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Who needs a proper dinner anyway?
I manage to power through my day at the office without much issue, avoiding Katie’s doll-like gaze like the plague until it’s time to leave. I’m almost relieved to be out of the office, but I know that what waits for me at John’s rundown bar might actually be worse than work.
I slide into my car and punch the address to the bar into my GPS, letting out a deep groan when I realize where I’m heading.
Not only is the damn place a full thirty-minute drive from the firm, but it’s also on the side of town where people don’t go out past sundown lest they get shot at or arrested for nothing in particular. Even with the sun still peering over the horizon, the anxiety grows in my belly and radiates into my chest.
I find that I’m significantly more irritable today than I usually am. Even under the most pressing circumstances, I’m typically able to put on a brave face, faking my way through the day until I get home to scream in the shower.
Today, however, I find myself shouting at nearly every car in my vicinity, either cursing them for speeding through the lanes of traffic or driving twenty miles under the speed limit. I feel like I could snap so easily at no provocation.
At least this is better than being reduced to tears. I’ve learned that getting angry usually gets you further than breaking down and looking weak.
Toxic, perhaps, but it doesn’t make it less true.
After spending the entire drive practicing my most professional expression in between bouts of road rage, I arrive at the front of the bar, which somehow appears even more forlorn and decrepit than it had in the photos. There’s a collection of cigarette butts on the ground near the front door, joined by a bucket of sand that has filled with rainwater and been long forgotten as people toss trash and bottle caps into it.
I look around at the surrounding area, and I feel a distinct ache in me as I see how poorly the people in this area must live in their day-to-day lives. It feels like another country compared to the well-maintained, comfortable atmosphere of my uptown office. There are almost no plants here, and all of the buildings are run down or boarded up.
Despite how ridiculous and prissy it is of me, I feel dirty even just stepping foot inside of a place like this, especially in my brand-new heels. I wore them to give myself more confidence, to help me stand up straighter and assert myself more, but now I’m afraid that they’ll just be misconstrued as flirty. The thought of a man like John believing that I’m interested in him makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
I can’t remember the last time I was this self-conscious about anything in my life.
When I walk into the bar, I immediately draw the gaze of a group of men gathered around a table on the far end of the bar. They must be friends of the owner, which makes them even more threatening and unpleasant to see. Everyone here knows each other, and that makes me the odd one out.
The air is laden with cigarette smoke, which stings my eyes and makes it even more difficult for me to swiftly find my destination without having to relent and ask one of the men for help.
I glance around for any indication that there’s a proper office in this bar when one of the men at the table shouts toward me. “Ya’ looking for someone?” he says, exploding with laughter followed by the rest of the men at the table.
I roll my eyes and take a deep breath. If there’s a type of man that I can’t stand, it’s the ones who believe that everything they say is hilarious. Trying to fluster me or get a rise out of me is worse.
“I’m looking for John Leiman,” I reply, projecting my voice to make myself sound older and more authoritative.
“I didn’t know he was into girls as young as you! Goddamn, that dude is an animal,” he replies, and predictably the rest of the men join him in riotous laughter.
“Can you just show me where his office is?” I ask, growing visibly impatient with him, crossing my arms and narrowing my eyes.
“Come on, sweetheart. It’s a joke, not a dick. Don’t take it so hard. The office is down that hallway, last door on the right,” he says, pointing toward a dark hallway lit only by a single incandescent bulb.
I don’t thank him. I don’t even look in his direction as I turn toward the hallway.
The interior of the bar is even more depressing and dated than the outside. The walls are lined with wood paneling, and hanging just above eye level are underwhelming, uninspired paintings of ducks on a winter landscape. Everything is so brown and dingy, like a post-recession time capsule where empathy and warmth go to die.
To my relief, I find the office rather easily, but I take my sweet time before knocking. I’m not eager to finally confront John about his questionable legal case. I hate to be the bearer of bad news should it not have any legs to stand on.
The moment my knuckles hit the thin wooden door, the familiar voice from the phone call shouts from inside. “What?!”
Despite how much I’ve practiced, my voice wavers as I introduce myself. I’d slap myself across the face for appearing so weak, but there’s no point in doing that now. What’s done is done.
“Come in.”
I enter the room, and the smell of more cigarette smoke and sour body odor smack me in the face much harder than I wanted to do myself. I consider myself a pretty intuitive person, and I could have anticipated this stench from miles away, but there’s something about experiencing it that makes my skin crawl.
“Were you able to get those documents together for me?” I ask, keeping as much distance as possible between John and me.
He seems displeased by this, sneering at me before taking the final swig from a bottle of beer. “Yeah, yeah. They’re right here,” he replies, dropping a bundle of yellowed papers onto the desk in front of him. “They’re out of order, and there might be pieces missing, but otherwise, it’s all there.”
I’m now almost certain I can’t work on this case, but at this point, I feel perfectly content to simply smile, nod, and take the stack of papers even though it serves no purpose to me in its current state. I can feign ignorance, look over the papers in my office, and pretend to be shocked when I’m missing information.
