Pack of Lies

"Watch your hand, there!" The barkeep flipped a heavy brass catch. I pulled my hand into the booth, sliding toward the window and further down in the seat. The outside is quaint and people stop to stare. I know I did for months before the familiar features suddenly looked relaxed instead of worn. Most of them out there will just keep walking by, stopping to look in the windows, cupping their hands around their eyes and bending over the slight gap between pavement and foundation.

A set of stairs thumped behind me. The booth above and behind me was occupied when I arrived from work. I've only been here a few times since the first and I'd never met the woman in that booth. All of the booths have regulars, according to the barkeep. The first day, I sat on one of the few open tables and drank to myself. I thought I'd been looking for company, but he could tell that I wanted to space to unwind from work. In my office, we all participate in polite games with one foot in and one foot out the door. I didn't need to meet more facades afterward, I just needed to meet a couple of glasses of warmth, preferably something sweeter and stronger than beer.

When I'd been shown to this booth, it was something else. I was curious about the other inhabitants and, I spread several pages in a fan to my left to have an excuse to glance at her while the barkeep helped her down. She was delicately old, velum skin, spun sugar hair, and a sheen to her clothes like fine porcelain. Her back was to me, but her hand gripped the barkeep's. I shuffled the papers while staring at her back. I was only recently welcomed to the bar, no?

A thunk and giggle drew my eyes to the window and group of girls peering into the bar. When they saw me they slapped each others' hands from the glass and huddled together, gasping and laughing. Something tickled my memory, some crazy story I'd heard when I moved here about looking in the window to see your future husband standing in the field in the middle of the structure. I looked toward the grass in the center of the bar. The lady above me had already made her way to the door.

I shifted back toward the inner corner of the booth, but the girls were still standing together outside and I was caught in a curious conflict of identity. Bar or Street? Grass or Cement? Humans or dreams?

"Good place to write. I think the gentleman afore you used to draw. Good light, either way. Higher up," he jerked his head toward the upper booth, "the eaves sometimes cut the light." He climbed up the stairs, leaning against them to polish the booth and stepped higher to reach the table. "Sad to see the last of the Pack getting on like."

"Last of the Pack?" I may be a writer, but the distractions are my favorite part.

"Pack of Lies. Whole group of sisters who came back years ago. Flighty bunch, even after the years started to wear them away." He came back down. "I never knew them all that well. My older brother, he's the one who told me who they were. 'Pack of Lies, sisters with a taste for nectar and gossip.' I don't know. Tea's more her style, but I've seen drink Ambrosia against the chill."

I couldn't write this afternoon, had to get out of the close air. Despite the Persian woodcuts around the open area in the middle, the air felt like it was dripping like varnish over my thoughts. I nodded thanks and shuffled the papers into one hand. They bent as I bounced the heavy door from wrist to elbow, shoving my work satchel out into the afternoon breeze.