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Late February
There are seven of us crammed into a table intended for four, and after three drinks, I really don’t care. Anj is on my right; Tina on my left. We’re packed thigh-to-thigh, with Erin next to Anj, and Lee, Shan, and Sonia—who I do not know, but she’s dating Shan—on the other side.
I’m pretty sure it’s only been three drinks, which is a sign my tolerance is slipping. It may be Tuesday, but I don’t care.
“Is this your twenty-first?” Shan asks.
“Oh, honey.” I beam at her over the table. “You’re so sweet. I’m twenty-five.”
“Quarter century,” Anj says brightly, leaning against me.
“Old enough to…” Lee has had a little too much to drink, and zie can’t hold zir liquor. “Dammit,” zie says. “That oughta be more of a milestone. It sounds like a good one, but you don’t get anything at twenty-five.”
“Old enough to rent a car!” Tina supplies beside me.
“There we go. You’re old enough to rent a car.”
“No, no.” Anj shakes her head. “You can do that before twenty-five. You just need to get your agent to prescreen your insurance, and contact the corporate…” She trails off. Clears her throat.
For a moment, everyone is looking at her. Anj laughs brightly. “Oh, shit.” She runs her hands down her sweater.
“Shut up, Anj,” Shan says. “Your rich is showing.”
“Dammit. I hate when that happens.” But she laughs it off. “Here’s to Maria again, then—old enough to rent a car without using her personal staff.”
“Here’s to my getting a personal staff. One day.” I brandish my almost-empty cocktail.
“Shit. I’ll drink to that.”
We do. My drink is citrus and sweet and half-vodka, and it goes down nicely. I feel fuzzier, happier, braver.
I take another slice of pizza. The food here is pretty good—good enough that there’s a steady stream of college kids and some actual adults picking up takeout at the front desk.
We’re not here for the food, though. The drinks are out of this world. The bartenders have served up things none of us have even heard of—not even Anj—and we’re only on our fourth round. Or our third. Maybe our fifth.
Lee grabs the menu. “I want something on fire.”
Tina shakes her head. “What, and burn off all the alcohol? That’s a waste.”
“No, they put extra in—oh, shit, this is Kahlúa and rum and ice cream.”
“It’s too cold for ice cream,” Shan says.
“Not with that much rum it’s not.”
We look around the room to find our waiter.
But before I catch sight of him, I see someone else. Standing in the takeout line.
It’s Jay na Thalang, and his arms are folded. God damn, I run into that fucker everywhere. He’s talking to the person up front, who is shaking his head apologetically.
I can’t hear the conversation, not over my friends, who aren’t even the loudest people in the place.
Jay glances at his watch and grimaces.
The man says something to him; Jay shrugs, and retreats to a seat.
Aw, poor baby. They must have lost his takeout order. He’s going to have to waste time. I feel an evil grin take over my face. Man, that’s gonna burn.
Shan waves her hand and our waiter starts over.
The motion also catches Jay’s eye. He looks up, sees me…
I know he recognizes me, because I can see that apprehensive look in his eyes. I mean, not really. I can’t really see it—he’s too far away, and the lighting isn’t that good—but his eyes narrow, and I know what he thinks of me.
Yeah. I’m getting drunk with friends on a Tuesday. Fucking sue me for being irresponsible, asshole. Jay judging me is the world doing its regular thing.
Our waiter shows up. “Another round, ladies?”
There’s a pause. Lee shifts uncomfortably. Shan bites her lip.
“People,” Anj says. “A good collective noun for a group of us is people.”
“Oh. My bad. People, what can I get you?”
Lee orders zir drinks—both the flaming one and the one with ice cream. Anj gets another beer and orders deep-fried cheese curds.
I frown at her. “You haven’t had vegetables all evening.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“Oh, god, do you call her that, too?” Tina says.
“Duh. Everyone does.” Anj frowns at the waiter. “Do you have a fried vegetable on your menu, perchance?”
“Perchance?” Lee laughs. “Who says perchance?”
“Fried zucchini?” The waiter ignores our byplay.
“Ew. Slimy.” She makes a face. “Edamame, then. They’re green.”
“They’re legumes, not vegetables,” I protest.
“They’ll do,” Anj pronounces. “And I won’t have to eat all of them. I can have a single edamame and pawn the rest of them off on you healthy people.”
“Is the singular of edamame really edamame? Or is it edamamus?”
“What are you doing? Edamame isn’t Latin.”
My friends continue this argument about the proper linguistic classification of the word edamame, and the waiter turns to me. “And what’ll you have?”
“Another one of these…”—I tap my glass, but I don’t remember what the drink was called—“…These citrusy fizzy things.”
“Got it.”
Across the room, Jay shifts in his chair across from the register. My mouth moves before I can use my brain properly.
“Can I send a drink to someone else?” Oh, I am drunk.
The waiter just smiles. “Of course.”
Anj breaks off her argument with Shan about soybeans. “Wait just a minute. You’re sending someone else a drink? Who?”
“Okay, don’t look at him all at once. That guy over there, sitting by the cashier.”
Of course, they all look over at once. Jay has actually taken out his laptop, and he’s staring at the screen. Poor asshole.
“You like him?” Shan frowns. “He’s hot.”
“I dislike him.” I fumble in my purse. “Intensely. Who has a pen?”
The waiter watches with amusement.
I grab a napkin and scrawl a message, which Anj insists on narrating over my shoulder. HEY, THREE SIGMA. LOOK AT YOU, RELAXING, TAKING TIME OFF.
I write in all-capitals because I’m pretty sure my regular handwriting would be illegible due to aforementioned drunkenness.
DRINK THIS AND MAYBE YOU WON’T IMPLODE FROM HORROR.
“And what drink am I bringing this fine gentleman?”
“Hmm. How pink is the Juliet and Romeo?”
He grins. “Excessively pink. And it has the egg white froth, so…”
“That one.” I nod decisively.
Of course, after our waiter leaves, I have to deliver the story about how he called me a distraction to my brother and too girly, and then called me fake bullshit. I don’t mention him apologizing or asking if I was okay. Dammit, it’s my birthday. If I want to bug the shit out of him, I will.
“What a bag of dicks,” Shan says.
I hand the waiter a twenty, and he disappears with our order.
We all watch as two minutes later, he approaches Jay, drink in hand.
Jay looks up from his laptop, blinking.
“I hear if a chemist sees his shadow in a bar, we’ll have eight more weeks of winter,” Shan says. We all laugh.
He looks at the drink. He looks over at me. He reads the napkin. I can’t see his facial expressions from here. I hope he’s pissed.
He sets his laptop on his seat, and drink in hand, goes to the front where he is given the drink menu.
He doesn’t take long. He scrawls something on a napkin, tips the delicate flute back, and downs the pink, frothy concoction all in one go.
Three minutes later, the waiter returns with a thick tumbler for me with an inch of gold liquid and a napkin. His handwriting is square and pristine.
Apparently you want things to be simple, so I’ll play bad guy. That drink you sent me is what you get when you mix everything together. Nice work, omnivore. But the world’s most complex and interesting beverage comes from a single source.
Of course he sent me a single malt.
Share it with your friends, he continues. Between the six of you, you might comprehend it.
“He went there.” Lee turns Jay’s note over. “He totally went there.”
I just smile and turn to the waiter. “What can you make with absinthe? Lots of absinthe.”
