Nimbus [open]

Fire can destroy everything regardless of screams, cries, and the best of efforts.

After the wedding, Bridget went back to her bar and lit a match.

Settled into the foothills on the outskirts of Nimbus, the Clementine was a small local pub with hours as changeable as its owner’s mood. She had closed it tonight for the wedding. There were a few part-timers who could have had it open but it seemed right to close it tonight. She and the groom had had a history here and she hadn’t wanted anyone around if she had to come back.

Her gaze fell over the wooden countertops lined with deep cracks, the clean but elderly wooden stools, tables, and booths; a cramped little space hidden in the foothills of Southern California, just waiting for a match.

So Bridget gave it one. Some vodka-soaked rags from the kitchen too, because fire didn’t start as easy as all that. Illegal flame spread from chair to counter and ate the television-based poker game in the corner. It lapped up the wall, to the old-timey portrait of Rock Hudson, who once came through on his way to somewhere west. Then, a no smoking sign, which made her smile before she coughed and had to move back to the door.

It had been a beautiful wedding. Wesley Lager and Gwenna McGreger, a.k.a. the Western and the Irish Rose, had been married in Nimbus Presbyterian in the eyes of God and the media. Neither would be back following the honeymoon – Australia was their shared love. They would raise children where the snakes and the kangaroo play. As their getaway car pulled away, Bridget realized she had forgotten to buy a card for their gift. Too late to fix now, she thought, watching the fire steal towards the open kitchen door. But Wes would think she hadn’t cared enough to bother writing something down. No piece of her left in him.

Smoke filled the air, so she opened the door and backed into the threshold. The Clementine was technically the city’s property, so this was an act of vandalism – something Wes would have been in charge of stopping. Had been in charge of stopping for four years. The bar fell into Bridget’s management when former (corrupt) management had been ousted by the Western and he stuck around to add some legitimacy. Stuck around for four years and more, after the incident a year and a half ago.

Taking a lighter out of her pocket, Bridget touched it to the door frame. The flame flirted with the paneling, cautious, until the blue cornea began creeping upwards. Yes. She nudged it upwards. Do your worst; see if something better can’t come from the ashes.

“Bridget.”

Going back inside wasn’t an option. Bridget let the lighter flame wink out of existence and turned around. In the dark of SoCal’s winter night, only the lines of their forms were visible: Brock looming at 6’3 back by his pick-up truck and Priya moving swiftly forward at 5’4, her expression controlled as a panther’s.

“You went to the wedding?” Priya asked. Some backlight from the fire inside lit her face, throwing attractive shadows on her Indian features.

“Tuesdays are always pretty slow, so yeah.” Bridget kept her attention on the burning bar, which smelled like flame by now, heat gnawing at the night air.

“Priya,” Brock said urgently. “Call just came through on the CB. Someone’s seen the fire.”

“Then we need to go. Did you drive?”

Bridget smiled and shrugged. Two or three miles away, her car sat in a corner of the church parking lot because, when she had gotten in after the wedding to drive home, Tim McGraw’s ‘Don’t Take the Girl’ had been playing.

Priya took her shrug as the ‘no’ it was and Made Decisions.

“Brock, get her to the closest bar to the church. I’ll get some of this out and follow you. If anyone asks, you’ve been there since eight-thirty. Make sure she can collaborate.”

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