could almost see it.
As Harper turned left at the first corner the sky vibrated with a threatening, low rumble of thunder.
Nervously, she quickened her pace, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the empty street behind her.
The shooting had thrown her off-kilter. A spiky remnant of adrenaline still coursed through her body. She kept having the same feeling she’d had at the shooting scene – the feeling she was being watched. But whenever she turned around, there was no one there.
By the time she reached busy Drayton Street she was glad of the lights.
Here, even at one in the morning, the atmosphere was buzzing. As usual, Eric’s 24-Hour Diner – with its vivid, 1950s neon sign promising: ‘Fresh burgers and frozen shakes’ – smelled tantalizingly of fried things.
As Harper threaded her way through the crowds, the first fat drops of what looked to be a fearsome storm began to fall.
Half-running, she turned off the main drag. She could hear The Library before she reached it – music and laughter poured out the open door through the crowd of smokers. Harper inhaled the spicy scent of clove cigarettes as she hurried inside.
‘Hey, Harper,’ the bouncer said. ‘Back from another successful night fighting crime?’
Well over six feet tall, he had a scraggly beard, a huge beer belly and the unlikely nickname of Junior. Harper had once seen him haul three men out of the bar at the same time, without breaking a sweat.
‘It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,’ she said, holding up her fist for him to bump.
When he smiled, Junior revealed an array of teeth so mismatched he might have stolen them from other people.
‘Bonnie’s waiting for you. Said something about a tequila sunrise.’
‘Mai-tai,’ she corrected him, raising her voice to be heard above the cacophony as she headed into the crowded, dimly lit bar.
As the name implied, the bar was tucked inside a former library. The space was all wrong for a bar – the old reading rooms were small and inevitably overcrowded, but somehow it worked.
Harper liked the place, not only because Bonnie was a bartender here, but also because there was almost no chance of running into anyone she worked with. It attracted a twenty-something crowd who sat around smoking fake cigarettes and arguing loudly about Nietzsche and politics. The cops wouldn’t be caught dead in here, while the reporters favored Rosie Malone’s, an Irish pub near the river where local politicians tended to hang out.
The Library was Harper’s place.
She liked that the walls still held the original built-in bookcases, stacked with paperbacks, and that there was a ‘take a book, leave a book’ policy. The only rule was displayed on a sign by the door, which read: ‘NO PORN PLEASE, WE’RE CHILDREN’.
The main bar had been placed where the librarian’s desk had once stood, in the middle of the largest room. Harper weaved through the crowd toward it.
The air was steamy and smelled of sweat and spilled beer and the rain blowing in through the open door.
Bonnie was easy enough to spot – she’d recently added magenta streaks to her long, blonde hair, and she glimmered in the dimness like a beacon.
The shocks of color perfectly suited her leopard-print miniskirt and cowboy boots. But then, with that figure, she could get away with wearing anything.
The two of them had been friends since childhood. Their relationship had always been more that of sisters than friends.
Like Harper’s mother, Bonnie was an artist. Since there was no money in that, she bartended four nights a week and also taught a few classes at the local art school – making, from all of her jobs, just about enough for rent on a cheap apartment in a dodgy neighborhood.
When Harper walked up, she was pouring five tequila shots at once and talking a mile a minute. A goateed guy in a neat, button-down shirt was waiting for his drinks and wistfully watching her every move.
When Bonnie finally paused for breath, Harper leaned over the bar and pointed at the shots.
‘Thanks, but I’m not that thirsty.’
Whooping, Bonnie shoved the shots at the startled goatee guy and launched herself over the bar, pulling Harper into a full-body hug.
‘I can’t believe you came. You hate
‘The lure of a tropical cocktail never fails,’ Harper told her.
‘If that’s true, I’ll make you a mai tai every night.’ Bonnie’s eyes scanned her face. ‘How’s it going? Nice lipstick, by the way.’
‘It’s been a weird night.’ Harper shrugged off the question. ‘And this is your lipstick.’
‘Knew it. I have amazing taste. You should let me choose your shoes.’ Jumping back onto the bar, Bonnie swung her legs around and leapt down, landing neatly in front of a long row of glittering bottles. ‘Stay there. I’m going to get you that drink and you can tell me about your weirdness.’
Just then, though, a group of laughing drinkers shoved their way to the bar, credit cards clutched in their hands.
Bonnie shot Harper an exasperated look. ‘First, I have to get rid of all these fucking people.’
In no hurry, Harper pulled up a bar stool and settled in.
Despite the volume and the chaos, being here made her calmer. Bonnie was the only person in the world who knew everything about her, and Harper could never fool her about one damn thing. Tonight, she needed someone who could see through her.
The two of them had met on Bonnie’s sixth birthday. Bonnie’s family had been living on Harper’s street for a few weeks by then. She’d seen the new little girl next door many times, with her long, covetable blonde hair, roaring up and down the sidewalk on her tricycle, a handful of brothers in tow. It was impossible to miss her.
Although their modest, post-war bungalows were nearly identical, Bonnie’s noisy, crowded house was the opposite of Harper’s. Harper was an only child. Not in a tragic, poor me, lonely kid way. More in the indulged, loved way.
Her mother was a painter and art teacher. Her father was a lawyer who traveled a lot for work. Her memories of her childhood were a blurry watercolor blend of jazz flowing from the speakers, and color – color everywhere. The kitchen was lemon yellow, the sofa was cherry-red. Harper’s room was aquamarine, and her mother’s vibrant oil paintings covered the walls.
On sunny days, her mother set up her easel in the kitchen, where light poured in through wrap-around windows. When Harper was young, she’d often set up a tiny easel for her, too, so they could paint side by side.
The day of Bonnie’s birthday party, Harper was sitting quietly on the back porch with a coloring book when, on the other side of the fence, Bonnie appeared holding a can of Silly String.
Setting down her crayons, Harper watched as, with careful deliberation, Bonnie made her way across
