Who knows where this impulse came from, but Mara always expected something else to happen when a band finished playing. A bigger curtain call than would make sense for a 150-person venue, a bigger roar from the crowd, some stranger to turn to her and say wasn’t that incredible? and validate what they all just saw, acknowledge the beauty of being in the same room as three musicians who could lock in together like that, who commanded their instruments with the precision and trust of a falconer. Did anyone else in the crowd experience that?
Tonight, Amparo and Martín experienced it.
“Mara, Mara!” Amparo was waving to her from five feet away.
Mara had been staring at the stage, at the band breaking down while the next one set up. “Sorry, zoned out,” she said.
“That was incredible,” Amparo said. “I didn’t know your friends had it like that.”
“They’re really good, right?” Melissa said. Melissa and Amparo had been vibing together and the music had solidified them as new best friends for the night.
Martín was wearing a smile that Mara decided to interpret as blissed out. She clapped him on the shoulder. “How you feeling, boss?”
She had to say it three times before Martín shouted that it had been a while since he’d been in a room this loud. “But the band was really good,” he confirmed with a thumbs up.
Mara felt like her soul had been flushed out. The house lights came up and some danceable hip hop track she couldn’t place came on over the speakers and somehow she was lighter, bouncing on her Chuck Taylors. This was the kind of feeling she wished she could bottle.
Mara kept one eye on the stage as the Counselors took down pedalboards and cymbals. She listened to a story Amparo was telling about seeing Spitboy and Los Crudos at Fireside Bowl 30 years and how her boyfriend at the time took an elbow to the eyelid. Blood was pouring.
“Turned out, the guy who had thrown the elbow was a nurse,” Amparo said. “He had a first aid kit in his backpack, and stitched my man up before Ebro counted off the first song.”
“Nobody in the world nicer than punks in the pit,” Melissa said.
Strangers who understood each other on an intuitive level—without wanting to, Mara was thinking about Tommy again. Tommy with blood streaming down from his forehead, but whining and getting huffy instead of accepting help. Tommy lurking at the edge of the crowd for the rest of the show, blood drying over a sour face, counting the minutes until he could get home and stroke his chef’s knife, caress his boning knife, instead of actually connecting with a human.
What was happening to her? She had to get Tommy out of her head.
“Martín! Hey, Martín!” a voice panted, somehow cutting through room noise.
Fuck, she had to get Tommy out of Alewives.
She watched without hearing. About 10 feet away, near the sound booth, Tommy was pleading with Martín for something. Martín made his pursed lips face, his features scrunched like a dad who was realizing in real time that Mom’s not home, he can’t tell the kids to go ask her. Melissa and Amparo were in their own little world. After another minute of Tommy looking desperate, Martín reached into his pocket and pulled his key ring. Mara watched as Martín said something emphatic, then held up seven fingers. His lips dragging out the words se-ven a.m.
Tommy, too relieved to say another word to anyone, ran out of the venue.
Drum sounds. A bassist playing each open string individually. “Check, check.” On the stage, the next band was settling in: drummer, bassist, and guitarist’s face obscured by vaguely green stage lights. A man sat down at a keyboard, facing stage left. Everyone in the band had a patterned button-down shirt: one dotted, two vertical stripes, and one paisley.
Mara turned back around, but Tommy was already gone. She turned back to the stage, but missed the name the keyboardist announced. He started playing, chords held out in reverby waves. He started singing, his voice high and similarly ethereal.
An elbow at her side. Parth was back. They held hands and waited for the second band to get interesting.
What the shit did Tommy want?
The drums kicked in. The bass began an eighth note heartbeat of root notes, but kept going low to high in a way Mara couldn’t explain why she didn’t like.
Did Martín give him keys?
Background vocals came in, long oooohs while the singer repeated the same line four times. This must be the chorus. After the chorus, the guitar kicked in, chiming and reverby and delay-pedaled within an inch of its life. Finally, Mara realized it.
Coldplay ripoff band.
Mara tugged Parth’s arm. “I can’t handle these guys,” Mara said, trying to be audible but quiet. “Come outside with me?”
“I’m sorry,” he said in her ear. “Feel like I should stay and support, you know? Like, be seen supporting.”
He gestured to the stage and Mara nodded. Didn’t like it, but got it. Amparo and Melissa were eyes-closed swaying to the music. Of course they were enjoying these guys. Their music was designed to yank the heartstrings of unironic Lifetime Channel Christmas Movie Marathoners. Mara couldn’t ask her girls to deny their programming.
A hand on her arm. “Can you show me where to get a tequila around here?”
Whether it was Restaurant Manager Instinct or Terminal Dadness, Martín had sensed she was looking for an out. She motioned for him to follow her and the two of them zagged through the swaying crowd.
“You didn’t see this big ol’ bar when you came in?” Mara chided Martín. “You don’t remember how I already found you here, abuelo?”
“Oh, that’s my old eyes,” he answered with a twinkle in his voice. “Usually I’d just hear the tequila calling to me, but all this loud music, you know?”
Mara could barely wait until they sat down. “Hey, what’d Tommy want?”
“Well, I would like a Paloma, please,” Martín said to the bartender. “And Topo Chico for my friend. Oh no, Martín, you don’t have to do that. Yes I do. That’s what I want and what she wants.” When the bartender left, Martín turned to Mara with a whole face of undisguised mischief. “I’m really having a good time. Thanks for letting an old man tag along.”
“There’s no age limit to live music,” Mara said. “You’re dodging my question.”
Martín sighed. “Tommy said he forgot something in his locker. Said he couldn’t talk about it, but I could tell he was in a bad way. So I gave him the restaurant key. Told him to be back at seven tomorrow so I can open.”
The bartender brought their drinks. Martín took a big sip of sunset-colored liquid. Tipped the lime and grapefruit garnishes into the glass. Mara wasn’t thirsty, but was worried about being rude, so she took a couple quick gulps.
Mara debated telling Martín about Tommy using the forgot something in my locker excuse to stalk her into the basement earlier. Then she worried she might be getting True Crime-brained, seeing connections where there were none. Then she remembered Lilypad, Chili’s. She settled on sticking to the immediate. “You gave him the key?”
“Sure.”
“Would you give me the key at 10:30 p.m. on a random Tuesday?”
“You? Of course.”
“Well, let’s just make copies for everyone, I guess.”
“Now hang on. I said I could tell he was in a bad way, didn’t I? Listen. I’ve been in the restaurant business over 30 years. I’ve been managing Olly’s for 10 years. Sometimes, you just know when to trust someone.”
“You trust Tommy like that?”
“Hey—”
“You believe that hand-cutting story? You believe he did that with a paring knife in his apartment at 3:30 in the morning and then worked a shift without going to urgent care?”
“Mara.”
It surprised even her, how deeply she felt her suspicions now. The words became more and more true as they left her mouth. What was Tommy hiding in his work locker? Still, Martín’s tone had shifted. She didn’t feel like stopping, but sat in mouth-open silence while Martín took another deep drink.
“I don’t know what happened with his hand. But you know, I’ve had lots of cooks and dishwashers and bussers and servers working for me that I don’t want to know what they’ve been doing when they’re not on the clock. That’s the restaurant business for you, mija. I’m going to ask you something. Do you feel unsafe working with Tommy?”
It wasn’t something she’d considered, exactly. She had been thinking in vague, we-can’t-have-a-killer-on-the-loose terms, not in I’m-clocked-in-with-a-killer terms. The question felt like swallowing a bite she hadn’t chewed enough.
“I don’t know. I guess not?”
“For what it’s worth, I totally believe that Tommy,” Martín paused to consider his phrasing, “is a person with secrets. Is a person with a past. Then again, todos también.”
“Okay, but I bet my past doesn’t look like Tommy’s,” Mara said, eyebrows raised.
“Sure. I know that about you, mija. With Tommy, I don’t know. If he had a drug problem, if he’s mob connected, if he’s on the run and wanted for murder. Ha! But I think he’s ultimately harmless. Or, at least, I know he’s trying to do good at our little diner.”
Mara nodded her head for a minute. Took a thoughtful pull at her Topo Chico. Shared a smile with her trusting old boss.
“Drugs, mobbed up, or wanted for murder,” she repeated while thousand-yard staring. “Three things we can just. Gloss. Right. Over.”
Martín shook his head. “Sure, mija. Look—at some point, this conversation has to be over. I think Tommy’s weird. I also think he’s harmless, okay? Now, are we gonna be sour at the bar all night? Or do you wanna go make fun of this band with me?”
Couldn’t push farther than that. It did make Mara feel less alone to hear him say that Tommy was a weirdo. She’d have to get by on that for tonight. Go try to get the good music vibes back.
“Okay,” she said. She finished her Topo Chico too fast, the bubbles burning all the way down her esophagus. “Let’s do it. Let’s get back there before we lose Amparo and Melissa to this band’s green room.”
They started walking back to the stage area. Mara pulled the door to the venue open for Martín, who quickly disappeared in the crowd. Three strangers had been coming from the bathrooms, and Mara held the door for them, too.
She couldn’t see Martín. It made her start thinking again.
What the shit did Tommy want?
She thought she saw him earlier, at the window. Was he really at the window? Or had she summoned him, somehow?
Mara was still holding the door, staring into the stage space. She must have drifted to block the door, because now someone was saying excuse me.
Mara looked up. “Hey, you’re Ether, right?”
“Yeah, have we met?”
“You wouldn’t remember me. Mara. I was in your store a couple weeks back, you got a copy of Swamp Thing out of the back for me.”
“Oh, shit, yeah—Melissa, right?”
“Close, that’s my friend. I’m Mara.”
“Hey, nice to meet you again. Hope to see you around. I gotta go meet my friend right now, but please say hi next time you’re at the store?”
“Totally.”
It didn’t even matter that Ether had mistaken her for Melissa. Those seven seconds talking were all Mara needed. Ether, Martín, Parth, the rest of her friends. Her neighborhood, her community. She was flooded with a rush of love for all of it.
Except, there was possibly a killer loose in her neighborhood.
Mara closed the door, went outside of Alewives, and started walking toward Olly’s.