Page 39 of Liquid Courage
Shari pointed out a café on the corner of the street. Kat opened the door for her. Shari never thanked her for her kindness.
Wasn’t the only thing she never thanked her for over the years.
Kat couldn’t even repeat what fancy “chai” Shari ordered at the register. As for Kat? She needed straight coffee to get through this. It was also the cheapest thing on the menu, and Shari could be a cheap date for all Kat cared.
“This looks good.” Shari picked out a bistro table in the far corner of the café. They had their drinks and enough napkins to wipe up the tears Shari had given Kat the last time they had a real conversation.Remember when you told me I was disgusting? Yeah, thanks. Why am I here again?“I promise I won’t take much of your time.”
Good. Because Kat wanted to get back to remembering Vivian and how much better she was than this train wreck with awesome hair.Vivian’s hair is better. Lower maintenance. Wash and comb, goodbye.
“Jesus.” Shari wrinkled her nose once they were settled in. “You smell awful.”
“If your brother is a crab fisherman, then you know what it is.”
“It was more difficult to notice outside.”
“Bother you? I could scoot closer.”
Shari didn’t respond to that. “I wanted to ask you a question. But first, I wanted to say that I do remember you now. We dated a while back, didn’t we?”
“Dated? Honey, as far as I know, I was your damned girlfriend for about two months. We went out every weekend and sometimes on Tuesdays, because I had them off and you needed something to do when you got off work early.”
“That so?”
“You really don’t remember those details?”
“No. But after I bumped into you at the bar, I did some digging into my albums and found some old pictures of you. You don’t look that different, by the way.”
“Neither do you.” It was the truth. Both Kat and Shari could have instantly been transported to five years ago, and nobody would notice anything different.Décor in here might have been different, but we would have been the same.Except for Kat. She was a little more idealistic five years ago. “You had to look me up in youralbums,though? I knew you were from another planet, but damn. Jugulate me while you’re at it.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say any of that.” Shari tossed her curls out of her way. “Honestly, I’m only doing this because it’s dawning on me that I should before I don’t have any more time.”
“What?”
Shari gritted her teeth and finally removed her hands from her pockets. In her fist was a piece of paper with a long, complicated Latin phrase scrawled by a doctor’s rough hand. “I’ve got this. I’ve had it for years, but it wasn’t diagnosed until a couple of years ago. Don’t know how much more time I’ve got, either. Don’t believe me? Look it up. You’ll find the Wikipedia article and some links citing my name as a popular study subject. It’s why I don’t remember people and have trouble seeing similarities between pictures and real life. Only reason I remember you after seeing those photos is because your appearance hasn’t changed much. If you had grown out your hair or gained weight, I wouldn’t have a clue who the fuck you were. Names mean shit to me.”
“Whoa, whoa.” This was a bigger wake-up call than the coffee cooling on the table. “Hold the fuck on. What is this exactly?” Kat held up the piece of paper. She didn’t dare try to pronounce the word or copy it down into her phone.
“It’s a degenerative disease of the brain. It’ll slowly get worse and worse until I can’t even remember my own life.” Shari shrugged. “Doctors say it might be another ten years, but definitely before I’m fifty. Shit, huh?”
“Does this same disease make you a bitch, too? Or was that always the case.”
She shrugged again. “Guess I’m a bitch.”
“Glad you admit it, because for a moment there I thought you were blaming your eternal rudeness on some brain disease I had never heard of.”
“I’m sure it’s a character flaw of mine. I have no idea. I barely remember what I did last year, let alone five years ago.”
“How about last week? Do you remember Vivian?”
“Who?”
Kat brought up one of the safer selfies sent to her over the past few days. “Her.” She showed Shari the picture. “You were on a date with her last Wednesday, and you were so nasty that she was pretty messed up afterward.”
“Oh. Sure. I remember her. She’s cute.”
“Cute?You told her she was too skinny to be attractive, and accused her of intentionally cat fishing you with old photos. She was sick, too. Made her lose a bunch of weight, and she’s really self-conscious about it. You tapped right into her worst nightmares.”
“Sorry. I remember her picture, but I only vaguely remember the date. Forgive me, if you feel like it.”
