2
Charlotte
I wait until the middle of the night before pulling my bag out from under my bed and getting in my car, along with the boxes I'd snuck in earlier. Ten hours later, I find myself standing in front of a bar, the logos of numerous brands of beers flickering in the window as I look down at the piece of paper in my hand again, hoping to God I had written the address down wrong. The ad said it was a studio apartment above a small business—a business I'd be working in to offset some of the rent. There was no mention of a bar—though I never bothered to ask.
I just wanted out.
This is my out.
The door creaks as I push it forward with one hand, the other holding my bag filled with the small amount of clothes I'd rushed to pack.
In my mind, I expect everything to stop—like everyone's going to suddenly turn their heads to look at the girl in the room who clearly doesn't belong. They don't. The few people in the room barely take notice. The inside of the bar is exactly what I'd expected it to be like from the outside and now I'm really worried about the state of my apartment.
My feet drag as I move toward the counter, the smell of beer and spirits overwhelming my senses. I sit on a stool and place my forearms on the bar, my eyes closing when I feel the sticky residue cling to my skin. "Excuse me?" I ask the brunette behind the bar. She's wearing a bra and a tiny skirt. Okay, maybe not a bra, but it might as well be, her top is that small.
She frowns when her eyes make contact with mine, like she can somehow see my struggle to be here.
"You got some I.D, sweetheart?" she asks with a thick southern drawl.
She can't be more than a few years older than me, but the way she's looking at me makes me feel like a child. "I'm not here to drink. Is um..." I glance at the piece of paper in my hand, then back at her. "...Wendy here?"
"Tink!" she shouts over her shoulder. "Someone's here for you."
I move my arms from the bar and place them on my lap, cringing at the sound of the skin peeling away from the sticky wood, like bare thighs on leather seats in the heat of a summer.
"Sorry," the brunette says, moving to spray and then wipe down the spot on bar. "We're a little understaffed at the moment."
Her nametag says Angle.
"They're real," she says, and my eyes snap from the tag to her face.
"What?"
"My breasts. They're real."
"I wasn't—"
"It's cool. I'm used to it."
"No." I shake my head furiously. "I wasn't—" Breaking off on a sigh, I avert my gaze and mumble, "I was looking at your name tag."
"Oh." She giggles quietly and leans on her forearms, her apparent God-given breasts practically spilling out of her top.
I look up at the ceiling.
Pennies.
The ceiling is covered in pennies.
"I'm Angel," she says.
Looking back at her face and nothing but her face, I tell her, "I figured. Your tag says Angle though."
She shrugs, her head tilting to the side as she looks down on me. "My parents were a few crayons short of a six-pack."
