The beer flowed and I managed to recover some good humour, found it tucked away in my box of ironic things. Ironic how the more I tried to get rid of my old life, it kept finding me. Ironic how the more Finn glared at me, the more I found it funny. Ironic that Raven suddenly found all this hilarious and kept joking with Sherman, attempting to wind me up. Ironic that underneath the table, though, Raven started playing footsie with me, creating more confusion in me and that large bundle of confusion that was becoming too big to handle. And it was ironic that when I got up to go to the bathroom Finn followed me and stopped me outside it.
“What’s going on?” Finn said, his voice tight.
I laughed, the irony box overflowing. “You think I know?”
He gave a frustrated snort. “What are you doing here, in Oklahoma?”
I tried to recover some of the calm from earlier. When I was with Skye, plaiting her hair, drinking her tea. “Working at a bar.” Keep it simple, I thought. No confusion, no irony, just simple truth.
But Finn wasn’t going to settle for simple truths. No irony there either. “Why did you come to Oklahoma? Were you hoping to meet with Balor? Make a deal with him?”
I gave him a shocked look, too stunned to speak. “What?” I croaked out eventually. “Feck me, Finn, what do you think I am?”
“I don’t know, Maura. You told me I didn’t know you, isn’t that right? So maybe the Maura I didn’t know has decided to work with Balor and is here to coordinate some plan.”
I blinked at him, fighting the tears that came to my eyes. Tears? What did I want with those? Not one thing. I tried to shove them in the box of ironies but there was no stuffing allowed. One slipped down my cheek. I brushed it aside.
“Oh, feck off, will you,” I said darkly. I walked past him and flung open the bathroom door. It slammed with a bang and closed behind me.
It was just the two of us left. Raven and myself. The others had cleared off to their respective beds, drinks finished, stalemate achieved on many fronts. We were all enlightened by not very much. Linked by our determination to say as little as possible in the most entertaining or cryptic manner possible. Outdoing Sherman. All of us amused and all of us suspicious. Except Finn, who could add fury and disgust to his armoury of emotions. Ah, and myself of course. I had the run of the emotions playing up and down like some beginner on a violin playing scales, complete with all the screeches.
But now I looked up from my beer, or no, it was whiskey now, obtained by someone in the course of the night when we were all jolly palsy and bantering away, determined to get something out of the evening, since no answers were to be got. Except for Finn. Oh, and myself, who stared morosely in my drink one moment and the other was determined to joke away with Sherman. Or Raven. Whoeverwhatever mode. Looking into Raven’s eyes, now, though, I saw something I hadn’t expected. Compassion.
Oh. Oh. And another oh. Feck. I pasted on the grand smile, the one that says “not a bother” because it wasn’t. Nothing was.
I leaned forward, tilted my head. “Hey cowboy. You hoping for a good time?” It was my best cowgirl accent, crafted from the very best of TV and bar talk.
Raven laughed, the compassion gone, and I leaned back, satisfied, the whiskey feeling good inside me. Underneath the table, I initiated the footsie game again that he’d abandoned after I’d returned from the bathroom.
Raven winked at me. “You’re some woman, aren’t you?”
“I am, so.”
He nodded. “Worth knowing.”
An answer that would get high points for banter rose to my lips, but I hesitated. A slow smile formed. “Thanks,” I said eventually.
He shrugged. “You’re a woman to reckon with. And I reckon I should get to know you better.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
We drank on, me with my whiskey, he with his specialty beer and banter to be had on all subjects that meant nothing. When we’d had our fill, my vision narrowed and full only of our footsies and his face, he leaned toward me.
“Why don’t we go to your room?”
I laughed. “Why don’t we?”
He smiled. “We should.”
“We should.”
And so we rose, he took my hand and led me out of the bar, and we eventually landed at my room door and then inside. Will I make tea or coffee, was uttered, I think, but my head was somewhere else and my confusion smothered under a blanket of whiskey and Budweiser. My boots were there, on my feet, but really not in charge. We sat on the sofa, mugs in hand, our tea/coffee steaming our faces.
“I can help,” said Raven. “I think. Maybe. Give me a chance.”
“Help what?” I said, wondering if I’d missed something.
I sorted through the box of ironies in my mind, reviewing all that had been piled in there that evening and came up blank. There was plenty of confusion all around too and this statement could easily be knitted on to its edges.
“You. Your friends. The reason you’re all here.”
I narrowed my eyes, studying him. “The reason we’re all here? I’m here for me.”
“Are you? Are you really? I don’t think your friends feel that way.”
“They’re not my friends,” I muttered. I sipped my mug, hoping the steam would provide some camouflage.
“Sure they are. You’re just having a rough patch with them.”
I snorted at this. “Rough patch. Ah, I like that. But no. It’s an ‘I’m finished with them’ patch. Only the patch is huge, uncrossable, never ending in size.”
He laughed and I sniggered, taken by my own wit.
“I’m sure they still care about you, no matter what’s happened. And I think you still have some sort of connection with them.”
I shrugged. “It can take a while for some connections to fade. But it will happen.”
“I think they’d prefer to keep the connections. They’re here, aren’t they?”
I frowned. “They didn’t know I was here. Couldn’t you tell that? Or didn’t Finn’s ‘why are you here’ not clue you in?”
“I think some of them thought you might be here.”
“I don’t see how. Their presence is a complete coincidence.”
Raven raised his brow. “Is it?”
I looked at him and pursed my lips, anger growing. “You think it wasn’t? You think I planned to come here? Or they knew I planned to come here? You think I’m working with Balor like Finn said, is that it?”
He placed a hand on my face, looked me deep in the eyes and shook his head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t believe your friend does either.”
“He’s not my friend,” I muttered again.
But the words, even as they poured out of my mouth, I knew they weren’t ironic, a repetition of my earlier statement. Nothing cutesy or banter like. It was just what came to me. Stupid and childish, and deep down I knew the words for the untruth they were. No. I thought. I didn’t want this.
“But they’re here for Balor. So, since you’re not with them, they think you’re against them and working with Balor. I can see why they might conclude that, but it’s not true.”
I shook my head stubbornly. “It’s not true. I’m here for me. A new start.”
“But the question is, why choose here for the new start? A place where Balor is?”
I sighed. “Feck me, if I know. It’s just where the wind blew me.”
“Hmmm,” said Balor. “The wind chose an odd place. And now you’re here. And they’re here. And they have a task to do.”
“They can do it without me.”
“Maybe. But then, maybe, together we can help them a little.”
I looked at him, narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Gather your friends. Tell them we’ll meet them at the coffee shop tomorrow afternoon, before your shift. Discuss things. You know that there’s stuff we know about Balor.”
“We?” Suddenly I was off balance. How had we ended up talking about Balor and his misdeeds? How had Raven done that? What had I said? Feckityfeck. What? Confusion rose up around the box of ironies, tossing it around, emptying it in a dance of such power I nearly spun with it. As it was, I held my hand to my head and rubbed it hard.
“A feckin’ trickster. That’s what you are, Raven. A feckin’ trickster.
He laughed at me. “I did say, didn’t I? My name is Raven, after all.”
I shook my head, even more confused.