Dead in Time

Chapter Seven

“Bad ice cube,” Charlie said, like it was the funniest thing he’d heard all evening.

From one of the couches, Joss, wrapped around a bottle of Remy Martin and some chick with red-gold hair down to her backside, pointed vaguely behind him. Cris grunted, popped his gum again, and picked his way across the floor. He missed his Tipalets. He could hear Leon throwing up even before he got into the bathroom. As he opened the door, he noticed that the telephone cord was tracking underneath it.

“Ohhh… oh, Jesus. Oh. Oh, Christ! Sweet Jesus God, I’m—oh, Christ—I’m gonna fuckin’ die,” Leon moaned between retches, plaintive voice echoing from one of the stalls.

Damon, phone receiver clamped to his ear and its cream plastic cradle dangling from his fingers, was pacing the tiles. Every time he got to a wall he stopped, twitching lightly and shifting from foot to foot.

“But, sweetheart…. No, I didn’t say that. I—”

“Oh, God, no…! Oh, Jesus… Jesus Christ!”

Damon sighed dramatically and glanced over his shoulder. “Look, I dunno what you think Jesus is gonna do, man. You’re Jewish. No, Inez, not…. Nah, babe, I was talking to—”

“Fuck off! Oh, God, no…!”

There was another explosive and vile noise. Cris closed his eyes. Just twenty-four little hours. All he had to get through. He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. From the stall, Leon whimpered.

“Day? Day, are you there?”

Damon pressed the phone into the shoulder of his maroon velvet jacket. Silver dragons coiled the length of his sleeves.

“Yeah. What?”

“I think I just lost another filling….”

Damon glanced up at Cris, as if seeing him for the first time. Cris cracked on his gum and decided that it had most definitely lost its flavour.

“What the hell?” he asked needlessly.

“Don’t sweat it, man. He’ll be fine.” Putting the phone back to his ear, Damon crossed to the row of sinks and filled one with cold water, listening to the voice on the line. “Yeah, I know, baby… but you got the flowers, right?”

“You know you’ve got, like, five minutes?” Cris prompted, hanging back in the doorway. It smelled worse than a nightclub bathroom in here.

Damon shot him an exasperated, if unfocused, glare.

“You mind, man? It’s my fuckin’ anniversary!” He frowned, bringing the phone back up to his mouth. “What? Well, yeah, I know. No, I know, honey…. I— Look, I’ll make it up, all right?”

“Day?” Leon whined from the cubicle. “Day? Where’d you go?”

“And it’s not like it’s forever. I promised, didn’t I? Well, there you are, then, girl. I’m here,” he added, muting the phone on his shoulder again. “Christ, it’s like having a little sister. Are you finished?”

“I….” There was an uncertain pause and some spitting. “Yeah. I think so.”

“All right. C’mon, man, we gotta get you cleaned up. Cris, you wanna get us some clean towels in here or something?”

Still holding up the doorjamb, Cris realised he’d been watching the whole scene with a kind of horrified fascination. And now he was being told what to do, like any other fucking lackey. The cubicle door opened, and Leon tottered out, deathly pale except for red-rimmed eyes and running nose.