Winter's Sleep

She looked like a reader, the girl who came in one blizzardblown night last week. She had that look. And - as she sat down and tiredly ordered a gin and tonic she clearly didn't want or need - it was a lifestyle she was trying to get out of. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was no use so I made her drink, heavy on the tonic, and handed it to her on a paper coaster.

"Thanks."

Her voice was deliberately low, a library voice. Before each sip she swirled the drink so bubbles rose to the top.

I said, "You don't mind me sayin', but you're a bit early for the salon."

"A salon, here?" she said, and laughed. "Rich."

"Common reaction."

She looked around, her eyes behind what I could now see were modern glasses taking in the bottles and books and books and bottles. The Greek was way in the back, scribbling furiously in a notebook and giving off the smell of bad prose.

"What brings you in here tonight?" I said.

"Just getting out of the snow," she said. "Thought I'd wait it out in here. And I thought I smelled books. I see I was right. How do you do it?"

"I'm still not sure. Inside the restaurant, and through the side doors, it's seventy years ago. Through the front it's now."

She swirled, sipped. Her lids were heavy, as if darkly made-up, but she didn't seem the type to wield a heavy hand with the brush and pan. I wondered if it was the cosmetics of grief or ennui or something else.

I said, "We don't get many dames here. Or many Mexicans, 'scuse my presumption."

"No need," she said, "I'm not. Indian."

"You look Mexican."

"Common reaction."

My eyes fell on her hand around the small glass, as there was nothing else to look at, and I saw the scars. Thick and yellow on her olive skin, shaped like swords, tapering at both ends. She felt the gaze and pulled my eyes back up with her own.

"We get all types here," I said.

"I'm sure you do."

"And I'm givin' you a chance to say it was your cat," I said, "or a car accident from a few years back, or a lab accident."

She smiled. "Lab accident is good. I actually did have a lab accident right around the time I did this. It made for a good cover story. You can't date scars to within a couple of weeks."

"Why'd you do it?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Things do."

She pushed the glass back to me and laid her hands palm-up on the zinc bar. "I hate them more and more every year. Every summer. Why did I do it? No book has told me more than I've figured out myself."

"Villains have scars," I said, "from battles with heroes. But heroes are unmarked and pure."

"Maybe I'm an anti-hero," she said. "Isn't that how you know people are bad and evil and wrong? Because they have scars? Like Steerpike."

"Of course," I said. "There would be no other way to know."

She flipped her hands back over and shook her head when I tilted the gin bottle her way. "Scars are deserved, in books," she said. "Nobody gets a scar from tripping over a scythe in the driveway."

"Has to be an evil ex-wife with a straight-razor," I agreed.

"Spurned lover with a beaker of vitriol."

"Attacking the cruel knight who killed your brother in battle."

"Fighting to expel the invaders from your home country."

"Defending yourself from a dragon."

"Yes, and why not?" she said. "You need literary tension, you need a scar to have a purpose. Otherwise it just means you weren't paying attention."

"Do yours have a purpose?"

"Yes," she said softly. "They remind me to do it with pills next time. Then no one can see the marks of my shame."

"I hope there won't be a next time."

"You're just saying that to be polite," she sighed.

"No," I said. "I like to keep my customers alive."

She laughed and I saw more scars, deep in her eyes. And I saw that the scars spelled out something, saying I DON'T WANT TO LIVE, whispering in their tiny all-caps, and I knew she would never come back to the salon.