“I’ll have the same,” said Niko.
“Good deal, good deal. Coming right up,” Jo said, then dashed away so quickly Merritt was surprised they didn’t leave cartoon dust in their wake.
Niko leaned into her, and she hoped he didn’t notice her involuntary intake of breath in response. “I’ve never heard them say ‘good deal’ in my life,” he said, his voice hitching with laughter. Merritt smiled, too, more at the shiver the warmth of his breath produced down her neck than at the observation itself, but she could feel it was half grimace.
She tried not to watch Jo’s shaking hands as they poured out and refilled one of the pint glasses after pouring one that was 90 percent head. She wished she could turn it off, the effect she had on people who had spent most of their lives metabolizing her work, building her up to be bigger than life. Whatever interaction they ended up having would inevitably be refracted through the prism of their sky-high expectations, and she had a hard time pushing aside that pressure enough to be fully present with them.
Maybe that was why she liked spending time with Niko. She never felt like he was looking at her as anything other than herself.
Jo returned with the beers and, unexpectedly, a plate of pita and hummus drizzled with oil, a single kalamata olive gleaming in the center.
“On the house,” they said, their eyes flicking between the plate and Merritt, eagerly trying to gauge her reaction.
“Oh, wow, thank you,” said Merritt, who really was grateful. She’d come dangerously close to breaking her other big rule around alcohol—never drink without eating.
There was an awkward beat as both Jo and Niko looked at her expectantly. Merritt knew she needed to say something else now, keep the conversation moving, but she was drawing a complete blank.
“What’s the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean?” she asked, picking up a piece of pita and smoothing some hummus over it.
Jo’s eyebrows pinched together. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
“No. I mean, yeah. It’s a joke,” Merritt said, already regretting going down this path.
Jo blushed furiously, which made her regret it even more. “Oh. Sorry, sorry, sorry. What’s the difference?”
“I didn’t have a garbanzo bean on my face last night,” Merritt deadpanned, then popped the pita into her mouth.
There was a long beat of silence—confused, then stunned—where Jo and Niko blinked at her. Then, they both burst into surprised laughter.
Thankfully, it was enough to break the tension, and soon the three of them were chatting away, if not like old friends, then at least like they had some idea of how humans generally interacted. She learned that Jo had grown up in Ocean City, whereMerritt and Olivia had taken all their family vacations, and their conversation easily moved from their respective childhoods in Maryland to the charms and drawbacks of living in tourist towns.
Hours slipped by before she knew it, measured only by the levels in her pint glass dwindling, followed by her water glass, then by the bones of the hot wings Jo brought out after the hummus was gone. When she returned from the bathroom, it hit her that the bar had become three times as crowded, and a makeshift stage at the other end was set up with amps and instruments.
“The Grateful Dudes have a set tonight,” Jo offered as Merritt slid back into her seat. Sure enough, Merritt saw Larry take the stage with five other men who all looked like variations on a theme, and that theme was either “graying facial hair” or “shopping spree at Al’s Hat Shack.” Actually, she thought she spotted Al himself behind the drum kit.
As the band ran through a brief tune-up, the lead singer stepped up to the mic.
“What’s up, Crested Peak? Are you ready to have a good time?”
The audience responded with a few anemic claps and cheers. It wasn’t a huge crowd, but it was respectable—twenty people, maybe thirty. Merritt put her hand to her mouth and let out a short whoop of support. The lead singer’s eyes fixed on her, and she braced herself.
“Well, how about that,” he drawled into the mic. “We don’t often get the honor of a Grammy winner in our audience. This might be a first.”
Merritt fixed a smile on her face as a murmur spread through the bar, most of the heads turning to look at her.
She’d assumed (maybe naïvely) that her presence wasunremarkable here at this point, but in retrospect that might’ve been because, up until a few weeks ago, she’d kept mostly to herself.
She didn’t say anything, just raised her glass, hoping to toss the attention back to him as quickly as possible. His grin widened, and he stretched out his arms. “We got an empty mic up here for you anytime, darlin’. Just say the word. That is, if you’re willing to sing backup.”
Merritt’s smile slid off her face, her cheeks growing hot.
“Sorry, sorry. Guess I should know better than to make you mad.” He shielded his crotch with both hands, giving an exaggerated wince.
“Shut the fuck up and sing, Frank,” Jo yelled, to scattered laughter. Frank shot them a double thumbs-up, winked at Merritt, then flipped his wraparound sunglasses from his forehead to his eyes before leading the band in an enthusiastic—if slightly sloppy—rendition of “Sugar Magnolia.”
Merritt forced herself to unclench as the song continued, her heart rate returning to normal now that everyone’s attention was back where it should be.
Once she’d settled, though, she was swept away by the feeling she always got watching other people play music, a strange cocktail of envy and longing and resentment that was even more bitter than the stout curdling in her stomach. She focused on keeping her face relaxed, her lips slightly upturned, nodding in rhythm so her brooding wasn’t so obvious.
