“I never got into it,” she explains. “And besides, you have to admit it’s a little intimidating to outsiders.”
“Fair point,” Zachary says. “But the theater stuff you do sounds like it’s not that far off.”
“She needs gateway games,” Kat says, and between cocktail sips and bacon-wrapped dates and balls of fried goat cheese dipped in lavender honey they assemble a list of games that Lexi might like, though she is incredulous when they point out that some of them could take up to a hundred hours to play through thoroughly.
“That’s insane,” she says, sipping at her whiskey sour. “Do you guys not sleep?”
“Sleep is for the weak,” Kat responds, writing more game titles down on a napkin.
Somewhere behind them a tray of drinks crashes and they wince in unison.
“I hope that wasn’t our next round,” Lexi says, peering over Zachary’s shoulder at the fallen tray and the embarrassed waitress.
“You get to live in a game,” Zachary points out as they return to their conversation, to a topic he knows he’s discussed with Kat before. “For so much longer than a book or a movie or a play. You know how you have real-life time versus story time, how stories leave out the boring bits and condense so much? A long-form RPG has some substance to it, leaves time to wander the desert or have a conversation or hang out in a pub. It might not be the closest thing to real life but pacing-wise it’s closer than a movie or a TV show or a novel.” The thought, combined with recent events and the alcohol, makes him a little dizzy and he excuses himself to go to the men’s room.
Once there, though, the Victorian-printed wallpaper repeating into infinity in the mirror does nothing to help the dizziness. He tak
es off his glasses and places them by the side of the sink and splashes cold water on his face.
He stares at his blurry, damp reflection.
The old-school jazz playing at a comfortable volume outside is amplified in this tiny space and Zachary feels uncomfortably as though he is falling through time.
The blurry man in the mirror stares back at him, looking as confused as he feels.
Zachary dries his face with paper towels and composes himself as best he can. Once he puts his glasses on the details look too sharp, the brass of the doorknob, the illuminated bottles lining the bar, as he walks back to the table.
“Some guy was totally checking you out,” Kat tells him when he sits down. “Over—oh, wait, he’s gone.” She scans the rest of the bar and frowns. “He was over there a minute ago, by himself in the corner.”
“You’re sweet to make up phantom paramours for me,” Zachary says, taking a sip of the second sidecar that arrived in his absence.
“He was there!” Kat protests. “I’m not making him up, am I, Lexi?”
“There was a guy in the corner,” Lexi confirms. “But I have no idea if he was checking you out or not. I thought he was reading.”
“Sad face,” Kat says, sweeping her frown around the room once more but then she changes the subject, and eventually Zachary manages to lose himself in the conversation as the snow starts to fall again outside.
They slip and slide back to campus, parting ways in the glow of a streetlamp when Zachary turns down the curving street that leads to the graduate dorms. He smiles as he listens to their chatter fading in the distance. Snowflakes catch in his hair and on his glasses and he feels like he is being watched and he looks over his shoulder at the streetlight but there is only snow and trees and a reddish haze in the sky.
Back in his room Zachary returns to Sweet Sorrows in his cocktail haze and starts reading again from the beginning, but sleep creeps up and steals him away after two pages and the book falls closed on his chest.
In the morning it is the first thing he sees and without thinking about it too much he puts the book in his bag, pulls on his coat and boots, and heads to the library.
“Is Elena here?” he asks the gentleman at the circulation desk.
“She’s at the reserve desk, around the corner to the left.”
Zachary thanks the gentleman librarian and continues through the atrium and around the corner to a counter with a computer where Elena sits, her hair back in its bun and her nose in a different Raymond Chandler novel this time, Playback.
“Can I help you?” she asks without looking up, but when she does she adds, “Oh, hi! Didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“I got curious about the library mystery,” Zachary says, which is true enough. “How’s that one?” he asks, pointing at the Chandler. “I haven’t read it.”
“So far so good, but I don’t like to commit to an opinion until the end of a book because you never know what might happen. I’m reading all his novels in publication order, The Big Sleep is my favorite. Did you want that list?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Zachary says, pleased that he’s managing to sound fairly casual.
Elena types something into the computer, waits, and types something else.