Assuming he wakes up at all, that is. And given the type of neighborhood this is, I wouldn’t count on it.
Oh, for God’s sake.
Bending down slightly, I put out my foot and prod him gently in the side with my toe.
That counts as doing something? Right?
There’s a loud groan, which makes me jump yet again —wow, I really am spooked tonight, for some reason— and he rolls over onto his other side, the phone falling from his hand with an ominous crack.
Uh-oh.
“Hey, wake up,” I say, poking him with my toe again. “Please,” I add, as an afterthought. Well, Ididtell myself I was going to try to be good, didn’t I?
At first there’s no response. Then, with another loud groan, 3.5 rolls over again and throws up extravagantly on my shoes.
Great. Just great. That’s where “being good” gets you, Lexie. No good deed unpunished, huh?
Okay, now I’mreallyannoyed.
“Oh,come on,” I yell, my voice still sounding unnaturally shrill. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“Huh? What?”
The vomiting episode has apparently helped clear Mr. 3.5’s head somewhat, and he pushes himself up into a sitting position, staring at me groggily.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” I say sharply, bending down and picking up his cracked phone, which I put into his hand before he has a chance to protest. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
I turn on my heel, intending to walk away, but something stops me. I think… I think it might be my conscience? I can’t besureobviously, because I don’t hear from it all that often — we’re only very slenderly acquainted, really — but I know enough to realize that the nagging feeling of discomfort I’m currently experiencing has nothing to do with the dampness that lingers in the air from the rainfall, and slightly more of a connection to the very hairy man who’s currently staring up at me through unfocused eyes.
“Hey, I know you!” he says, sounding absurdly pleased with himself, given that he’s almostliterallylying in a gutter right now. “You’re the girl from the bar! The Scottish one! Lady Macbeth!”
“The hell?”
I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but “Lady Macbeth” is a new one on me. He must be even drunker than I thought. He did order alotof whisky back in the bar, though. And he kept on going long after the Silver Fox guy he was with had left. Summer had to get Joel to throw him out in the end— and it doesn’t look like he got very far, either.
“Yeah, I thought you sounded like Lady Macbeth,” he says, slurring so much that I can barely understand him. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately. You know, from the play by—”
‘I know who Lady Macbeth is,” I snap, losing patience with this bizarre conversation. “I just don’t know why I’m talking about her with a random stranger in a dark alley in the middle of the night.”
Okay, it’s not really an alley, and it’s not quite the middle of the night, either. It is, however, an utterly ridiculous conversation to be having right now, and I open my mouth to tell him that, but, before I can speak, he’s off again.
“Look like th’ innocent flower,”Mr 3.5 slurs.“‘But be the snake under’t.Are you the snake or the flower, though, Scottish girl? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Serpent,” I say irritably. “It’s serpent, not snake. If you’re going to quote Shakespeare, you should at least get it right. Also, you’re drunk.”
“I know I am,” he says, chuckling almost to himself. “But what are you, though? You didn’t answer my question?”
“What I am is sick and tired of this conversation,” I tell him bluntly. “I’ve been on my feet all day. I’ve been groped by one customer, yelled at by at least two others, and now some drunk guy’s quoting Shakespeare — incorrectly, I might add — at me on the street. I’m going home. You should do the same.”
This time Idoturn and start to walk away, and my conscience, I’m pleased to report, doesn’t have much to say about it this time. Even it knows better than to mess with me when I’m in this kind of mood.
Mr. 3.5, though,doesn’t.
“Wait!” he yells, struggling to his feet, and falling right back down again. “Where are you going, Lady Macbeth? You’re my muse. You can’t just leave me here!”
“Oh, I definitely can,” I assure him, looking back over my shoulder. “And I’m not your ‘muse’ either. Youreallyneed to go home and sleep it off now, trust me.”
“I would if I could,” 3.5 mutters, looking around the street as if he’s seeing it for the first time. “Where the hell am I, anyway?”
