“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “It’s like every other bar.”
“Exactly. They’re all terrible.”
“How much have you had to drink?” she asked. “Are you one of those sad drunks?”
“I don’t know, I don’t get drunk that often. How can you help but be sad in here?”
“I’m not sad,” she said.
“Then you’re not paying attention.” He was shouting to be heard over the noise, but the shouting made his words come out angry. “I mean, look at this place. Listen to this music.”
“Don’t you like rap? They do country on Thursdays.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head broadly. “It’s not the music,” he said. “It’s that, well, you came here to meet somebody, right? To meet a guy?”
“Right.”
“To maybe meet the guy, right?”
She looked down at her drink. “Right.”
“Well, when you think about that guy—who, by the way, we both know isn’t me—when you think about meeting him, do you think about meeting him in a place like this? In a place this ugly? This loud? Do you want him to smell like Jägermeister and cigarettes? Do you want your first dance to be to a song about strippers?”
She looked around the bar and shrugged again. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? No, of course you don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” Lisa said, digging in her friend’s purse for a cigarette.
“You’re right,” Lincoln said. “I’m sorry.”
She found a cigarette and put it in her mouth. It hung there, unlit. “Where else am I supposed to meet a guy?” she asked, watching the dancers. “Like, in a garden?”
“A garden would be nice,” he said. “I’d pay a cover charge at a singles garden.”
“That sounds like something they’d have at my mom’s church.” She went back to digging in her friend’s purse. “I think if I met a guy, you know, that guy, I wouldn’t care where I was or what he smelled like. I’d just be, like, happy …
“Look,” she said, standing up, “it was nice to meet you. I’m going to try to find a light.”
“Oh …um, right …” He started to stand, knocked his head against a neon Bud Light sign and sat back down. “It was nice to meet you, too,” he said.
He felt like apologizing again, but didn’t.
And he didn’t watch her walk away.
LINCOLN WAS STILL sitting at the table an hour later when Justin came back. “Dude, I need a favor. I’m too fucked-up to drive. Can you take my truck home?”
“Um, I’m not sure if …”
“Linc, for real”—Justin set his keys on the table—“I’m going home with Dena.”
“But what about those other guys, your brother …”
“I think they’re gone.”
“What?”
“I’ll pick up the truck tomorrow. Leave the keys under the mat and lock the doors.”
“I really don’t think …” Lincoln picked up the keys and tried to hand them back to Justin. But Justin was already gone.
EVE WAS SITTING at the kitchen table when Lincoln came downstairs the next afternoon. He’d spent the night in one of Justin’s backseats, then driven home sometime after dawn. His neck still felt like it was folded over an armrest, and his mouth tasted like licorice and sour meat. “What are you doing here?” he asked his sister.
“Well, good morning, sunshine. I brought the boys over to play with Mom.”
He looked around the kitchen, then settled heavily into the chair next to his sister.
“They’re in the backyard, building a fort,” she said. “There are egg rolls on the stove. And fried rice, are you hungry?”
Lincoln nodded, but didn’t move. He was already thinking about all the things he was going to do when he had the energy to stand up again. Like, go back to bed. That was the first thing.
“Geez,” his sister said, getting up to make him a plate. “You must have had some night.”
Standing at the stove, stirring the rice, Eve looked like a younger version of their mother—an older younger version. At thirty-six, Eve looked like their mother at forty-five. “Being responsible gives you wrinkles,” his sister would say when their mother wasn’t around. “Doesn’t Eve look tired?” his mother would say, whether Eve was around or not.
“Mom says you didn’t come home until seven,” Eve said, handing him a plate. “She’s livid, by the way.”
“Why is she livid?”