Crimson Reborn

"Morning, Oliver!" Alice chirped from the couch. Her roommate blinked at her with a sour, sleepy face before passing on by into the small kitchen. Alice frowned. She had hoped that Oliver would be in a good mood again. The past two days they'd had breakfast together, almost like a real couple. Alice had her bagel and Oliver mauled an overfull bowl of cereal while they joked about the news. A little taste of the perfect life, she thought. So, why not get up a little earlier to wash her face and tame her bed hair. Maybe he'd notice.

Oliver padded back through the apartment, bowl of cereal in hand and head tilted away and to the side. He doesn't want to look at me, Alice thought, her heart sinking as she withdrew into her blanket on the couch. Shame washed over her in huge waves. Foolish to think he cared, foolish to think he even noticed me at all, foolish to think this was finally the start of something more.

After a few moments, Oliver reappeared at the hallway entrance. He leaned out, his hair falling somehow perfectly around his face. "Hey, sorry, late night last night, you know. Gotta go in for an early shift too. You're working today, right?"

Alice nodded, trying not to explode with giddiness.

"Great we can carpool. I'm almost out of gas, so you're driving." He smiled and retreated down the hallway.

Better than nothing, Alice thought. She didn't have to rush to get dressed. Despite the pajamas and the blanket wrapped around her, she'd already showered, fixed her hair, and put on most of her makeup. Of course, she hadn't intended to go so far in her morning beauty regiment. And of course, she didn't do it for Oliver, necessarily. But, on the off chance that he suddenly decided to sweep her into his arms, she wanted to look the part.

She slipped off the couch and headed back to her room. Pausing at Oliver's door, she saw him through the small crack. He was sitting at his computer eating, but no longer wore a shirt. He'd put it on just to walk out into the house. That puzzled Alice. She'd seen him without a shirt on hundreds of times over the years. In high school, when she'd been in band and Oliver on the football team, she'd watched him walk around without a shirt on all through practice. Her mind started to unravel the difference. Here it's more intimate. Her stomach fluttered and she blushed, slipping into her own room to get dressed.

In an hour, they would get into her car and drive to their jobs downtown. On the way, Alice knew they'd finally get that morning chat, joking about the news or what she'd done last night while Oliver was off at work. Maybe Oliver would complain about his boss keeping him late. Maybe she would get a chance to do some complaining of her own. Maybe she'd finally have the right moment to bring up the idea of going away together. Not as a couple of course, but just as friends. Alice wanted to go to Nashville. She had some friends in the city and it would be nice to see them. It would be a nice, normal reason for her to spend hours in the car with Oliver. To share a hotel room with Oliver. To go to museums and galleries and nice restaurants with Oliver. It would be nice.

She stopped in front of her mirror. Alice frowned. Her hair had started to frizz, falling victim to the humidity. Her pajamas, covered in cartoonish moons, looked ridiculous and childish. They didn't fit either, essentially swallowing up her gangly body in their vast, if comfortable, depths. The little voice in Alice's head, the one which had always been with her since she first saw a boy and though of him as more than just gross, laughed at her. Not a woman, it said. Just a girl playing dress up. He'd never notice you. He wouldn't even be friends with you if the rent wasn't so cheap. How much is your friendship worth to him, do you think? Another $100 a month, maybe as little as $10. A man will never love someone through exceeding convenience. It's pathetic. You're pathetic. I am pathetic.

Alice lowered her eyes and let her thoughts drift away. She sighed and started to get dressed.

***

Oliver had a headache. He found that being a bartender meant often having a headache. Maybe it had been a full hangover once upon a time, but now it was just a perpetual, unending headache. He took another gulp of water from his cup as they rounded a curve onto main street. The short stretch of storefronts had been "revitalized" over the past few years. That included the Spanish Moss, the drearily named restaurant and bar where Oliver worked. It kept an air of sophistication primarily through serving lunch to the gaggle of businessmen that operated downtown and the occasional patron coming in from the countryside for a "fancy city" meal. No one came for the food, really. They just came to waste time — time away from work or home or a spouse. But then came was the evening service at the Spanish Moss. In a town with only one bar and, as Oliver had learned, an unreasonable supply of closeted alcoholics, the bar stayed slammed almost every night until close. Few of the patrons tipped well, but the owner, Lowell Cammack, paid well. Lowell was an old barback himself and seemed to appreciate the toll it could take. In the end, though, Oliver had a headache.

The car pulled into the small lot behind JoLean's Boutique. Alice turned off the engine and Oliver leaned back into the seat, trying to force the tension out of his muscles. He never had the time or the inclination to go to the gym anymore, but at moments like this, the brief lapses between forced constraints of society, he felt a remorse for letting his life take such a toll on his body. Not for much longer though.

"Are you working all day?" Alice asked. She'd been quiet the whole ride, another of her strange moods. Now she was back to her overly interested self, Oliver noted. "I thought I might come over for lunch."

"Um, not sure," Oliver said, his body tensing up again. "Lowell said I'd need to open, getting everything cleaned up from last night, but that I could knock off after that. If I get done, I may just go home and crash for a while."

"Oh, will you need the car?"

I wish, Oliver thought, but that would just put me more into your debt. "No, I can catch a ride with Mason. He usually drives in for an early lunch and then goes back our way. You should still go over for lunch, though. Today's your favorite, meatloaf and potatoes." He watched her face transform with a happy glow. God, she loves me. "We better head in."

They shared another brief, awkward moment as he headed toward the alley and she lingered at the back door of the boutique. What does she want me to do? Spend five minutes chatting with her before daintily touching her shoulder. Fuck, even walking away brooding will make her think I'm being bashful or something. He skipped across the street and in through the front door the Spanish Moss. The smell of stale beer hit him and his headache throbbed more violently. Somewhere beneath the caked in smell of spent alcohol was the cutting smell of floor cleaner. Humphrey, one of the cooks, was at the back of the restaurant putting chairs on tables. "Morning," Oliver called.

Humphrey responded with a swat of his hand in Oliver's general direction. "You left this place in a right fucking state," the middle aged man groaned. "And when did we get all these damn chairs."

Despite himself, Oliver grinned. If anyone suffered more than him, it was Humphrey. The man had a banshee for a wife and an entirely out of the closet alcoholism problem, but, as Lowell put it, "he shows up on time and does more than his share of work, mood notwithstanding". Oliver slipped behind the bar and grabbed his apron. "I'll do the mopping," he said grabbing the bucket of soapy water.

"Damn right you will," Humphrey said, but continued to work on moving the chairs. "What goes on up here at night lately? Lowell's not one to let things get so messy. You remember what it looked like when you locked up or were you too drunk? Oh, I know how it is, alright. I tended bar here too, you know. Pour two drinks for the lushes and have one for yourself. You need to keep a clear head on that stuff, boy. Or you're gonna wind up like me. Like everyone else. Doing what's fun or what feels nice. Doing it so long that you don't notice the hooks in your skin. Doing it so much that it feels like its supposed to be. Then, you're forty five and wondering what happened, singing the same song as every other forty five year old loser all across the world."

"More cheerful than ever this morning, aren't we?" Oliver quipped as the mop splattered against the floor.

"I ain't wrong," Humphrey insisted. "You still saving money? Still going?"

"Still," Oliver answered.

"That's good. Man shouldn't stay where he's from. I shouldn't have. You shouldn't. That little girl comes over and makes doe eyes at you every day. You watch her, she'll sink her teeth into you the first chance she gets. You'll have a little taste yourself and think it ain't so bad. Regular and safe, those are what bring a man down. Then, boom, you're making damned meatloaf every day for the same shits you went to high school with."

"C'mon, Humph, Alice is alright. She's not for me, but you don't have to be nasty about her."

Humphrey paused and leaned against the chair in front of him. "It's not nasty. It's the truth. You watch'em long enough, all these folks, and you'll start to see it. Something leaves them. Something good and right that everyone's supposed to have. But they stay here, people like me or Alice or you if you're a damn fool. They stay and that good thing leaves them. It slips out a little bit at a time, but then its gone and you ain't getting it back. I've seen the way that girl looks at you. She hasn't got any of it left in her. She wants to stay here. And wants you to stay with her."

The subject cut a little close to the bone. Oliver slammed the mop down and whirled to face Humphrey, but saw a look of sad fear in the man's eyes. "What the fuck are you on about, anyway? Since when do you start rambling on about the philosophical fucking dangers of small towns?"

Humphrey shuffled away. "I dunno, Oliver. Something ain't right lately. Like this mess. Folks are drinking too much. Can you tell me what it was like here last night?"

Oliver opened his mouth, ready to say that it was just like any other night — all the people from town gathering over their cheap wine and watered down beer to bitch about the heat or the rain or the cold or the news. But, he couldn't remember. I wasn't that drunk, he thought. "I dunno, actually. It's all a ... blur. I remember it being fun, though. Like real fun."

"That's fucking alarming in itself. This place isn't meant to be fun. It's meant to be a sinkhole for folks' sorrows. Something weird is going on in town, Oliver. Things are changing. I don't know what or how, but you mark my word." He slammed the last chair onto the table top. "Lowell ain't in yet. I'm gonna go throw some eggs and bacon on the grill. You look like you could use something real in your stomach. Me too."

Humphrey thudded away into the kitchen, leaving Oliver alone in the restaurant's front. Oliver shivered as a chill ran across his neck. Things are changing.

***

"He left already," Humphrey said as he dropped a plate of meatloaf on the table. Alice's face fell immediately. "Bout twenty minutes before you came in, I reckon. Had a hard morning's work and the damn fool was about to fall on his face so I sent him off." Humphrey started to walk away, but hesitated. "He was trying to wait, I think. But he needed sleep. Had to force him out of the place." He grunted and shuffled back toward the kitchen.

Alice smiled. Humphrey was nice to her, even though it seemed to pain him to do so. It was a lie, she was sure. Oliver probably hadn't given her a second thought all morning and ran off the first chance he got. But Humphrey's lie was nice and almost believable. She picked up her fork and jabbed at the plate. And Oliver did remember my favorite, even if he's not here to eat with me. She took a bite and her mood improved. Normally, she would have brought along a book or her earbuds to listen to music, but she'd forgotten everything except for herself today. The Spanish Moss was too crowded for any type of concentration, so reading was out, and too much noise for earbuds to be of much use without bursting her eardrums.

As she ate, she scanned the crowd seeing many of the usual faces, but not the usual moods. People seemed happy, or more than happy, almost deliriously amused. At one table an anecdote elicited lengthy bouts of near choking laughter. The mood seemed to bounce from one table to another. Sometimes Humphrey got roped into it, and he too would spend an inordinate amount of time laughing. Strange didn't begin to describe it. Small town people never acted so raucously. On any other day, Alice would expect to hear the tinkling of silverware on plates and the soft murmur of polite conversation. Instead, she found herself in the din of a speakeasy.

Looking to her right, Alice gasped and dropped her fork. A woman in a red dress sat a few feet away at the next table over. Was she there before? Alice thought. It did not seem possible. How could she have overlooked such a stunningly beautiful woman. The sun dress hugged a voluptuous figure that should have drawn the attention of every man and half the women in the restaurant, but none of them so much as glanced in the woman's direction. As Alice tried to avert her eyes, so as not to be rude, she realized that no one else was looking at the woman at all, as though nothing occupied that space, a terrible sort of nothing that dared you to look. A cup of steaming coffee sat on the table in front of the woman and her hands tapped idly beside it as she smiled, her eyes flickering from one table to the next before suddenly snapping to match Alice's stare. The woman's smile widened. She picked up her coffee and crossed the short distance between her table and Alice's with an indefinable grace, as though a sculpture of a goddess had sprung to life. "Mind if I join you?" the woman asked as she placed her saucer and cup down.

"Um, please," Alice muttered. She watched as the woman settled down across from her, yet still no one looked toward them.

"You're not going crazy," the woman said. "I don't want them to see me, and so they don't. It is magic after all. I'm Lucy and you're Alice. Such a pretty name, Alice. Fits you."

Alice could not help but blush. She'd never been attracted to a woman before, but she couldn't imagine how anyone could not be attracted to Lucy. She also had the faintest memory of knowing someone named Lucy, but as she tried to picture the woman, who'd only been a few years older than herself, the memory grew even fainter. It didn't matter though, that Lucy was clearly gone and this new one was sitting right in front of her, hanging her cleavage out for all to see. And yet, still, no one was looking. Filled with a sudden desire to prove herself sane, she grabbed hold of Humphrey. "Hey, sorry, um...I know this is a strange question, but do you know...her?" Alice gestured vaguely toward the other side of the table where Lucy sat, continuing that eerie, predatory smile.

Humphrey looked in the direction Alice had gestured, his eyes lost focus and his mouth hung slack. Then he looked back to Alice, "Sorry, hon, did you need something?" Before she could answer, Humphrey shuffled off toward another table bellowing for more beer.

"See, magic, of a sort anyway." Lucy lifted the coffee and took a sip. "I'd rather not waste time convincing you. You know the truth anyway. You can feel it wriggling around in your belly, but you just don't want to accept it. Not that I would have been any different in your shoes. Well, that's not true maybe. When I was given the gift, I took it happily. So many can't accept it right away though. They just aren't willing to accept the cost. I give them little tastes. Little flourishes of happiness, so that when they finally do come to me, they're desperate for more. They're gagging in their want for me. In the want for this." She slipped a hand between her breasts and pulled out a vial filled with a red liquid. "I think the color reflects the strength. Early batches were only a little pink, but this," she flicked the vial with her fingers causing the liquid to slosh up the sides, "this is sinfully red."

Alice watched the liquid in the vial and felt her mouth water. "What do you want?"

"I want the town, but I'll get it in time. For now, its more about what you want. Oliver."

Jealousy flared within Alice. She knew instantly that if Oliver ever saw this woman, Alice herself would a distant memory. This woman was everything Alice aspired to be, elegant and voluptuous, seductive and menacing. "How do you know Oliver?"

Lucy's smile faltered, "Come now, please. I don't want to waste the entire morning working through those little walls in your head. I know Oliver in the same way I know you. I can hear him prickling through your thoughts and I can smell your pussy getting wet at the thought of him. Yet he's not giving you the time of day, is he? A few drops of this will change his mind. It'll change everything about him, really." With a flick of her wrist, Lucy threw the vial across the table. Alice caught it reflexively. "Good girl. Just this morning you were wishing for an answer to your prayers. You want Oliver and I want to help you get him. A few drops will do, but..." the devilish smile returned, "I admire a bit of boldness."

Alice looked down at the vial in her hand. Instantly, she had a strong urge to throw it away. Was it burning her hand? Was it filled with blood? Yet she held onto it, clutching it to her chest as a voice deep inside her begged her not to keep it. Images flashed in her mind. Oliver standing in front of her naked. Her kneeling before him with her hands on his muscular thighs, her mouth open. Alice quickly tucked the vial away and realized that Lucy had gone. The room had become more subdued, with many people looking around as though ashamed. Humphrey stomped around with a visible irritation, eventually passing Alice's table and snatching up the coffee cup still stained with Lucy's ruby lipstick.

The vial felt warm in her pocket as Alice stepped out into the street. She looked across at the little boutique and frowned. Of course she couldn't contain herself for the rest of the workday. Instead, she pulled out her phone and sent a message to her boss. The words blurred as she typed them, but she hoped she'd conveyed the ideas of sick and emergency. Alice slipped through the alleyway and got to her car where she paused to catch her breath. Had she run like a mad woman across the parking lot? Why did she feel as though something were clawing at the back of her neck. Why did she want to drink the vial and use the empty container to pleasure herself? She cranked the car and turned on the air conditioning full blast, trying to quell the heat on her skin. She pulled down the vanity mirror to compose herself, but found a stranger looking back at her.

The woman in the mirror was still Alice, she realized, but a better version. A version that had everything Alice had ever dreamed of. Long, luxurious hair with high cheekbones and plump lips to start, but then a long thin neck leading down into a bust that would put even Lucy to shame. Alice wanted to angle the mirror to see more of this idealized self, but she couldn't move it properly and when she looked again, only her plain face looked back. It was then that Alice decided. She let one hand wander to the vial as she thought about Oliver and started toward home.

***

Oliver heard the front door open and shut. He rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. "Too early for her to be home," he mumbled before rolling over to the side and pulling on a pair of basketball shorts. As he opened his bedroom door, he heard the clink of glass hitting the countertops. Alice was in the kitchen, hunched over something out of sight and holding a bottle of his whiskey in her hand. "Hey, what're you doing back so soon?"