I don’t think I drank that much, Ali thinks. Just a couple of pints. That’s what everyone drinks here to end the day. It’s normal. Being in school here, though, means a couple can often turn into a few. ‘A few’ means three or four or five. That’s what she taught her ESL tutees last night, before the dreaded couple (or few) pints. Thirsty Thursday exists here too, just like it did back home, in college. This is ridiculous, she thinks. Just because she is living in Ireland does not mean she has to turn into an alcoholic. She doesn’t have to, but she’s afraid she might be anyway. Turning into one, that is.

Her stomach gurgles. What the hell? Did I eat something gross? Those curry stands—no, she stayed away from those, thank God. Gurgle. It must be the alcohol still rumbling around in there. Bathroom. Needless to say, she realizes that whether she drank two pints or three, the results are the same. Which brings us to the mirror. Her face feels warm, despite the coolness of her apartment. Dublin doesn’t heat anything like back home. She looks intently into the mirror and is aghast by the image. She is both red and green, flushed in splotchy patches and pale on her forehead and underneath her dark eye circles. Ghastly, ghoulish, goblin-like, grim, almost gruesome. So many adjectives that start with ‘g’ are applicable. This is what the pints have wrought.

Is David here? she thinks briefly before she throws herself down on the floor in front of the toilet and gags. There’s nothing in her stomach—she’s relieved to have turned down the curry stand once again—except bile and a little alcohol. She sits by the toilet, sweating.

“Ali? You home?” David calls from the front door. Apparently, she left it unlocked last night when she got in. She’s a little embarrassed, but then again, it’s Dublin. Safer than the Midwest. David steps inside and wipes his feet; Ali can hear him. Such a careful man. He missed whatever escapades she got into last night because he was tutoring his ESL tutees until ten. Her session got over at eight, so naturally that left time for her to indulge. Here he is now, perky as all get out, peeking his head around the corner of the open bathroom door at her, making her wretch again. She tries to get up any of the bile that is left in her stomach.

“What happened last night?” David asks. He sounds concerned but also annoyed, as if he knows that Ireland is turning Ali into more of an drunkard than she will ever admit to being. She wipes her mouth on the nearest washcloth without looking up at him. Suddenly, they both hear a moan coming from the general direction of either the bedroom or the kitchen. The moan is one of those low whimper types of sounds that could be a person, a child, or an animal. David thinks he knows what’s going on. He has never really trusted Ali, even though he’s known her for over a year. He’s going to find out who she brought home last night.

David takes one step down the hallway, but Ali manages to turn her aching body toward him and grab his leg. “Don’t!” she says a little louder than she meant to. She herself doesn’t know where the moan is coming from, but she has a feeling it can’t be good. But David’s going to think what he’s going to think, regardless of what she says now. Oh, man, she thinks, turning back toward the toilet.

David takes a couple of steps down the hallway and peers into the open bedroom door. Complete darkness, despite the hour of the day, which is noon, by the way, or what people here call ‘midday.’ Quaint and very practical. On the floor just inside the door are two bottles, one Guinness (not a surprise) and one milk (what?). David does not have dainty feet. As he steps forward to feel for the light switch on the left side of the door, his hiking boots that he did not remove like he normally would have because he was in a hurry to check on Ali knock over the bottle of milk (again, what?) and it falls, rolls, and stops by the rickety nightstand on the side of Ali’s bed. “Shit!” David says, because it is not like him to knock things over. Ali hears him and brings herself to a standing position. She takes a step toward the mirror again to see if the image of red, green, and white has changed. She finds it hasn’t.

David flips on the light switch in the bedroom. Ali hears another moan, a small one, more of a grunt, truth be told. This time, it is David who is making the sound. He reaches down to pick up the fallen bottle of milk before its foil-like red cap comes off. He knows these foil-like caps are no good; spills happen to drinks that have these caps on them. David is not a fan of bottles with these foil-like red caps.

He rights the bottle and, turning his body back to the doorway, asks impatiently, “Ali, why do you have a bottle of milk in your bedroom?” but she doesn’t really hear him. Ali has entered the bedroom and is looking at the bed. She is looking at the person on the bed who made the moan earlier, the sound that she and David heard but didn’t know where it was coming from. The person is sleeping peacefully on his side. He is so peaceful that he is, as they say, sleeping the sleep of the dead. For that is what he is. Ali sees red bleeding into her sheets and down into her mattress. In this moment, she doesn’t think, ‘what does one do with a mattress full of blood?’ but she will think that very soon.

David sees only another man, not a dead man. He is so disappointed in Ali. First her heavy drinking, now this random guy. Can’t she just be a normal graduate student? “Milk, Ali?” he asks again.

Ali wonders if David’s mind is working correctly if he is so focused on the damn milk. Then he leaves. He just backs out of the bedroom, turns around, and walks on out the front door.

Ali remains standing by the bed. She is sweating again.

– Lisa McCallum