Heartsick

Chapter 2

Fall air nips at our thighs as we try to pull our too-short dresses down, not out of modesty, of course. Just, well, it’s chilly. We hand over our IDs to the bouncer who likes ogling all the college girls. Every night it seems to be the same interaction. Sometimes I wish I could wear a sign that says, “Yes, I am really over twenty-one; no, a wink is not going to earn you a fuck.”

Once we get in, I linger next to the wooden bar as Mandy makes her usual lap, checking out our options. I nod to Sally. She’s big and warm and Jell-O-y with cheeks that look like she sat too close to the fire in the back of the pub. I don’t need to tell her what I want. She also knows that my face will turn green if I so much as smell a Jägerbomb. But that’s another story.

“Here’s your glass of pinot grigio, milady,” she says in a posh voice that’s especially endearing because she can’t quite kick that Virginia mountain accent nestled deep within her vocal cords.

“Why thank you, bar wench,” I say. It’s cool. I can say things like that to Sally.

She laughs and pops the top off Mandy’s Yuengling. Before I turn back around, glass crashes in quick pricks around my ankles. I set the drinks down and swivel. A girl has dropped her wine. Glass shards and liquid surround my feet.

“Shit, sorry,” the girl says before darting toward the bathroom. I get it, she’s embarrassed. I bend down into a careful crouch, given my short skirt. The wine soaks into the wood floorboards, becoming part of the bar. But the glass bits can’t just linger. I reach for one, ready to pluck it and its friends off the ground, when a man squats next to me.

“No.” He grabs my hand. “You could cut yourself. Let me get that.” His sharp green eyes match his shirt. Despite his crisp button-down, I can tell he’s a townie, an Allan original. It’s not any one thing, but the combination. He has a toothpick sliding out of the corner of his mouth and there are light grass stains on his knees, as though he’d been playing outside with a dog or small child. He smells like crickets and fire pits. He also has a sliver of dirt under his thumb, which presses into my hand as he pulls me up. I let him. I hold his rough palm for too long and he has to gently pull it away.

“Hey Sally,” he says. “Where do you keep your dustpan?” He’s got that Allan cadence too. It’s languid. There is no rush.

Sally fusses about how he doesn’t have to do anything, but he insists and leaves to retrieve the necessary tools. I’ll wait for him and offer to help. We can bend over the broken glass together.

“Quinn, come here,” Mandy calls. “We’re celebrating! Zachary’s going to be published in some super important science journal.”

I stare at the glass guy for a bit too long, imagining myself playing the role of a good little helper, until I rub my forehead and turn to join Mandy. She stands next to Zachary, her fling. Although maybe you can’t call it a fling if it’s lasted more than a year. He’s Rashid’s roommate (super smart science grad students stick together), and we met them out one drizzly, drunken night last fall.

Rashid is with them too, and when he sees me, his lips twitch into a grin. His gaze is deep. Penetrating.

Maybe that’s it. The way he looks at me? When I’m around him, I feel like the world is compressing. I haven’t figured out why.

Then again, odd things make me feel that way. Like small talk that crosses from harmlessly tedious to suffocatingly desperate. Or fluorescent lights in stores with heaps of useless products. Or that spray you get when you walk into a cosmetics department. Here’s perfume. It will make you a better person.

It’s those things that make me want to sit on the bathroom floor, cross-legged, letting the cold tiles infuse my legs with reality. I would run my fingers along the grout just to know it’s there, it’s real. I am real.