The Ferryman Institute (36 page)

It was with that in mind that Alice steadied herself for what she was about to say. “Hey . . . so I just want you to know that I
appreciate everything you've done for me. I do. I also want you to know that I swear on my mother's grave what happened in there was an accident. I . . .” She hesitated, searching for the best way to describe it. “I seriously considered trying to, you know, make up for my previous failure. But I promise you I decided not to, and silly as it sounds, it's important to me that you understand that.”

Charlie studied her for a few moments before closing the magazine and placing his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair as he did. “I know,” he replied. “I believed you the first time. Frankly speaking, you could have done it on purpose—” Alice sat up sharply, but Charlie stopped her before she could interject. “I'm not saying you did; I'm just saying that, either way, it wouldn't have mattered to me. What's important was that you asked for help, mainly because you don't strike me as the type of person who does that often, or at least hasn't recently. Whichever.”

She winced at that remark. “There might be some truth to that.”

He gave her a flippant smirk back. “Some?”

“Don't get fresh with me, homeboy,” Alice said. Her eyes drooped unexpectedly and she stifled a yawn. A wave of exhaustion hit her brain, which in turn floated a vague notion that blood loss had something to do with it. Her body felt heavy and turgid, and before Alice recognized she was doing it, she'd already rolled over into the corner where the bed met the wall. “Wow, I just got— Excuse me. I just got really tired.”

“That's good,” Charlie replied. “Your body needs the rest. Don't worry, I'll take the first watch, just in case any of our neighbors get frisky again.”

She laughed at that, pure and true. Moreover, she felt strangely content lying there. “As long as you tell me a bedtime story first.”

Alice heard the sound of Charlie's magazine hitting the floor. “Huh. Well . . . I think I can accommodate that request. At the very least, it's definitely one you've never heard before. It's part of the legend of the Ferryman Council, and it deals with the seven hundred trials of Virgil.”

“Virgil?” Alice's interest piqued momentarily before her body continued its shutdown. “As in the guy from Dante's
Inferno
?”

“That's the one. Anyway, this story always puts me to sleep, so hopefully it'll work the same for you.” Charlie cleared his throat. “Okay . . . so there's this guy named Charon, who's kind of a jerk, and he's just fought Death to a truce to become the first Ferryman, right? He does his job for years and years, until one day—”

Alice interrupted him. She'd been joking about the whole story-time thing, but now that Charlie had gotten rolling, she had to admit, she was liking it. There was just one thing missing. “You can sit over here, you know.”

She couldn't see him, what with her eyes closed, but the pause before his response was telling enough. “What?”

“I said you can sit over here. On the edge of the bed. It'll be easier to tell the story.” Her consciousness was fading, so much so that she would never know if she actually said that or if it was a half-remembered dream.

“Oh. Sure.” A few seconds passed, then the bed slowly sank behind her. “That work?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. He said something else, but she never knew what it was. She fell into a fitless sleep, devoid of dreams or nightmares. It was the first time Alice had slept peacefully in nearly a year and a half.

A
lice tried not to think it too loudly inside her head—she didn't even consider saying it out loud lest she jinx it—but maybe, just maybe, her luck was starting to change.

The Tick Tock Diner wasn't the classiest eatery to ever grace New York's five boroughs, but it served edible food and that was the only criteria Alice cared about at the moment. Nachos, mozzarella sticks, an order of Disco Fries on the way. Yes, things were totally looking up.

“So, credit where it's due,” Charlie said as he took a few measured drinks from his freshly poured coffee. “You solved Cartwright's riddle. Kudos.”

That was being slightly generous, not that it would stop Alice from gloating about it. Alice had awoken only an hour earlier from her unscheduled nap to find that she had somehow managed to sleep for eighteen hours. While it wasn't entirely unprecedented (she'd once stayed awake for thirty-six hours straight during college exams her junior year, then subsequently crashed for a similar time frame when she made it home), eighteen hours was certainly at the opposite end of the spectrum as far as her sleep schedule
was concerned these days. She had a sneaking suspicion the frequent spikes of adrenaline from the previous night plus the fair amount of missing red blood cells had played a large part. Alice was more than slightly embarrassed by it, but if it bothered Charlie, he didn't show it.

They'd left Cartwright's apartment around midnight, Charlie carrying his bloody jacket before realizing he should probably ditch it somewhere, the somewhere being a random trashcan on Sixth Avenue. As they made the short walk to Thirty-Fourth and Eighth, they stopped off at a Duane Reade pharmacy to pick up actual bandages and some Neosporin. With their supply run complete, they swung over to the Macy's at Herald Square—the one of Thanksgiving Day Parade fame—which had a convenient public restroom outside. They opted to play it safe; Alice entered first, waited a minute, then unlocked the door for Charlie to follow after. Though Alice was terrified someone might see them sharing the restroom and assume the worst, she still considered the prospect of getting gangrene slightly worse (but only just). Inside, Charlie dutifully cleaned and replaced her makeshift dressings before they were on their way again. When they arrived at their destined intersection, Alice was quick to point out the diner, not because she thought it had anything to do with Cartwright's vague instructions, but because her stomach was openly mutinying in the name of sustenance. It was only after Charlie had followed her point that he realized with a laugh that she had stumbled upon their secret rendezvous point.

Despite her unbelievable hunger begging to be sated, Alice was initially leery of sitting down to eat. A couple of near vehicular homicides made staying in one place seem like a bad idea to her, and she got the impression Charlie felt the same. However, with Cartwright's meeting time imminent, Charlie decided they
could do far worse than blending in by ordering some food in the back of the restaurant.

“Ank ew,” Alice replied. God, those nachos were good. She wiped a dab of cheese off the corner of her mouth with one finger, then proceeded to lick it clean. The show earned a laugh from Charlie. “What?” she whined defensively. “I'm hungry! You can't make fun of me, I just figured out your crazy friend's little brainteaser. When we're home free, it'll be because of me.” Alice shoved another nacho in her face in lieu of an exclamation point.

“Yes, I can see that,” he said with a laugh, “and duly noted. Cheers.” Charlie briefly offered his mug in a toast before drinking again from his coffee, the cup only momentarily hiding his smirk.

Alice scowled at him, but since it was tough to do that and eat at the same time, her hard look disappeared shortly after another chip found its way to her mouth. You could only be mad at someone for so long when nachos were involved.

“So what exactly are Disco Fries?” Charlie asked.

Ah, the third piece of food she'd ordered. A personal favorite, actually. “Fries. Cheese. Gravy. Amazingness on a plate.” She shoved a manageable-sized chip in her mouth and continued. “I used to get them all the time with my ex back in the day. He used to live out by Route 3 in New Jersey when he was in college. There's another Tick Tock Diner out there. On lazy weekend nights, when there weren't parties to go to, we would hit up Blockbuster for a movie, then stop at the Tick Tock on the way home for an order of Disco Fries that we'd split. It was a miracle I didn't outgrow my entire wardrobe that year, now that I think about it. Anyway, some nights, we'd stay at the diner so late just talking that we'd get back to his dorm and fall asleep before we even started the movie. We were regular party animals, let me tell you.”

She was surprised at how easily the memory came back, even
if it was in hazy bits and pieces. It was a bittersweet thing, as was the smile on her face that accompanied it.

Charlie set his cup down and looked away before he spoke. “It sounds like it was fun,” he said casually. Too casually, Alice thought, but maybe that was just her imagination.

Alice set down the chip she was going to eat and wiped her fingers. An errant strand of hair had fallen in front of her face, which she dutifully brushed behind her ear. “It was,” she said. “It was a lot of fun. He was . . .” She stopped herself there by sheer force of will. It was a topic she willfully avoided, mainly because, whenever she mentioned anything related to her ex, small or large, it brought back emotions she didn't much care for dealing with. “He was fun,” she said, just to finish her thought.

Charlie took a slurp of coffee, then followed it with, “You miss him.”

So much for avoiding the topic.
“Was that a question or a statement?” she asked.

“You tell me.”

It was a strange feeling to want to confide in someone she'd only just met. In some ways, maybe that's what made it easier—there were no preconceived notions on how she needed to act around that person. It was more than that, though, and she knew it.

She caught a glimpse of the white gauze wrapped around her left wrist. Much more than that.

Somewhere along the way, Alice had begun to entertain the idea that Charlie Dawson actually
was
trying to save her. It seemed completely and utterly beyond belief when he'd first appeared in her room the other night, but now it was starting to seem less crazy.
Actions speak louder than words
, if pithy statements were to be believed, and Alice very much believed that. In fact, Alice realized she wanted someone to trust, who really knew how
dark her life had become and didn't judge her for it. Someone whom she didn't need to be strong in front of, who had their own imperfections and faults. Someone she could finally talk to on her own terms, who'd let her be herself.

Alice tapped the edge of the plate with her fingernail, staring intently at the rim. “I hate how he left me—
that
he left me—but I've never met anyone like him, before or since. I've spent the past year and a half alternating between missing him terribly and wishing he'd get hit by a bus. I'm not fond of either of those feelings, but those aren't things you can just change. I mean, I also don't want to be depressed about my life and look how far that's gotten me. You can't rationalize emotions, you know? So yes, I miss him, and I get the feeling I always will.”

The waitress chose that moment to reappear with the Disco Fries. “Anything else I can get you two?” she asked as she set the order down next to the nachos and mozzarella sticks. They both declined politely, and she was gone again. Alice wondered briefly if the waitress had noticed her bandages, but she suspected working the late shift at a twenty-four-hour diner in Midtown meant she'd seen far worse. It only dawned on Alice after the waitress left that she'd never ordered Disco Fries without Marc. All of a sudden, she was staring at a plate of gooey, oozing, bitter memories.

“Some people say,” Charlie said, picking up their previous string of conversation, “that you never ‘get over' someone you truly loved—you just learn to live without them in your life.”

Alice absentmindedly slid the plate of fries away from her. “There are also people who say the earth is only six thousand years old and that cavemen battled dinosaurs. What's your point?”

He thought for a moment. “I'm not sure I have one. I just don't want you to think there isn't hope. I've spent too much time in my already too-long life wishing that diving face-first into a
canyon would have the same effect on me as it would on you. And then this whole thing happened, and suddenly, I'm kind of glad it didn't.”

A harsh laugh jumped out of Alice's mouth without her even realizing it. “No offense, but what could you possibly have to look forward to now?”

Charlie reached across the table and grabbed a fry off the plate. He was slow in bringing it to his mouth, which led to about three or four large drops of gravy plopping onto the tabletop, but he eventually got it there. With one big bite, he scarfed it down. After several chews, he appeared, by Alice's estimation, at least mildly impressed. “I'm fine with starting at sharing a plate of Disco Fries with you.” And there, on cue, was that stupid grin of his.

At first, Alice didn't know what to say, let alone do. There was nothing to figure out, though—the laughter came a moment later, loudly and naturally. “I swear, you have the corniest lines I've ever heard in my entire life. Straight out of the dork handbook, honestly.” But, if she were being honest, Alice liked that about him. She took her own fry, and though there was a tang of bitterness as Alice brought it to her lips, once it was past, it almost seemed like she was trying it for the first time.