Femme Fatale and other stories

her fingers yet, not stand back, prodding with a stick. Except for snapping turtles. On those she used a stick.
    “But all that, well,
caring
. It’s exhausting, being all about another person. That’s why I’m not married, although I tried it. A flight attendant—those expectations I can meet. A drink, a blanket, a meal when I work first class. Maybe a little bit of attention when some guy gets on all pumped about himself, needs to find a way to brag while pretending he’s not. It’s funny, it’s never the really famous or successful people who hold forth about themselves. I haven’t had that many celebrities on my flights—I fly mainly Baltimore to Detroit, sometimes Minneapolis and sometimes I’m on a route that continues to Seattle—but I’ve had some famous people on board and they really do NOT want to be hassled. They want to be recognized, sure, but that’s enough. No, it’s usually some salesman who’s just made, I don’t know, whatever milestone his industry uses, some big sale or award, who needs to impress upon me just how very, very successful he is.”
    Sean doesn’t recall McKey talking this much. Maybe that is another change, part of the transformation from Mickey to McKey. One of the nicest things about Mickey was that she used words for concrete, tangible purposes.
Let’s go here. Let’s do this.
She had been like a boy that way. A boy with a bangin’ body.
    “We didn’t have sex,” she says, turning back from the mirror, fiddling with her scarf.
    There’s the girl he remembers. Direct and blunt.
    “You were wasted. I had to drape your arm over my shoulder to get you here. You didn’t even drink that much, not that I noticed, but you were fucked-up. And suddenly, really fast. If Tim had seen the way you were headed, I don’t think he would have left when he did.”
    Sean feels as if he remembers the evening, which isn’t quite the same as remembering it. There was barbecue, quite decent, and he was drinking beer. He switched to Jameson at some point, but he didn’t pound shots or anything. He didn’t drink that much, but he probably hadn’t been eating regularly. Funerals were like weddings that way. Family members barely got a bite down, they were so busy consoling the people whose ostensible job was to console them.
    Of course, the guest of honor at a funeral never eats at all.
    McKey sits on the water bed, which shivers beneath them, exacting a toll on his aching head.
    “I wanted to,” she says. “But you’re married. Happily, Gwen told me.
Warned
me. Maybe that’s true, but I think she wants you for herself.”
    “I am,” he says, his voice weak, croaky. “Happily married. I’ve never—”
    “Of course you haven’t. You’re the good one. You’ll always be the good one, Sean.”
    If he is so good, then why is he thinking about what it would be like to take that uniform off McKey?
    “It’s my fault, how drunk you got,” she says matter-of-factly, patting his cheek. “I wasn’t thinking of you, only myself, what I needed to tell you. Of course it was upsetting. I kept talking and talking, and you kept drinking because I wasn’t letting you get a word in edgewise.”
    He has no idea what she is referring to. His blankness must be transparent because she then says: “You don’t remember? Maybe it’s for the best. We’ll talk about it later. Or maybe not. I’m sure it was hard. And it violated everything AA is about. Still, I thought you should know, and we ended up alone together in a bar.”
    “In a bar.” But she just mentioned AA. Something’s not hanging together.
    “They know me there,” she says. “I drink club soda with a splash of tonic and lime. It looks like a gin and tonic and it keeps people from being so damn
pained
around me. There are different ways to be sober, you know. Some of us learn to navigate the other world, the one where people drink. Go-Go was the opposite. When he went into a bar, all he saw, all he thought about, was drinking. There was no other reality for him. He shouldn’t have tested himself that way. I wasn’t there, but I can figure out what happened, Sean. I
know
.” No trace of the arch Baltimore accent this time. “I don’t care what anyone says. Go-Go didn’t kill himself. He got drunk. He crashed. End of story. No matter what the toxicology report says. It would take very little alcohol to fuck him up.”
    She glances at the clock on the wall. It is charming, yet generic, the kind of thing