone else awake. "I'll find something else to do. But I have to have you there. I can't without you.... I can't--with you, I can do anything."
"But--"
"No. Take the damn apron off. And don't you look back or I—I'll never talk to you again." The last was said with force, but softened by a smile. "Come. Come back. Don't look back. Remember Eurydice."
And, while Colin reached back, to untie his apron, Pete removed his instrument — a shining, golden saxophone, from its case. He checked it over, with quick, experienced fingers. He brushed the curving golden bell in a caress at least as tender as an embrace, and then, tears forming in his eyes, took the mouthpiece to his mouth.
Only to find Colin's hand on his wrist. "Pete? Are you sure?"
Pete pulled the mouthpiece away. "Sure. I won't look back."
In the next second, music surged forth from the instrument. Music as golden as the instrument -- a curved, sweeping looping rhythm, tangled and clear as the course of true love.
That music wrapped around each of us and pulled, and lifted, and took us as though on a ride through the convoluted turnings of its emotion. It flogged long forgotten memories from my mind, showed me scenes of the past: Gene and me walking in a sunlight garden; our marriage ceremony with us standing side by side, in our street clothes, in front of a preacher we'd hired for the occasion, in a deserted church with two randomly-selected passerby as witnesses; tea in our little house, with the jam glistening in the sunlight, and Gene's large, clumsy-looking hands, holding the delicate Sevres porcelain teapot, and pouring golden liquid into my cup; the evening, with the shades drawn in, and Gene's fingers dancing on the piano.
At first, the coffin kept appearing -- the incredible, wrenching grief of that moment when I'd stood and watched all-too-solid dirt splatter on Gene's coffin. The scene, the thought, the grief, the smell of freshly dug-up Earth mingled with the tea, and the walks in the park. Then, little by little, the grief faded, and the music took on a glorious, triumphant feel. By its light I saw what had never happened, what would have happened if I hadn't run that stupid stop sign: the joyful maturity of grown-up love, the teas and walks turning to accustomed ways, all the more cherished for their familiarity. I saw Gene's red hair turning grey, saw him smiling at me with the assurance that only twenty years together could bring.
My eyes filled with tears as each golden note of sound wrapped around me, its embrace as warm and comforting as Gene's arms had been.
I drew breath into an aching chest, and wanted that other future, wanted it so badly I almost could believe it was possible. Almost.
The music stopped, abruptly.
I looked up, shocked, injured — a child dropped from a golden merry-go-round, an adult awakened from a joyful dream.
For just a moment, I saw them still there. Pete held his saxophone in one hand, had the other arm wrapped around Colin's shoulder. And Colin looked up at him and smiled, his sparkling smile, only more sparkling, more mischievous than before.
I realized the smile I'd known was, in itself, a shadow, just as the Colin I'd known had been a shade of his former self. Oh, if that was a shade, what wouldn't someone do for the reality? And how impossible it would be to live without that shining vitality once you'd tasted it.
As I thought that, the two of them flickered. For a moment, I could see through them, see the street behind them, dimly lit by the streetlights, and see the great green neon sign that announced "Pythia's — ALL NITE, EVERY NITE."
"Let's go," Colin said.
And, like that, I was looking at the solid sign and the street lights, and nothing was left of the two of them, except the saxophone, which, in blatant defiance of the laws of physics, fluttered to the ground with the light grace of a falling leaf.
In my mind, at the same time, I saw them walk, side by side, down a bleak corridor. My eyes stared at the space where they disappeared, at the saxophone falling, slowly, slowly. But my mind saw Pete and Colin walking amid threatening, unimaginable monsters, the music, their protection, a golden, fragile shell between them and the venom-dripping fangs of looming demons. At first Colin lagged a little behind but, as they rushed towards the distant glimmer of daylight, he started walking faster. Pete put his arm over Colin's shoulder as, together, they passed a sleeping, black, three-headed Doberman.
The saxophone hit the floor with a metallic sound.
They never looked back.
"Christ," Tele said, coming away from his register. "Where am I going to find another waiter? Good help doesn't grow on trees. But do they care?” He grabbed the saxophone and cradled it into its red-velvet lined case. It seemed to sparkle with more than the light reflected from metal. "Mortals and their love affairs.” He spoke briskly enough that I almost — almost — didn't notice that his eyes sparkled with tears and that a smile kept trying to break through his moustache. "Cassandra, girl, get going. The morning shift will be here soon. I suppose I can always pawn this for something.” He carried the case, reverently, to stick it behind the register stand. "What are you looking at Sandra? What's wrong?"
"They.... Colin. His lover...his dead lover....” I couldn't wrap my mind around the unbelievable enough to translate it into words.
The customers, I noticed, had gone back to their meals as if nothing had taken place. Was it just, I thought, the good old human quality of pretending the impossible hadn't happened?
I remembered the names that Pete had called out. Orpheus had been an ancient musician gifted with divine talent. Using it, he'd tried to rescue his wife, Eurydice from Hades. But she'd hesitated. She'd looked back. He'd lost her.
I thought of the accident that had claimed Gene's life. So many years I'd spent thinking about it, and all I could think of was running that stop sign. But now, when I tried, when I tried to remember the accident itself, I remembered the push that had lifted me, thrown me through the windshield. I hadn't worn a seat belt. But when I'd woken, a day later, I'd only had light cuts. And Gene was dead. Cautious Gene who always buckled in.
"What?" Tele asked, much the same way he'd talked to the stranger.
"I am dead, aren't I?" I asked. "And you're Pluto."
Tele opened his mouth, looked like he was going to deny it, then sighed. "Not Pluto. One of his...servitors. And 'dead' is relative. No human ever really dies. No human ever believes in his own death."
I ignored the double talk. "This is hell? Pythia's?"
"Not hell. Hades. For those who don't believe.... You couldn't go to hell, or heaven. You don't believe in either." Tele chewed on his moustache thoughtfully. "And not the diner. I mean, the diner isn't Hades. All this is. Hades exists side by side with the world of mortals, and only touches—" He looked at the place where Colin and Pete had disappeared. "And only touches when an idiotic mortal forces it to.” The smile came again, under his moustache. "Now, go, girl, you have customers to attend to."
I noticed that three of the large tables were occupied by grave, expectant people. Nothing strange about them, they were the type of people who came to Pythia's: middle-aged, in worn down clothes. I took their orders and gave those to the cooks who'd returned to the kitchen.
Alexander left, and Phillip called to me, and I saw in his wallet a card in the name of Phillip Macedon.
Phillip and Alexander of Macedonia, still trying to resolve their differences. I ran up his charge and he went to Tele, to pay. They spoke the odd language — ancient Greek? — to each other.
I felt oddly happy for Colin, and oddly bruised inside. Bruised and aching, because Gene had never thought to rescue me. He hadn't loved me enough. Well, I'd been the stupid idiot who'd crashed the car, hadn't I?
"Why down in the mouth, little girl? Miss your buddy?" Tele asked during a lull, when I had nothing to do but lean against the plate glass window and look out at the deserted street, at the distant horizon just turning pink over the far row of sky scrapers.
"It's been twenty years," I said. "He never came for me."
Tele patted my shoulder, awkwardly. "It's been no time at all," he said. "Time is not the same in both worlds and time is what you believe it is, nothing more.” He took a deep breath, and then added, in a whisper, as if afraid someone would hear him. "The worlds are very close here in Pythia's," he said. "Customers and employees are always people who've not yet let go, who have something they must do."
I looked back at his urgent expression as he added, "But the employees are always people who are deeply mourned, deeply loved by someone on the other side.” He nodded at me, as if to make sure I understood the import of what he had said.
Someone called from one of the tables, and I went to take their order and refill their coffees.
My legs moved with the effortless ease of twenty years ago and there was a spring in my step. Deeply loved. And if time didn't matter, any day now, any minute now....
Turning to go to the kitchen, I thought I saw a man walking along the street outside, a man with wild red hair, a wild red beard, wearing Gene's dark blue overcoat. He walked like Gene too, in a brisk step, and he looked through the window, looked anxiously, like a man who's lost something and doesn't know where to find it.
Then the impression was gone and the street was deserted.
But one day it would be true.