Whiskey at midnight, p.1
Whiskey at Midnight, page 1
Whiskey at Midnight
by
A.E. Kessler
For Zoey and Kris
Chapter One
It’s after the third papercut that Emma Nielsen slams her notes closed and gives up on her work for the night. There’s still another two weeks before her senior year starts and the impulse to go through her old notes, to decide which can be safely tossed out, never to be thought about again, had been stupid. It’s early, at least early enough to go out and have a little fun. Her bedroom is messy. Paper and clothes litter the floor. She picks up her phone and steps over the clothes to cross to her dresser. There’s only one person in her contact list that she thinks to call and she smiles a little too much when she finds the name: Camille Hayes. As expected, Cam agrees to go out, laughs and says that she probably would have called Emma within the hour with the same idea. That settles it. Emma will dress up in her cutest outfit, pull at her hair until it looks acceptable, and turn this awful night into something worth remembering.
Cam is already sitting at the bar when Emma walks in. It’s a bit of a dive, but it’s become one of Emma’s favorite places to go. The chairs that surround the bar look like they were bought decades ago, with chunks missing on the legs, but they’re comfortable enough. The floor is a dark wood that always looks a little dirty. Satellite radio plays on nights when there isn’t live entertainment. Pictures, not framed, line the walls above and around the bar.
Emma tries not to stare at Cam. It’s always a losing battle. Cam barely exercises but has toned arms. She must know it, too. During the summer, Cam wears tanktops and short sleeves and she refuses to stop wearing them until she’s shivering so much her teeth chatter. Only then does she switch to long sleeve shirts that are so tight Emma can see the muscles of her arms move beneath the fabric. Emma doesn’t have such great arms, but she’s been complimented on her butt before.
They’re complete opposites. That’s probably what brought them together in the first place. Emma is pale and covered by freckles while Cam has dark skin. Emma’s hair is blonde and won’t decide between wavy and straight. Cam’s hair is the blackest she’s ever seen, impossibly straight, and the most beautiful too. Worse, Cam’s got it all figured out. She works in insurance which is one of those professions Emma assumes people just know about things, what they want in life and how to get it. It’s all so much more adult than Emma falling into a teaching degree. Nevermind that Cam’s only had her job a month.
Cam’s nursing a pink cocktail that comes with a cherry. She smiles at Emma and laughs when Emma clambers into the seat next to her. “What a day,” Cam says. “That bitch, Ariel, brought everyone coffee except me. She claimed it wasn’t on purpose. She told me it was just an oversight, that she had counted wrong. But then I overheard her telling Mark that she didn’t see the point since I always bring coffee to work in the morning for myself.”
“And don’t you?”
Cam squints at Emma for a moment and clears her throat. “Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that she didn’t bring me coffee because she’s a bitch.”
Emma nods in agreement. This is not as bad as the usual complaints from Cam. She likes to talk about every detail of her day. She dissects every minute until she convinces herself that she’s been right all along. Sometimes the conclusion is that everyone else in the world is an asshole or that the day was doomed from the start. Emma agrees with whatever conclusion Cam comes to. It’s useless to disagree.
It’s the most ridiculous thing, but Emma stops paying attention after a few minutes. She cares what Cam has to say, more than anything else that’s the problem. Because Cam gets passionate when she talks. Her eyes open a little wider, her hand brushes against the bar top, or she’ll slap at her knee. After awhile, that’s all Emma notices. Or maybe all she can concentrate on is that their knees are touching and it feels like a kiss.
Emma drinks tequila sunrises like she doesn’t have to wake up before noon the next day. By her third drink, Cam has stopped talking. A comfortable silence has descended upon them and Emma touches Cam’s knee like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Emma hates the roughness of blue jeans on her hands, but rubs at the knee beneath her fingers anyway.
She’s not really supposed to be doing this. They’re only friends. It’s not unusual to hug a friend upon seeing them, but caressing a friend’s leg is not normal. Just when Emma loses the little bit of confidence it took to reach out, Cam’s hand falls from the bar to touch Emma’s hand, squeezes it and smiles. The gasp that comes out of Emma should be embarrassing, but there’s a hand on hers and a fresh drink in front of her.
No one notices their little moment. Most of the people sitting around them are either lost in their own conversations or watching the guy up front with his acoustic guitar. If he could play anything suitable, Emma might ask Cam to dance with her, even if people might stare. Instead he plays songs about heartbreak and rejection with a forlorn look on his face.
“Cam, do you want to come back out tomorrow?” Emma focuses on the knee she’s touching. “Maybe like a date?”
Cam looks startled. Her hand leaves Emma’s for a brief moment and she bites her lip. But then she opens her mouth. “Okay,” she says. And that’s the only response needed. Nevermind that Cam identifies as straight. Nevermind that Cam has known Emma has had a thing for her for over a year. Nevermind that this will technically be their fourth attempt at planning a date. There’s something about Cam’s hand on Emma’s that erases all of the wishy washy behavior of the previous times.
It’s karaoke the next night, which Emma had forgotten about. Her legs shake at the bar while she orders a drink the same way that the guy standing up front is shaking while he sings a ballad. She’s worn a skirt and a blouse with a daisy on it. It’s the fifth outfit she tried on before realizing that she didn’t have time to change into another. The bartender is the girl with pigtails who always smiles at Emma. She has plump lips and almond-shaped eyes. She tells Emma that her skirt is cute and if nothing else good comes of the night, at least there’s that.
The tables around the bar are still being used so early on in the night. Cam is sitting at one, another brightly colored cocktail sitting in front of her. Cam smiles at her and waves. Emma waves back but doesn’t smile. There’s a very good reason for it. Cam isn’t alone at the small table. Whether Cam purposefully invited other people or ran into them and couldn’t find a reason to say they couldn’t join her doesn’t matter. The night is ruined and Emma hasn’t even begun to drink.
Emma sits next to Cam, who ignores the questioning look Emma tries to shoot her way. On the other side of the table, Steve Riggs is trying to explain to Cam why basketball is better than baseball. “You can actually watch basketball without getting bored,” he says. “There’s too much waiting around to enjoy baseball on TV. And I’m saying that as a baseball fan.” He clutches at the back of his shaved head as if he can pluck his argument from back there and give it to Cam, safely held in his massive hands. Next to him is Wren Mathis, the weird girl. Wren is looking at Emma like it’s not impolite or even creepy to just stare at someone.
The sad thing is, Emma has spent more time with Wren than Steve but knows Steve better. Steve is a loudmouth. It’s impossible not to get to know him if he’s around. Upon meeting him, Emma found out that he didn’t have any sisters and was damn glad he didn’t. He said this like a person normally says “nice to meet you” while shaking hands. On the other hand, Emma’s had at least two or three classes with Wren over the years, even worked on a few projects with the girl, and doesn’t know if she has any siblings or what her major is. Where Steve volunteers everything, every mundane detail, Wren volunteers nothing of herself to anyone.
Emma likes Wren for getting Steve to go with her outside for a cigarette. Steve only smokes when he’s hammered, as far as Emma knows, and he’s not there yet, but he seems to listen to Wren easily enough. It gives her a little bit of time with Cam.
“So…” Emma says.
“They were already here,” Cam says. “And whatever, right? It’ll be a fun night anyway.”
Maybe if Emma could stop pouting it might be. She reaches out to grab onto Cam’s hand. “I just really wish we could have had our date.”
“About that--”
Emma groans.
“No, it’s not that I don’t want to do it. You know what I mean? ‘Cause I don’t know myself. I like you. I’ve been thinking about it non-stop. There are so many reasons not to do this. What about our friendship? What about our careers? I just don’t want to complicate things. Let’s see where things go, okay?”
Emma doesn’t get a chance to reply. Steve and Wren return with a round of shots, courtesy of Steve he announces. Emma is still holding onto Cam’s hand but pulls back as if it burns when she sees Wren watching with a slight smile on her face. Steve doesn’t notice anything other than the fact that Emma has not picked up her shot yet.
“Emma, get your shot. Otherwise I’ll be forced to label you a party pooper,” Steve says.
It’s a murky orange color. Emma picks it up dutifully and watches Cam’s face as her own cheeks flush at the dirty cheers Steve says.
“...and the panties drop,” Steve finishes.
The shot barely goes down.
Emma is not being social enough. She knows this. Her hand is constantly on her drink, feeling the glass beneath her fingers. Her thigh touches Cam’s under the table from how closely they sit next to one another. The crowd has listened to three soft ballads in a row a nd the resulting atmosphere has left everyone but Steve lethargic. Even Wren’s normally alert eyes appear a little droopy.
“So this guy comes in with his family,” Steve begins. “The kids are monsters, I won’t lie. But I wasn’t waiting on them at first. It was Chase. She isn’t the type to flirt with customers. Isn’t that right, Wren?” He elbows the silent Wren for confirmation, but she rolls her eyes and raises her eyebrows for him to continue, which he does. “Anyway, the wife starts to think that Chase is making eyes with her man, right in front of her and the kids. Boom. World War Three. She’s hissing at Chase and then at a manager, right in front of her family. Totally making a scene. They got free coupons to come back in and me as their server. No chance of the male server flirting with her husband, right? But I’d heard all about it at this point. I kept leaning over all close when the husband was speaking and winking at him. She was fuming mad by the time they were done, but didn’t say anything.”
It’s always foreign when Steve talks about work, which is a lot of the time. Emma has grown used to Cam talking about work and this leads Emma to think about air conditioning in offices and bosses with gray hair. Steve and Wren work at a family-friendly burger restaurant where they have to wear matching uniforms and be nice to even the most annoying teenager that crosses their paths. Hell, they have to sing a song if someone says it’s their birthday. Despite Emma’s own experience in the service industry, working part-time at a craft shop, work to her is how Cam describes it. Work is not burns from hot plates and shattered glass on a wooden floor. And so Emma stares at Steve when he tells his stories with a dazed expression, as if he’s not talking about matters of this world.
Steve is somewhat proud of his job. He talks about new hires like they are idiots if they make a mistake and he sees it. There’s no arrogance in his voice though, just pride. He can take on the biggest parties they get, he tells them.
Wren doesn’t talk about work. Emma has never been to the restaurant they work at, despite loving hamburgers and greasy fries. The advertisements always show smiling families and children with missing teeth. Emma knows she’ll get enough of kids when she starts teaching, doesn’t see the point of going to a restaurant full of them. Usually Emma forgets Wren works with Steve until he asks her to fill in details of a story. It’s easy to do. Wren doesn’t talk a lot and she looks like a strong wind could break her in two. How she manages to serve tables with those two things holding her back is beyond Emma.
Wren might be the weird girl who stares at Emma a little too much for Emma’s liking, but she is reliable. She pulls Steve outside for another cigarette and it is obvious that this time he’s drunk enough to smoke one himself, if he didn’t before.
Cam watches them walk away and grabs hold of Emma’s hand under the table. An older woman is standing up at the front, holding the microphone so tightly her knuckles are white. She’s singing a love song as if she’s alone in her shower, safely away from any audience. It might be the song, but it’s probably the hand that squeezes her own that causes Emma to smile again.
“You okay?” Cam asks her.
Emma could say no, that she wants her fucking date finally, or at least some alone time. The smile on her face doesn’t go away. “Yeah,” she says. Emma leans over and kisses Cam on the cheek. It’s friendly enough that it doesn’t cause Cam to back away or look around like someone might have seen.
“You look beautiful tonight,” Cam says. She reaches up with her free hand and tucks a strand of hair behind Emma’s ear. “I am sorry we’re not alone, after all.”
“We could leave,” Emma says a little too urgently.
Cam chuckles. “Relax. We have all the time in the world to figure all of this out.”
And there it is, right out in the open. The biggest problem between the two of them. Emma had grown up on a steady diet of fairy tales with pictures of girls who looked just like her. Her parents became a little alarmed as Emma passed her tenth birthday, still telling them that she was waiting to marry a prince with all of the conviction of a child. Keeping the color pink around, keeping a romanticized view of love around, both of those things were acceptable. Emma believed in dashing princes and heroic knights finding true love in little girls destined to become princesses.
It was a girl in gym class who did it. Rosie, everyone called her. They’d been in the same grade and were in the same class. Halfway through the school year, Emma started to notice the way Rosie’s legs moved as she ran. Even then, it didn’t seem like a problem. It was almost a year later when Emma was listening to some friends talk about boys in their grade that it hit Emma that she was looking at the wrong people. Princes come with facial hair or stubble that they shave away. They have Adam’s apples and muscles that show how strong they are. Strong enough to whisk a girl off her feet, literally. They’re not supposed to have soft, delicate hands like Rosie or long eyelashes made to look even longer with mascara.
Emma felt her world end at the realization that it wasn’t boys who made her knees go weak. She cried every night. She prayed in her bed, tucked under the covers, and on her knees on her floor, and at church, back when her family still went. She prayed to go back to normal, to want to go looking for a prince. The only other thing that she was certain of was that her parents could not know. She told them about school over dinner, moaned when they told her it was time to clean her room. She began collecting posters from magazines of boys her friends had crushes on.
Another year passed before Emma was forced to admit to herself that it wasn’t going away, these feelings for girls. Rosie had moved away to a tropical climate and Emma had just found more girls to notice. Admitting it must have been the final straw, because one day she woke up and the sun was shining. She didn’t take down the posters or tell her parents anything, that would come later. Her parents had said she could do anything she put her mind to, and she decided to create a world where two princesses could be together in their own fairy tale.
She built her world back up again one brick at a time.
Therein lies the problem. Emma has become herself, something she had thought she’d done in high school. First with coming out to her parents, then her friends. She went to college and found that she hadn’t been quite right. There was still room to grow. Now, as a senior, she’s out to everyone she knows. She’s ready to be with someone she loves. Only she loves a straight girl who kisses her and then says that they were both wasted the next day. Cam wants to do what Emma has done, to figure things out, but all Emma knows is that she’s spent a lifetime on all of that already.
“I really want to give this a go,” Emma says. Wren and Steve aren’t back yet, but it’s only a matter of time. She hates time.
“We will,” Cam says and squeezes Emma’s hand.
By the time Steve and Wren return, Emma has gotten new drinks for Cam and herself. Their moment has passed and Emma’s head doesn’t feel dizzy. Steve is grinning like an idiot. If he was a dog, his tongue would hang from his mouth in sloppy bliss. The number of people signing up to sing has lessened and the DJ is playing popular songs between singers.
“I like this song,” Steve says. “Come dance with me,” he says to Wren.
“I don’t feel like it,” says Wren.
“You then?” he asks Cam.
Cam has already let go of Emma’s hand and grabs onto Steve’s to be pulled out of her chair. Emma doesn’t get up. She watches as they go right into the middle of the other bar guests milling about. Steve laughs as he spins Cam around and then pulls her close to him. The people around them are clapping and smiling. Some others start to dance.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Emma says. “Do you want one?”
Wren shrugs.
Emma doesn’t go to the bartender with pigtails. She’s busy talking to another customer, so she tries to get the attention of the woman that always wears her hair in a ponytail. Most of the guests are away from the bar, closer to the DJ. She clears her throat, but it doesn’t work. She really should learn their names. She comes here often enough. Just when she’s feeling frustration at not being able to get the bartender’s attention, she looks to see what has her so enthralled. It’s the pigtail girl’s ass.
