That third year in Low Ferry, Lucas's first, Carmen and Ron had apparently gone a little stir-crazy and distracted themselves by decorating. The rafters were hung with all kinds of bizarre streamers and banners, and the windows were covered in glass-paint proclaiming, in messy unprofessional hand, a Happy New Year to all. The extra unused tables and chairs had been stacked in a careful pyramid in one corner before being strung with about a million tree-lights, and there was so much food.
Clearly they hadn't been the only ones who were bored in the deep winter, either. There were roasted chickens, kettles of stew and soup, eight or nine kinds of meat pie, casseroles, one glorious soufflé, breads galore, bean dips and cheese and home-baked crackers, potatoes in every imaginable way, cakes and cookies, ice cream, some unidentifiable fried things...
"Brings a sort of tear to your eye, doesn't it?" Charles asked, as I stood contemplating the food in awe. "Watch the onion casserole, that'll really do it."
"It's not just me, is it? There wasn't this much last year?" I asked.
"Oh, yes there was, you've just forgotten. Come through to the back; that's where the real party is, and a nip will do you good."
Charles and I collected two heaping plates of food and carried them outside, where a dozen other hand-picked guests were drinking in the little loading yard behind the cafe. They swooped down on our plates and took whatever looked good, then pressed a stoneware mug into my hands with the promise of alcohol as soon as they could locate a bottle.
It's a very clear memory, that one: the scavenged chairs and benches in the snow, the uneven light, a crowd of men and women sitting around and talking with their breath freezing in the air as they sipped from their mugs. It was quieter than inside and, while cold, it was a good place to have a drink, smoke a cigarette, and gossip. Someone finally dumped the last of a bottle of whiskey into my mug.
"Last glass! Married by this time next year!" Charles announced. "Come on, Christopher, we all know it's well past time."
"He has his eye on that Friendly woman," someone said.
"Nothing of the kind," I answered cheerfully, knowing that anger would only make them certain of it. "She won't settle and I won't roam. She's much better off finding some – ugh, this is awful," I interrupted myself, having tasted the whiskey in my mug.
"Yes. It was very cheap," agreed Charles gravely. The others laughed. A shadow moved behind someone's shoulder, and Lucas leaned forward into the little circle of light, his face oddly sharp-edged against the dark.
"We've been playing a game with it," he said, smiling at me.
"Hello, Lucas!" I said, pleased to see him. "What game?"
"Favorites!" Paula crowed.
"How do you play that?" I asked.
"What's your favorite thing, Christopher?" Lucas said, by way of an answer. His face was a little flushed from the alcohol; he seemed more relaxed than usual, even if he was hiding behind most of the crowd.
"Reading," I answered him. One of the men nearby snorted with laughter.
"After books," Lucas pressed.
"I don't know. What kind of a game is this?" I asked.
"He hasn't had enough to drink," Charles said, tipping my mug up so that I was forced to either drink or spill the alcohol on my boots.
"I like trains," I said, when I had swallowed and the heat in my stomach subsided a little.
"Trains?" came the demand from all sides.
"Why shouldn't I like trains? You disqualified reading as an answer. In fact, I like reading on trains," I said. "Especially subway trains."
"Never been on a subway," Jacob said thoughtfully, as he opened a new bottle of alcohol. "Noisy, aren't they?"
"Not once you're on them," I objected. They all looked skeptical. "You asked, and I told you."
"Why?" Lucas inquired.
"Why what, why trains?" I asked. Jacob leaned forward and refilled my mug.
"Yes," Lucas said.
"What's wrong with trains? You always know where you're going, and if you go to the wrong place you get off and walk across the platform and you can get on a new train to take you back the way you came. In the city, trains are a straight line between two points. They have maps, and all you have to know is the map. Do you know," I said, sipping from my mug and warming to my captive audience, "Do you know that my entire knowledge of the city is based on El stations? The whole city is just...circles, to me, going outward from train stations. In my head. I know the whole city that way."
"To trains," Charles said, raising his mug.
"Trains and certainty," Lucas agreed.
"I'm starving," I added, and ducked inside again to fill another plate, having gotten almost nothing from the first one. Then I got distracted, of course – it was nice to stop and speak with people, nice to be able to eat and drink and roam a little. When the whole town assembled, things fitted together differently. You could see how people had changed – who'd gotten bald, who'd lost weight, who was seeing each other and who wasn't anymore. Everyone said hello. People talked and sang, danced and ate.
I thought of Lucas, joking about the horrible secrets of small towns, but all I saw were ordinary people, in their everyday clothes, working to get by and dancing in the meantime. Maybe it hadn't been our best year, and maybe some people weren't there who had been the year before, but we did the best we could to look after each other and there'd be time to worry about everything else soon enough. On New Year's Eve, everyone ate well and everyone had big dreams.
At about a quarter to midnight it was getting a little stuffy in the cafe, and I thought some fresh air might do me good before the count-down to the new year. The loading yard was emptying as people came inside, and I passed Lucas as I pushed through to the back. He grinned and handed me the half-full mug he'd been holding.
There certainly didn't seem to be anyone outside when I walked out, leaving the door open a crack behind me. I stood in the darkness and took a sip from the mug, inhaling, enjoying the momentary silence. I almost closed my eyes, but at the last second I caught movement – a shadow near the wall, behind a scrubby little tree covered in snow. I looked closer as my eyes adjusted, and that was when I solved the mystery of the Great Bank Love Triangle. Two-thirds of it, anyway.