Baby Batter

by Alexis Angel

  I give the mustache barkeep just the right look to get him to come over.

  “Yes, sir,” he greets me, probably ready for a question about local session IPAs or coriander-infused gin cocktails or whatever the fuck kinds of queries he’s used to hearing.

  “I need a coffee.”

  This sends the bartender into a few seconds of silent chaos as he wracks his brain. He’s trying to process my words.

  “Coffee? Sure thing.”

  The barkeep whisks off somewhere, and a mix of cinnamon and citrus smells hit me out of nowhere. I swivel to my right and see the culprit—a young woman with wavy brown hair, a form-fitting light-blue dress, and playful eyes.

  I pivot to my left, to Tad’s stool, but he’s gone. I go back to looking down at the bar.

  “It’s so refreshing to see someone so well-groomed and in shape here, with decent clothes to boot.”

  If she hangs out here, she’s probably used to guys sporting stained T-shirts and bushy beards, yammering at her nervously with greasy bar food on their breath and desperation in their eyes.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Thanks” is all I say as the bartender serves my black coffee, along with an actual box of sugar cubes. You can’t make this shit up.

  Just go to a nightclub, lady. That’s what I want to tell her, but I know that I’m going to end up at a nightclub not too long from now, and that’s the last place I want to be right now. I can’t tell someone else to do the same.

  I scan the room behind me. Maybe I’m looking for a secret exit.

  There’s another woman staring at me. She’s sitting at a table by herself. Her long hair is dyed gradating shades of blue, purple, and pink, falling over her fashionably worn white T-shirt.

  I start drinking the coffee black; it’s instant and tastes like fucking garbage.

  I take one more look at the dyed-hair girl. Her face is stunning. And as she smiles, her features come alive with a remarkable sweetness—but it all does nothing for me.

  “You’re drinking coffee! That’s so cool,” the woman next to me squeals. Jesus, is she for real?

  I feel kind of bad for her. She could have any other dude at this bar any night of the week, but she can’t help but zero in on me.

  Apparently, I do the same thing. Ironic, right?

  An hour later and I’m still sitting hunched over a mug of coffee, except this time, I’m at a club, with a 180-decibel DJ set blaring through the speakers. The huge room is packed wall-to-wall with sweaty, gyrating partiers—people up for a night of intense fun.

  Sprinkled somewhere among the crowd are a few of my friends. There’s Tad, as always, and Susan turned up at one point. And there’s Garry from the gym—a young guy suited to these clubs with pulsing EDM and swirling masses of dancing bodies.

  Fuck, now they’re releasing fucking bubbles, and they’re getting all over the goddamn place.

  I feel two thin, feminine hands gently sweep across my back. What fresh hell is this now?

  I turn around to face the crowd and the stacks of speakers and whoever it is who feels compelled to start touching me. There are strobe lights and stupid fucking fog-machine fog making everything hard to see, but there’s a tall, raven-haired woman whose black dress is squeezing her toned stomach and giant fake tits much too tightly.

  She is coolly confident, and I couldn’t picture her smiling or laughing, like ever. She’s looking at me with sultry, ravenous eyes straight from some print ad in a glossy magazine.

  “Watch out for those bubbles.”

  I’ll admit, she has a way of projecting her voice so I can hear it over the music and growing craziness of the crowd. What I can’t place is her accent; it’s maybe eastern European.

  “Why do I need to watch out for the bubbles? Nobody else seems to care.”

  Fuck, she does laugh—a single, high-pitched shriek of a laugh. It’s nearly sinister.

  “They get in your coffee.”

  Is this real life? Because what the fuck.

  I spot Tad emerging from the crowd behind this weird-as-fuck bubble lady—he’s doing his best to dance, and he points his finger at me. I think he got her to come over.

  “Thanks for the pointer,” I tell her, then I turn my back to them both. I could be polite, but the coffee here is really good.

  And this is what I’ve been reduced to. Drinking coffee at a nightclub. This was totally my scene—should still be my scene. So why am I not feeling it?

  Why am I not finding the first hot girl I see and fucking her up against the wall in a dark corner?

  But I know why. I just don’t want to think about her.

  I’m not quite finished with my cup when Garry grabs my shoulders, with Tad gesturing emphatically for me to come along. Susan must have bailed, but I go with them, figuring that if I stay out late enough, they’ll be satisfied and stop bothering me with this shit for at least a week or two.

  Until we get to the next spot—a big outdoor space with string lights in SoMa—and Tad and Garry have streaks of fluorescent paint and glitter on their faces.

  Whatever scene they left behind at the last space, they could probably have a lot more fun tonight without me. Then again, if they want to spend time on this shit, I can’t stop them.

  There’s no coffee here, so I finally give in with cheap beer in a red plastic cup. I grimace into the foamy cup.

  Fuck. How the mighty have fallen.

  “This reminds me of fuckin’ beer pong,” enthuses Garry, making the most of it by chugging the rest of his own beer.

  “Sure does,” I deadpan, eyeing Tad talking to a group of women at another table.

  Two of them are looking at me already, and after Tad points, they all take in an eyeful. They’re all amazingly attractive and dressed too nicely for a crowded outdoor club.

  In another life, where things turned out differently, I’d happily walk over and introduce myself. In that life, I’d be having my pick of which one I wanted to fuck all night. Or maybe I’d take both. They sure as fuck wouldn’t complain.

  But in my life right now, where nothing makes sense, I’m beyond ready to just go the fuck home.

  “Garry, my friend, it’s been real, but I’m out. Tell Tad thanks. I’ll see him at the gym.”

  I don’t wait for Garry to respond. I just vanish through the exit, wondering how the hell I got to this place in my life and if anything will ever be the same again.

  Emily

  A good night’s sleep is nice, but it does nothing for a broken heart. Ice cream, usually a more effective cure-all, is also doing fuck-all for how I feel today. I’m still shoveling down spoonfuls of a tossed-together sundae from a large bowl while Lana watches.

  “You’re really not gonna have any, Lana?”

  “Maybe later.” Lana’s resting her chin on her hand. She looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  Lucky her.

  “This is breakfast today. I don’t care...I mean, I don’t wanna keep complaining, but I can’t believe it. Still.”

  I consider the soggy, melting mess in the bowl. I throw the spoon down and give up.

  “Tossing in the spoon already?” I don’t know if Lana’s trying to lighten the mood or if she just doesn’t want to deal with this shit today. I, on the other hand, have no choice but to deal with this shit.

  “Fuck ice cream. Nothing can undo last night. I had my opportunity right there. Now it’s gone forever.”

  Lana sits up a little, trying to at least attempt to humor my grave tone.

  “Remind me, Em, what’s this opportunity exactly?”

  I slide the ice cream bowl closer and start in on it again. Lana tries to suppress a smile.

  “I can’t let it melt.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, so WineBar, he’s right fucking there, standing outside a freaking taxi. He asks if I’m okay, and like gives me this look for half a second, but then he just leaves.”

  “Back up a little. He was around f
or the bar or something?”

  I shake my head, trying to convey how irritatingly unclear it all is.

  “I don’t fucking know. That’s one thing that maybe I could have found out. You know, if I knew how to play my fucking cards right!”

  I pick up the bowl. I’m feeling so frustrated with myself—with everything—that I want to smash it on the floor. I close my eyes, take a breath, and settle for placing it back down on the table kind of hard.

  “What can I say, Em? That sucks.”

  I sit back sullenly, crossing my arms.

  “To put it mildly.”

  “But what about before that?”

  I sigh heavily. I can’t help it.

  “What is this, a hypothetical situation analysis?”

  “Um, yeah, sure. Okay, so let’s say WineBar shows up randomly in a taxi for some reason.”

  I uncross my arms. I don’t know what Lana’s point is, but maybe she’ll have some advice to help make this situation less shitty.

  “Yeah, but that’s what really happened, unfortunately.”

  “Right, but instead of you being there with some dude, let’s say you’re by yourself, walking home, or you’re still in the bar with me.”

  I close my eyes and take another breath.

  “What are you getting at already?”

  “Maybe you didn’t fuck it up with what you said or didn’t say before, maybe you fucked it up by being there, at that moment, with some other guy.”

  Christ. I mean...fuck, seriously? Okay, I close my eyes once more, and now I’m literally seeing red.

  I open my eyes and give Lana a look that I hope says everything. She looks startled, but she tries to recover with a guilty shrug. I start eating my ice cream again.

  I think the sugar’s starting to kick in because I feel some tension drain out of me as I finish the last couple bites. And some motivation, for something. Not sure what, yet.

  I enjoy the last solid spoonful of ice cream, firmly put the spoon down for good as I push the bowl away, and stand the fuck up.

  “Whoa, that’s not regular standing, woman. You’ve got something to say!” Now Lana’s catching up.

  “That’s right. And that something is—I’m leaving.”

  “Wait, what? Leaving? Why do I feel like I’m getting dumped?”

  I pick up the bowl and spoon to carry them to the kitchen. I need to formulate my words and my plan, a little more clearly.

  I’m a top 100 romance author for fuck’s sake, crafting the stuff fantasies are made of—fabricating from nothing the types of love lives that most people can only dream about.

  But right now, it feels like all I have are dreams as well.

  After getting back from the kitchen, I feel like I have some things, if not everything, figured out. I walk confidently back to the table, almost strutting. Lana looks up from her phone.

  “Um, who the hell are you? And what have you done with today’s sad version of Emily?”

  I can’t quite force a smile, but Lana’s effort is appreciated.

  “She’s still here, just with a bit more of a plan this time.”

  Lana tosses her phone down on the table and narrows her eyes.

  “You mean leaving? Whatever the fuck that means?”

  “By leaving I mean going somewhere. For a while. My life’s too far off track right now, despite what I’ve accomplished as an author.”

  Lana shrugs. That seems to be her thing today.

  “Not everyone’s going to have perfect lives, no matter how successful.”

  I sit down at the table, push back my seat a little, and look at Lana. I know she has to realize the spectrum between perfect and the mess my life is right now is fairly fucking wide.

  “I need to get away and spend some time in the last place where my life was decisively not a mess. It might not make everything perfect, but maybe I can clear my head and start things in the right direction again.”

  Lana picks her phone up from the table and starts looking at it again.

  “Okay, I don’t know, Emily. I can’t argue with you.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  Lana puts her phone back down.

  “I don’t. I just want you to be sure you’re making the right decision.”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to worry about what the right decision is. Not today.

  “Decisions. Who the fuck knows, anyway?”

  “Can’t argue with that, either.”

  Thanks to that, I’m finally able to smile a little, and Lana’s smiling back at me. It’s probably the closest we’ll get to laughing right now.

  “Then it’s settled.” I’m trying to sound conclusive, because now I want to stop talking so I can start planning the trip.

  “Just one last thing, Em. Where are you going?”

  I guess I forgot to say.

  “New York. Naturally.”

  Emily

  My heart is pounding like crazy, and not just at the surprise of seeing the last fucking thing I would expect to see right now.

  WineBar is staring at us, almost an entire block away. Shit, why does this have to happen during the two minutes that I’m walking home with some guy?

  Why me? I want to rage at the universe. FML.

  I don’t want to look at Derek, but I nervously glance over for a split second. I look back at Kirk, and now he’s staring at the ground.

  Is this for real? Because I’d be more than happy to find out this was all taking place in some alternate universe.

  With the barbecue, Kirk never answering my calls, and with the rekindling of his thing with Miranda, I’d assumed the next time I’d see WineBar, it’d be at the fucking wine bar. He would be busy, and he would just brush me off or ignore me totally—that’s how I pictured it, anyway.

  But now he’s here, maybe for his bar or something. But from where I’m standing, he looks dejected.

  There’s a taxi idling in the street next to him. I have to find out what’s going on.

  “Kirk, wait! What are you doing?” I’m screaming loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear, along with several surrounding neighborhoods. I don’t care. I just want WineBar to hear me.

  He does hear and halts himself, with his hand on the taxi door. He looks back at me and shrugs. He’s too far away for me to get any kind of read on his expression. He starts getting into the taxi again.

  “Nooooooo!” My yelling is super melodramatic, like something from a bad movie, but as I dash down the block toward Kirk, it just springs out of me. It’s like a stress dream where you just can’t get where you’re going, even when it’s right fucking there in front of you.

  I’m running so fast that everything’s a blur. I hope that he stays, that he doesn’t just show up for a brief moment before vanishing from my life again.

  If only I could talk to WineBar, to find out the truth, to hear it from his own lips, to explain myself...I want all these things, and I’m so close, but I can almost feel it slipping through my fingers.

  Like at any minute he’s going to get in the cab and disappear again.

  But then I stop, and there’s Kirk, still in the same spot. I want him to say something, to just give some acknowledgment to me, to the present moment. With the party and everything, I need for him to tell me how he feels.

  “Hey, Emily.”

  That’s a start.

  “Hey. What are you doing here? Wait, I mean, I’m happy to see you.”

  “I’m...”

  Kirk looks down at the ground again. I probably don’t need to tell you that this is not like him. Like at all.

  Something’s up, and it’s not good. My hopes of maybe shedding some light on the WineBar situation are evaporating—it’s only getting more elusive.

  “I’m just checking in,” Kirk finally continues. “I want to make sure that you’re okay. You know, after the barbecue and that whole situation. It looks like you’re doing okay, though.”

  I can’t take it anymore. I want to em
brace WineBar tightly, I want to cry, and most importantly, I want to ask him what the fuck is going on.

  What’s happening? Why are you checking on me now? This isn’t the next morning!

  Why are you suddenly here after not taking my calls?

  I also want to say that whatever it is, I forgive you. Please, don’t leave. I want you in my life.

  I take a deep breath. While he’s here, I might as well ask him everything and tell him everything. I don’t know when I’ll get this chance again.

  Time to put it all out there.

  Then I hear Derek’s cross-trainers jogging up behind me.

  “Hey, is everything okay?” I can’t fault Derek for asking this, but I wish he would see that this is a private fucking moment.

  Kirk takes a brief yet hard look behind my shoulder at Derek.

  “No, everything’s fine.”

  WineBar looks at me with what feels like maybe one final time, his eyes connecting with mine in a brief, healing moment that makes everything that’s happened disappear, makes everything feel okay—but then it’s not.

  Just as quickly, WineBar looks away, at the taxi door, ready to get in.

  The moment is over. Lost. Maybe forever.

  I can’t get myself to speak or try to stop Kirk in any way. I try to find the words, something to say, to yell out to express what I’m feeling, to change his mind.

  “Kirk. Please.” The words sound soft and broken. I don’t know if he even hears them as he shuts the taxi door.

  The vehicle pulls away into the empty street. I listen to it leave, the engine accelerating, the sound getting farther away until it’s indistinguishable from the ambient nothingness of this horrible night.

  “Whoa. What was that all about?”

  I slowly pivot around, trying to collect myself. I look straight at Derek. I try to make eye contact, to gauge what he’s thinking. All I see is a dumbly confused, irritated expression.

  “It’s complicated.” That’s a start. Maybe he’ll want to hear about the whole thing. It might help for me to talk about it.

  “Yeah, I’ll say. Good luck.”