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It’s quiet, for a Saturday. There’s usually twenty or more people crowded around the bar, and more often than not, the room is so packed strangers end up sharing tables.
Tonight, though, there’s no one.
The bar is empty and surprisingly well-lit, and Sherry can see the floor for the first time. She thinks maybe Roy, the bartender, should dim the lights again so she can forget she ever saw it.
At first, Sherry’s suspicious—and the fact that Roy looks completely unperturbed doesn’t help, because he always looks like that. But aside from the floor, it looks like he put an effort into cleaning the bar, which he never does himself. And there’s no music. None.
Then she turns to Darryl, who casts his gaze around the establishment, satisfied smile on his face.
“You rented the bar out, didn’t you,” Sherry asks.
“Well, I thought some peace and quiet might be nice,” Darryl says. He crosses his arms and looks over his shoulder at Terrill, who’s busy hanging their coats.
Sherry shivers. Not that the bar’s cold—in fact, it could stand to be a few degrees cooler. No, it’s the fact that when they’re done here, they’ll have to go back out into the freezing November air. It’s nowhere near as intense as That Planet, but that doesn’t mean Sherry likes it.
“Darryl, you and I both know you rented out the bar because a) you wanted to prove you could and b) you’re afraid that one guy will follow through on his threat to kick your ass,” Sherry says.
She makes her way to the bar, weaving around the tables smooshed together at haphazard angles.
“All I did was spill my drink on him!” Darryl whines, sulks over to the jukebox (Sherry’s been meaning to ask where Roy dug up one of those dinosaurs), and begins flipping through the song choices.
“You threw it at his face because he told you White Russians sucked,” Sherry says.
“And I seem to recall you saying something along the lines of, ‘your mom sucks’,” Terrill adds, joining Darryl at the jukebox. “What a waste of—”
“Oh, look, it’s Ezra!” Darryl shouts, dashing away from the jukebox—and Terrill.
Sherry shoots Terrill a look. He grins, pushes a button on the jukebox, and goes over to greet their friend. Music starts to fill the bar—some jazz number Sherry doesn’t recognize.
Ezra nods at her over Darryl and Terrill’s heads. He looks pretty much the same as last time, hair maybe a little grayer but that’s it. Sherry nods back. She’s not great at the sappy reunion stuff, and by the deer-in-headlights look Ezra has on his face as Terrill leans in for a hug, he isn’t either.
Laughing, she turns to face the bar.
“I’ll have—”
The bathroom door to Sherry’s right bursts open and out struts Vera.
“Two shots of whiskey, and two margaritas to chase them down—one peach, one lime,” she says. Sherry stares as her old frenemy makes finger guns at Roy, who sighs and starts making their drinks.
Vera slides onto the stool to Sherry’s left—or, she tries to slide onto the stool. She ends up miscalculating and scoots right off the other side, crashing onto the floor, taking the barstool down with her.
Sherry gapes at Vera, who’s massaging her elbow, and Roy peers over the edge of the bar.
“Ow, my butt,” Vera grumbles.
Sherry opens her mouth to ask if Vera’s okay, but what comes out is a high-pitched giggle, followed by the obnoxious, snorting kind of laughter that makes her double over.
Reaching up to wipe the tears from her eyes, Sherry hops off her stool.
“Do—do you—?” Sherry chokes on her question and dissolves into another fit of laughter while Vera gives her a look that would make most people’s hearts freeze over. Catching her breath, she tries again.
“Do you need a hand?”
She reaches down, trembling slightly as she tries to compose herself.
By this time Ezra has made his way to the bar, half-concerned-half-amused look on his face.
Vera bats Sherry’s hand away and brings herself to a kneel.
“I got this you guys!” she snaps. Sherry and Ezra hold their hands up and back away.
Vera stands. Reaches down and grabs the toppled stool. Sets the stool up. And slowly climbs onto it.
Shaking his head, Roy plunks two shots of whiskey and two margaritas in front of Sherry and, noticing Terrill and Darryl approaching the bar, sets to making some White Russians.
“So? Let’s do this,” Vera says, snatching up the whiskey.
Sherry follows suit, doing her best not to smile at how red Vera’s face is or at how Vera is pretending not to notice how very, very red her face is.
Their glasses clink together and Sherry downs the shot, relishing the burn as the liquid travels to her stomach.
It’s the good shit, much better than the crap they dug up on That Planet. Everything is much better now that they’re off That Planet.
For a few moments, they sit in silence. No one is quite sure what to say, and Sherry, who used to pride herself at her conversation skills, can only think of weather-related comments. And she’s not about to gossip about the goddamned weather. So, she keeps her mouth shut. The jukebox continues to wheeze out that old jazz song.
“Is it just me, or is it, like, super weird how quiet it is in here?” Ezra asks. “I was expecting… I dunno, rowdy drunks? Overplayed radio hits? Crowded bathrooms?”
“There’s a perfectly good explanation for that,” Terrill says, taking a sip of his drink.
Darryl, who’s sitting next to Terrill, leans back and glares at his him.
“An explanation that most certainly isn’t worth his time,” he growls.
“Darryl rented out the entire bar,” Sherry says before taking a long drink of her margarita. Lime. It’s delicious, and Sherry’s almost annoyed. Vera read her well—that’s supposed to be her party trick!
Darryl opens his mouth to retort but the door to the bar opens with a BANG!
Roy drops the glass he’s cleaning and reaches for the shotgun hidden under the counter. Sherry whirls around, hand dropping to her hip. When her fingers brush the fabric of her jeans she remembers where—and when—she is. Back in the war, a loud noise usually meant an explosion, or that someone was shooting at you, and that meant grab your gun, get to cover, and shoot back.
She’s so busy reaching for a gun that’s isn’t there it takes her a few seconds to figure out the source of the noise.
It’s Mike.
Dumb grin on his face, jacket unzipped, and hat pulled way too far down on his head, Mike waves and almost knocks over the coat rack in the process.
“Hey, everyone!” he calls. “There was a spider on the door, but don’t worry, I got it!”
There’s a collective sigh of relief as everyone but Roy relaxes and goes back to their drinks.
Sherry chuckles.
“Don’t worry, Roy, Mike’s a friend,” she reassures him. Turning to Vera, she whispers, “I’m glad he didn’t actually have a gun, he probably would’ve shot the door.”
Roy narrows his eyes at Mike when he hears this. Then, with a shrug, he begins sweeping up the shattered glass. Good old No-Fucks-Given Roy.
There’s a sharp pain in Sherry’s side as Vera elbows her in the ribs.
“Ow—Hey!”
“Sorry,” Vera says in a voice that sounds a lot like she really isn’t that sorry.
Vera takes a drink and glances over at Sherry.
“How’re you liking Maine?” she asks. The way she spits out Maine makes it sound like a dirty word, and Sherry’s heart plummets.
“It’s, well, you know. It’s nice,” Sherry answers. “Nothing exciting really happens and believe me, I’m good with that.”
“But why Maine?” Vera asks shaking her head.
“What do you mean?” Sherry tries to keep her voice even.
“I don’t know! It’s just—well, it’s just—cold,” Vera says. “Anywhere in the world—heck, anywhere in the galaxy, and you chose… Maine. If you were looking for boring and quiet, there are, like, much better—and warmer—places.”
Vera’s not wrong about the cold. Winters here can be brutal. But there are colder places to be. Much colder.
As for why she picked Maine?
“I dunno,” Sherry replies with a shrug. Staring down her drink, she adds, “My parents are from here, and Terrill and Darryl got a place here, it just seemed like the place to be.”
Vera doesn’t say anything.
“What about you? Why’d you choose Hawaii?”
“Simple!” Vera says. “I got abandoned and forgotten on a literal ice cube for years by Project Freelancer! So, I decided screw—screw the cold, screw snow, I’m moving to Hawaii.”
“What about the sharks?” Sherry asks.
“Oh, psh come on, shark attacks, like, never happen,” Vera scoffs. “Though I could live without the, uh, volcanic fog-stuff.”
“Five things you couldn’t live without!” Ezra breaks in. Vera lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Oxygen,” Terrill chirps.
“Well, obviously,” Darryl says, rolling his eyes. “He means personally, as in you personally, not everyone else.”
“I, personally,” Terrill says, “could not live without oxygen.”
“Potato chips,” Mike calls from the jukebox. He’s busy flipping through songs, moving past them so fast Sherry doubts he’s actually reading the titles.
“Okay, that’s two,” Ezra says.
“Wait, so oxygen counts?”
“Internet,” Vera adds.
“That’s three!”
“Tips,” comes a voice right next to Sherry’s ear. She jumps and swivels on her stool to face the bar where Roy stands, wiping down the counter.
Sherry makes a mental note to leave him a larger tip than usual.
For a few moments, everyone’s quiet as they think about what they couldn’t live without. Sherry smiles, remembering the times they used to call a truce, gather together and share their resources—hot chocolate, alcohol, MREs, warmth. And they always ended up playing five things.
Sherry remembers the one—or three or four—times the game ended with a kiss. Sometimes Sherry would kiss Vera, or Vera would kiss Sherry. They tried to chalk it up to the booze, or the cold, or to tripping and falling… onto each other’s faces.
And she remembers when the rescue ship finally came. Vera knew some of them, and spent hours asking question after question. Sherry remembers being jealous that Vera’s attention wasn’t being spent on plotting her and Terrill and Darryl’s demise.
Then Sherry remembers the night they went their separate ways, how she wanted to punch herself in the face for not going to fucking Hawaii.
“Five,” Sherry says. “My memories. Couldn’t live without ’em.”
No one says anything for a few seconds, and then Ezra whistles.
“Whoa, dropping that deep shit on us already, huh?” he says. “I don’t know if I’m drunk enough for that.”
“But let’s think about this,” Terrill says. He sets his empty glass on the table, and he gets this look on his face that makes Sherry groan. He’s preparing for a Philosophical Discussion.
“Oh, God,” Vera mutters. She spins her stool around so she can rest her elbows on the counter and finish off her margarita.
“Let’s say you did lose your memories. How would you know you had them to begin with? Can you miss something that you’ve forgotten?” Terrill asks.
“Depends—six more shots, please!” Ezra calls over to Roy, holding up six fingers. “Do you know your memories were taken, or do you not remember that either?”
“Oohh, great point…”
Mike skips away from the jukebox to join the conversation. The song he chose begins to drift through the bar.
Yesterday,
all my troubles seemed so far away
Sherry did not pin Mike as a Beatles fan. With a shrug, she knocks back the shot Roy places in front of her. Vera does the same, and, out of nowhere, springs up from the stool and grab’s Ezra’s beer bottle.
Using the bottle as a makeshift microphone, Vera begins to belt out the chorus.
“Why she had to go! I don’t know, she wouldn’t say!”
Vera chugs the rest of Ezra’s beer then finishes the song.
And it’s.
Amazing.
When Vera comes back to sit at the bar, Sherry greets her with applause. Roy just shakes his head and hands Ezra another beer.
“I didn’t know you sang,” Sherry says as Vera plops down beside her.
“She doesn’t!” Ezra calls.
“Fuck off, Ezra!” Vera retorts. Her eyes light up and she turns to look at Sherry.
Sherry’s stomach twists for two different reasons. One: Vera is looking her right in the eyes and Sherry isn’t sure how to handle that—especially after that song. Sherry isn’t even sure if that qualifies as passive-aggressive or just flat out aggressive at this point.
Two: she knows exactly what Vera is about to say next and would honestly rather be stranded on that frozen planet for five more years.
“Your turn,” Vera says.
“Nooooo.” Sherry waves her arms in protest. “Nope.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!”
“I’m not nearly drunk enough for—”
“More shots!”
“No, I’m—”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Sherry, you’re a wonderful singer.”
“Shut up, Terrill!”
“Shots.”
“Thanks, Roy!”
“Tip your bartender.”
“You underestimate my ability to hold my liquor, sweet cheeks.”
“Shots, shots, shots shots shots—”
“Shut up, Darryl! Don’t encourage—”
“One, two, three, go!”
**
Sherry decides Vera’s idea might be the best idea in the history of ideas. And Terrill is right, Sherry’s a great singer. Her stuffed animals would agree.
Using Ezra, Terrill, Darryl, and Mike’s table as a stage, Sherry grabs a nearby bottle (“Goddammit not again!”) and points at Vera, who presses play on the jukebox.
Ma ma ma maaaa
Darryl and Ezra let out a cheer as Lady Gaga starts blasting through the bar’s speakers.
Sherry isn’t sure what all the words are, so she just fakes it—while staying in perfect pitch—until she reaches—
“Pa-Pa-Pa-Poker face pa-pa-poker faaace!”
Mike has started dancing. Or maybe he’s trying to squash a spider.
Sherry makes eye-contact with Roy, who looks dead inside. She gives him a wink, but he doesn’t even blink.
As the song reaches it’s close Vera leaps up onto the table and starts dancing alongside Sherry, who is very. Very. Aware. Just how close she is. Like. Shoulder-touching, arm-bumping, hands-brushing close.
And suddenly the song is over and Vera’s clambering down from the table. She holds out her hand, and Sherry, wobbling on the shitty, unbalanced table, takes it. So she doesn’t fall. Obviously.
“My turn!” Darryl declares.
Sherry and Vera collapse into a couple nearby chairs, and it isn’t until Roy tells them it’s fifteen minutes to close that Sherry realizes she’s still holding Vera’s hand.
**
Frozen air smacks them in the face, taking their breath away for a few seconds as they walk out of the bar and into the night.
Vera’s right. Maine. Maybe not the best choice.
“My place is a few blocks away, if you all want to head over there,” Sherry suggests.
No one says anything, but no one protests either, so Sherry shrugs and takes off down the sidewalk to her place.
Snow drifts down from the sky, light and lazy in the breeze. Sherry loves how the light from the streetlamp catches on the snowflakes, making them sparkle. She loves how every breath makes its own little cloud, how the snow crunches beneath her shoes, how the growing anticipation of reaching the warmth of her apartment makes appreciate home that much more.
Okay, maybe she doesn’t hate Maine.
But… she wouldn’t hate Hawaii either.
Sherry is momentarily blinded by something cold and white smacking her in the face. She sputters and wipes the snow from her eyes as Vera snickers a few feet away.
“So that’s how it is?”
Reaching down and grabbing a fistful of snow—it’s not quite warm enough to form into a ball—Sherry springs up and flings it at Vera, who dances away.
Mike realizes what’s going on first and charges right into Terrill, knocking him off his feet and into the snow.
“Heyyyy! I’m not wearing snowpants!” Terrill protests.
Ezra and Darryl watch the events before them unfold. Ezra glances at Darryl, who glances back at him. They shrug, and Darryl kicks up a cloud of snow into Ezra’s face.
“Eat ice, ass hole!” Ezra shouts, tackling Darryl in the legs. They both go down in a tangle of limbs as Terrill struggles to get away from Mike, who’s somehow gotten a hold of Terrill’s boot.
Sherry narrows her eyes, grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, and glares at Vera.
“You never could catch me,” Vera taunts.
“I totally let you win,” Sherry says. “You were too easy to catch, and I had to have something fun to do on that frozen wasteland.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then,” Vera says. “Prove it. If you can get me before I reach your apartment, I’ll move to Maine.”
Sherry is 99% sure her heart has stopped working.
“Deal,” she says.
“One more thing!” Vera holds up her hand. “If I get there first, you have to move to Hawaii.”
“It is so on!” Sherry says. She crouches down, heart racing.
“Oh, uh, wait!” Vera takes a step back. “What’s your address?”
Duh.
“782 North Lake Avenue, it’s straight that way,” Sherry says.
“Okay, thanks!” And with that, Vera sprints away. Looking over her shoulder she shouts, “Catch me if you can!”
Sherry takes off after her.
Later, she’ll blame it on the ice, on her shoes not being good for running in snow, for the cold air burning in her lungs. It’s winter, after all, and they don’t have power armor anymore.
Vera makes it to the apartment a solid thirty seconds before her.
And after Vera’s makes fun of her for an hour, after Darryl and Ezra come staggering home, followed by Mike, who’s carrying Terrill, after they all collapse into bed, Sherry tiptoes to her dresser and pulls out an envelope.
From the envelope, she pulls out the plane ticket she bought weeks ago, and smiles.
“Totally let you win,” she whispers.