The leather begins to feel like an unwelcome hug. It tightens around the moisture of his sweat, paralyzing the flexibility of his arms as he walks. He glanced at the afternoon sun, stopping to shed a layer of his armor. A cool April breeze raises bumps where his forearms carry the now-folded jacket. His watch glints at the turn of his wrist, smirking in the knowledge that he is late again.
Luckily when he arrives, the only greeting he receives is from the hostess. She looks up from a book curtly. “Hi Pete,” and down again. He hurries to clock in behind the bar, tapping aggressively on the touch screen. It was a Wednesday afternoon and this far south of the East Village doesn’t see much of the standard happy hour crowds. Still there was always the odd crowd that perched on the stools between 5 and 6. He has less than an hour to prepare the fruits and polish the glasses. Everything had to be fresh and glistening particularly in the early hours of the night. When the lights aren’t as low, the drinks aren’t as strong. The smudges and lipstick stains are far more noticeable. By midnight, he could serve people in a stolen Holiday Inn wine glass, and they wouldn’t even blink.
*
By the time the sun has set and the lights are dimmed, his row of stools are filled. The satisfactory pop of a wine cork is drowned out by a BØRNS song, filtered through speakers perched above. There is a red hue that caresses the room. It expands and flattens over the bar tables across the way. It dances darkly on the booths in the back. It illuminates the artwork set against the walls, villainizing different variations of llamas whose eyes follow your sins all the way out to the dirty street.
Pete sidesteps the stressed-out barback, easily pouring a glass of red for the single man at the rounded end. He sits there in an osmosis state, taking in all the sights and sounds and smells, perhaps absorbing them into the follicles of his beard for further growth. He looks new in town, sounds even greener. Pete exchanges the glass for a card, placing it inside a mason jar with many friends to keep it company. The man ignores his drink and eats the plate of croquettes in front of him, letting the crumbs gather on his lap.
To the farthest right was the beginning of a first date. Stiff joints, polite smiles, and hesitant greetings. The man was obvious in his posing, trying to assume a confidence that would potentially impress his date. Two Manhattans please. Pete nods and fetches the Rittenhouse Rye.
A boisterous laugh from the two twenties down the bar, gin fizz and cosmopolitan. Their conversations carry over the looped indie pop playlist, echoing dreams of careers and love and the merits of Gossip Girl.
Pause in the orders, Pete dumps the glasses into a bus bin for later. He scratches at an old scar, habits from a past he would rather forget. Round and raised, skin puckered to the size of a cigarette butt. A clang from the left draws his gaze to the barback struggling with a new keg. Eighteen and hungry. Together they shift and tap it to the draft. Pete fills a glass of water and hands it to him, a reprieve from the constant thirst that seems to choke you when working at a bar.
As the barback sips, his eyes blend into a hazel hue, quenched and relieved. Pete’s irises fill with a drop of blue reflective pools that once belonged to the teen. His subconscious gives way to the outward sight of the barback, trapped in a memory played on repeat. He sees the last fight the boy had with his father, filled with rage and regret inside a broken cliché of a home.
“Not going to college is not part of the plan Daniel.”
His father’s voice lowered an octave, tickling beyond the growl of a provoked bear. “Your future is set with Villanova. You have already gotten accepted, and it is about time you grew up.”
“I don’t want to go, it’s not right to waste money on something that doesn’t have a purpose. I need to figure out what I want first.”
“That is what college is for.”
“Not everything has to be this formula dad. It might work for you but not for me.”
“Everything I calculated had been for you and your future.”
“What if I don’t want the future you set?”
“Then you are an ungrateful little shit. And I’m disappointed in you.”
He looked to his feet. Different but the same, toes turned inwards involuntarily, scuffed vans. “All I do is disappoint you. Maybe I should just leave.”
“If you leave for anything other than college, Daniel, you are not welcome back in this house.”
He spoke softly to his shoes. “Fuck you.”
“What did you say to me?”
He looked up into the face that almost never smiled, one that mirrored his future and his past in one contorted reflection. “Fuck you.”
Pete blinks back his hazel eyes, blinks back the world of the bar, and glances at the barback. He tosses back the rest of the water, now placing the glass into the bus bin he would be carrying within the hour.
“Danny. You’re doing a good job here. You know that right?”
The barback glances up, an unregistering expression in the darkened room. His eyes return to the oceanic blue that made the hostess fluster each night. “Uh, yeah. Thanks Pete.” He flips a dirty rag over his shoulder and gathers the bin of empty bottles, hefting them with ease away from the bar and around the bend to the cellar stairs.
*
The most sympathetic, or rather, most open listener usually places a bar between themselves and you. They can hear your plight, gather your woes, and perhaps drown your sorrows. A boundary exists between the two of you and that emboldens even the most cautious to become uninhibited. Strangers are dangerous like a lover. They evoke the intimacy that can grip us with fear and provoke the darkest of confessions. But what of beyond hearing and sympathy? What of the eyes that see the pain and remember the hurt? What of the picture that we paint of the past with colors only we can see? What if those plights of that we speak, the woes we collect, and the sorrows we saturate are transferred through the eyes as well the mouth? As we sip, we begin to see, as we taste, we dare not blink.
*
The slicing hiss of the pop-top can prompt the turning of the eager heads of two financial bros in suits. The aluminium sound attracts them like flies to honey. Coming for happy hour and staying beyond, snippets of their conversation reach Pete’s ears. A break with the boyfriend, Hinge is not as appealing right now. A demand of a ring from the girlfriend, Hinge is much too appealing right now.
A hand towards the end, three fingers raised in question. The date is going well. Another round of Manhattans. Pete pops the top of the maraschino cherries. She slides awkwardly off the stool, gathering her purse and self-confidence to walk to the bathroom. Pete pours with an experienced flourish, a lift of the wrist that fills the martini glasses perfectly. Two drops of cherries sink to the triangular base. He slides both to the man, nodding as he says, same tab. The Glass Animals play through the speakers, enveloping the room in a fever dream of bass and beats.
Pete retreats to the corner of the bar, the furthest point between him and them. An internal itch forces him to scratch his scar. He watches the man slide his hand over his date’s drink; powder drops from his hand and immediately begins to dissolve. A minute tornado disturbs the auburn haze. Pete goes to register and opens the man’s tab, grabbing his card from the mason jar.
“Hey, my man, do you have another one? We have been having trouble with Discover, and I forgot until just now.”
The date grabs the card and turns to fetch his wallet. Back pocket billfold no doubt. Pete gracefully switches the martini glasses. The billfold is filled with cash, ungraciously displayed before his date earlier to show just how much of a man money makes him. Pete smiles and takes the Visa he holds out, dropping it into the jar with a small dink against the side. The man eagerly waits for his date to return, sipping the Manhattan with arrogance. What will return perhaps is a different woman named karma—and she’s a bitch.
*
The date returns, a fresh round of red-painted lips. She settles upon the stool and sips, letting her eyes ease with green. Pete blinks in the slow bleeding of brown into his irises, caressing the transition from his vision to hers. He feels the pull of his sight, even if it is momentary and within a fraction of time that seems to pause. His conscious mind enters the memory of the girl, allowing him to not only see but feel what she had felt in that moment. His hands move through hers, his heart beats like hers, his eyes become hers. Pete feels the familiar pull of time stretching out like a horizon, giving him the leisure to explore her story. His body remains behind in the bar while his mind’s eye transports to an apartment that is old New York in all the right ways.
She looked down at her midriff and tugged an old t-shirt to meet the drawstring of faded joggers. A squeal drew her into the next room, beyond the kitchen she had been standing in. Into a room with walls collaged with Paris, Kate Moss, friends, flowers, and memories. A woman of 25 sat in her underwear at a makeshift desk, staring at an open laptop. Another squeal.
“What? What is it?”
“I got it! Charlie, babe, I got the fashion assistant gig with Katia motherfucking Zvorniack.”
Charlie smiled, Pete smiled, and as one they enveloped her in a hug. “Oh Emmie, I am so proud of you! We need to celebrate soon. This weekend?”
Emmie swiveled in her chair; her tit dangerously close to escaping the cream bralette. “Why not tonight?”
Charlie rubbed one foot with the other in discomfort. “Because I might have a date tonight?”
Emmie groaned and leaned back dramatically. The true drama would have been if her balance gave way to gravity. “Marketing guy?”
“His name is Noah and we’ve been talking on Bumble for like a week.”
“Charlie, why do you bother with those shit dating apps?”
“Because not everyone is content finding strangers on the dance floor like you. I want a potential.”
“Ew. I hate when you call it that. Potential.”
“But that’s what they are! Potential relationships. You can’t find that on a sweaty drunk dance floor in Manhattan.”
“Says who?”
“Says you! And science! And experience!”
“Charlie, you are too much of a hopeless romantic. You can’t find love, let alone a relationship on an app that was meant for people to just fuck.”
“That’s Tinder!”
“That's all of them, sweetheart.”
“Then how do you expect I am to meet the next love of my life on this stranger danger island?”
Emmie laughed and stood, pacing past her unmade bed to her closet. “Only you would call it stranger danger island. Iowa really fucks with your head growing up, huh?”
Charlie replaced her in the desk chair and Pete waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t knock my childhood upbringing. I turned out just fine. Maybe your cynicism is bred specifically on Long Island.”
Emmie dressed herself and tousled her bedhead. “Touché.”
A phone flash of a selfie from the bar tables blinded Pete briefly. His mind and eyes become one once more, seeing the dirty rag in his right hand. Back in the bar, out of the memory. He shifts his gaze to his watch and sees the ticks begin again, allowing his eyes to return to hazel as the girl, Charlie, warms her gaze with chocolate brown.
*
Despite the intoxication of stories, there is always truth just behind the eyes. What may seem trite or ordinary could become a tattooed permanence on the skin we wear. It is easy to forget what the kindness of strangers can offer us. They could be the easy escape from a much too real world we reside in. They could be the key to stripping the masks we wear for our cultivated realities. Whichever purpose a stranger provides, they entice us like the confounding bittersweet. A dripping cherry rolling across your tongue.
*
Pete lines the rim of a glass with an orange peel, tossing the broken rime into the trash. He takes the frosted stainless shaker into his right hand and poured pretty pink, a bleeding strawberry stream into the glass, grabbing another curled peel with his left to set on the edge of the rim.
Together with a brimming gin fizz, he places the drinks before the gossip girls, sliding away from a cliched set of I love yous. A vow of no longer dating fuckboys, only real men. A vow to focus on a career and not relationships. They laugh as he wiped away the mess of eggshells and yolk, leftover from the separated whites added to the shaker. He shakes out the used rag over the trash. He watches the new guy polish off the last of his croquettes. A backhand wrist to wipe his brow, Pete glances down to check his watch. Nearing 10. The room is hot. The red lights are hotter. In the corner with the makeshift stage, a passerby admires jazz instruments left behind as a prop. No live music on Wednesdays. Only Mondays and Thursdays when Reggie isn’t on the night shift. Charlie’s date shuffles to the bathroom. Pete sips water, she sips Manhattan. She first takes a taste of the city night with a glance around the bar. Then she sips her drink, brushing a braid from her shoulder to down her back.
Light flickers from the tea light candle spaces from her face. Her eyes lighten to flecks of greens, Pete’s expand earthen hues from pupil outwards, like a drop of molasses in a pool of water.
He now sees the rickety kitchen table, littered with letters and open bills. Red stamps, black stamps, dollar signs cutting through the numbers with finality. Charlie shuffled a few, tapping the borrowed calculator from school. Her hands are smaller, softer, younger. Teenage hands. She sliced a paper cut on her left pinky. Bright blood bubbled after the initial sting. Pete brought it to her lips and sucked.
She smelled the casserole baking in the oven and heard the television in the next room. A flickering glow from the set, a smoked haze from her mother’s cigarette. A childish giggle from Callie meant they’ve reached her favorite scene. The goggles in the movie theater.
“Mom. I need you to come and sign these checks.”
A beautiful rasp from beyond the thin walls. “Just forge them, sweetie. Like how I taught you.”
Callie spoke in a curious whine. “When will I learn how to forge?”
“Soon honey. When you can first sign your own name. Owning your identity is very important in building character.”
Charlie called out after licking an envelope flap. Her words tasted more bitter than the glue. “Mom, she shouldn’t learn. This isn’t something that a kid should be doing anyway, that’s what parents are for.”
“Well Charlotte, you don’t have parents. You have just me and I’m all you’ve got. You should appreciate me more. I’m a cool mom.”
“Great. Thank you, Mrs. George.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Charlie took her pen and released a long sigh. In one swift movement, she scribbled the looped cursive name of her mother on the bottom right of a check designed with daisies. Pete tore the page out of the book. Charlie folded it inside the bill and slid it into yet another envelope.
“Come in here Charlotte and watch with us! Hugh Grant is such the perfect man.”
“I need to clean up first because someone has to.”
“Well, when you’re done playing housewife, come watch.”
Charlie sighed and began to shuffle the papers into one hazardous pile. Placing them in the drawer, she began to set the table for the dinner she had cooked. Hot dog casserole with crushed potato chips. Self-taught at age eight when Callie was in diapers and her mom’s night shifts turned into sleepovers. She smoothed down her hair, relaxed and parted on the left. Charlie watched the timer tick in the quiet. The television became a small hum of muffled voices. She looked at her phone messages, one from the girl she had been kissing beneath the bleachers. Rosie was the anywhere but here kid, amazing Charlie with her dreams of moving out of Iowa and to the East Coast. She wished was that brave. She knew that her sister would need her here, that her mother would need her here. If Rosie was anywhere but here, Charlie was nowhere but here. Stuck in the same town her mother grew up in. Stuck in this house that felt too big and too small all at once. She bent down to glance into the oven. Pete peered at her reflection through brown eyes. The timer’s ticks turned to a ding.
“Dinner is ready.” She removed the casserole and placed it on the table, turning off the oven.
“Leave it and get in here, it’s your favorite part!”
Charlie shuffled into the next room, dropping down onto the sofa and tickled Callie with slender fingers. Her giggle was shushed by Mom.
“Shh. It’s the best. Listen.”
On the screen, Julia Roberts softly spoke not to Hugh Grant but to Charlie and Pete. “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
All three sighed in unison. Her mother reached around and squeezed Charlie’s hand. “Love is the best and only thing there is in this world. Don’t you forget that Charlotte. Always look for love.”
Charlie sat there. She thought about her home, thought about those words, she thought about the casserole sitting in the next room, knowing that it is what she would eat for the next three days straight. She sat there thinking about the sudden waves of sadness that wash over her like the oceans she’s never seen. She thought about the girl she likes. She thought about the lip-balmed kisses under the bleachers. Charlie sat and thought, watching the credits roll on the television screen. Pete squeezed her mom’s hand back.
*
You can never know someone fully. Their story is a collection of moments and memories that never fit neatly into a photo album. The camera eye is subjective, gathering light from a guiding hand to catch a breath during a lifetime of exhaling. What is it to see a stranger’s story? Not to read or hear, but to see through their eyes those off-camera moments. The collection of clicks that were never made. What if spilling your story to the lonely bartender was more than liquored lips and breaking boundaries? Opening the irises of our eyes could let in the light. Shuttering time to a fraction of a second in order to capture a person. Storytelling is a give and take. Take the sip. Give the hindsight. Take a memory. Give the story.
*
Pete returns to the bar and pivots to the new guy, seeing his hand raised in the motion of a checkmark. He taps the register screen, the reflective glow illuminating the hazel hues pouring back into his eyes. He closes out the tab, fishing out of the mason jar the card and a pen. He drops his check off and slides over to Charlie, who is checking her phone. Her date is returning from the bathroom, stumbling slightly under his weight and the heaviness of the drug. She looks to Pete, her brown eyes locking on his own in the dark room.
“Hi. May I get some extra cherries for my drink please?”
He smiles and nods. “Sure.”
Pete twists the top of the jar with a pop and drops three more cherries into her half-filled glass. Her date settles back in on his stool and immediately drinks a large gulp of his Manhattan. A momentary choke. Fist to mouth. Cough twice. And he resumes taking control of the conversation like he has done all night. His words begin to slur. Pete turns to the orders from the table service, handing two more hard seltzers to the financial bros on his way down the bar. Behind him, he knows Charlie takes another sip. His eyes turn back to brown, they began to swim in flashes of cars and bridge wires. The past balancing on the tightrope that Pete now carefully walked.
Charlie felt more adventurous and scared than ever in her life. She was sitting in a yellow taxi with Rosie. Her life sat in a suitcase in the trunk. Together they were on the way to a new apartment in a new city. She felt what could only be described as a reincarnation. She held Rosie’s hand in hers. Her old life was now holding hands with death. And together they ushered in this new one, stretched out before her like the bloom of a rose. It was beautiful and rare and fragile and breathtaking. The taxi led them through the streets on Chinatown, past rows of houses smashed together, out to the West Side Highway, bursting with a full view of the Hudson. She squeezed Rosie’s hand but then let it go. It was all too tempting to not capture on camera. And she felt her heart swell, the possibilities to look for love were endless. Charlie smiled. She forgot that roses have thorns. Pete tapped a picture to cement the memory.
*
Pete ducks his head on his way down the steps. His eyes adjust to the fluorescent lighting, blinking clear blue back into his mottled mix. A quick glance at the watch to see it’s 11. He rounds the corner for the wine cellar, shoving a protein bar in his mouth. The music and conversations from above vibrate through the floorboards. A steady wooden bass with sharp pitches of laughter. He pulls the hanging twine to switch on a bare bulb. Danny and the hostess separate with a jolt. Clothes mussed, flushed cheeks, and swollen mouths. Pete reaches to the left and takes the bottle of Merlot. His eyes meet Danny’s, a discreet nod for the hostess, and he pulls the twine once more.
He climbs the cellar stairs as Charlie swallows another sip, placing a cherry playfully on her tongue. Together in her past, Pete climbed the last flight of the building's stairs with a loud grunt and shifted the box of books for a better grip. Walking through the door, she ceremoniously dropped it with a thud just beyond the threshold. Everything was sore. Her arms, her legs, her eyes from crying. She dropped onto the used sofa perched in the center of the room. Emmie whistled from her doorway.
“Girl, how many books do you own? You’re like 21.”
“Hey. Bookstores are like my little safe havens, okay? I can’t help it if I feel obliged to buy every time.”
“Well, I guess that is a sort-of healthy way to cope with a breakup.”
“Can we not talk about it?”
“Charlie, you broke up. It’s normal and happens sometimes.”
“I just feel like…an idiot. I mean I followed her here. It wasn’t even my dream to come to New York, it was hers. I was kidding myself by letting her be my dream. Why can’t I figure out who I am without completely destroying everything in my path?”
“But you belong here. And you’re human. This is the best place to figure things out. And your hopeless romantic ass is going to be just fine. Sometimes the best love stories are the ones with friends.”
“I have nowhere else to go so thank you again for letting me live here. And aw Emmie, you’re a secret sap. I bet you love watching rom-coms too.”
“Fuck you, of course, I do. But I’m not letting you do anything but share the rent-load.”
“You work at the same shit coffee shop I do. Do you honestly have confidence in our financial abilities?”
Emmie rubbed a bare foot against the other. “Nope. Hey, let’s go out tonight and deal with your breakup in an unhealthy way! We can get shitfaced, my treat.”
Charlie rolled her eyes and crossed her legs. “By your treat, you mean the poor souls you entrap with feminine wiles to buy them for us?”
“Exactly. See this is why we’re going to make the best roommates. You get me.”
“Right now, all I need to get is this shit unpacked.” Charlie propelled herself up from the sofa. Pete stubbed her toe on the coffee table. “Fuck.”
*
We all become obsessed with finding ourselves, figuring out paths, and fixing what is somehow broken. Do people begin lost, just looking for that stranger that will make them feel less alone? There is this romanticism in the wayward journey that reveals the strength we neglect to see. Eyes that are not our own are able see what we cannot. They look beyond the flaws and pains that blur and blind the clearest of mirrors. They see the strength hidden underneath, these unfamiliar irises of blues and greens and browns and violets. What does it take to begin found? To not desire that need of piecing back together anything but to start as whole. Are we designed to rely on strangers and the strangeness of unknown? Perhaps we are capable of admitting faults and fears and still be able to stand tall if that stranger is a mere refraction. A colored prism similar in fragments to our own image. Still beautiful, still fragile, still whole.
*
Pete pours the tequila over the four shot glasses, spilling over into the mats and drains beneath the shelf. He gathers four lime slices in a fifth glass and puts this onto the bar top with a saltshaker. He gathers the four brimming shots and sets them down as a cluster in front of one of the financial bros. He is turned inward now, to the left, facing one of the gossip girls. His girlfriend wants a ring, she is done dating fuckboys. Her friend is standing, consoling his friend. He doesn’t need hinge to find a guy, she doesn’t need a boyfriend to find success. Newfound friendship in strangers. Relative pain and desire just a barstool down the row. Together they lick salt, throw back the tequila, bite and suck on limes. An eruption of whoops. Midnight won’t be long now. The shadows are receding.
Charlie chews and swallows another cherry. She watches her date finish his drink as she sips hers slowly. Only a few sips more before she is finished too. Pete begins to load the dishwasher, prepping to run it at the last call mark. He runs glass after glass under the tap, he feels his eyes changing in the reflection of the turning cylinders. He braces for the shift in sight, plants his feet firmly beneath him.
A yank on the arm that wasn’t his, caused him to stumble into this memory. Emmie pulled her away from the door, hand on her mouth and turned Charlie to face her. Charlie watched Emmie’s hand motion to be quiet and breathed a soft sigh when her own mouth is released.
The knocking continued for another two minutes. Then Charlie’s pocket vibrated. Her phone read “Leech”. The landlord. She silenced it seconds before Emmie’s began. They held their breaths for a few more minutes. Pete’s heart pounded in Charlie’s chest. She locked eyes with Emmie.
“He can’t keep harassing us. We’re good for the money. My paycheck rolls in on Thursday and your stipend kicks in mid-month, right?”
“He’s not going to stop. We need to figure this out. Maybe I can call my parents. Can you—”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“I know.”
Pete scratches absentmindedly his scar as the watercolor blues and greens seep back into his irises. He stares at the steamed bar window with hazel eyes. The heartsick financial bro signs his receipt and pockets his card. He puts a hand on his friend’s back and whispers warnings in his ear. The gin fizz gossip girl silently speaks to a friend, offering help if needed. Both are brushed off. A round of half-hearted hugs and the other two are left behind to discover what might happen when the bar lights turn on.
*
Charlie’s date is drunk and heavy. Pete obliges with a to-go cup of water for her to take. She gathers her things and they leave the bar. The hostess is gone, the servers are gone. The lights are yellow-tinted now, switched from the red hue. Faces are pale and drawn. Faces are flushed and loose. Faces are scrunched from the abrupt transition into reality. Music is cut. The financial bro and gossip girl leave together, arms linked together sloppily. Candle flames are blown out. The haze comes from smoke instead of body heat. Pete dries the glasses and places them on the shelves, side by side with Danny. He really is doing a great job.
*
Pete shivers in his jacket, the leather too loose now in the chilled night. He waits for the GM to finish locking the doors, he helps her lower the gate. Together they walk to the subway, parting on different platforms. He sits on a worn orange seat, only three others in the car. His headphones rotate through a Beach House album. The air is a quiet blink, slow in movement but fast in time. He rubs his eyes and feels something in the left socket. Pete takes out his phone, opens his camera, flips it front. Darkened eyes gaze back, burnt chestnuts that aren’t his own.
Charlie looped her arms with her date’s. He was clearly drunker than her. Maybe he had a few rounds before she arrived at the bar. She thought back to his endless chatter. She had wanted someone different. Different from Rosie. Different from Jonathan, Jack, or Jeremy. They were all the same. All promising her potential. All letting her down. Again and again she stands in front of them, asking to be loved. Each time she gets knocked down, getting up is that much harder.
“Noah. Hey, do you know your address so I can order you a car?” Charlie pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. Pete’s hands went cold with the familiar night chill. Behind her she could feel the bar window pulsing with steady life.
Noah looked at her with glassy eyes. “Actually, I live nearby. Orchard and Allen. Could you, could you walk me there?”
She pauses.
“No, no funny business.” He held up his hands in mere defense. His eyebrows shot upward. “Unless you want to?”
“I think a good night’s sleep alone is what you need, Noah. I can at least walk you home, I can get a car from there.”
“Okay.”
Together they walked, two blocks and around the corner. Charlie ignored the stinging urine smell in the stairwell. She helped him with his keys after he scratched sufficiently enough around the handle. Noah leaned stupidly on the open doorframe. His eyes were unfocused and angled at her tits.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in? I mean…you’re already here.”
“I think I’m good, Noah, but why don’t you text me in the morning when you’re feeling better.”
“How about a good night kiss?”
“How about I give you your keys?”
She held out his keys for him to take. He aggressively clasped her hand and pressed his lips to hers. She recoiled; Pete felt Noah’s hand reach around to her ass. Charlie let go of the keys, reached around to Noah’s, pressed her hips to his, and slid her hand into his back pocket. She backed away as he bent to pick up the keys and lost his balance. He fell backward into the apartment, and she dashed down the stairs, clattering sounds left in her wake.
On the street, Charlie pulled out her phone to order a car, texting Emmie with one hand while she waited. Pete’s fingers flew across the screen.
We’re going to be okay.
She pocketed the phone and looked into her left hand. Shaking from the cold or from the moment, it was hard to tell. But clutched between her fingers was Noah’s billfold, crisp twenties pressed together in prayer. Charlie tucked the money into her purse, the credit cards and ID now scattered on the stairs of the apartment building she just left. She pulled out the to-go cup of water and laughed into the night. It rang like a church bell, cutting through the silent air. Charlie opened the lid and took one long sip, savoring the mix of fresh water on her tainted tongue. Her car pulled up and rolled down a window, asking for Charlotte.
“Charlie.” She responded to her reflection in the chrome exterior, hazel eyes glinting in the moonlight. She opened the car door and slid inside. Charlie slammed the door shut behind her and the night. She scratched her left forearm, just below the elbow.
Pete shutters with the subway car, allowing his body to move in the rhythms of the train. He smiles slightly and licks his lips. They tasted like cherries.
Charlie’s Song
“You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger who's a friend.” — Truman Capote | Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories