Chapter Text
The blonde at the other end of the bar caught her eye for the third time and Anetra had no idea what to do about it.
A year ago, she would have. A year ago, she had been a regular at Glovebox, knew all the bartenders by name, knew the weekday events, knew the locals from the tourists from the college students taking hesitating steps inside and clogging up the entrance because they didn’t know where to put their feet. A year ago, she knew better than to come after 10 on a Friday night and expect to get her usual seat at the far end of the bar so she could scan the crowds coming in. She had been in a relationship for so long that all her skills had rusted. She felt hopelessly, hilariously, out of her depth – a small fish in a sea of unfamiliar, laughing, confident faces; she’d had to fake a sprained ankle to get her usual seat, bad karma that it was.
Glovebox looked largely unchanged, the same menagerie of tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling, the flags, the strands of rainbow lights, the chalk sign advertising the creatively named Dyke Beer in loopy handwriting. But the faces were different, the song playing on the jukebox was unfamiliar; looking around, she didn’t see anyone she knew. Anetra watched as the unfamiliar bartender ran a rag over the elbow-polished wood of the bar with one hand and cracked open a beer with the other, brisk and efficient. That was a change she could appreciate. At least Sasha had finally found an employee who wasn’t using the job just to pick up girls.
Speaking of which.
“Hey,” she said to the bartender, leaning forward over the bar. It wasn’t strictly necessary but it did good things for her neckline. “Hey, how’s it going?”
The bartender looked politely, if without interest, at Anetra’s smile. “It’s going fine,” she said. “How’s it going for you?”
“It’s going good,” Anetra said, drumming her hands on the bar in an affectionate rat-tat-tat. “I’ve missed this place, it’s good to be back.”
“Welcome back,” said the bartender with the sincerity of a Hallmark card. “It has not changed at all.”
Anetra kept her smile dazzling and turned up the charm. “Clearly some things have changed,” she said, flicking her gaze up and down deliberately. “Hopefully for the better.”
The bartender looked completely indifferent. “Do you need something? From the bar, where we serve drinks? What can I get you?”
Christ. She really was rusty if she couldn’t get the bartender to crack a smile. A year ago, half the staff would trip over their feet when Anetra walked in the door. She cut to the chase. “That blonde girl over at the end, what’s her name?”
The bartender started wiping a glass with a rag. “How would I know that?” she asked, unimpressed. “Do you know how many people come in here every day?”
Anetra wondered if she had something in her teeth, or had become horribly disfigured without realizing it. Sasha had threatened to hire straight women to bartend in the past – maybe it had finally happened. Anetra tried a different angle. “Is she here by herself?”
“I think her friend went to the bathroom twenty minutes ago – haven’t seen her since but the tab is open. Again, not something I really keep track of, so.” The bartender passed a vodka soda to a waiting hand jutting out from the crowd and looked down at Anetra’s almost empty glass. “Would you like another? Rum and Coke?”
“Sure,” Anetra said, trying to keep it light. If she had to break into a whole new cohort of staff at Glove, she couldn’t afford to get short with the first one who was rude to her. She pulled out a ten from her wallet and then didn’t let it go when the bartender reached for it. “How about this – what’s she drinking?”
The bartender looked down the bar to where the blonde, still alone, had pulled out a copy of Playbill from a canvas tote bag and was pouring over the pages with great concentration. “Gin and tonic now, two rounds of tequila with her friend when they first walked in. I think I’ve seen her at a few of the show tunes karaoke nights'' – Anetra had no idea what that was and felt an acute pang of awareness at how long she had been away, how she had buried her head in the sand for the whirlwind months of her relationship – “and she gets the same thing.” The bartender tugged the bill out of Anetra’s grip with one hand and slid her drink down the bar with the other. “And here’s your change – do you need anything else?”
“Keep it,” she said, and the bartender walked away immediately. Anetra chewed on her straw, giving the blonde a subtle once-over with a professional eye. Bringing a magazine to a crowded bar was something – Anetra didn’t know what, but it was something. Playbill, big doe eyes, a dress that belonged in the 60s, that slightly nervous, earnest expression every time she glanced at Anetra and thought no one noticed; rusty instincts or not, aspiring Broadway actresses all seemed to come from the same mold.
Anetra held her breath and waited. The next time the blonde looked up at her from the magazine, Anetra caught her eye and winked, suppressing a smile when the woman looked down in a rush. She could do this. It had been a year but she could still do this. She gave the blonde woman a slower look. She looked nervous, yes, but nervous with – pluck, if she had to put a word on it. Anetra wondered if the blonde woman would stare at her all night from across the bar or actually make a move. A year ago, Anetra hadn’t been one to wait. But this wasn’t, she reminded herself, a year ago.
She was still weighing her options, thinking of an opening line, when the crowd parted to reveal what Anetra assumed was the blonde woman’s friend, freed from the punishment of the bathroom line. The magazine snapped shut. Anetra couldn’t hear what they were saying over the din of the bar but she didn’t need to; the blonde slid the magazine into her tote and started trying to catch the bartender’s attention, signalling for the bill. Fuck.
It was a snap decision. The bartender was handing a nearby couple their drinks. Anetra caught her eye just before she could turn around to see the blonde and her friend waiting to close out their tab. “Can I send that girl a drink?” Anetra asked, her voice cracking slightly. Mentally she gave herself a little shake; this wasn’t her first time talking to a woman. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Shots or whatever. Just to send something over.”
“Tequila?” The bartender’s hand hovered over a bottle behind her, waiting for Anetra’s decision.
Not exactly romantic but there wasn’t much to go on. Gin and tonics, Playbill, and show tunes – white wine would’ve been a better bet, but any wine in Glovebox was probably closer to vinegar. Tequila as an opening move, ugh. “Sure,” Anetra said, fishing out another bill from her wallet. “And one for her friend, I guess.”
“Whatever you say, Casanova,” the bartender muttered, walking away to line up shots in front of the two women. Anetra sipped her rum and Coke and leaned back on the stool, poised. The bartender passed over the shots, two in one hand, and made an unenthusiastic Vanna White gesture in Anetra’s direction. The blonde followed the direction of her hands and caught Anetra’s eye, pressing her lips together around a smile. Anetra lifted her drink and waved with two fingers. The blonde woman knocked back her tequila shot, slipped around her friend, and started to wind her way through the crowd. Anetra leaned back to watch her progress, the graceful pivots around the people in her way, how one hand reached up to brush the hair out of her eyes, the pastel manicure that matched the blue of her dress.
That was the last thing Anetra saw before she scooched backwards again to make eye contact and went over the back edge of the stool, first her ass and then her head hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The crowd around her went silent and then burst into a choir of concerned voices, a dozen pairs of hands reaching down in unison. The blonde woman shouldered her way through all of them and crouched down by Anetra’s side, hovering over her with uncertain concern, her hand darting up and down Anetra’s arm, shoulder, the collar of her jacket. “Oh my god, are you okay?” she asked, eyes wide with alarm. The back of her hand brushed against Anetra’s neck; it felt like electricity. “Do you – are you, um, can you stand?” Breathless with the pain blooming down her spine, Anetra still caught the lilt in the woman’s cadence. Show tunes karaoke, she thought, pushing off the floor with her elbows to lift herself up, and then collapsed from the effort.
“Oh jeez.” The bartender leaned over the bar, looking from Anetra to the blonde woman and then towards the door. “Sweetie, your friend is walking out right now. If you want to catch her, you need to hurry.” The woman looked from Anetra to the door and back with apprehension. The bartender ducked under the side of the bar and stepped towards Anetra, still flat on her back like a flipped turtle. Her voice sounded warm and reassuring; Anetra wasn’t buying it. “She’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” said the blonde woman. She had a cute nose – it scrunched, bunny-like, as she looked from Anetra to the door again, worried indecision growing on her face. From the floor, Anetra nodded nonchalantly as if she fractured her tailbone, or what felt like it, all the time. Her head was spinning, starbursts pirouetting at the edges of her vision. “I’m so, so sorry,” the blonde woman continued. “I really have to go, my friend has my keys, and I have this audition for Kinky Boots in the morning, and my mom–”
“Don’t worry about it,” Anetra said, valiantly holding her head upright. “I’ll see you around, maybe?”
The woman’s face brightened as she stood up, walking backwards to the door. Her eyes, dark and glinting in the low light, didn’t leave Anetra’s. “Show tunes karaoke? On Wednesday?”
“Definitely.” Anetra thought she managed to get out the actual word but she had no idea if the woman heard her before the crowd swallowed her up. She saw the top of the door open and shut, heard the jangle of the bell, and finally closed her eyes. She was so, so tired – tired enough that she was about to fall asleep on the bar floor, the layers of drink residue and superbacteria be damned. She would just stay here until Wednesday, waiting for the woman and her tote bag to come back.
“Absolutely not,” said the bartender’s sharp voice in her ear. “Get off my floor, now.” A hand slipped under Anetra’s jacket and gripped her firmly, prying her head and shoulders off the floor. A few strands of her hair were yanked by something sticky on the floor – Anetra refused to consider what it might be. She opened her eyes and blinked, squinting at the light. The bartender propped her torso up a little higher and grabbed Anetra’s other hand. “You’re going to get up on three and then Salina is going to take you to urgent care. Ready?”
Anetra couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less, but nodded anyway. “Good. One,” the bartender counted, and then hauled Anetra to her feet with a strength that would have been surprising even without a probable concussion. Anetra swayed precariously, legs threatening to collapse, and braced herself, one hand gripping the bar, one on – something. She had to look down before she realized she was crushing the bartender’s fingers trying to stay upright.
Anetra shifted her weight from one foot to the other, trying to find a balance, and Glovebox spun around her in an unpleasant rush. The bartender put a steadying hand on her shoulder, peering down to look into Anetra’s eyes, checking her pupils – from behind the bar, Anetra hadn’t realized she was so tall. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion,” said the bartender, her voice cutting through the noise around them. She reached out her uncrushed hand towards the back of Anetra’s head, and that was the moment Anetra’s knees buckled for real. She almost went down again but there was Salina, still there, still her favorite bouncer, to catch her.
“Girl, you’re a mess,” Salina said cheerfully, wrapping an arm around her waist and letting most of Anetra’s weight collapse against her shoulder.
“She needs to go to urgent care, now,” said the bartender, unamused as she pried her fingers out of Anetra’s vice grip. She passed Anetra's arm, like a basket of Olive Garden breadsticks, to Salina and ducked back under the bar. “I don’t want to be liable for anything,” she said, scowling as she rubbed the knuckles of her nearly pulverized hand. “If we get hit with a lawsuit it’s going to be a fucking shitshow. Can you take her?”
"Sure," Salina said, craning her neck to look down at Anetra. "Ooh, you look busted. Some things never change, huh?"
“I’m fine,” Anetra muttered, most of her face smushed against Salina’s collarbone. Her head was too heavy to lift. “Let me go.”
“Whether or not you’re fine, which you aren’t, does not matter right now” Salina said. “What matters is that me carrying you to urgent care is the only way you’re leaving here with a girl because you have no game. And that you’re not suing us.”
“I’m not gonna sue Sasha, she owes me money,” Anetra protested. “And you’re a horrible bitch. And also I’m fine.”
The bartender had turned around once Anetra said she wasn’t suing and started making a round of martinis for a handful of women in their seventies. She looked at Salina over her shoulder. “You know where to go?”
“Oh, this isn’t my first time going to urgent care with this one, trust,” Salina said as she started hauling Anetra towards the door like an unruly, gay sack of potatoes. “Be back soon,” she called over the crowd. The bartender gave them a two-finger salute as they staggered outside, and the impatient mob of thirsty lesbians surged back around her.
As soon as she made it out the front door, Anetra threw up in the planter of fake flowers Sasha had found at a tag sale. They were so hideous that it didn’t make much difference, but as she lifted her head, she could see the bartender looking at them, lip curled in distaste, through the window. So much for making a good first impression with the new staff. She might have to stay away for another year.
“Smooth, Sundance,” said Salina, pushing back the hair from her face.
Anetra coughed weakly. “You suck.”
“Now there’s the ladykiller I know and love,” Salina cheered, arranging Anetra’s uncooperative limbs into an upright position. “You good? You want some gum? I’ve got gum. No gum? Water? No water? Damn, you’re a freak. Let’s go already.”
For all that Anetra insisted she was fine, Salina had to half-carry, half-drag her for a few blocks until her legs got the hang of walking again. “That was,” Anetra said slowly, working to fit her mouth around the words. “Not good.”
“It sure as shit wasn’t.”
“Do you know her?” Anetra said, suddenly realizing that Salina, as a longtime employee of the bar, might be somewhat aware of what happened inside it. “The blonde. I haven’t seen her before but she was there. Tonight. She was there tonight. And she.” Salina nodded patiently. Anetra wanted to curl up on the sidewalk and sleep for a month, but this was important, she had to get it out before it slipped her mind. She remembered the woman's hand, featherlight, on the side of her neck and blinked, hard, focusing on her words. “And she is also there. On. Wednesdays. For karaoke.”
“Oh yeah,” Salina said, holding open the door to urgent care for Anetra to limp her way inside. “That’s Marcia.”
“Marcia,” Anetra echoed. "Wow." She would be able to think of something smarter to say when her head didn’t feel like it was made of cement, but that summed it up pretty well.
“Marcia, wow,” Salina agreed. “Has the whole ‘want to be on Broadway’ thing going on, if you’re into that, but still smart, you know? I haven’t heard her at karaoke, but apparently she’s talented as hell. Shame you probably blew it.”
She would feel smug about guessing right from the Playbill in the distant future when she could form sentences. “She’s,” Anetra started and stopped, briefly stunned by the fluorescent glare of the waiting room lights. “She’s. She is. Wow.”
“She sure is, nena,” Salina agreed, not bothering to hide her amusement. She angled Anetra in the direction of the front desk and gave her a quick, tight hug. “I gotta get back. Marcia comes in on Wednesdays, sometimes on Friday like tonight, Sundays, kinda whenever. Good luck.”