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“Aren’t you tired of making the same mistakes over and over again?”
“What mistakes? I’m just trying to make a better life for myself. I know it hasn’t always worked out in the past, but that can change now. Donny is the one, I can feel it. I know that I might have been a little too enthusiastic sometimes, but if you just took the chance to know him you’d see that we get on really well. Come on, let’s sit down.” She grabbed my hand and tried to get me to go with her to meet Donny, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t about to be budged.
“Mel, I’m being serious. Don’t you want more from life? You have to realize by now that you’re not going to be able to find happiness this way. The men you meet here aren’t looking for the same thing you are. They just want to use you, to have fun with you, and then they discard you. I know you want a better life, but how is this the way to go about it? Why don’t you try meeting a guy who actually has your best interests at heart? Why don’t you find a guy who actually cares about you?”
Mel laughed at me. “No man is ever going to truly care about girls like us Millie. We have to offer them something they can’t get from anyone else and show them that we’re special. There’s not a man out there who wants to date me.”
“What about Harper?” I suggested. Mel looked at me blankly and then laughed again, a laugh that sounded more like a bark.
“Harper is a teddy bear. He wouldn’t know how to handle me.”
“He cares for you Mel, deeply, and you’re blind if you don’t see that. Why don’t you just give him a chance? You know that he’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“No, but he’s too nice. I can’t live with someone like that. Harper is too good for me Millie. I need someone with an edge, something that can get me excited.”
I looked at her with disbelief, astonished that she actually thought this was the only way for her to live. “Look, even if you don’t want to get with Harper at least come away with me. We can find somewhere new, make a new start. We can go into business together or something. We can actually make something of ourselves and get away from this bar. We don’t have to be stuck here. This doesn’t have to be our destiny.”
“It might not be yours Millie, but I think I’ve found my destiny here. If you want to leave that’s fine, but don’t try and put your own issues on me. I’m living my life the way I want, and I have a good feeling that Donny is going to keep me safe. If you want to try and get in the way of that then I’ve got a feeling that you’re just jealous.”
She spun on her heels and strode away, her hair splaying out behind her, looking as though the wind had caught it. I was stunned that she had walked away from me like that. How could she not see sense? Couldn’t she see that I only wanted to help her? The worst part of it was that I knew she hadn’t been super worried about me. She had never intended to tell anyone of my plight, probably because she had gotten high and drunk and didn’t want to cause any more trouble. And all after I had risked my life for her, risked everything to come and save her. Anger flared within me and I marched over to the table where she was making eyes at Donny. He seemed more content now that he had her on his lap again, but as soon as he saw me he scowled, probably afraid that I was a friend coming to prevent him from taking her home.
I leaned in and spoke in a harsh whisper. “Are you really going to ignore me after all I did for you? I came out there and you just left me to rot.”
“I was only there because they wanted you in the first place. You think you have it so bad Millie, but at least people want you around. I think you should go and leave me alone. If you’re not going to join in like you used to do then there’s no place for you here.”
I thought about dragging her away by force, but I wasn’t that type of person, and I didn’t want to get in a fight with Donny. It saddened me that Mel was making the same type of mistake as before, and that she was probably going to end up back here after Donny was done with her, but at least I didn’t have anything to do with it this time. At least I didn’t have the respon
sibility of looking after her. She wasn’t my child. From the way she looked at me I wasn’t even sure she was my friend any longer.
I turned away and nodded solemnly, knowing that it was likely the last time I would ever see her. I thought for a long time that the two of us could be like sisters, but I saw now that I had fooled myself. Mel had been just as selfish as I claimed to be. She hadn’t even gone back to Harper even though she knew how much she meant to him. She probably never would, and she was only hurting herself. She wasn’t going to be able to have a good life, and I imagined she would be tied to the Rainbow Bar until it was too late. I hated the thought of becoming an old woman around here, and I knew there was nothing I could do for Mel.
I sighed as I moved away from her and passed my gaze around the bar to see if there was anyone else I recognized. I noticed that the regulars all had glassy stares, numbing themselves with alcohol, and it struck me that all of them were trying to escape something, but none of them were trying to escape the Rainbow Bar. Had they all become so senseless that the bar had become the best thing in their lives, or was the Rainbow Bar just that insidious that it became the most important thing to us? I had been away for just a few days but already I could see it differently. It no longer had the same shine to it, and I wasn’t looking forward to sticking around.
I kept thinking that there had to be a better way.
Then, my eyes fell on Damian. He was sitting at the bar doing a trick with a coin, a trick he had tried on me once. I had seen straight through it and from that moment I had always caught his attention. For so long now he had been trying to get me to go out with him and I had always resisted. At first, I wasn’t sure why, but as I thought about it more I realized that it must have been because I was afraid that something with Damian could actually become real. It was probably the same reason why Mel wasn’t willing to go and talk with Harper. Everyone was afraid of something, and for some of us that something was being involved in something that mattered.
Nerves swam in my stomach. It was a rare occasion that I didn’t know what to say, but this could be the path away from the Rainbow Bar, the path of the new direction of my life. I walked up to him and he turned to me, smiling widely. He didn’t seem surprised to see me, as though he hadn’t even noticed my absence.
“Damian,” I said, and decided that I wouldn’t waste any time, “I’ve been thinking about your offer and I think it would be nice to go out for dinner and perhaps a little dance, although I hope you had some other place in mind rather than here because I don’t want to spend any more time here. This place is toxic.”
Damian glanced at the woman beside him, who seemed to take offence at what I had said. I hadn’t really paid much attention to her because usually relationships formed in the Rainbow Bar were transient, but I suddenly realized that something was happening between the two of them. She was pretty, with a heart-shaped face and a dainty nose. She had a good figure and looked just like Damian’s type, which is to say that she looked a little like me.
“That’s very sweet of you to say, but over the last few days I’ve actually been getting to know Ilsa here, she’s just arrived in America from Sweden. It sounds like a fascinating place and we’ve been doing a lot of cultural exchanges over the past few days. She’s taught me a lot, and I hope that I’ve taught her a thing or two as well,” a playful gleam twinkled in his eyes. She grinned and held out her hand. They linked fingers and I saw that he had wasted no time in moving on in my absence.
“I see. I don’t suppose you noticed that I wasn’t around the past few days?” I asked.
“Yes, well, I assumed that you were otherwise occupied. It’s not rare for anyone to disappear from here, and we should never wait for what might be. We can only take the opportunities that are presented to us, and hope that we have the wisdom to make the best of them.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I had no right to be angry of course. It wasn’t as thought we had promised ourselves to each other and he certainly wasn’t beholden to me, but it was disappointing to know that I had come here with an agenda, but that I had been too late. Ilsa had Damian now, and I would never know what it would be like to be with him. I would have to search elsewhere for my chance to escape, but as I looked around the Rainbow Bar I was filled with despondency. I realized that my disappearance hadn’t mattered to anyone and even the people I knew were barely affected. I was left with a hollow feeling in my gut, as though I was unimportant, and I slunk outside, back into the darkness, not wanting to spend another minute in there.
For so long I had considered the Rainbow Bar to be my refuge. I had believed that I was an integral part of it, that it was my home and I was safe there, but I realized now that nobody there truly cared about me. I had simply been deluding myself that I had belonged. It had gotten along fine without me, and I doubted that if I hadn’t come back anyone would have missed me. I was just a ghost, once again, a person that didn’t matter to anyone. Even in Harper’s place I wouldn’t be missed. There would be other people like me, drifters coming in to stay there for a while before they moved on to pastures new, and as much as I admired Harper for what he was doing it wasn’t the kind of place where anyone could live for the rest of their lives. It was supposed to be a place where people could get back on their feet and use as an address when they went for jobs. I had been using it for too long as a home, a long term solution to a short term problem.
It was time for me to make a drastic change, to tear away the past and find something new. I thought about a new place, a new city, a new name. For too long I had been letting the past define me. Perhaps it was time to create a new past, to find a new identity, become a new woman who hadn’t been scarred from birth by unfit parents. I was all ready to find somewhere new, when I stepped outside and I saw Jackson standing there.
17
I swallowed the tension as I stared at him. He was standing at the edge of the parking lot, gazing at me. My eyes darted to the bikes, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to get on one and outrun him. There weren’t many people around me to protect me either, not that I felt in danger from him; I was more disappointed that I had been found so easily.
