Free This Glittering World by T. Greenwood Page B

he was driving a Mustang. A bright blue one.”
    “That should narrow things down,” Ben said.
    He swept the broken shards into a dustpan and dumped them in the trash.
    “You want something to drink?” he asked.
    “Coke,” she said. “Please.”
    He scooped some ice into a pint glass and filled it with Coke from the fountain behind the bar. “Straw?”
    She shook her head. “Did you get a chance to talk to anyone else about it this weekend?”
    “I didn’t have time this weekend,” he said, feeling strangely guilty that he’d been at home with Sara. “But I will. I actually get off around ten tonight, and I can stop by a couple of places before I go home.”
    “Do you think we should talk to the cops too? If we can find this guy, maybe they can question him.”
    Ben thought about how quickly the cops had dismissed Ricky. How determined they were to wash their hands of the whole thing.
    Shadi took a drink of the Coke and then rifled through her purse. “Hey, have you got fifty cents I could borrow?”
    He dug into his front pocket and pulled out two quarters. She snatched them out of his palm and went to the jukebox in the corner.
    She studied the glowing menu of songs, flipping through until she found what she was looking for. Then she dropped the coins in, and the music started. She returned to the bar, smiling.
    “Shake your hip, babe,” sang Mick Jagger against a bluesy bass.
    “ Exile on Main Street was our daddy’s favorite album,” she said. “It’s what made Ricky want to learn guitar. He listened to that record so many times, the grooves wore out.”
    She sat back down at the bar and ran her finger down the glass, drawing a line through the condensation. She peered into the cola as though she were peering into a crystal ball. When she looked up again, she sighed. “Our daddy was a drunk. A nasty, mean drunk. And we were scared to death of him.”
    Ben nodded. “Is that why Ricky didn’t drink?”
    “Not even at weddings.”

T he spell with Sara was broken the second Ben opened his mouth.
    “I’m not going to be teaching next semester,” he said. She was sitting on the couch in her pajamas, flipping through a wedding magazine, when he got home that night.
    He probably wouldn’t have said anything at all except that he’d had a couple of drinks on his way home. Alcohol was worse than truth serum for Ben. After his shift ended, he had searched up and down the streets for a blue Mustang. He had also asked the bartenders at the Mad I and Uptown Billiards if they remembered any fights on Halloween night, if they recognized Ricky. Shadi had given him Ricky’s high school yearbook photo. In the picture he looked about fifteen years old, a wide, smiling baby face. Ben had had a beer at work, then a shot of Jameson at the Mad I and another at Uptown. No one had seen Ricky. And nobody remembered any fights on Halloween except for one between two girls who had both dressed up as slutty nuns.
    “What did you do?” Sara asked, clearly livid.
    “I chucked a kid’s cell phone against the wall, and his dad threatened to charge me with assault.” He laughed at this, waited for her to laugh too. It was ludicrous, really, if you thought about it.
    “What?” Sara asked, her eyes growing wide.
    “I’m taking a sabbatical,” he said, smirking.
    “There’s no such thing for adjuncts,” she said.
    “No shit,” he answered and plopped down on the couch next to her. He grabbed the magazine she had set down. Glossy models in slinky white dresses, zillion-dollar flower arrangements, diamonds as big as boulders. The smell of the pages was nauseating. He felt acid rising in his throat and burped quietly into his hand.
    “Are you drunk?” Sara asked.
    “No.”
    “Well, you reek.”
    “I’m not drunk. I just had a couple of drinks after work.”
    “Well, you better figure out what to do for a job come Christmas,” she said. “Two shifts at Jack’s is not going to pay the mortgage, and I’m