Bianca is my least favorite of the girls that I drive for. She listens to ‘electronica’ and carries on a cellophane-hidden persona that is supposedly wiser than you and imperceptible to the flaws and fears that plague all of our species. She’s (allegedly) twenty-eight and still wears glitter. And, perhaps one of the least desirable traits one can possess — she is aware of how attractive she is.
I doubt she thinks much of me much, either. But I’m pretty sure she wants to fuck me…or at least get to the bottom of why I don’t want to fuck her.
“So what do you do for fun?”
“I get fucked up by myself until the music sounds just right,” I say, taking a drag from my cigarette and looking out the window, secretly enamored with my own spontaneous words and equally saddened by their honesty. “To placate my head, I go out…chase skirts and try to make conversation with people I vaguely identify with…all that jazz. But it’s not fun. It’s exercise.”
“I know what you mean.” I doubt it, but I always do my best to hang onto the possibility.
“I used to read a lot…and write a lot.”
“Kelly said you were a great writer.” Kelly is my ex, our co-worker, and, as far as I can tell, Bianca’s nemesis.
“I’ve heard that once or twice…but I lack the discipline and my mind is rotting.”
“Why’s that?’
“I’ve kinda fried it,” I say, navigating Dead Man’s Curve. “Maybe not as badly as I always say…but enough to freak me out if I could truly realize how bad.”
“Kelly says you’re pretty smart.” Both of them relay their conversations to me frequently, and I am continually baffled as to why two people who seemingly hate each other spend so much time chatting about their personal lives together.
“Used think so…not so much these days.”
The tires buzzsaw through puddles as we pull into the parking lot. I let her out of the car, and the rain smacks against my head and her’s, which is covered by my suit coat. We catch the usual stares in the lobby.
“What are you doing after work?” she asks with a flick of her hair as the elevator doors close.
“Getting fucked up by myself until the music sounds just right.”
“Want to grab a drink?”
“You buying?”
“I guess,” she says with a laugh and a taken aback expression, flicking her hair once again under the dead elevator lights.
“Then I’m in.” As we step out of the elevator, she fishes a glass bullet from her purse and takes an all-business bump, closing her eyes and running a hand over her face. Despite the fact that I thoroughly dislike her, I kind of want to hug her right now. After the usual spiel to the john, I head back down to the car to catch the Cavs post game show.
Why am I in? As far as I can figure, it boils down to one and/or all of the following reasons — free alcohol, the possibility of self-esteem boosting sex that will become depressing by dawn, or a futile attempt to evade desperate loneliness…none of which seem very appealing. But even still, I am in…
“I was a lot like you when I was your age,” she says as if we were separated by decades, sucking her drink through a little red straw without removing her eyes from mine. We ended up at a dim light joint with lots of art deco metal and fashionable glassware. The bartender looks like Troy Aikman.
“Yeah?” I say with an unintentional condescending laugh. “How so?”
“I dunno…we just have the same kind of vibe.” Vibe? I pick up the pace of my trips to the well, determined to make this worth my time. I am so fervent that at one point a little slips out and dribbles down my shirt.
“So why do you do this for a living?”
“Paycheck.”
“No, like…you’re better than this.”
“I really wouldn’t expect a pro to needle me about my occupation.” Blood swirls through my cheeks. “That came out wrong…surely it’s happened to you so much that it’s a raw nerve?”
“Yeah…I know what you mean. Sorry.” For once her demeanor doesn’t seem invented.
“Don’t be.”
“How’s it going?,” Troy Aikman the Bartender interrupts with a smile.
“Good…two more. And a round of whiskey,” I say, without the consent of the tab’s cardholder.
The depth of the conversation bottoms out, and we spend the next few drinks discussing music, television, and amusing anecdotes about visits to Canada. I am neither amused with her stories or in agreement with her tastes.
“You’re cute,” she says with a boozy stare, lightly running her fingers across my cheek. I need to get out of here before my dick wakes up and takes over.
“Can I borrow your bullet for a second?”
“Sure,” she says, pulling it from her purse and slipping it to me under the table, clearly dismayed by my lack of her expected reaction.
I head to the bathroom and rip it as if I were desperate for oxygen. I look into the mirror and don’t recognize myself. I think of the twenty year old Manhattan resident I once was, and that kid wants to punch this one in the mouth.
“We’re not alike and we don’t have a vibe,” I say adamantly without preface, slapping my hand on the steel bar. “You wear glitter and listen to music that promotes a lack of soul and watch reality TV…I don’t know if you pretend to like it ironically or outright enjoy it, but to me that’s like watching poor Somalian kids swatting flies…it’s torture and it’s sad. The only connection we could possibly share is that we hate our lives, we hate the world around us, and we pretend not to…and, well…welcome to the fucking club. That’s not a vibe. That’s life.”
I slip her bullet back to her under the bar, and it takes her a few seconds to accept it. She shoves it into her purse with a tense agitation.
“This is why you’re sad and alone,” she says after a stunned silence, twisting her face and calling for Troy Aikman’s attention.
“Probably.”
“Loser,” she says, with a toss of her hair as she strokes her signature on the tab.
“Definitely.”
I ask Troy Aikman to call me a cab.
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