By the windows on the far side, a woman in a soft green dress was looking up at a tall, dark-haired man who was looking backat her without blinking. They didn't move. The rest of the room moved around them like water around a rock.
Good for them. Some people got the anchor.
"White, please."
I turned. This woman was wearing pearls and a navy dress, mid-fifties, with a well-practiced smile. I poured the chardonnay. I slid the glass across.Slidis generous. The base of the glass clipped the edge of the runner, and the glass made a sound. The woman flinched. Her eyes went to my face.
I gave her my brightest smile. "Enjoy."
She took the glass and walked away faster than she'd arrived.
Sabrina. Be normal. Be normal for ten more minutes. Then be normal for the ten minutes after that. That's all you have to do. Ten-minute increments until you're in a cab going home.
The next guest got slammed with wine. So did the one after that. By the fourth, I'd developed a little routine where I could slam the glass and pretend I'd misjudged the friction of the bar.Whoops. Marble's slick tonight. So sorry.The fourth guest made an offended sound through her nose and walked off without thanking me.
Good.
I pulled the pen from my hair, twirled it, and put it back.
I let my eyes go to the family group near the windows.
There were five of them now. A woman in green stood with a dark-haired man beside her. An older woman in cream, silver-blonde hair pinned neatly, pearls adorning her neck, stood very still while the rest of them seemed to arrange themselves around her without thinking about it. A tall man with light brown held a beer loosely in his hand, the kind of ease that came from always belonging in rooms like this. Near a column, an older man with sandy hair and a California-tan that didn’t quite match the coast leaned back and laughed at something the lighter-haired man had said.
They looked good together. They looked like they came from old money.
I let myself—for the length of half a breath—picture a version of me in a soft green dress with my hair done by somebody competent and my little Bonnie next to me in a beautiful pink dress with a bow. But Bonnie would hate the bow. She would tell me the bow was a straw man. I'd tell Bonnie that wasn't what straw man meant, and Bonnie would say, "Mom, Mom, that's literally what it means. Look it up. You're being a straw man right now,” and I'd laugh and hand her a canapé.
I pushed the thought away. People like me couldn’t afford dreams that lavish.
I knew it would cost me nothing to picture it, but everything to hold on to it.
A man in a cheap suit slid up to the bar.
He came up with his shoulders forward, not looking at anyone directly. His suit was charcoal and the wrong size in the shoulders. The shoes were okay. He was reading the menu like it was going to be on a test.
“Whisky,” he said. “Just whisky. Whatever’s not stupid expensive.”
That made me smile for the first time in forty minutes. “Buddy, all of it is stupid expensive.”
“Then the cheapest stupid expensive.”
I poured him a generous double of the Glenfiddich. I slid it across—actually slid it, not slammed it—and he picked it up and downed it without breathing.
He set the glass down and looked at me. “Another.”
“You okay?”
“I need a drink before I do this.” His voice was quiet. His brown eyes didn’t quite settle on me when he said it. “I’m hoping to talk to the owner of the foundation tonight.”
I poured him a second double.
I didn’t ask anything. I didn’t say anything. His brown eyes looked nervous, and he stood hunched in on himself. Maybe he had a kid. Or someone he loved waiting somewhere. Or maybe just a wall he’d been pushing against for too long—showing up in a suit he didn’t really own, in a building he didn’t belong in, trying again anyway.
I pushed the second glass to him.
“On the house.”
He shook his head. “I’m paying for it.” He pulled out his wallet—leather, worn at the corner—and counted bills onto the bar. He counted slowly. He put down forty dollars for a thirty-dollar pour.
