She says it to the whole bar. To the bottles and the neon and the pool table and Paperback guy, who actually looks up from his book for the first time in recorded history.
“I got in. Station 11. Probationary. Three months. I start Monday.”
She’s crossing the room before I can respond, moving fast, that full-speed Zoe momentum that doesn’t have brakes, and she reaches the bar and she puts both hands flat on the wood and she looks at me and she’s crying and laughing and her face is the most alive thing I’ve ever seen.
“She said yes. Cap said yes. Iris was there, she's Cap's girlfriend, and she gave her this look and Cap just—she said yes.”
“Zoe.”
“I’m on Station 11. I’m on the crew. Hayes is my training officer. I start Monday at six and I’m going to be early, I’m going to be so early, I’m going to be there at five, no, five-thirty, no, five because—”
“Zoe.”
She stops. Breathing hard. Hands on the bar. Looking at me.
I pour a Moscow mule. Set it in front of her. She stares at it.
“Congratulations,” I say. “You earned it.”
Her face crumbles. Not sad-crumbles. The other kind, the kind where you’ve been holding everything together for three weeks and someone finally says the right thing and your body just lets go. She picks up the mug and drinks and sets it down and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I told you first,” she says. “Before my parents. Before Keely. You were the first person I told. I need to celebrate.” She looks at the speaker above the bar. “Can I pick the music?”
“No.”
“Please.”
I sigh, knowing I'm going to do this for her. “What do you want to hear?”
“The Interrupters.”
I put on the Interrupters.
“She’s Kerosene” comes through the speakers, fast and bright and furious, and Zoe slides off her stool and stands in the middle of Anthem and starts singing.
She can’t sing. I want to be clear about this. Zoe Kimball cannot carry a tune. She’s off-key and too loud and she doesn’t know all the words so she’s filling in the gaps with sounds that are approximately words, and she’s bouncing on her toes and pumping her fist. Her hair is flying around her face and she’s the most ridiculous person who has ever stood in this bar, and I’ve had actual bands play here.
Diane looks up from her crossword. Seth stops wiping tables. Paperback guy watches over the top of his book with an expression that might, if you squinted, be amusement.
I lean on the bar and watch her.
She’s wearing jeans and sneakers and a t-shirt that’s too big, and her hair is pulled back and her eyes are still red from crying and she’s singing punk karaoke at four-thirty on a Saturday afternoon in a half-empty bar, and she’s happy. She’s the happiest person in the city right now. She’s the happiestperson I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of people in this bar celebrate a lot of things, and none of them looked like this.
None of them looked at me the way she’s looking at me right now, singing the chorus with her eyes on mine, not performing, not showing off, just singing in my direction because I’m the person she wants to sing to.
The song ends. Another one starts. “Take Back the Power.” Zoe keeps going. She’s dancing now, if you can call it dancing, full-body movement that has no choreography and no shame, and Seth is grinning and Diane is tapping her pen on the bar and even paperback guy hasn’t gone back to his book.
She does three songs. Three Interrupters tracks, back to back, while I stand behind the bar and watch and don’t look away, not once, because looking away from Zoe Kimball while she’s burning this bright would be like turning your back on the sun and pretending you don’t need the warmth.
She finishes. Out of breath. Sweating. She falls onto her stool and picks up the Moscow mule and drains it.
“Sorry,” she says. “I got carried away.”
“You always get carried away. It’s your whole thing.”
“Is that bad?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
