Chapter Two
Julie
It’s 3:30 when the door to my office flies open and a bunch of people burst in screaming. “Happy birthday!” they shout, and I wish I could crawl under my desk without the glaring professional implications of such a maneuver. Every day, it seems like the social contract gets longer and longer. I’ve been through this particular ritual enough I should have it down to a fine art by now. They’ve been surprising me at precisely 3:30 on my birthday as long as I’ve been working here. I just hope nobody brought me a gift.
The last time someone left me a present, I didn’t see who put it on my desk. There was no card, no tag on the gift, nothing.
I couldn’t sleep for days.
Somewhere, there was a coworker of mine wondering why I didn’t properly thank him or her for such a generous offering. Everyone was out of my office before I even noticed it was sitting there, green-bowed and grimacing. The paper was a dark-purple flower pattern against a black background, and I didn’t dare touch it. Not until I found out who left it on my desk. I just knew everyone in the office was going to end up hating me. The one I snubbed: he or she would tell a few of their friends who would tell a few of their friends, and before long, I’d be sitting in Mr. Marchant’s office, trying to explain why I was so hostile toward my coworkers.
That’s what I thought was going to happen, anyway. As it turned out, everyone just ignored me like usual and that was that. I still haven’t opened the gift, though. It would be rude to enjoy something without suitably sharing my appreciation for the opportunity.
I still have nightmares where I come into work, and everyone’s sitting on their desks, facing me, each one of them holding the same flowery-papered box with the neon green bow. They never say anything, but I know they’re all quietly judging me. Why else would they go to such lengths for the effort?
Okay, so I have some mild social issues.
Last night, I stayed up late practicing my surprised face. The more I practiced, of course, the more mortifyingly awkward the expression became. Finally, I gave up on the surprised face and spent a few hours planning alternate approaches. After much internal deliberation and, I’m almost ashamed to say, more than one pie chart, I decided my best bet was to be spontaneous with my reaction. Maybe my instincts aren’t awful at all. Maybe I kill everything by overthinking it. I was up until almost five this morning trying to decide if there was enough evidence to suggest I empirically do overthink things, but I fell asleep before coming to a reasonable conclusion.
I like to think I’m a people person. I’m not actually a people person, but I like to think that I am. It’s like a mantra, or a positive affirmation. If I just say it enough, I’ll suddenly fit in, and it won’t matter that I never left the books at school long enough to learn basic human interaction. One of these times, I’m going to say it, and it’s going to be the truth, I just know it.
Today is not that day.
Spontaneity fails miserably as my voice comes out in a variety of pitches and volumes, pronouncing words I’m not sure I’ve encountered whilst learning any of the five languages I speak. I know it’s appropriate to make eye contact while embarrassing one’s self in a captive public setting, but I spend a lot of time checking the area of my desk for incoming gifts. I’m watching for hand movements, the subtle shifts in posture which could indicate the retrieval of some sort of token of recognition for having not died in the last year.
It’s not until they’re at the point in the Happy Birthday song where they say my name that I realize they’re singing to me. In the last moments of the song, I do manage to look up in what I could claim later was a genuine show of affection and appreciation toward my coworkers for their kindness in remembering such a trifling thing as the anniversary of the day I was brought screaming into the world.
The song’s over, and I’m clapping way too loud, smiling way too much, and laughing a lot longer than makes sense. “Thank you so much!” I half-whisper, half-shout in surprising, irregular patterns. My mouth is dry and my lips are stuck to my gums. I try to force my top lip down, but only one side moves, so I just bring it back to that full smile that makes my cheek muscles feel like they’re going to snap.
Now everyone’s looking at me with expecting faces, and I don’t know what they want. I wish I could just ask them, but apparently, I’m just supposed to know what everybody’s thinking. It doesn’t really seem fair.
Finally, someone in the back who’s anxious to get a piece of cake and leave saves me, calling out, “Blow out the candles!”
I don’t even know why they allow candles in an office setting like this. It’s a fire hazard, and I’m exactly the kind of person that would end up with a birthday-cake-fire in my office.
“Make a wish!” someone shouts, and I can actually hear people groaning at the thought of spending the extra time it’ll take me to pretend I’m thinking hard about something I really want, and then, with exuberant eyes, “deciding” and quickly blowing out the candles like wishes have shelf lives.
They’re still standing there, and so I pucker my lips and blow. It’s one long candle with the world “Mazeltov” written over a Star of David, but the room erupts as if I’ve pulled off some super-human feat.
They set the cake on top of the carefully laid out pages from last quarter’s report on the effects of current market trends on last quarter’s investment activities. They use one of those cheap plastic knives to cut a jagged grid of too few slices into the cake, smearing cheap plastic-tasting icing over every single page on my desk.
I’m still smiling. It has to be unhealthy for a person to smile this wide for this long. At this point, I think the corners of my mouth have attached themselves to my back molars. I’m still smiling as half the people in my office get a piece of cake and the other half complain to each other about how they “never get a slice.” And I’m still smiling as everyone quickly files out of my office a few seconds later, closing the door too hard behind them.
I look down at my desk. Yep, they forgot to give me a piece again. It’s the third year in a row. Hey, at least this time, they didn’t bother with a present.
My face slowly unpeels from its contrived position, and I spend the next few minutes searching the internet for ways to get icing off of time-sensitive financial reports.
Twenty-seven years. To me, twenty-seven is just the polite way of saying, “Almost thirty.” It used to be, I was always the youngest person doing things. I got bumped up a couple of grades in junior high and high school, so I was always the youngest person in the class. I graduated high school early, so I was the youngest person in my college classes, in grad school classes.
I was the youngest applicant to Futuere Industries that year, and by far the youngest to get the job. Now, though, I’m the oldest person in the company still trying to figure out a way to fit in. Everyone else: A couple of weeks. Me? I’ll let you know when it happens.
If it happens.
It’s almost five, and I can’t stop thinking I should have figured it out by now. I know the name of every person working on the floor, even the new guy they hired to come in and wipe dust off of the plastic plants. His name is Bruce, and he has three children, each from a different marriage. I know this, because I started having my favorite intern, Riley, make up cheat sheets on everyone in the office. Now, I can walk the floor and say, “Hi, Sharon,” or “How are the dogs, Rob?” like I’m everyone’s office chum. I’ve gotten to be almost decent at small talk because of it.
Bruce, he’s currently single again and looking, if I’m interested.
I’m not interested.
My plan for tonight is to go home, put on the same crappy movie I used to watch with my mom before schooling ate my childhood, and my career ate everything else, while telling myself repeatedly I’m choosing to spend my birthday alone this year. At 4:58, though, something happens. I don’t even think about it, but my phone is in my hand, and I’m asking Riley, my intern, if she can step into my office for a minute.
If I start thinking about what I’m doing, I won’t follow through with it, so I try to remember the lyrics to “My Sharona” as I wait for Riley to arrive.
There’s a knock, and then my door opens. “Yes, Miss Montierth?” Riley asks.
“I’ve decided to go out tonight for my birthday, and I was wondering if you’d care to join me,” I say.
Riley has a look on her face I can’t quite interpret, but she answers quickly. “Sure. Where?”
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“Who’s all going?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Right now, it’s just you and me, but if you have any suggestions, I’m, you know, open to them…” This is going better than I feared, but much worse than I’d hoped.
“I can ask a few people if you want,” she says. “How many would you like to have join us?” She takes out a pen and her ubiquitous notepad. This is just another task from the boss to her: not exactly the breezy moment I’d hoped it would be.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “What’s the smallest number of people I can invite and still say ‘I went out with the girls for my birthday?’”
“Three,” she says. “Two people and you’re just hanging out, one person, and you’re grabbing a drink with a friend—I’m sorry, you didn’t say where you wanted to go.”
I repeat, “I don’t know.”
“I know a few places,” she says. “Do you like dancing?”
“Yes.” I don’t know why I said that. I’ve never gone dancing in my life. The only dancing I do is the slight shimmy and occasional head nod to the radio on my way to work.
“Great, I’ve got the perfect place. If that doesn’t turn out good, we can go somewhere else more colorful.”
“Colorful,” I say, tapping my pen against my desk. “Colorful is good. I like the idea of building up to it, though, so yeah, let’s do that second.”
“Great,” Riley says, no longer able to contain the slight chuckle she’s been visibly holding in for the last minute and a half. “I’ll go round up a couple of people and we’ll head to the club.”
“We’re going to a club?” I ask.
“Is there somewhere else you prefer to go dancing?”
“Okay, then we’re going to a club, but this isn’t going to be one of those things where the boss invites a couple of people out after work and then ends up humiliating herself in a never-to-be-forgotten barrage of flailing limbs, is it?”
Riley lifts an eyebrow. “That kind of depends on you, I think.”
There’s always a chance this won’t be a horribly scarring experience, but that chance is growing slimmer by the moment. “Set it up,” I tell her. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t the way I wanted it to come out. I’m trying to be free-wheeling and spontaneous.”
She gives me a thumbs-up and walks out of the office.
I sigh and, rubbing my temples, I mutter, “This is going to be a disaster.”
***
I sit in the front seat of the cab. Riley assures me this is the position of honor, but to me it just feels like I’m making it easier for the three women to talk about me, literally, behind my back.
Turning around, I say, “So, what kind of club is it?”
Marcy and Jenna, they look at me like I’m speaking some long lost dialect nobody understands anymore. Riley looks like she wants to answer, but she’s keeping quiet. After a painful ten seconds of me turned halfway around in my seat, Jenna finally says, “You’ve never been to Pascal?”
“Huh,” I say. “I wonder if the name was inspired by the French mathematician.”
“Why would they name a club after a French mathematician?” Jenna, the blonde from the office two doors down from mine responds. That exchange right there includes more words than we’ve spoken to one another in the entirety of our working together.
“Well, music has math in it, doesn’t it?” Marcy, the redheaded intern who brings her coffee from home, brews it at work, and won’t let anyone else have any, asks.
“Music has math by necessity,” I answer. “Art can, but doesn’t always have to, unless you’re taking proportion into account, in which case—”
“So, you’re twenty-seven, huh?” Marcy interrupts.
I glance to the cab driver as if he’s going to help me somehow understand these people. He winks at me. I’m not certain, but I don’t think he’s coming to my aid.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “Twenty-seven years old.”
“I am dreading turning thirty,” Jenna says.
“I know, right?” Marcy responds. “It’s like, kill me now before I leave my twenties.”
“You know, I saw this thing online that says that women who turn thirty lose like all of their sexual drive,” Jenna announces.
“That can’t be true,” Marcy says. “My dad always said thirty’s when a woman really discovers her sexual identity.”
“Your dad told you that?” Jenna asks. “Gross.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Marcy says. “None of my step-moms was ever around long enough to go over that stuff with me, and he did the best he could, so whatever. Anyway,” she pats me on the shoulder, “you’re not dead yet.”
“Thanks,” I respond, not knowing what else to say.
“So,” Jenna says, “is it true you graduated high school when you were like twelve?”
“Fifteen,” I answer. “I probably would have made it through sooner if I—”
“Fifteen?” Marcy gasps. “That’s crazy!” She leans forward a little. “So you’re like crazy smart, huh?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. At the moment, I feel pretty stupid.
“So, like,” Marcy continues, “did you go to college and stuff after that? I mean, I guess you’d have to ‘cause they don’t give jobs like yours to dropouts, huh?”
“Yeah, I went to college,” I tell her. “It was kind of crazy having my mom drop me off on campus when everyone else has been driving for a couple of years.”
“That’s right,” Jenna says. “You were too young to drive back then, weren’t you?”
“I was fifteen,” I answer.
The cab pulls over, and I look out the front window. There’s a line of about fifty people snaking its way halfway down the block.
“These lines,” I say, “do they usually move pretty fast?”
“Not really,” Jenna snickers. After that, I can hear her whispering something, but I can’t pick it out. I was afraid of this. I’m the extra wheel at my own birthday celebration.
“How are we going to get in then?” I ask.
“We can always show off the girls,” Marcy says.
“Show off the girls?” I ask.
Jenna laughs, and Marcy answers, grabbing a couple handfuls of her own chest, “You know, the girls. Give the bouncer a little show and we’re in, no problem.”
I understood what she meant.
Jenna’s whispering again, but this time it’s loud enough I pick up what she’s saying. “It’s Miss Montierth. She’s not going to flash her tits to get into some club.”
“How long?” I ask, looking back over the seat to avoid the lascivious gaze of the cab driver.
Jenna’s head snaps around to face me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it like a two-second thing, or am I going to be standing there for a while? It’s kind of chilly,” I answer.
“Oh my god, she’s totally going to do it,” Marcy says, patting Jenna repeatedly on the knee. It’s then that I receive my first full, proper, and ear-piercingly loud, “WOO!” from the girls in the car.
“You know,” the driver says, “you give me three seconds, and you girls’ve got a free cab ride.”
Without turning to face him, I reach into my purse and pull out a twenty. Handing the money to the driver, I say, “So, are we doing this or what?”
Riley asks, “You sure about this, Miss Montierth?”
“Oh, come on,” I answer. “It’s Julie. Let’s go show some random guy our tits, shall we?” In psychology, they refer to this sort of thing as immersion therapy: Surrounding one’s self with something frightening in order to normalize the fear. This is so far out of my comfort zone, I’m terrified. I want to ask what the risk of getting arrested for indecent exposure is like with this sort of thing, but figure it’s probably not the “cool” thing to say.
I get my second “WOO!” followed by a whole lot of laughter and Marcy reflecting, “Miss Montierth totally just said ‘tits!’”
The word felt funny coming out of my mouth, but the more I show myself as an outsider, the more difficult it’s going to be to gain the acceptance of the group. It’s similar to the way zoologists will often take on some characteristics of the animals they’re studying in order to gain the latter’s trust. Of course, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle would suggest that I shouldn’t make these three aware I’m studying them, lest it changes their behavior. Actually, Heisenberg would say the mere act of observation changes the results, and it’s therefore impossible to get an unadulterated study. There I go, mischaracterizing Heisenberg like I’m back in grade school.
Our slighted cab driver grumbles, “Well, unless you need a ride somewhere else, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of my cab so I can pick up another fare.”
“Here we go, bitches!” Jenna announces, opening her door.
On our way across the sidewalk, I whisper in Riley’s ear, “Should I start referring to the three of you as ‘bitches,’ or is that the sort of thing that’s only allowed for—”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Riley answers. “You know, just to be on the safe side.”
“Right,” I respond. I should probably know the appropriate context for that sort of thing, or else I might end up inadvertently insulting my fellow roisterers.
Before I know it, we’re standing in front of the bouncer, and Jenna’s asking if there’s room for a few more. The man checks his clipboard, though it’s obvious he’s not gleaning any information from it, and he says, “Sorry. You gotta wait.”
Riley nudges me like I’m supposed to be the one to do something, so I say, “Are you sure the eight of us can’t change your mind?” Before he has a chance to answer, I’m pulling my shirt up, snagging my bra along with it and yep. I’m now totally exposed, nipples hardening from the cold and adrenaline.
I don’t know how long I’m supposed to do this. I glance over at the others. Jenna and Marcy are standing there slack-jawed like they didn’t think I was really going to do it. Were they joking when they said we should flash the bouncer?
I pull my shirt back down, bra only kind of back in place. I’m going to have to quit my job, move to another city and change my name. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.
“Head on in,” he says to me. When the others try to follow, he holds up his hand, saying, “She said ‘eight.’”
“You’re kidding, right?” Marcy asks. “I’m not doing that.”
My eyebrow goes up. Marcy was the one who suggested flashing the bouncer. I tell her, “Have fun on the sidewalk then. I’m going to the club.”
Riley sighs, bares her chest, and the bouncer lets her through. She and I wait for a few seconds on the other two, but even though this was their idea, it doesn’t look like they’re too keen on following through.
“They can find us inside, right?” I ask.
Riley nods and we make our way into the club. The moment I open the door, I’m hit with the force of 100 decibels beating against my body. Riley taps me on the shoulder. She says something, but I can’t hear a word of it.
“What?” I yell.
She points toward a table across the room that’s just opening up, and we make our way that direction. We sit down, and I’m past the point of regret. I’ve already gone further than I planned to, but a person’s twenties are supposed to be full of overindulgence, right? Besides, I can’t imagine I’m going to have to flash anyone else tonight.
I’m watching the door when Marcy and Jenna come through, huddled close together with scowling faces. I smile. This isn’t a story I want to spread around the office, but I’m actually looking forward to talking about it among the three of us. “Hey, remember that time we flashed a bouncer to get into the club?”
Yeah, I remember. It’s not something I see myself doing again, but at least I’ll have a good story tomorrow. Jenna and Marcy spot us and come over to the table. It’s a little quieter in the booth, but Marcy still has to yell when she says, “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“The way you were talking about it made it seem like this was something you did all the time. If I knew you weren’t serious, I would never have—”
“You wanna get some drinks?” Jenna shouts over me.
I nod.
It’s loud enough maybe I can get away ordering something non-alcoholic. I’ve never had an alcoholic beverage, apart from the sip of champagne I had at a cousin’s wedding a few years ago. I don’t know what the big deal is about champagne. It tastes like spoiled grape juice with bubbles in it. Anyway, I’m not sure I want to get all wasted—that’s the proper term, right?—when I can’t easily express to my cohorts if I need to go home.
Jenna waves down a waiter. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but as the waiter’s walking away, both Jenna and Marcy make that same “WOO!” noise they made in the cab. Perhaps it’s the mating call of the twenty-something club-goer. I nudge Riley. She leans her ear in to hear, and I ask, “Should I be doing the whole ‘WOO!’ thing, too?”
Riley shakes her head, and while I can’t hear anything she’s saying, I can read her lips well enough to make out, “Oh, hell no.”
There are dynamics at work here I don’t begin to understand.
Jenna leans over the table, shouting, “I got tequila shooters to start us off!”
My stomach churns. I’ve never drank tequila, but I’ve smelled it before. The scent struck my nose like salty gasoline. Ten minutes and $40 later, I now know tequila tastes different than it smells. It tastes much, much worse.
Before the waiter leaves, Jenna orders up four more. Ugh. I wanted “a crazy night with the girls,” though, and I guess that’s what we’re having. I don’t know why we’re just sitting in the booth, though. We’re not really talking, and when we are, it’s not like we can really understand each other anyway. Maybe it’s time to call it a night. I’ve already exposed myself to a stranger, and drank something that tasted like it came out of an engine.
Something happens after that second shot, though. Riley, who up until now has been my quiet little helper, grabs a napkin and writes something on it before sliding it over to me.
“Are you my boss tonight?” the napkin reads.
I look at Riley and shake my head.
She writes, “You sure?”
I nod.
She nods back, and now she’s grabbing my wrist, pulling me out of the booth. We’re walking to the dance floor. The next thing I know, Riley’s let go of my wrist, and she’s moving her body in a fluid manner I can’t properly describe. Every motion is right on beat, and there’s no way I can move like that.
I can see her mouth form the words, “Come on!” but I don’t even know where to start. After another couple of seconds just standing there, Riley decides to take matters into her own hands.
It starts when she rests one hand on my shoulder, and then she’s grinding—I think that’s the term: certainly feels like what she’s doing—on me. A moment later, her lips are against my ear, and I hear her say, “I’m not coming on to you. Just let go! Isn’t that why you’re here?”
I hate it when people tell me to “just let go.” Let what go, and exactly what am I supposed to put in its place?
I feel funny, kind of warm, and maybe a little sick, but before I know it, I’m moving my shoulders, my hips. My feet are stationary, and I don’t know what to do with my arms, but it feels kind of nice.
Riley smiles and nods her head emphatically. Her mouth forms what I think are the words, “There you go!”
This isn’t so bad. In fact, I think I could get used to this if it weren’t for the sweaty guy with his hands resting on my hips while he—I hate that I even know this term—dry humps my leg. My eyes feel as wide as my gaping mouth, but Riley just smiles at me.
Her mouth forms the words, “Just go with it.”
So I do.
I’m looking around the dance floor for ideas on what to do, but from the look of things, it doesn’t really matter as long as I’m moving and there’s some kind of physical contact. Without warning, Riley grabs my wrist again and pulls me to another part of the dance floor where my other two coworkers are dancing more on than with some guy with huge muscles, unnaturally white teeth, and a permanent look of confusion on his face.
Riley puts her arm around me and right into my ear, she says, “We’re getting out of here.”
“We just got here!” I tell her, but she points to her ear and shakes her head. She can’t hear me. Of course she can’t hear me. Getting in here cost more than I was planning on; and I haven’t spent a dime. Now she wants to go. Go where?
The confused guy manages to close his mouth, though only for a few seconds. When he opens it again, it’s with a visibly deep breath. I thought the term “mouth-breather” was just a colloquialism.
“Fine!” I shout to Riley who’s not paying attention anymore. It’s not like she would have heard me anyway.
Jenna and Marcy must really see something in the guy whose pupils stay dilated even when the lights come up. They’re jockeying for position around the front of his pants when Riley gyrates her way over to them. A couple minutes later, we’re walking out of the club, and Jenna’s saying, “Wherever we’re going better be bomb. That guy was hot.”
“Too bad he was into me and not you,” Marcy tells her.
Riley hails a cab, and I’m wondering if the problem is I’m judging men by all the right criteria when social convention goes the other way with it. Of course, I’ve only ever really had one kind-of boyfriend. We “dated” for about a month when I was in grad school. The whole thing culminated when I lost my virginity to him. At least I think I did. I remember twenty seconds of pain and a lot of awkward flopping around, and then it was over: not just the “sex,” but the relationship as well. And he fit all my criteria.
“Where are we going?” I ask Riley, trying to get out of my head.
“It’s a different kind of place,” she answers.
The cab pulls up to the curb. I get in the front again, not wanting to go against social convention. Marcy’s asking me, “Are you having a good time, Jules?”
I’m too far out of my element to even know, so I pretend I can’t hear her.
We’re driving a while. Marcy and Jenna are in the back, gabbing about other times they went to the club. Riley’s quiet behind me.
“Where are we going?” Marcy asks. “This is like the crappy part of town.”
“This is the exciting part of town,” Riley corrects.
For the first time tonight, I have to side with Marcy. The tall office buildings have given way to boarded-up gas stations, overgrown parking lots, and the occasional clowder of feral cats.
“No, seriously, where are we going?” Jenna asks.
I’m thinking the same thing, but Riley’s the one of the group I’ve almost kind of bonded with, so I don’t say anything.
“Low Dive Bar,” the cabbie says. I’ve heard of dive bars before. This may be above my paygrade.
There are at least two dozen motorcycles parked out front, and a few leather-clad, brawny men standing outside smoking. Marcy asks the same question that’s on my mind: “Wait, is this a biker bar?”
Riley pats me on the shoulder, saying, “You up for something different, Julie?”
Biker bars are supposed to be dangerous, aren’t they? This is what I wanted, though. I convinced myself I’d gotten to twenty-seven without actually living. What’s life without risk?
“Sure,” I say and open my door.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Marcy says as I’m getting out.
“Seriously,” Jenna adds. “We go in there we’re going to get killed or something.”
It’s the “or something” that almost makes me want to laugh. Almost.
“Well, we’re going in,” Riley says when she gets to my side of the car. “You guys do what you want.”
“We are not going in there,” Jenna says. “If the two of you want to get violated by a bunch of hairy biker guys, that’s on you.”
“Yeah,” Marcy says. “Driver, take us home.”
The driver says, “Could you be more specific?”
Riley shuts my door and the cab pulls away. Okay. This is going to be okay. I’m sure these guys are normal people just like everyone else. They like riding motorcycles, and they like being around other people who like riding motorcycles. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“Julie?” Riley asks.
“Yeah?” I ask, pulling myself out of my head.
“Are you coming?”
She’s halfway to the door, and I haven’t moved an inch. As if independent of my control, my feet are carrying me toward the only person I know in a five-mile radius. Scared as I am, it would be worse were I alone.
I get to Riley and she puts her hand on my shoulder, saying, “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine.”
I don’t know what that means. It looks like I’m going to find out, because we’re walking through the doors now. Inside, the bar is packed, but it goes eerily quiet. Every eye in the place is fixed on Riley and me, and my limbic system is screaming at my legs to start running. But I don’t. I’m frozen.
After a few seconds, everyone returns their attention to what they were doing. Riley pats me on the back and says, “Why don’t you grab us a couple of drinks? I’m going to go say hi to a couple of people.”
In a voice so small even I can’t hear it, I answer, “Okay.”
I walk up, and a woman who looks like she could hold her own in a fight with anyone in the place sidles over to me on the other side of the bar. “What can I get ya?” she asks.
“Uh,” I start. I don’t know what to order in a biker bar. “What would you suggest?”
“I’ll come back when you know what you want,” the woman says and walks away without another word.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself.
I pat my legs. Well, I’ve been in here for nearly a full minute, and I haven’t been assaulted yet. That’s a good sign, right?
“Can I buy you a drink?” about three hundred pounds of pure muscle and beard stubble asks me.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for my friend,” I tell him.
“You came in here with Riley,” he says. “How do you two know each other?”
“We work together,” I tell him. Should I not have said that? Is that too much information? Does that mean this guy’s going to show up in the parking lot at work one day, straddling his bike, wielding a machete? “How do you know Riley?” I ask.
He scoffs, smiles. “Everyone knows Riley,” he says. “Free drink on me. Whaddayawant?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “A beer?”
“Hey, Chas!” the man says, knocking on the counter. “Two beers!”
“I’m actually supposed to be getting a drink for my friend—I mean, Riley, too. I mean, I don’t know if you’re getting that for—”
Somewhere behind me, a man shouts, “Man, fuck you!” and the whole bar goes quiet for a long half second. I’m not sure whether I should turn around, or if it’s safer to just ignore it. Before I can decide, all hell breaks loose.
Men are shouting at each other, fists are flying. In no time, everyone in the bar except me and the bartender has picked a side and now they’re all fighting. A metal chair flies halfway across the room, hitting one man in the back. Bottles shatter, and the bartender walks over carrying two large glasses of beer, saying, “Two beers,” before she walks away again as if nothing’s wrong.
I want to run, but the path to the door is blocked by two large men hammering each other so hard I can’t believe either of them is still standing. I step back to avoid a pair of men who are trying to slam each other’s heads into the bar. Someone runs into the back of me, and I’m all but thrown into the middle of the chaos. I’m ducking, covering my head. I try to get out, but I’m surrounded.
If I make it out of here, I’ll never take my stupid boring life for granted again. I look for an opening, some way out, but there’s no way. Right in front of me, one man throws another with such force he clears one of the pool tables. A second later, that man’s back on his feet, throwing fists at someone else.
“Riley!” I shout, but the sound doesn’t travel far over the cacophony. “Riley!”
Next thing I know, someone’s hand closes around my wrist, and I’m being jerked, pulled through the bedlam. It takes a second before I can see who’s leading me. It’s not Riley. I can only see the back of him, but the man’s about a foot taller than me, with long, dirty-blond hair, arms thick with tattoos, and muscles like a heavyweight boxer.
I tug against the hand leading me, but the man has more strength in his grip than I seem to have in my body. There’s nothing I can do but keep my feet beneath me as I’m led through the brawl.
He doesn’t say anything, or if he does, I can’t hear him over the fighting. He leads me back behind the bar and through the tiny kitchen, and suddenly we’re outside. I can still hear the fighting, but it sounds muffled and a mile away.
“You need to be more careful,” the man says, releasing his grasp, and I’m running toward the road.
This is more than I signed up for, and I’m not wasting another second risking the life I’ve built.
I make it to the road, and I look both ways, hoping for a stray cab to magically show up right now, but it doesn’t. A moment later, there’s an arm around my shoulders. I spin my head to look.
It’s Riley.
She’s laughing.
She says, “Now tell me you’re going to forget your birthday this year.”
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