Spinning

Chapter 3: bar puppetmaster

"Jordan, is your hair red?"

Sigh. The fiftieth asking of this question was no less wearisome than the first.

"Yeah, it's called Scarlet Night. Dyed it on a whim last weekend." A lie. I had been planning on dyeing my hair for weeks. It's nothing dramatic, just the last four inches or so in an ombre-style. Largely dull against my brunette locks, anyways.

"Oh... will it be like that for the wedding?"

"No, it'll wash out by then." Another lie. I'll have this color for the month. Still, relief floods my cousin's face. Her wedding is this weekend.

"Great...I, uh, really like it!"

We are on our monthly run together. It started as a monthly breakfast, but Madison would talk to the maple syrup dispenser if left alone for too long. I don't know how we share even 25% of our DNA. Those breakfasts were too draining; I felt early onset brain decay as she talked at me for two hours. Her breath is a relentless force; with each turn in the conversation a separate vanguard drove another onslaught against my attention span. In what I branded as a money saving effort, I suggested we go on a monthly run instead. The exhaustion of the run cuts her conversation down maybe by half, if I'm lucky. I speed up so she'll stop discussing my hair.

This goddamn wedding is in two days. Jake is coming up Saturday morning for it. It's an open bar, but the whole goddamn Thornley clan will be there, so blacking out is off the table. I've been brainstorming ways to make the event more bearable. I'm still scheming, but the top runner is crushing a Xanax in a glass of red wine. I just need to find some Xanax...

I get home from the run, and Jess gives me less than thirty seconds before she leaves her room and enacts her classic weekend plan to get me to go out. I want to drink to oblivion, but the goddamn wedding is tomorrow, and a festering hangover would be a cruel addition to the forced family function. But I'm a cunning beast of a woman who's feeling reckless and indulgent.

"Please, please, please. Korey hasn't texted me this week and I want to post a picture looking all hot and social."

"Maybe. I'll come out if we go to EnVision. It's more of a sit down bar but its nice."

"But I've heard it's sort of expensive there."

"I'll buy your first drink." Goddamn cheap witch.

I'm giddy with intoxicating excitement. Convincing Jess to go to the EnVision bar was way easier than expected, and the extra vodka I slipped into her drink loosened her up tremendously.

Jess is excessively dressed up in heels and a skirt/top combo. I couldn't be bothered to match her effort, but if Eddie is there, I want the aesthetic intensity and effortlessness of Angelina Jolie. I settle for all black: black ripped skinny jeans, black-heeled ankle boots, black cropped top, black eyeliner. I haven't eaten yet today, so my stomach is deliciously flat, my morals deliciously absent, my brain soothingly buzzing.

"I think the bar is this way." I knowingly lead Jess away from the bar, towards security. The desk is empty. Is he working tonight?

"Oh, never mind, it's this way." I lead us back towards the bar. Eddie isn't stationed outside the door, either. Could he be on a call? Sexual frustration builds up, with its subsequent depression slightly held at bay by the gin and tonic I just ordered. My eyes dart to the entrance with each new pathetic rich girl that enters. Jess blabbers on, and I half listen.

"Korey re-followed his ex-girlfriend yesterday. Do you think they're talking again? I know she's back in town..."

Maybe he's on his break?