“Free refill for you.”
“I don’t need one.” He waves his hand. “I’m on my way out.”
“You turn into a pumpkin before midnight?”
He smiles, and he’s cuter than I realized from afar. Straight nose, great teeth. Not that I’d taken him to be a troll, because trolls are off-limits per the rules of the game, but the shadows of the bar concealed his blue eyes, his defined chin, his strong shoulders.
“Nah, just ... I have an early shoot tomorrow, and the person I was meeting tonight never showed.”
“A shoot? I’m intrigued.” I plop elbows onto the bar, then my chin into my palms.
“Grad student,” he says.
“Are you at Tisch? I’ve never seen you before; I’m there for theater.”
“I’m there for writing, MFA,” he says. “You know, about to set the world on fire as the next big screenwriter.” He shrugs, looks away. “Or something like that. I don’t know, talk to my parents and they’ll tell you I gave up my very lucrative analyst position at Morgan Stanley for a graduate degree in film.”
“Banking boys are so boring. No wonder you quit.” I grab the tap and refill his beer anyway, then slide it back to him. “Eh, tell your parents to screw themselves.”
He honest-to-God snorts at this. “I’m still living with them, so that’s a little hard.”
“Yikes,” I say.
“Tell me about it.” He sighs.
“Well, truthfully, I could probably never tell mine to screw themselves either,” I admit. “Sorry, bad advice. I’m trying something new tonight.” I shake my head, refocus. I can already hear Professor Sherman chiding me for slipping so gracelessly out of character.
“I thought bartenders only gave amazing advice?”
“Only in the movies.” I laugh. “You’re shit out of luck with me.”
I wipe my hands on the towel, which is really more for show than hygiene, since it’s damp with old booze and pretzel crumbs. I extend my right hand.
“Tatum Connelly.”
“Ben Livingston.” He clasps my palm more firmly than I expect, and I wince. “Sorry,” he says. “Habit. Trained that way by my dad since I was six.”
“Fun childhood.”
“My dad’s only paying for grad school on the promise that I win an Oscar.”
“So win an Oscar,” I say.
“Uh ... OK.” He grins. “Now you sound like him: ‘If you’re going to do something, Benjamin, you’d better at least be the best!’”
“There are worse role models,” I say, because God knows, I know that there are.
“I’m probably making it sound worse than it was.” He sips his beer. “You know, to make you feel sorry for me or something.”
“Fun childhoods are overrated,” I say, because I would know. But because I already slipped once, and I’m not about to betray any part of who I really am again and instead will conceal myself completely in who I need to be for the night, I add: “But why would you want me to feel sorry for you?” I bite my lip, coy, flirtatious, exactly what would be demanded of this role in this moment.
“Oh, I don’t know, so when you get my phone number, you might take pity on me and actually call,” he says.
I chew on a swizzle stick to disguise my surprise at his forthrightness. “What makes you think I want your phone number? And even if Ididwant your phone number, why then wouldn’t I call? For your information, as a female bartender, I get numbers thrown at me all the time.”
“Well, good, because I don’t hand out my number to strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger,” I say. “I’m Tatum.” I wonder, briefly, if I should have made up a name, like Jocelyn or Tiffany or something else to go fully method in this conversation, but it’s too late. More proof, I remind myself, that I need to hone my technique, need to work on really living the part, not just trying it on. Sherman is always saying that:When you go, you have to go all in or else the audience will pick apart your inconsistencies like hawks on a dead deer.He literally said that. Verbatim.
