Bar Night
The first night Veronica sat with what she hoped was a sad little turn to her mouth. How dare Reyna, yes, how dare she? They—the four women, though these days it was more often three, and even two some Fridays—had never said women only, but Fridays had been women only for as long as they’d been meeting, years now, since they’d all worked in the same office. And he was so young, twenty-five, certainly no more than thirty. He sat at the end of the table with a sliver moon of a smile. That’s what he reminded Veronica of with his head tilted slightly the way girls tilted their heads these days—a sliver moon. He handed her the ashtray and didn’t move out of her smoke.
“Those things will kill you,” he said.
The second week Veronica and Reyna arrived first. Reyna arranged herself in her usual chair. “I hope you don’t mind. The girl he just broke up with is crazy, just crazy. He’s had a hard time.”
“He smiles too much.” Veronica waited for him to say something only a young man who still saw Manhattan laid out especially for him would say. The curve of his cheek, the peach fuzz; no one would take him seriously until he’d lost that.
He’d gotten a new client that week, his first big corporate client.
“Don’t you let anyone else have anything to do with that account.” Veronica put down her glass too loudly. People at other tables looked over their shoulders. She felt she was repeating herself. “Everyone will try to take it from you. They’ll say they’re your friend, but they’ll try to take it from you.”
“What about you and Reyna?” He smiled.
“We’re different,” Reyna said.
“We think you’re cute.” Veronica meant: like a puppy, but she saw that he didn’t take it that way. He’d been drinking sparkling water all evening.
“I want a grasshopper before we go,” she said. “Everyone needs a grasshopper.”
Outside on the narrow side street, rooftop fans roared into the darkness and empty office windows burned into the sky. Veronica’s purse kept sliding from her shoulder until she jammed the strap into the crease between two squares of down. Damned puff parka anyway. It was a life preserver and she was inflated into it.
They walked over to Fifth Avenue, slowly, for Reyna. Two intersections up, a jostle of white headlights gathered to eat the darkness. He raised his arm. He was taller than he’d seemed at the table, and skinny. He wasn’t wearing a parka, only a corduroy blazer with flapping tails. A pair of headlights detached from the pack. A taxi followed them and angled to the curb. He opened the door and helped Reyna in.
“I have to go uptown.” He jerked his thumb towards the oncoming headlights.
“I can go uptown,” Veronica said.
They got a cab on Madison. She let him hold the door and motion her in. He dug her seatbelt out from the smooth warm crease of vinyl. She pried his fingers from it, slid her fingers around his and pressed her thumb into his palm. His face blurred, doubled and converged. He looked older when he wasn’t smiling.
“I have to work,” he said. “I work the graveyard shift.”
“I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes. Her lips felt dry and huge. She felt the taxi brake, the seat slow into her. The outside air dove in. Her hand was empty and clammy. Even after he’d closed the door behind him and waved from the curb, her face was sunk in cold. The cold filled the streets and the subway platforms. The cold had crossed the island and the East River. The low rise of Long Island would not stop it and when it got to the ocean the beaches would be cold and darker still.
“We’re going to Queens,” she told the driver. She could afford it, this once.
Madison Avenue gathered speed beside her. Why, she wondered: why? Boutique windows were warm with winter suits in shallow light, the stores dark and empty behind them: Coach, D&G, agnès b. Why hadn’t he said he was on his way to work? The windows accelerated until they were splashes of red, yellow, white and gold, falling behind before she could tell which splash had which items for purchase. Only her face kept pace, half-blended with the darkness, eyes less like her eyes the longer she looked.
