“What about this book of yours?” said O’Brien. “I’m hearing about a book.”
Dr. Cherubino looked down at the table as if expecting to see his book in its usual place.
“I collect ghost stories,” he said. “Ghosts interest us because they seem to blur so many lines we don’t acknowledge — and by blurring, to make them clearer, curiously. Presence and absence, life and death, dreaming and waking, the real and the unreal, sanity and madness. These are just a few of the categories we refer to as ‘opposites,’ unthinkingly.”
“So you write ghost stories?”
“I seek them out. I try to record them faithfully. Do you have any?”
“Who, me? No. I mean, I apparently said some strange things as a kid.”
“Please elaborate.”
“You know, I’m Korean. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. Don’t ever remember being there. I was adopted, obvi. I complained that somebody named ‘Hot Dog’ was keeping me up all night making faces at me, which everybody thought was hilarious. And Mom said, ‘Are they funny faces?’ Apparently I shook really hard, I shook all over, and I said, ‘No, he scare me.’ Wow, I had forgotten. It’s stupid. ‘He scare me.’” She laughed. “Creepy.”
“I’d like more details, if you please,” said Dr. Cherubino.
O’Brien shrugged. “I was little. There was other stuff.”
“If I might interview your parents…”
“They don’t remember it any better than I do, really. It’s just things we say when we get together. I don’t know if you can even call them memories anymore. Just silly things we say that make us laugh. Inside jokes, family stuff.”
The bartender approached. “I’m stepping outside for a smoke,” he said. “Y’all need anything?”
“I’d be honored to buy you a drink,” said Dr. Cherubino to O’Brien. “I hope you will be encouraged to continue our conversation over it.”
“Maybe just a bitters and soda,” she said. “But you don’t have to pay.”
“Bitters and soda on the house, sweetheart,” said the bartender. He went to get it.
“I don’t believe I know your people,” said Dr. Cherubino. He took a luxurious swallow of bad port and licked his lips. “Are they immigrants to the area?”
“This area?” said O’Brien. “I’m not from around here.”
Dr. Cherubino looked disappointed. He dabbed at himself with a cocktail napkin. “My work is exclusively concerned with a fifty-mile radius, of which I like to fancy this establishment the exact center,” he said.
He leaned in. O’Brien leaned back. He leaned in closer, his hot breath like an expensive and dreadful cheese. O’Brien moved her chair.
“Are you quite aware,” he said.
“Bitters and soda,” the bartender interrupted, bringing the drink.
“Pretty,” said O’Brien.
It was pretty — a big, clean water glass. There were bubbles and lots of ice. The angostura wafted pinkly, coloring the water.
“I put a lime in it,” said the bartender. He looked proud.
O’Brien turned and looked at his butt as he walked away, apron strings tied above it. He had a little spring in his step. He pushed his bespoke hat forward on his head in what he probably thought of as “a jaunty angle.”
When she turned back to face the doctor, his big, sad eyes looked like hypno wheels. His long hair hung down, the color of a gravestone rubbing with a No. 2 pencil. He was an uncanny-looking dude wearing a lot of rings with gems of dark colors, blood and indigo. His caved-in cheeks were like black holes trying to suck in the rest of his face. He should have had moss growing on him. His eyelashes were like cobwebs.
“My dear, you look peaked,” he said. “A sip of soda might do you good.”
She looked at it, paranoid. Sure it was pretty. It glowed, like a witch’s frosted house. Drink it down. The magic potion. Come on, dearie, it’s just like medicine. Where was she? She didn’t know anybody. Dr. Cherubino and the bartender could be in on it together. They could be adept at luring.
“As I was saying before we were interrupted, you find yourself in the most haunted area of the United States, as far as such things can be measured. Much of the evidence is anecdotal, inevitably.”
“That’s so interesting, listen, I’m going to be going,” said O’Brien as she rose.
“Oh, my dear,” said Dr. Cherubino. He grabbed his walking stick, which was leaned against the table, and hoisted himself up an inch or two — out of politeness, maybe.
The bartender came through the front door, through which he had supposedly gone for a smoke, and strode toward the table with alarming speed, an unlit cigarette behind his ear.
“This is it,” O’Brien said out loud. Her legs shook.
“I’m sorry,” the bartender said when he reached the table. “I’ve just got to try that, if you don’t mind.”
“Uh, sure,” said O’Brien.
He downed her bitters and soda, over half the glass, and grinned with his pretty, crooked teeth. It really made him happy.
“I’m sorry, darling. I couldn’t get my mind off of it. It just looked so doggone tasty. I’m going to put it on the menu. I’m going to name it after you. I’ll make you another one. I’ll make you another O’Brien.”
“That was bizarrely presumptuous,” she said, but she was smiling. “No, I’m okay, I think.”
The bartender flopped into the empty chair between O’Brien and Dr. Cherubino with some force.
“Yeah, it’s dead in this dump,” he said. “Let’s move this party somewhere happening.”
“The young lady and I have business,” said Dr. Cherubino.
“What kind of business?”
“Business that is none of yours.”
“Ouch,” said the bartender.
O’Brien laughed. “I think he wants to put me in his book,” she said.
“See, now, that’s an honor,” said the bartender. “I’m not in your book. Am I? Why am I not in your book? I’ve been around a lot longer than she has. I have a cousin who’s done all kinds of stuff. She threw up a demon. Hey, I should get some credit. I’m the one who told her about your book.”
“It is emphatically not your place to publicize the personal interests or avocations of your customers.”
“You’re probably right,” said the bartender. “But you do carry a pretty damn big book everywhere you go. Not like it’s a secret.”
“We should continue our interview at my home, away from prying ears and eyes,” said Dr. Cherubino to O’Brien. “The rain seems to have stopped, and the walk will be pleasant in its aftermath. You can see the book resting on its special podium. I’ll take a few notes, nothing obtrusive, it will be much the same as passing the time in genial conversation. I have some excellent imported cheese of peculiar quality you might be interested in sampling for your pleasure.”
“I don’t know about wandering off. I don’t know my way around very well, not just yet.”
“But I’ll guide you, my dear. A leisurely walking tour. There are several haunted spots of some note betwixt here and there. I’d adore to gauge your elemental reaction.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’d like to walk home alone past, um…”
“Revenants?” said Dr. Cherubino.
“Sure,” said O’Brien.
“I’ll take you over there,” said the bartender, “and get you home safe, too. Where did you say you’re staying?”
“I didn’t,” said O’Brien.
“Have you ever been to my home, young man?” Dr. Cherubino asked the bartender. “I do not think you have ever been invited. In fact, I should be alarmed to discover that such was the case.”
“I know where it is. People point to it when they drive by. It’s an area of local interest.”