then snapped a towel at him and pretended to be angry.
Liv took a seat at the bar. “La Cucaracha,” or “The Cockroach,” was playing from speakers hidden by a raft of piñatas hung from the ceiling. Twice a year the cantina had an afternoon party for all the neighborhood kids who slammed away at the piñatas until all the candy spilled across the floor. The owners then replaced them for the next bout of pounding. Once a night, Rosa’s Cantina also played the Marty Robbins classic, “El Paso,” from which they’d taken the name for their bar. At least that’s what Hague had told Liv, but now she heard the owner calling his wife Rosa, so it looked like there were other reasons as well.
From her viewpoint Liv could see through the front window to the stretch of sidewalk outside the cantina’s doors. As she settled herself onto a stool, she saw her father and Lorinda pass by. Albert glanced in but Liv didn’t think he noticed her on the far side of the rectangular, center bar as she was squeezed up tightly against the young couple on the bar stools to her right.
The bar owner was pulling glasses down from the overhead rack. “What’ll you have?” he asked Liv. “My treat.” He pushed two empty margarita glasses toward Rosa. “I’m Jimmy.”
“And I’m Rosa. His better half,” the woman said, grabbing up the glasses. “What’d he do? If he’s buying you a drink, he did something.”
“He can buy me a drink,” the man next to Liv said. “And Nicole here, too.”
Nicole looked up from under her date’s arm and said, “El Grande Margarita.”
“I nearly ran her down,” Jimmy said to Rosa. “She deserves a margarita.” He gave Nicole a mock glare through narrowed eyes. “You don’t.”
“Yes, I do!” she declared. “I’m your best customer!”
“You’re not even close,” Jimmy snorted.
Her date said, “She’s close. Maybe she’s not first, but she’s close.”
Jimmy gave them both a look that said, “Bullshit,” but he relented, and Rosa whipped up two margaritas and slid one to Liv and one to Nicole.
Liv was pretty sure she abhorred tequila, but the drink was free and she was desperate to shake off the bad feelings meeting with her family had brought on.
Rosa slid a small bowl of chips and salsa Liv’s way, and Jimmy revealed that she was Hague’s sister. “The Hague?” Rosa asked.
It was a nickname that had followed her brother throughout his life, a reference to the city that is the governmental center of the Netherlands. It seemed that anyone who got to know Hague, even marginally, called him The Hague.
“If someone’s in his seat, he gets worse than upset,” Rosa said. She jerked her head toward the northeast corner of the bar, where a man and woman were staring at each other and holding hands, he with his back to the booth, she across from him in a chair. “That’s Hague’s place, and he makes sure everyone knows it.”
“It’s not that bad,” Jimmy said.
“Hah,” Rosa snorted. “We’re just lucky The Hague’s not here tonight, otherwise those two lovebirds would have to move. He’s not coming, is he?” She looked a bit stricken.
“No,” Liv said. She felt like apologizing for her brother, but knew it would do no good. Hague was Hague. He couldn’t be changed.
“He mutters to himself, and then shouts, then waves his arm, then goes into a trance,” Nicole said.
“He swears at people that pass by,” her boyfriend offered up.
“Stop it. Stop it.” Jimmy waved a towel at them. “You’ll make her want to leave.” To Liv, he said, “Don’t listen to them. The Hague’s just part of the colorful group that makes up our clientele.”
Liv nodded. She couldn’t think of anything to say, but when they clearly expected her to add something, she asked, “Does he come in here alone?”
“That nurse is with him sometimes. Or, whatever the hell she is,” the boyfriend said.
“Caretaker,” Nicole clarified.
Rosa shook her head. “I think he likes to get away from her. He mostly comes when she’s out, but then she always comes looking for him.”
This little insight into her brother’s life gave Liv some hope. At least Hague seemed to want to escape Della’s smothering sometimes, maybe even often. In her mind, she couldn’t see how that was a bad thing.
Forty-five minutes later, and after refusing another margarita several times, she thanked them all and headed out. Jimmy and Rosa urged her to come by again soon, and Liv promised to stop in the next time she visited her brother.
As soon as she was outside the establishment again, however, she felt her skin prickle as age-old fears crept up again. Talking about her mother with Hague first, and then her father, had jarred something loose that wouldn’t go back into its place. With one eye looking over her shoulder, she hurried to her Accord and jumped inside, driving a circuitous route home, wondering if her paranoia was overtaking her good sense once and for all.
When she got back to her apartment Jo and Travis . . . Trask . . . whatever . . . were out on the balcony and they invited her to have a drink with them. She almost said no, but decided she needed to foster neighborly relations since Trevor, or whoever he was, had seen the contents of the package. It just felt rude not to.
“Come on in,” Jo said, and as Liv entered, she added, “Get her a drink, Trask! We’re having gin and tonics, or just gin, as in martinis. Whaddya want?”
The smell of cannabis was thick in the air, but neither one of them was smoking a joint at the moment. “Gin and tonic,” Liv said.
“Comin’ right up,” Trask said, dropping ice into a glass, splashing in a healthy dose of gin, then topping it off with tonic. He added a lime wedge and handed it to Liv, who was committing his name to memory.
Jo was half-drunk and dancing to some rock music with a lot of bass that Liv thought might bring the downstairs neighbors up and pounding on their door. As if reading her mind, Trask turned down the volume.
“How ya doin’?” he asked.
“I’m okay. How about you?”
“Can’t complain,” he said, nodding as if they were involved in a truly meaningful conversation.
“Doesn’t anybody wanna dance?” Jo asked.
Liv shook her head and sipped her drink, which was way too strong and made her feel like her bones were melting. She stopped about halfway through, knowing she had work in the morning.
Still, she stayed at their place until past midnight. Trask gallantly offered to accompany her the ten feet from their door to hers. She tried to decline but he insisted, saying, “Trask Martin always walks a lady home.” At her door, he looked over his shoulder, focused a bit fuzzily on the parking lot below, and said, “Hey, y’know, I saw this dude outside your door a couple weeks ago. He was just standin’ there and I asked him, ‘What’s up, dude,’ and he just turned and left.”
A
