interested and alive. Braden feels like a zombie in comparison, dull and slow.
“Hey, Braden, I’m Len,” the oldest man says. “We don’t bite. And the piranhas are all contained for the moment. Let me guess, Phee conspired to get you here without telling you a single thing about this clandestine meeting.”
Good-natured laughter follows from the rest of the group. Phee sticks out her tongue at the speaker.
“True,” Braden manages. “She has magical powers of persuasion.” He hesitates, unsure how to proceed. He knows how to do AA, but “Hi—I’m Braden Healey and I’m an alcoholic, now and forever, amen” is probably not the right opening for this group.
“Have a seat,” Phee says.
Braden lowers himself into the empty chair across from her.
“Welcome!” A youngish man unfolds himself to standing and holds out his hand for a shake. “I’m Oscar. Glad you’re here.” Black hair, a serious face, an accent that is faintly Latino.
“Oscar owns Fins and Feathers,” Phee informs him. “If you ever need fish or birds, he’s your guy. You want coffee?” She’s already pouring two cups out of a stainless-steel carafe. It smells fantastic, nothing like the church-basement brew served up at AA meetings.
“Katie is our barista. She always brings the coffee. She’s opposed to what Oscar brews. Or even what the rest of us sometimes import from Starbucks.”
“Life’s too short to drink shit. That’s my motto.” The young girl doesn’t look like a Katie. Her face is more metal than skin. Nose rings, eyebrow hoops, lip rings. Full-color serpent tattoos coil around both of her forearms. But her smile is sweet, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “I hope you don’t require cream, because I didn’t bring any. We are all black-coffee people, except for Dennis. Dennis doesn’t drink coffee at all.”
Dennis shrugs and toasts Braden with a half-empty bottle of water. “Burned beans. Not my mojo. Welcome to the party, Braden.”
“Nothing burned about Katie’s coffee,” Oscar says.
The other woman at the table says nothing, watching the proceedings with eyes that look a little wild. She’s thin to the point of skeletal, arms wrapped around her rib cage, hands disappeared inside too-long sweater sleeves. A knitted hat is pulled down low over her forehead. Her body is shaking visibly.
Phee lays a hand over her arm. “Breathe. It will pass.”
The woman nods, her lips twitching into what is almost a smile.
“Time to get this meeting underway,” Oscar says. “Phee, you want to start?”
Phee tilts back in her chair and savors a mouthful of coffee as if it’s a French wine at a five-star restaurant. “It was sort of a boring week, I’m sorry to report. My saving grace is that I enticed a stranger to the meeting. Does that count?”
Everybody laughs, with the exception of the thin woman, who remains huddled inside herself.
“Nice save,” Oscar says. “Thank you for that. Rather an adventure for Braden, too, I’d guess, to be dragged into our weirdness. So yes. Points for you.” Beside Phee’s name on a whiteboard propped up beside the table, he writes a 10.
“Anybody else? Jean?”
To Braden’s surprise, the woman beside Phee lets go of her death grip on her own body and holds up two fingers. Oscar smiles at her. “When you’re ready, love.”
She nods. Takes a breath. Her voice begins tight and small. “There’s this girl in my building, crazy about horses. Has read every book in the library that features something with four hooves. Hadn’t ever even seen a real horse, though, you know? So I made some calls, and this weekend I took her and her mom to a riding stable. All I’d asked of the owner was could this kid come down and look at the horses, maybe pat one on the nose or something.”
Jean leans forward, her voice warming, her body loosening. “But the owner was amazing. She saddled up this gentle old nag and actually let the kid ride. You should have seen her face. As if that wasn’t enough, she’s now got an open invite to come down and help out after school.”
“Awesome, well done, that’s fantastic!”
Jean’s cheeks flush red under all of the attention, and she retreats back into herself, but not quite so far this time.
Oscar writes a 20 beside her name.
Phee bestows a glowing smile on her.
“The points are just for fun,” she explains to Braden. “We add them up at the end of the month and take the person with the highest score out for dinner or something.” She turns to Katie. “And you, my dear?”