I set the glass back down and stare at it suspiciously for a second. I don't shudder, and I don't want to gag or anything so it must be working. After giving it a few more seconds for good measure, I pick the glass back up and bring it to my lips, but before I take a sip I let the cherry roll back toward me and then drink around that.
Okay, this is totally working. Excellent. What's in a Manhattan anyway? From the look of it, I sort of thought it was going to be all cherry. Like maybe a rum and Coke sort of thing. It's not, though. It's, like, all booze, and not your smooth vodka booze either. Dark, scary, old man booze. The cherry was really deceptive.
But, okay, I'm feeling pretty good about this now. The piano man starts playing something I think I know, some song I've heard before. Oh yeah, it was used on a commercial. Shoot, I can't place it, but pretty soon I'm humming along anyway. I hope he gets to the part of the song where I remember the words.
There's only a sip or two left in this glass, and now I'm totally goal-oriented about it. I know once I drink this, that bartender is going to bring me another one and then I'm going to be relatively tipsy. But if I finish just this one drink, then I should be okay. I can ask him for a Diet Coke or something instead. Something with cherries, lots of cherries.
I close my eyes and tip the glass back. The cherry drops against my upper lip and I let the liquid swirl around it and then against the roof of my mouth. Then, as a reward, I let that sweet, cartoonish fruit roll over my tongue and bite down on my molars.
There you go. That's why they put the cherry in there. It's dessert.
I finally get that last bit of the drink past my tongue when suddenly I'm jerking forward, practically falling over the table. I turn in my seat, careful not to choke on the bits of cherry that are still at the back of my mouth. For a second, what I'm seeing does not make any sense.
It's a man, that much I know. He's enormous. He's built like a stone pillar, and he's got his hands up like he thinks he ran me over with his car. Which honestly, is not that far from the truth. I feel like I just got clubbed with a tree.
And then it’s another man, too, from the other direction. They look almost alike. Brothers, maybe. They both offer apologies but the sounds get crossed, cancelling each other out.
The first man stares at me hard as the room sort of swims back and forth in front of my eyes. Carefully, I swallow the rest of the cherry and just wait to catch my breath for a second, but the way he's looking at me makes my heart beat really hard. We seem to stare at each other for quite a long time before the other guy nudges him and they both drop into the booth, across the table from me.
My mouth opens as if to say something, but then nothing comes out. I bite my lips closed again. I look at the one on the left, who seems intent not to look back. He’s staring at the backs of his hands, made purple from the lights.
I've never quite seen anything like him. Is he handsome? I can't tell. It's like I can't look right at him, like meeting his eyes is physically difficult. I feel my heartbeat in my throat all of a sudden and swallow twice, trying to get it back where it belongs.
The other one is smiling at me like we already know each other, like we’re friends. He’s not hard to look at, not one bit.
The bartender slides over and places another Manhattan in front of me. The second stranger scowls at it, tipping his head to one side like a great dane. He turns his head diagonally up to the bartender.
“Not that,” he says in a low, clipped voice that seems to shoot through me like a series of arrows. “Something else. Wine. No…Champagne. Yes?”
I nod, mute and stunned.
The bartender shoots me a petulant scowl and walks away. The second stranger pooches his lips out in a contemplative expression. My eyes keep going back to the first stranger. There’s something uncanny about him. I feel naughty, just staring like this. He raises his eyes and looks back at me.
He barely blinks. His hair is close to his head, cut very short. I can still see that it's wavy, sort of coarse. It forms a kind of thick helmet over his head. One tiny piece at the top of his forehead curls back the other way, but the rest of it is so orderly it almost looks fake.
His face is broad and strong. Charcoal black eyes appraise me calmly from beneath heavy brows. His mouth is a curved, sculptural shape that forms a sort of scowling crescent over his cleft chin. I think he might be ugly. A web of scars stretches from the corner of his mouth, up and over one eye. Now that I'm looking at it, it seems as the one eyebrow was half lost in the scar. Maybe a burn or something. But it's so old that it's not discolored, maybe just slightly more silver.
He's either the most handsome or the most repulsive man I've ever seen. I can't decide which.