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feverinfeveroutfic · 10 months ago

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the skeleton key | chapter two: a glass of whiskey

The stagehand led me to the backstage area, and I knew for a fact that I hurt something when I fell down on that hard wooden floor because my knee ached me. All I could think about was what I wanted to say to those four men once all was said and done with them. And I had a hunch that it was sooner than I believed, given the crowd beyond the doorway there was already going wild.

The stagehand took me by the hand and guided me into the dressing room, and I could only hope that Marcy would follow suit right behind us.

“Are you alright? Do you anything?” he asked me as he led me towards the plush looking couch tucked in the corner.

“A drink of water, please,” I replied as I took my seat there before the corner. He very carefully helped me put my leg up on the cushions and then leaned me back so I could recuperate.

“I'll be right back with the water and an ice pack for you,” he assured me, and then he bowed out of there in a flash. I lay part of the way down on the couch and I hoped I wasn't taking up too much room there, especially once they all filed in within a few minutes' time, dotted in sweat and with their eyes wide open from the rush of the adrenaline.

“There she is!” Mark decreed. “The tough little artist girl.”

“Man, you took quite the tumble, didn't you?” Dave said as he took his spot next to me in the recliner.

“Yeah, that was... I was not expecting that in the least,” I confessed with a sigh, even though I never was out of breath. I scooted back a bit so Mark could have his seat there on the other side of the couch. He nestled back into the corner and fanned the side of his neck with his hand even though not a bead of sweat had emerged on his head.

“How'd you like the show, though?” he asked me as he straightened the bill of his ballcap and I could better see into his hazel eyes.

“Oh, I loved it! You guys rule.”

He raised a fist to me for a bump, and the stagehand returned with a bottle of water and an ice pack for me: Alex followed suit right behind him.

“Hey, there she is!” he declared, and his voice struck me in its warmth and roundness; all the while, I was expecting him to talk in this high scratchy tone but it came as a sweet surprise. Mike was out there somewhere, but I needed to relax with these three men before anything else happened from that point forward. The stagehand then handed me the bottle and the ice pack for my knee, which I kindly obliged to him: Mark helped rest the pack on my knee, and the sudden cold made me gasp. It helped nevertheless; I couldn't drink that water fast enough as my cocktail had dried me out a great deal.

Because I took up most of the couch, Alex parked himself down on the floor with his legs crossed and his hands rested on his knees as if he was about to meditate. His hair stood up upon his head as if he had walked through a field of static and a slight pink blush crossed his face: none of them had broken out into a sweat as far as I could tell from there.

“I will say this, that was pretty ballsy of you to go running into the pit like that,” he confessed.

“I actually did it once before,” I explained without giving away too much. “Trying to make lightning strike twice.”

“And you did,” Mark assured me. “Those drawings you did for us were put in a safe place faster than I could finish this sentence.” I sighed with relief and rested my hand on my chest, which made Alex smile.

“We have to protect artists,” he vowed to me. “Especially the female ones.”

“I’m actually a baker but art is unquestionably my passion,” I explained to him.

“We have to protect artists of all kinds!” he corrected himself, and that coaxed a giggle out of me.

“Would you like something else to drink?” Dave offered me. “A beer or something?”

“No, thanks, I'm good,” I assured him.

“I could totally go for a beer, though,” Mark said.

“Yeah, count me in, too,” Alex chimed in.

“I actually don't drink if you can believe it,” I said.

“Oh, I can believe it,” Dave replied with a nod of his head as he stood up and strode across the room.

How the world mistook him.

Mike bustled into the room right then, complete with a bewildered Marcy and my purse.

“I told you she's back here with us,” he quipped to her.

“Well, you know, my best friend and everything,” she insisted to him.

“Yeah, her best friend,” I added in a singsong voice.

“Alex, why are sitting down there?” Mike demanded as he walked in.

“Because she's resting and healing, Michael, that's why,” Alex scoffed. I snickered at that, but Mike walked over to him to ruffle his hair.

“Absolute guitar legend and yet he still finds a way to be lazy,” he grumbled.

“Hey, I'm not lazy!” Alex insisted as Mike snatched a pair of folding chairs for him and Marcy. “Not even a little bit...” Mike rolled his eyes as he ducked back out in search of another one for himself. Marcy gingerly took her spot next to me while Alex slithered up into the chair directly across from me so I could look at him in the eye.

“Those two fight like brothers,” Mark explained. “In fact, all of us do. We don't call ourselves an allegiance for no reason, after all: we're all buddies and siblings at the same time.”

“Lot of adrenaline in the air right now, too,” Alex said as Dave handed him and Mark a beer each; Marcy and I both refused one again.

“It's kind of like when the bakery gets slammed,” I followed along as best as I could. “There's just a lot of energy in the air that it's hard to find a bit of relief.”

“You know, now that you say that, I'm glad you didn't bake these boys something, Al,” Marcy pointed out.

“Yeah, me, too. Fewer things are more heartbreaking than sinking hours into a cake or a pie or something only to drop it on the floor or have someone else drop it. I'll never forget the first time that happened to me with some cupcakes I made for a birthday party.”

“I imagine it being like loosing a limb,” Alex said as his eyes drooped a bit: the rush of it all began wearing off.

“It is,” I replied with a nod and a shifting of my weight so the ice had more surface to cover. “Luckily, it was one of those things where I could whip up a back up and the client was no rush, but yeah. It was like I got punched in the stomach when it happened. And you know, now that I think about it, and now that we've all met each other, I just wonder what you guys like.”

“I like anything and everything, in case you couldn't tell,” Alex joked, and he rested his hand on his little belly.

“Oh, you amateur,” Mark quipped back to him with a sip of his beer, and Marcy giggled.

“I'm really partial to Indian and Italian stuff, though,” Alex continued without missing a beat. “I got into cannoli some years ago and I seriously cannot get enough of them.”

“I've only made cannoli a couple of times and they weren't that great,” I pointed out to him. “I'll try my best, though.” He flashed me a wink as he sipped on his bottle of beer: a cold beer despite it being a cold, wet day there in Los Angeles.

“I'll take good old fashioned apple pie,” Mark told me. “You know, nothing too fancy just because I think about how swamped you would get from time to time.”

“Well, things aren't as bad at the moment,” I assured him. “We finished up the rush around Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's, and in the next week or so, we'll be gearing up for Valentine's Day. But that's a week off, though.”

“So you could do it all tout suite over the next week give or take?” he asked me with a sly grin.

“I could, yes! Maybe I'll stay overtime tomorrow to make these two things, a batch of cannoli and some pie. I'm right over in Oxnard so it's just a quick drive over for any of us.” I craned my neck for a glance over at Dave. “What would you like, Dave?”

“I'll share some of that pie with Mark,” he replied.

“What about Mike?” Marcy chimed in.

“I think he got lost,” Dave replied.

“Him and Blitz got blitzed in the basement,” Alex cracked as he took a sip, and the bunch of laughed at that.

“Blitzed their tits down in the pits,” Marcy added, and he let out a big hearty bout of laughter at that. Indeed, Mike never did return to the dressing room, and at that point, I was more than willing to stand up and walk around so my knee could breathe. Alex and Marcy walked alongside me so I could return to the feeling in my leg.

“This is not the worst thing that's happened to me,” I assured them.

“I should walk you back to your place,” he suggested to me. “That is, if you don't live too far from here.”

“You sure?” I asked him. “You look wiped.”

“I always look like this,” he assured me with a shake of his head; his hair floated around his head as if he was underwater.

“He really does,” Dave added, and Mark chuckled at that.

“Yeah, that's quite the order up: some chocolate cannoli for the man with the fuzzy hair all around his head,” Marcy said to me.

“And what'd you say your name was again?” Alex asked me as we walked back to the couch.

“Alison,” I replied. “Everyone I know calls me Alison Chains, or Ali.” I dared not tell them about Jerry being there, especially when he seemed to have high-tailed it out of there prior to then.

“Alison Chains, I like that,” he quipped, and he showed me a little smile: it was one of those sideways smiles that made him look as though he was up to no good.

“I do, too!” Mark declared.

“I got to see them before the pandemic,” I boasted. “They played with Korn down in San Diego, and it was easily one of my favorite shows.”

“Wow! I must've slept on that tour, because I imagine it being loud.”

“Oh, it was,” I said, and the three of us held still there before the couch.

“How're you doing? Can you stand on it?” Alex held back and looked long at me.

“I think I can,” I said. Dave then leaned forward and took his phone out of his back pocket.

“We better get a move on, fellas,” he informed. “And ladies. Curfew's coming on.”

“Ah, damn it,” Mark cracked.

“Right? Just when I thought we'd hang out with these girls all night...” Alex shook his head and adjusted his shirt with his free hand. Marcy took a hold of me as the five of us headed outside to the darkness over the street; Mike still hadn't caught up with us. But Alex caught my eye, and he lowered his gaze down to my shirt.

“Who's that...” He leaned in for a closer look and then he raised his eyebrows. “Oh, Chris Cornell! I thought that was Robert Plant for a second.”

“I think I'll always miss him,” I confessed with a shake of my head. “I have yet to visit his grave, too.”

“Where's he buried?”

“Up in Hollywood. Mark Lanegan's buried up there, too.”

“Yeah, I saw Mark got a nice stone erected for him,” he said with a nod and a ruffling of his hair. “I only just follow along with that whole scene so that's as far as I know.”

“Imagine playing grunge rock for a time, though,” I told him as Dave and Mark raised their arms up for their taxis.

“I've tried covering Nirvana or Alice In Chains in the past,” he quipped right then.

“Have you really?”

“Oh, yeah! It's pretty tricky, though, especially Nirvana. Lot of bar chords, and the fact Kurt was left handed, it's easy to throw you if you're not used to it.”

A trio of black cars rolled up to the curb before us, and Mark and Dave climbed into the first two first. But Alex held back and looked on at me with a thoughtful look on his face, accentuated by the light from the street and overhead as well.

“You know, I'm gonna be down here for the next few days before I go on tour again,” he said. “Tomorrow I have another show over at the Baked Potato, over in Studio City with this really great bass player, Stu Hamm. Maybe before then, I can come on over and we can do something together?”

“You mean like a date?” I teased him. “A date for the busy man?”

“Not necessarily,” he replied with a chuckle. “Although you can view it as that if you'd like. When do you get off your shift?”

“Two thirty,” I said. “So, you know. Hang out for a bit, or come on over for a round of breakfast.”

“Round of breakfast and a shot of whiskey, too,” he laughed. “You're over in Oxnard, you said?”

“Yeah. Smell the Magic. It's not too far from the water's edge and the sign's got big red lettering and we open at six and close at two thirty. You can't miss it.”

He turned to his driver. “Did you get that?”

“I certainly did,” he assured us.

“See you tomorrow,” Alex promised me with a wink and another sip from his beer bottle before he climbed in. Marcy and I watched them go when the fourth car rolled up for Mike. We scurried out of the way and back towards the street.

I couldn't help but blush at the mere thought of him being in my bakery. I was going to have to come in for breakfast and make him something as well. A round of breakfast and a shot of whiskey, too. There was something interesting about that as I had only known two other people who had a shot of whiskey with breakfast, my dad and my stepdad. The former cleaned up his act some ten years before, but the latter wasn't nearly as lucky. I remained positive, though: it was only a joke and he seemed in good spirits as well.

*********

I kept on thinking about that night as I clocked in the next morning at five thirty for the early morning breakfast rush and Marcy was eager to be there as well to join the two of us. I was up late that night from the pain in my leg and from the rush of it, and thus, I was working on very little sleep, but at least I had cause for it; add to this, Marcy looked ready to pass out by the time she dropped me off at my place.

I had just begun putting the croissants in the oven with some ham and cheese when the front door opened.

It was going to be some time before they came out and thus, I wondered who would come in right before sunrise and when everything was being made. I emerged from the kitchen to see his long fuzzy hair, still as poofy as ever, there on the other side of the counter.

“There he is!” I proclaimed.

“Yup, here I am,” he declared, still with that little grin plastered across his face. He looked a little drained, as if he had been up all night long.

“I was just putting the ham and cheese croissants in the oven, so it'll be a few minutes if you'd like one,” I offered him.

“I totally forgot to mention last night that I'm Jewish,” he told me. “You know... can't have pork and also meat and cheese together.”

“Oh! Not a problem, not a problem... make a special one on the house.” I snapped some new latex gloves on and adjusted my apron.

“What kind of cheese you got?” he asked me.

“Cheddar, Swiss, baby Swiss, cream cheese, Havarti, Muenster, Gouda, Edam, and Gorgonzola.”

“Ooh, give me some Gouda and Havarti,” he answered, and that smile never left his face. His eyes drooped a bit and I could only assume that he just woken up prior to then. “You got any coffee back there, too?”

“Not yet,” I told him as I took out my rolling pin and powdered it with some flour. “You can come back here if you'd like so you're not standing there in front of the counter. It's only us for the time being.”

“Beautiful,” he remarked as he rounded the counter towards the other end. “I couldn't really sleep last night so I got up at four thirty and came over here with my driver basically because I was bored. Right as we pulled in, my stomach started rumbling at me.” He followed me into the back room, where I began rolling out the dough with some butter there on the table; I moved a chair out from behind me so he could take a load off without crossing his legs.

“Just right on time,” I said as I quickly rolled out the dough extra thin.

“You hand make everything?” he asked me as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Absolutely everything,” I assured him as I turned the dough and the butter. It was going to have to proof for a bit before I could do anything else, but he seemed in no rush whatsoever. I let it rest in the fridge right next to the ovens as I turned to the coffee maker on the far side of the room for a fresh pot.

Once I came back to him, I saw he had taken out a silvery flask from the inside of his jacket.

“Little bit of screwdriver before things get moving,” he said with a raise of his flask.

“You actually have orange juice in there?” I asked him, slightly mortified as I knew that orange juice wouldn't last five seconds in there.

“Nah, it's just water,” he told me. “I did think of getting a screwdriver for myself before coming over here, though. A screwdriver for me and a mimosa for you.”

I smiled at that. It was actually nice to have a little distraction in there while I tended to some pie dough for the apple pie. More often than not, I was left to my own company before opening and it often got lonesome back there before my coworkers came in for the day.

“You only made cannoli twice before?” he quizzically asked me.

“Yeah, and the first time, it fell apart, and the second time, I was in a hurry so I wasn't able to decorate them all too well,” I explained as I sliced some more butter into cubes before I put it into the food processor with some flour and granulated sugar.

“I'm sure these will be decadent,” he promised me, and that little smirk returned once again.

“I'll try my best,” I vowed to him as I put the butter into the processor. A few blitzes, followed by some water, and a few more, and I had the precursor to a pie crust. I dumped it out onto table and proceeded to knead it a bit before I rolled it out flat; after that, it was to go into another one of the ovens for ten minutes for a round of blind baking.

“So, how does a young lady like you get into the world of baking when she also happens to be of the artistic type?” he asked me in a single breath.

“It's an art,” I told him. “It's an art, and it's also a science and... I've just had a knack for both things. It's always funny to watch people totally bomb at baking, though.”

“Why? You like a little taking pleasure in misery?” He squinted his eyes at me.

“Nah... well, maybe. But to me, it's just so simple because you're following a recipe and I often wonder like, 'how do you mess this up? It's as clear as day to me.'”

He chuckled at that. Once the dough was nice and smooth, I draped it over the pie tin and poured in some old pinto beans so it would set properly.

“Really interesting way of doing it,” he said as I brought the crust over to the oven closest to me. “And you're right, it is a science.”

I was met with the blast of hot air as I placed the tin upon the rack. I shook my head about once I closed the door, and he showed me another little grin, still with his flash rested in his lap.

“Has anyone ever told you your voice is like molasses?” I asked him.

“Molasses, really? No, that's a new one.”

“It's rich and full and very sweet without being too sweet,” I told him. “I love working with molasses, putting it in gingerbread and certain spice cakes and goods for diabetics.”

“Plus, it just looks hearty on top of that,” he added as he rested the side of his face in his palm and rested his elbow on the arm of the chair.

“Absolute beauty shot right here,” I said as I held up my index fingers to him.

“Beauty shot?” he chuckled again, and that time his whole face lit up.

“Just one great big glamour shot here,” I declared as I took off one glove and brushed a lock of hair back from his face. Despite his pale skin, it still remained soft. He gazed up at me with those tired eyes and a proud little smile: not the lopsided one, but one that looked rather content.

He then stood up before me, and he all but dwarfed me there; I was going to make the filling for the pie and the dough for the cannoli but he kept his chest right before my face to stop me for a second.

“Come away with me,” he whispered to me. “Come away with me on the tour of the West Coast. Metal Allegiance will pick up some time again after that, as will Testament. You could be our personal baker and our personal chef while we're all out on the road.” He then offered me a sip from his flask: perhaps it was from the early hour, but he still looked so loosened up from that bottle of beer the night before; and even though I knew there was merely water in there, the memories were still very much intact in the back of my mind as well as my own flesh.

“I'm serious, it's just water in here,” he told me. “I just might bust out some wine later on.”

“I can't,” I confessed to him with a shake of my head. “I can't... you know, I like to treat myself once in a while, but my dad's an alcoholic and my stepdad was, too. My dad sobered up, but my stepdad wasn't so lucky, though. I also lost a good friend to drinking, too.”

“Oh, man.” He held the flask back away from me. “I'll respect those wishes.”

“And you know, you heard me last night, I don't really drink much,” I continued. “It starts and ends with one every now and again.”

Alex inched back to the chair and rested his hands on the edge of the seat of the stool. I gazed into his slightly rounded face and those deep eyes of his, the way they seemed to penetrate and follow me around like one of those trick statues at the Haunted Mansion.

The way they haunted me, like the souls from all those years ago. They were so clear, and I could tell he wasn't much of a drinker himself. He wasn't much of a drinker even though he carried a flask.

“You have such beautiful eyes,” I told him. “They're so soulful and soft. Before my stepdad started falling off, he had pretty eyes like yours, too.”

“Keyword there is 'had',” he pointed out without a single change of expression.

“Yeah, he just... he wouldn't stop. I remember his doctor putting a light up to his pupils and saying right away that he was jaundiced.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head at that. As I took a closer look at Alex, I noticed his skin seemed a touch paler than the night before: he had such a healthy, blooming blush to his skin immediately after the show, but I wondered if that had to do more with the rush of having played a show before a bunch of people than anything. I dared not worry about him, but it still permeated because he seemed so casual about it all.

The timer on the croissants went off, and I returned to the first oven for that morning's batch: I was going to make fresh dough right before my shift ended so it would proof overnight; but those went out for the first people that morning. The dough for his croissant still was chilling in the fridge.

“How much more time?” he asked me.

“About thirty minutes total,” I replied. “The dough has to chill for a bit more and then I can put the cheese in and roll it around and make it into a croissant.”

“At least we have coffee,” he pointed out.

“At least we have coffee, right! And we have day-olds, if you'd like.”

“You got any rugelach?” he asked me.

“As a matter of fact, we do!” I told him as I took off my gloves for a moment, and I walked on over to the day-old rack in the main room. There was one bag of a dozen rugelach, those tiny handheld croissants half of which were chocolate and the other half had jam inside, left on the bottom shelf, and it was all his.

“Ten bucks,” I informed him.

“Ten bucks for all that rugelach?” he gaped at me. “That's a steal!”

I chuckled at that. “Well, it's been sitting on the shelf for a few days,” I told him as he handed me a ten dollar bill; I tucked it into the front pocket of my apron for a second as I handed him the bag. I doubled back to the sink to wash my hands and fetch him a cup of coffee.

“I like mine black, by the way,” he called out to me as he took a chocolate one out. I returned to him right as he took a bite.

“Oh, god,” he muttered with a shake of his head.

“Hm?”

“It tastes just like how my grandma used to make them,” he said with his mouth full. “Right amount of chocolate with a little bit of cinnamon and some cardamom. That's home to me.” He shook his head again as I handed him his coffee.

I continued on making the apple pie as well as his croissant, the latter of which he was more than eager to have all to himself. I noticed he ate very slowly, and I knew he was loving every part of it.

His face lit up when I presented his croissant to him, as if he had just been presented a gold medal. I watched him indulge in it as I made him his cannoli and tended to the register. He was on the road a lot, and thus, I figured he could use a little rest and relaxation with some fresh coffee and baked goods; every time I came into the back room, he seemed so much more relaxed from the time before. It wasn't until more of my coworkers came in when he decided to head on over to his next venture.

“When's the show tonight?” I asked him as I sprinkled some chocolate chips over the cannoli.

“Eight,” he replied. “I can come and get you if you'd like.”

“I think Marcy's going to join us,” I told him, even though I knew I was going to have to call her. “But that's so sweet, though.”

“How much do I owe for these?” he asked me with a gesture to the cannoli.

“Twelve fifty,” I said. “It's a dozen, so a little more than a dollar each.”

“Beautiful, beautiful... and the pie?”

“Mark and Dave can worry about that,” I assured him as I took a fresh plastic bag out from underneath the table.

“They sure can!” he chuckled. I packed it in for him, and he traded me thirteen dollars. “Keep the change, dearest Alison.” I couldn't help but blush at that.

“So, I'll see you two girls tonight.” He flashed me a wink before he left the bakery with the day-old rugelach and those cannoli in his arms, and back out to the street. I thought about the night before once again, and I could hardly shake the smell of the alcohol on his breath, even when in junction with that soft cologne on his neck. I knew that smell anywhere, after nights of watching my stepdad come unraveled after having one too many or my real dad having one too many himself.

A smell that took shape and transformed into something else with time.

All the while, I couldn't stop thinking about Chris. He had gone away because of his own internal strife, and I couldn't bear the idea of potentially losing Alex to it, either. I could hear him say it to me in that lush voice: “don't worry about me. Please, don't worry about me.”

Death surrounded us and yet, he and I were willing to live through it all. He was willing to find that piece of comfort wherever he could possibly find it.

And I knew it because I was looking for that comfort as well.