Page 64 of Smoke and Glitter

"You're welcome."

Marisol is standing in the doorway watching me.

"What?"

"You look like hell."

"I've got a fridge dying in the back."

"You look worse than the fridge."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It does from here."

I go back to the invoices.

Lucia colors quietly for maybe four minutes.

Then:

"Where's Autumn?"

My pen stops.

Marisol answers before I do. "She's working, baby."

Lucia looks up from the page. "She was going to draw the dog-cat."

I remember. Autumn told her there was no such thing as a dog-cat. Lucia told Autumn she was wrong and promised to teach her how to draw one.

"Next time," I say.

Marisol looks at me. I keep my eyes on the invoice.

The week is good. Our numbers are up, a repair cost came in eight hundred less than the estimate, and Bex books an act out of Detroit. Downstairs, everything makes perfect sense. A customer needs a drink, I make it. Tony needs change, I get it. Ice gets low, somebody fills it. Something breaks, I call the guy who knows how to fix it. Every problem comes with a next move.

My apartment doesn't. Upstairs, Autumn is everywhere. Her presence is in everything. Her socks are still under the coffee table. Her charger is still beside the bed. Her coffee creamer is still on the door of my fridge.

I stop checking my phone every time it buzzes. Mostly. She said talk soon. I can give her room. By the end of the week, giving her room is starting to feel a lot like being ghosted. That pisses me off more than it should. She knew I wasn't going to be good at answering her questions, and I tried anyway. Maybe they weren't the answers she wanted, but I didn't lie to her. Now I'm supposed to figure out how long I'm benched because she didn't like what I said?

I wipe down the same section of bar twice before I notice. I know that isn't entirely fair. At some point, she has to talk to me too. Doesn't stop it getting under my skin. I'm not going to chase her across Chicago because I couldn't articulate what she wanted to hear into the right sentence at one in the morning. She knows me. Or I thought she did.

A few nights later, Summer walks into Vibes alone. I notice before she reaches the bar. Summer almost always comes in with Colt. Or Autumn. Sometimes she brings a laptop so she can try to work and ends up ignoring the thing for three hours.

She doesn't usually come in alone anymore. I make her a Shirley Temple.

"Sam."

"Summer."

I set a glass in front of her.

She doesn't touch it.

"Autumn's leaving to go to London."

My hand stays on the bottle.