Chapter 6

Elana

Back at the quad, when Ollie had said Dotty’s, I pretty much froze in place, trying to decide whether to run or just go along with it. I hadn’t been to Dotty’s in a very, very long time, and it was difficult being in there now. Everything looked almost the same, and it was almost eerie how time seemed to stand still inside of the restaurant. But what was I to do? He wanted to eat there.

It was hard to even think about where I was sitting. Dotty’s had been “our place,” the place we came to chill and relax, to get away from the craziness of college life. Now it just seemed really uncool to be back there without Lillie. It may look the same as before, but the vibe floating around was painful and awkward at the same time, and it made it really difficult to pay attention to Ollie at all, especially since he fit into the memories so perfectly. I wasn’t sure what he was hoping to accomplish, but I was already thinking this was a serious fail. I understood trying to move on, but everyone did it in their own way, and this just wasn’t the way I was used to doing things. Then again, maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe he just really liked cheese curds and missed the old days.

When Lillie died, I was destroyed, but the only thing I knew to do was to keep going the same course I had before. I was almost done with my undergraduate program, I had my sights set on my Master’s, and I had known the whole time I would be staying in Madison. I wasn’t even thinking about getting out; I really loved my hometown. So, I stuck around campus, even worked there now, and I’d had time to start seeing the campus spaces that still existed in the days that I called A.L., or “After Lillie.” I got to start having memories of the place beyond just when Lillie walked the grounds, which helped me get from day to day without constantly thinking of her and replaying the pain in my chest. But not Dotty’s. It wasn’t anywhere that I could have even started to think was a good idea to come to. I had learned that it was good to push yourself, to learn to live with the pain and grief, but going to the park or the grocery store was one thing; going to the place that was exclusive to me and Lillie was something completely different.

I was trying to hold it together, I really was, but being back there, sitting in the same booths Lillie, Ollie, and I used to frequent and talking about the past like it wasn’t a significant player in our present was really starting to fuck with me, big time. I swallowed hard and shook my head, blocking everything out around the booth. Maybe this was a place I could create a different memory too, just like I had before, only this would be a lot harder.

“There were barely any people in that small town,” he said, still talking about where he lived outside of Phoenix. “It was really amazing how…”

I nodded my head, but his words just kind of faded into the background. I was trying desperately hard to concentrate on what he was saying, but all I could keep thinking was how wrong everything felt. My pulse was starting to race, and my hands were clammy, sitting in my lap. I picked up my drink and took a big gulp of it, smiling kindly at Ollie as he continued talking. His words seemed like they were a permanent fixture in the background, like the music they play over the speakers in the mall that you barely even notice. He said something else, and I nodded in reaction, but my eyes were fixated on the bar behind him, staring at the bottles of liquor glistening under the low track lighting.

I could almost still see Lillie sitting there at the bar, her hair in a ponytail, wearing her favorite short, blue khaki shorts and white tank top, with the loafers her dad had gotten her as a birthday present the month before. It had been the day of finals, and we were already done, deciding that it was time for some beers at Dotty’s. We sat at that bar for seven hours, eventually eating two meals and drinking more beers than I could even keep count of. We had talked about everything, starting with school, moving to Ollie and how smitten she was with him, and then on to the future. We loved talking about the future and how she was looking forward to teaching, to settling down and marrying Ollie and eventually having a family of her own. She wanted me to be their neighbor, to come over and play with the kids whenever I was home. It sounded like the best kind of future, one that I was really looking forward to settling into after graduation.

Lillie had kept me amused, feeling so good that I wished at times we could just bed down at Dotty’s and never have to return to the real world. It was more than just her being a good person or fun to be around. It was the fact that those moments were so perfect that even when I was in them, I never wanted them to end. It was hard not to want to linger in a place that felt like home, knowing that when you left, that experience would be over. At the time, I could feel that, but I thought there would be more. I thought that this was our life, and we would still be doing those things long after college ended. I guessed I took for granted the fact that life was unpredictable in a way that was almost cruel in the end. It gave you these amazing moments, these time periods that you clung on to like the guy who was the star football player, but after a knee injury spent the rest of his life coaching high school ball, trying desperately to live out his glory days through his players. I knew from the beginning that it wasn’t going to work that way for me, that I couldn’t be stuck walking around the past chasing a ghost. The world was amazing and full of good times, times that were really hard to let go of.

Now, though, that world seemed to have disintegrated, and it was all too obvious that the real world was missing my best friend, and our old sanctuary of beer and conversation, the one that had felt warm and inviting, now felt cold and empty. I blinked my eyes, and Lillie disappeared from the bar, leaving nothing but an empty stool and a hole in my chest. I was haunted, filled with ghosts of Lillie walking around everywhere that I went. I used to see her on campus, in the library, and even on the playground as I passed the park we used to go to talk. Over time, though, I had been able to push her ghost out, and attempt to live some semblance of a normal life again. Here, though, in the capitol of our debauchery, she roamed freely, whispers of her voice catching in my ear as I looked around the barren place, like staring at the inside of an abandoned house, knowing there was once warmth there, but being left with nothing but a hollow, gutted space, all the warmth having escaped through the cracks in the windows. I shuddered in my seat, feeling cold again, like I had the day that Lillie died.

“Earth to Glasses,” Ollie said, bringing my attention back to his face and the liveliness of the restaurant around me.

“Oh.” I blushed and took a deep breath, feeling my heartbeat begin to slow down.

He looked behind him at the bar and stared for a few moments, realizing exactly what was going on. He turned back to me and put his napkin on the table and shook his head. His eyes softened, and he let out a deep breath.

“Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I can feel it, too. I can feel her too. This was a bad idea. I should have never brought us here. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. You’ve been here the entire time, and I only just came back. I guess I thought I could chase her ghost away, leave happy memories and opportunity for other things. This was not how I thought it would be, though. We should get out of here.”

I smiled kindly, but distractedly, and watched as he made eye contact with the server and signaled for the check. She brought it over, setting a to-go box down in front of me and then took his payment, walking back to run his card. I looked at the food and the box, and I was too afraid to take it with me, fearing that Lillie’s ghost would come along for the ride. I had worked so hard to keep her out of my new life. Ollie looked down, obviously feeling bad, and finished signing the check. We stood up quickly and walked toward the door, taking one last glance at the bar before walking out the doors.

The cool air hit me in the face and sobered me up quickly, bringing me right back to the present, where I needed to be. We strolled quietly through the streets watching the college kids laughing and playing as they made their way to the next party or the next bar. It was a little overwhelming being snapped right back into reality.

“So, where do you live now?” he asked.

“I moved across town, over by the zoo,” I responded, sticking my hands in my pockets, feeling the chill of the air on my neck. “It’s close to work, has great access to public transportation so I don’t have to pay to park on campus, and it’s far enough out of the campus radius to get a good night’s sleep without the yelling and laughing that used to keep me up at my old place. I never realized, until after I graduated and pretty much spent most of my time alone, how loud we were walking around at night. I almost feel bad for the people that live out here.”

“We were kids.” He laughed. “They knew what to expect living this close to campus.”

“True.” I smiled.

“So, do you know a good place to have a drink? Maybe somewhere I’ve never been before?”

“Actually, yeah, I do,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s over closer to where I live, outside of the campus circle, so it’s mostly people our age and older. It’s pretty quiet there, meant for conversations more than partying, if that’s okay?”

“That sounds perfect,” he responded.

“Okay, where did you park?”

“Just up here about two blocks over,” he said, smiling.

We walked to his car, and he held the door open for me, shutting it once I was tucked away inside. I gave him the directions to Crescendo Espresso Bar, and we headed in that direction. It was kind of my go-to spot, but I didn’t even realize they served beer until one late night I couldn’t sleep and decided to grab a hot cup of coffee. When I walked in, I realized it was a bar too, and instantly, it became my nightcap spot. It was low key, and I didn’t have to worry about running into Lillie’s ghost there. That was my life: trying to find places that I could avoid a damn ghost.