Bad Glass

The sky turned back to gray. The change from red to gray was slower than the change from gray to red. There was no earth-rending roar, no quick unnatural movement up in the atmosphere. The red just darkened gradually, and a new cloud front blew in from up north. It took a couple of minutes for the last of the red to disappear. Then it was just your typical overcast early-winter sky.

The reaction to this event, this return to normality, was surprisingly subdued. Mama Cass stood up and stretched lazily. She handed her empty beer bottle to Hershel, then folded up the lawn chair and tucked it under her arm. Back on the sidewalk, people looked down from the sky. They exchanged muted words and then walked away. I even saw one man yawn as if just getting up from a midafternoon nap.

It was over. Life—this parody of life here inside the city—could resume.

“Come back to the restaurant with me,” Mama Cass said, using her free hand to gesture toward the open storefront. She was smiling, relaxed. “I’m thinking you two can help me out with something. A delivery.”

“What?” Taylor asked. She sounded genuinely offended. How could Mama Cass confuse their relationship so thoroughly? Why would she for one second think that Taylor would do anything to help her out?

“Don’t play it that way, girl,” Mama Cass said. “We’re in this together, right?” She smiled. It was a staged, artificial smile, and it put the lie to her words. “Besides,” she continued, “if it bugs you so much, you can think of it as giving Terry a hand.”

“Terry?”

“Yeah … Terry. Your mentor. I’m running some errands for him. I’m doing him a favor.” She spit out this last word—favor—giving it barbs. Suddenly, her drugged euphoria was gone, and she was wielding nothing but venom. “I’m acting like an adult here, Taylor, and if you can’t do the same, if you can’t ditch that holier-than-thou bullshit, maybe you should just keep on running. Maybe you should get out of the way and leave the adult interactions to people who aren’t complete fucking pussies.”

Taylor’s eyes widened with surprise, and her mouth fell open in a wordless gape. She didn’t have a reply.

After a moment of silence, Mama Cass turned back toward me and smiled, once again picking up that relaxed, mellow attitude. “C’mon, Dean,” she said. “I’ll show you what I was thinking.” Then she headed toward her restaurant.

It was as if the red sky hadn’t even happened.

There was laughter in Mama Cass’s dining room. People had drifted back to their tables; they’d picked up their abandoned forks and resumed their interrupted meals. The laughter, the mindless chatter—it made me think that perhaps they’d picked up the same conversations, too. Hershel went on ahead, disappearing into the kitchen, while Mama Cass paused at a couple of tables to chat with her customers. Taylor and I stayed a couple of paces back. Taylor was stewing. Her arms were crossed, and her head was turned, refusing to even look in Mama Cass’s direction.

After a couple of minutes, Mama Cass waved us toward the back of the dining room. She escorted us through the kitchen and into her office.

“How’s the hand?” she asked. She leaned back against the edge of her desk and gestured for me to raise my palm up into the air. I showed it to her, and she nodded. “It’s healing up all right? It isn’t hurting?”

“It’s getting better,” I said, “but it still hurts a bit.” This wasn’t exactly true. In fact, it didn’t hurt at all, but I was running low on Vicodin. Mama Cass nodded her head in understanding.

Taylor shot me a perplexed look. I hadn’t told her about my hand or Mama Cass’s help, so this was all news to her. I caught her eye, and after a second, her confusion turned to anger. I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty. Like I was conspiring with an enemy, like I was sneaking around behind her back and plotting against her.

“What do you want us to deliver?” Taylor asked brusquely, turning away from me.

“A package. Something Terry wanted me to find.”

“What is it?” Taylor asked again, crossing her arms.

“I’m not going to tell you that,” Mama Cass said. “It’s Terry’s business, not yours.” She turned toward me. “Can I trust you, Dean?” she asked. “Can I trust you to be careful and discreet? Can I trust you to keep this out of her hands?”

I nodded, then glanced at Taylor. Her arms were still crossed, and she was staring angrily at the wall. “It’s for Terry,” I explained, trying to win her over. She just shrugged.

Perhaps Taylor would have preferred that I just let it go right there. But I was curious. I wanted to know what Mama Cass and Terry were working on, and I was pretty sure that that was what Taylor wanted, too. Despite her feelings for this mercenary businesswoman, despite her obvious loathing.