Still none of them respond. He takes another dramatic sip, and then, in what can only be a desperate attempt to get theirattention, he slams the bottle down hard on the counter. Too hard. It is not the sound of the bottle making contact with the counter that makes them all look up, though. It is the sound of the bottle cracking, of the liquid spilling out onto the counter and running over onto the floor. They all watch, Tommy in horror and the four women with barely disguised glee, as amber rivulets stream out like tributaries. They sneak glances at one another, smirking as Tommy stalks around cursing a blue streak.
“You should probably get something to clean that up with,” says Nadine. “There’s paper towels underneath the counter.” Her voice is as impassive as when she explained what the logo meant. “And you’d better be careful picking up that glass,” she adds, pointing at the windows. “If you cut yourself, you’ll have to get those EMTs out there to come in here and give you stitches.” A full grin breaks out on her face, then they hear her snicker, and the sound makes them all snicker too. In seconds they are all chuckling, though they try to hide it.
This makes Tommy even angrier. He flails his arms in the air. “You’d better get over here and help me. Every last one of you’d better stop laughing and come clean this up.”
Nadine crosses her arms and keeps her seat. “What are you gonna do about it if we don’t, Tommy? Shoot us? I can just hear it now when the police question you. So why’d you do it, Tommy? Why’d you shoot those four innocent women in cold blood? And your answer will be—lemme make sure I get this straight: ‘They wouldn’t help me clean up a mess I made.’”
“Innocent women,” scoffs Tommy. “I doubt that.” He crouches back down and peers under the cabinet, looking for the paper towels. He pops back up and tears off far more paper towels than needed for the task, balling them up and swiping at the mess,taking his anger out on it, which only serves to send the rivulets wider. Somehow they all know not to laugh as the alcohol spreads.
He looks up when the room goes quiet, his gaze sweeping across all four faces, his own face like stone, his eyes gone flat in his head. No one speaks as Tommy cleans up his mess, picking up the broken pieces of glass. Then standing over the bin, he drops them one by one.Plink, plink, plink.It is the only sound in the room. When he is done with his task, he goes back to the counter and stares down at the spot where the bottle was.
He looks up and their eyes meet again. Blythe looks away as fast as she can, but it is too late—a connection has been made, like the worst bully in the schoolyard singling you out. She sees his eyes spark.
“Hey,” he says to her. “Weren’t you the one mailing something when I came back in here?”
Blythe’s heart begins to gallop in her chest.No, she thinks. Involuntarily her head begins to shake in the same direction as her thoughts.
He smirks at her. “Sure you were. I remember.” He swipes his finger back and forth in the air. “You looked upset about whatever it was.” He smiles, happy because they’re no longer laughing at him. Happy because he can turn the spotlight of shame on someone else.
He begins to paw through the cart that holds the collected mail. “It was a box wrapped in brown paper,” he says, pretending to talk to himself but taunting her nonetheless. “I just need to look for the return address with your name on it,Blythe.” He has been paying attention.
Blythe doesn’t like her name in Tommy’s mouth. It makes her nervous and nauseous at the same time. Her hands go to the stool. She grips it at the edges, clings to it tightly, the rim of thesteel digging into her fingers. The pain helps her not to think about the inevitability of what Tommy is doing. She looks toward the door, no longer barricaded but locked. She sees Nadine see her looking for an escape. Nadine presses her mouth into a thin straight line as she shakes her head, a reminder. There is nothing they can do. Yet.
From her seat Nadine considers extracting the keys from her pocket and rushing for the door. With his attention focused elsewhere, she might be able to get there and get the door open in time. But would they all get out before he fired that gun again? Would he fire at them? In her mind she hears the bullet hitting the exit sign, the broken fragments raining to the ground where she stood. He’d fired high. He’d missed. But would he miss again?
She never would’ve thought Tommy was capable of shooting anyone, especially not after he’d lost his father to a gunshot. But Tommy had changed after his father died. “He’s not handling it well,” she would tell friends and family by way of explanation. But that barely scraped the surface of what became of Tommy. The loss had decimated him. She thinks of the obituary for Thomas Sr. “He is survived by his only son,” it said.
But it seemed to Nadine that Tommy had not survived his father’s death. Some huge part of him had died too. For months she thought of ending the marriage, then felt guilty, then felt she had to leave, then wondered what kind of wife would leave someone in the throes of grief. The emotions swirled, a whirling dervish of feelings.
Tommy finds the package, because of course he would. It was only a matter of time. Nadine recalls the way Blythe had teared up as she handed her the package. Nadine had pretended not to notice, but she knows, as Tommy holds up the package, that whatever is in that box is important, and personal. Tommyhas no right. But Tommy has no right to do anything he’s done today.
Nadine remembers standing in front of the preacher, exchanging their vows nearly four years ago, remembers the promises they’d made to each other. For months she’s carried around the guilt of not keeping those promises. But Tommy broke his promises too. He stopped being the man she’d made the promises to. Maybe, if they make it out of here, people will start to understand that she only did what she had to do. The truth, the whole truth, she thinks, can finally come out.
Tommy strides over to Blythe, waving the package around as he proclaims, “Lookee what I have here.”
As she watches him, Nadine feels a revulsion unlike anything she’s ever felt. In the past year she’s disliked him. She’s pitied him. She’s loved him. She’s wanted to slap him. But in this moment, as he dangles the package just out of Blythe’s reach, delighting as she grabs for it and misses, she truly hates him. She rises from her seat, ready to intervene. Sylvie and Morrow stand as well.
Blythe gives up on her attempts to retrieve the box and instead attempts to rationalize with Tommy. “Please give me my package,” she says, her voice breathy and shot through with desperation.
In response Tommy clutches the box close to his chest, cuddling it like a baby. “It’s not your package anymore,” he tells her. “You handed it off to the United States Postal Service.” He points at the poster of the Sonic Eagle. “You gave it to the Sonic Eagle,” he says and cackles.
Nadine can tell that the shots of liquor he managed before the bottle broke are hitting his bloodstream at full force now. This is the part she hated, the moments when his grief and the liquor merged, creating an entirely different Tommy, rendering him unrecognizable. “Please,” she would beg, “please get help,”sounding much like Blythe does right now. Based on experience, Nadine can tell her that she’s not going to get anywhere. Later he will be sorry. But later the damage will already be done. But what kind of damage? And when is later?
“I think that with things being the way they are, I have the right to change my mind,” Blythe says. “So just give it back, and I’ll keep it.” She holds out her hand. Nadine can see her hand is shaking. Whether the tremors are from anger or fear, Nadine can’t tell. “I’ll take it home with me when this is all over,” she adds, and Nadine guesses this is her attempt at projecting a positive outcome.
Tommy must think so too. He smirks at her. “Aw,” he says, a fake affectation in his voice. “I love that optimism.” He clutches his hand to his heart as if touched but keeps a firm grasp on the box just the same.
Blythe, undeterred, tries reasoning again. “Tommy,” she says, “you don’t need that package. It doesn’t concern you.”
Something flickers across his face, and his eyes grow larger. He presses his lips together as he looks down at the box in his hand. He shifts it this way and that, flips it upside down and back over again, appearing to read the writing on the front. He raises his eyes to look at Blythe again. “Who’s Bryan Welch?” he asks her.
Nadine’s own heart rate hikes up as she watches Blythe, who appears to be weighing her words. When she doesn’t respond, Tommy points at her left hand. “That your fiancé?”
Say yes, Nadine wills silently.Even if it isn’t, say yes.If she says yes, Tommy might leave it alone out of respect for another man. A man who is getting married, a man who still has a shot at happiness, unlike Tommy, who has ruined his own.
But Blythe goes for honesty. Nadine’s heart sinks as she watches Blythe shake her head no. “He’s an old... friend. The package is something that was... once his.” She waves her hand in the air.“It’s a long story,” she says. “That doesn’t involve you.” Exasperation colors her face a deep red. “Now please just give it back.”
And that’s when it happens. Tommy gives a gleeful little laugh as he uses his index finger to begin to tear away the brown paper wrapped around the box. With his vision averted he doesn’t see Blythe lower her head like a bull charging and launch herself in his direction, making contact with his midsection as they both tumble to the floor, rolling around as she grasps for the box and he succeeds in keeping it from her. From the edges Nadine, Sylvie, and Morrow call out, “Stop! Y’all stop it!”
