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Suddenly, the music stopped. I hear microphone feedback, like something from a poor-quality sound system. And then, a woman’s voice.
“All right, all right, it’s Tuesday night at Rook’s and we all know what that means…”
I looked around for the source of the voice and saw a woman with short, spiky black hair in the center of the main part of the bar. She had the attention of everyone at the surrounding tables, like they were waiting for her.
“It’s trivia night,” the woman announced, cheerfully. “Wednesday through Monday, you probably know me as Maya Leeds, general manager of Rook’s. But on Tuesday nights, I’m…”
A guy at one of the tables leaned back in his chair and cupped his hands over his mouth like a megaphone. His knees were spread. His shoulders squared. He had that smart-ass look about him. I braced myself for his inevitable cat-call orget off the stageor whatever.
I knew guys like that. I knew what they were bound to say.
“Trivia Master Maya,” the guy called. He pumped his fist in the air, enthusiastically. Like,reallyenthusiastically. Like this brawny, stupid-handsome, cock of the walk kind of guy was genuinely excited for bar trivia.
“Oh,” I muttered.
I cringed at myself for assuming that every good-looking guy was also kind of an asshole. I’d been doing that a lot lately.
The bartender approached me with a pen and a bunch of little papers.
“Want to play?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“You sure? The prize is a fifty-dollar gift card.”
I looked over at Sasha and the Fireball guy. They were laughing at something so funny she had tears streaming down her face. I rolled my eyes.
And, just for shits and giggles, I looked over at maybe-not-an-asshole guy. He and the group of friends surrounding him poured over their answer sheet, arguing about a team name. He slung an arm around the woman sitting next to him, casually. Confidently. Just because he could.
Fuck, it’s been forever since I had a man’s arm around me like that.
“Miss?” the bartender asked. “Now’s your chance.”
“Um… sure. Why not?” I finally answered.
An hour later,I realized that I should have paid more attention in science and literature classes. But I got every question aboutThe Bachelorand its various spinoffs correct. I chuckled to myself, thinking about how much my ex-husband would hate this game.
Shakespeare and reality dating shows were given equal merit.Blasphemous.
He was always after me to turn off thattrash, as he called it. He urged me to watch something informative. Something challenging. And I’d always be embarrassed enough to change the channel so he’d come join me on the sofa with a bottle of wine, of an acceptable vintage, of course. He’d make me watch a wildlife documentary or an art film with literally no plot or something with subtitles and I’d nod along, pretending I understood.
Not that there’s anything wrong with this kind of thing. If it wasn’t for that eight-part series on the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands he made me watch, I wouldn’t have learned that Ecuador has the fourth highest diversity of amphibians in the world. And that it’s home to the tiger-striped monkey frog. I mean, that’s… something.
But, at the end of a long day, I don’t always want to challenge my brain. I sometimes want to turn it off and watch a handsome man give out roses to the women fighting for his love.
I looked down at my half-blank answer sheet.
“How’d you do?” the bartender asked me.
I laughed and shook my head. “Not so hot.”
“That’s okay,” she said. She leaned in and whispered, “Pretty sure this thing is rigged, anyway.” She refilled my wine glass one more time without my asking her to. “This one’s on me. It’s the first time I’ve seen you remotely happy all night.”
“Thanks.”
A hush fell over the room as Trivia Master Maya took to her mic for the final round.
“Okay, everybody, if you’ve made it this far into the evening and you’re still with us, you’re either very smart or very drunk. Or both,” she teased. “But we’ve got one final question for you and we’re doing it double jeopardy style. So decide how much you want to risk. The category isLove is in the Air.”
