Chapter Text
Anetra hustled Aura out to the coffee cart Monday morning for an emergency gossip and strategizing session. For someone who had been laid up with a concussion all weekend, eating takeout Puerto Rican food in bed for medicinal reasons, she thought she was making an extremely compelling case for why they needed to go to Glovebox, tonight.
“Just so I have all the facts,” Aura said as she paced up and down the sidewalk in front of the medical examiner’s office, sounding not unlike a prosecutor from Law & Order: SVU. “You went to the bar on Friday and met a hot girl who told you she goes there on Wednesdays.”
“Yes.”
“She told you she would see you on Wednesday, even after you concussed yourself in front of her.”
“Yes.”
“Salina, who works at the bar and knows this girl, also told you she would be there. On Wednesday.”
“Yes.”
“And today is Monday.”
“Yes.”
“And you want to go back to the bar, today, which is not Wednesday, which is when this girl shows up, which is not today, which is Monday, which is not the day Salina told you she would be there because that’s Wednesday, which is not, as I mentioned, today.” Aura paused for breath. “Why?”
“Shut up,” said Anetra.
Aura rolled her eyes and ordered two coffees from the cart.
“Look, it’s not just about that. I think I left my headphones at the bar and I want to go check if anyone found them,” Anetra explained. It wasn’t a lie. She had lost her headphones at the bar and it was possible someone had found them – the fact that she had lost them four years ago did not seem necessary to mention at the moment. “If Marcia happens to be there, cool, or she’s not there, and then whatever, it’s fine. Just come with me to check. And also find my headphones. It makes sense.”
“Yeah, no, that’s dumb,” said Aura. Anetra had no arguments to refute this. “It’s my birthday week, I can do what I want, and what I want is to say you’re acting an absolute fool by stalking this girl to a bar she won’t even be at, and also I’m not aiding or abetting these gayass shenanigans right before my birthday dinner. No.”
“I’m not asking you to aid or abet anything,” Anetra protested. “Kyokoha is literally three blocks away.” Aura was a slut for good sushi – Anetra had made the reservation three months in advance and was prepared to cash in all her friendship chips for this. “We poke our heads in to see if she’s there and if she’s not then we leave and get omakase. It’s a five-minute pitstop, tops.”
“And if she is?”
Anetra frowned. “If she is what?”
Aura closed her eyes for a second, the way she did when she felt a migraine coming on. “If she is actually at the bar. What’s the plan then, Keyser Söze? You’re gonna bail on my birthday?”
Anetra had not actually considered this possibility. Aura was on her soapbox now, fully warmed up. “If I miss this reservation for any reason, I will kill you, just so we’re clear on that. I’ll be sad about it, but I’ll kill you.”
“It’s your birthday week,” Anetra pointed out. “I’m not gonna miss it when I made the reservation. It’s for 7, we’ll have tons of time. Just say yes.”
Aura gave her some impressive side-eye. “You’re getting the sake.”
“I was already getting the sake, birthday bitch,” Anetra said, taking Aura’s change from the coffee cart lady and dumping all of it in the tip jar before Aura could say anything about it. “I’ll meet you out here at 6:15.”
Aura put both hands on Anetra’s shoulders. “I am telling you now that this reservation is at 7 pm, Eastern Standard Time. Nineteen-hundred hours. Don’t tell me later that I didn’t remind you. The reservation is at 7 pm. And this gentlewoman–” Aura gestured magnanimously to the woman in the coffee cart, who looked profoundly disinterested at the scene in front of her– “Heard me say it. The reservation is at 7 pm and I have warned you.”
“Aura, I made the reservation. It’s in your name by the way.”
Aura held up a finger. “Ah. Pause. Please note that I have warned your ass.”
“Noted. You have warned me. I have been warned.”
“We should leave earlier than 6:15,” Aura considered. “The trains could be all kinds of messed up.”
“Oh my god.” Anetra rolled her eyes. “We’ll get a cab, okay? It’s a fifteen-minute drive. We’re not gonna be late. Chill.”
—
“I fucking warned you,” Aura gritted through her teeth. Anetra was trying and failing to not pick at the armrest’s flaking leather. She had been jittery all day, hadn’t checked her phone, hadn’t seen the alert about the UN General Meeting until they were well and truly stuck in gridlock. It was ten to 7. She could feel the anger radiating off of Aura’s body from the other side of the cab.
“You have said that seventeen times,” Anetra said, undoing her seatbelt quickly to maximize the distance between them. Aura’s kickboxing gym closed for renovations two weeks ago and she was constantly jonesing for an outlet. “We’re here, come on already.”
“Oh hey,” Salina called as they walked up to Glove. “Look at you, up and about already. How’s your head?”
“Still unsafe to operate heavy machinery, but I’ve never had any complaints.”
“Muy chistosa,” Salina said. She put an arm across the doorway and Anetra braced herself. Hopefully this would be over as quickly as possible. “You know, we didn’t expect to see you back so soon. If there’s someone you’re here to see, you’re a little bit early.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Anetra said with as much dignity as she could muster.
“What did I fucking tell you?” Aura muttered. “Can we go?”
“No,” Anetra said, and ducked under Salina’s arm, dragging Aura behind her. Glovebox was mostly empty, a small crowd milling in the back, a tall woman with dark hair pulled back in a twist behind the bar. Anetra didn’t recognize her until Sasha turned around and pulled her halfway over the bar in a bear hug.
“You’re finally back!” Sasha gave her shoulders an extra squeeze of delight. “We missed you here, babe. Glad to see you escaped the harpy in one piece.”
“In one piece until I dismember you because we’re gonna be fucking late,” Aura muttered. Anetra pinched her side; Aura slapped her hand in retaliation and stalked off to vent her rage on the hapless jukebox.
“Ignore her,” Anetra said. “I can’t stay though, I just stopped by because I was hoping – I was wondering if someone might have–” she scanned the bar’s clientele. Too old, too young, too not-blonde. A bust. “–seen my headphones. I think I left them here.”
Sasha frowned. “Didn’t you lose a pair of headphones here after Dyke March, what, four or five years ago? You need to be more careful with your stuff, girl.” Anetra nodded thoughtfully, as if taking this under careful consideration. “You know, I’m kinda surprised that that’s what you’re here about. Thought you might be coming about something else,” Sasha said lightly. “Maybe another reason you’re coming around twice in, what, three days, after we haven’t seen you for so long.”
She was going to kill Salina. “There isn’t,” Anetra said. “Nope. No other reason, just hoping to get my headphones back, that’s it.”
Sasha hummed in understanding. “Headphones, you say. And that’s it? Nothing else drawing you back to our humble Glovebox?”
Anetra looked her right in the eye, poker-faced. “Yup. That’s it. Headphones. Black ones.”
Sasha looked like she was about to pull a muscle trying to keep a straight face. “Black? Really? Not, maybe, a blonde, Broadway-hopeful pair of headphones?”
She was going to kill Salina with a knife. “Oh fuck you,” Anetra groaned, dropped her head onto the bar. “How much did Salina tell you?”
Sasha generously restrained herself to a single witchy cackle. She patted Anetra’s hair with sympathetic amusement. “Poor baby. It must be so hard, having to pick up girls by getting a concussion and then you can’t even close on a pity date. A major disappointment to lesbians everywhere.”
“Fuck.” Anetra slapped at Sasha’s hand but missed. “You.” Sasha ruffled her hair, ignoring Anetra’s squawk of indignation, and set two shot glasses in front of her. Anetra sighed as Sasha poured them each a double of Fireball, which was normally disgusting, but in this case free and therefore palatable. “Okay, so what do you know about her? I have maybe three minutes before Aura eviscerates me, keep it brief.”
Anetra considered how best to say she was hot and I liked her vibe but still sound like an adult with a good credit score. “Just the basics, I guess. Her name, that she’s blonde, an actor type, all that. Had kind of a vintage look going on when I saw her on Friday. She was reading a copy of Playbill at one point, so that’s something. I don’t know, she just stuck out to me.”
Sasha frowned. “She was reading a magazine? Here? On a Friday night? Wasn’t it completely packed?”
“Of course it was packed, that’s why it stuck out.”
“Well,” Sasha mused. She seemed personally affronted by the reading habits of her clientele. “That is an interesting choice. I’ll have to talk to her about that when she comes in.”
“Sasha, relax, it was Playbill, not Playboy.” Anetra checked her phone and winced. She had at most five minutes before Aura frogmarched her down the street in leg irons. “Okay, I’m about to get dragged out of here by the scruff of my neck, tell me everything you know right now.”
“Everything I know about what? Your headphones? The headphones you lost here?”
Anetra tried to suppress the whine in her voice. “Sasha, come on.”
Sasha finally took pity on her. “She’s been around for a couple of months. Can be a little aloof at first, but sweet when she warms up to people.” Anetra remembered how Marcia’s eyes had looked her over, dark and evaluating, the way she maintained a cocoon of personal space with her magazine amid the press of the crowd. Kind of an unusual style but she liked it. “She usually closes out the show tunes karaoke nights and blows the roof off the place. Still a little rough around the edges, though. She doesn’t know how to take a compliment, for one thing.” Sasha tapped a finger on the bar, considering. “And maybe not very professional, if she’s reading magazines on a Friday night,” she added with a huff.
It wasn’t much to go on but it was a start; she would absolutely have to remember the note about compliments for Wednesday. “That,” Anetra said, pleasantly surprised. “Was actually useful information. Now will you get some decent gin in this place so I can buy this girl a real drink?”
Sasha cocked an eyebrow. “Gin? Marcia doesn’t drink gin.”
Anetra stared at Sasha, trying to read her expression, then sighed. She should have seen this coming – Sasha was just yanking her chain for having been away from Glovebox for so long. She probably didn’t know anything about Marcia at all. Everything had sounded believable enough, but there was almost nothing Anetra wouldn’t put past Sasha and Salina working together to mess with her.
“Okay, nice try,” Anetra said. She heard the jangle of the bells as the door opened and Salina’s barking laughter wafted in from the sidewalk. Anetra pointed towards the front door without turning around. “You two, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dyke, think you’re really funny, don’t you? I’m telling you, she had a gin and tonic, and that was according to the bartender, so I’m gonna believe her even if that gloomy bitch couldn’t tell a joke to save her flat ass.”
Sasha didn’t laugh. Her eyes had gone wide looking at something near the door; Anetra turned around slowly, already guessing what she would find. Through the window she could see that Salina was still outside, finishing a cigarette. The bartender from Friday night was instead standing in the doorway, lips pinched tight. Oh, fuck, Anetra thought.
“Oh, fuck,” Sasha said under her breath.
There was an unholy screech at the other end of the bar; Anetra jumped in her seat, slamming her knee on the bottom of the bar, and saw stars. Aura was bearing down on them like a bat out of hell.
“Oh, fuck my fucking life,” she raged, yanking Anetra out of her seat and her arm almost out of its socket. “Come on, you slowpoke gay idiot, we have exactly three minutes to get there and if we’re late, I will – I will.” Aura paused, looking from Sasha to Anetra to the bartender, still quietly seething in Anetra’s general direction. She yanked Anetra’s arm again, tugging her towards the door. “I will have to leave and come back another time, okay, great seeing you Sasha, bye!”
“Will you slow down, Sonic the Hedgehog,” Anetra groused, limping into the vestibule. “I need to amputate my leg, this bar is trying to kill me.” Aura, mature as ever, walked out and pulled the door shut behind her, leaving Anetra to almost slam into it face-first. She watched in disbelief through the window in the door as Aura jogged across the intersection and made a series of increasingly creative hurry up bitch gestures like a talented but furious mime.
Anetra yanked the door open, ready to yell. “Oh, real fucking mature, you ass–”
Marcia was standing in front of her, one hand still reaching for the doorknob. She seemed frozen in place by the force of Anetra yelling directly in her face.
“Oh, wow, it’s um. It’s – I wasn’t expecting – it’s you. I mean, it’s nice to – oh wow. Hi,” Marcia said, her face getting pinker by the second. Anetra breathed a tiny sigh of relief. At least they could both be really bad at this.
“Hi,” Anetra repeated without thinking. She was dimly aware that it was the stupidest thing she’d said all day. Marcia was smiling up at her. There were dimples, something Anetra hadn’t noticed on Friday from the other side of the bar. Wisps of her blonde hair, loose, were fluttering against her chin in the light breeze and she brushed it aside, twirling a wayward strand around her finger. The pink of her cheeks complimented the yellow of her sundress, soft and pastel. She smelled good, floral and warm. Those dimples. Sundress. It was a lot to take in.
“Hi,” Anetra said again, standing a little straighter. Her knee throbbed and she put a hand on the doorframe to brace herself, leaning with what she hoped was a confident, James Dean-esque swagger. “How was” – don’t ask how her day was like a dad, don’t ask how her day was like a dad – “How was the audition? Kinky Boots, right?”
Marcia twinkled at the mention of the audition. She brushed a hand over her cheek, fingers resting for a moment on the side of her neck; Anetra made a valiant effort not to stare. “I mean, I think it went fine but who knows. Maybe they want me, maybe they don’t, but most likely, they probably don’t.”
“Most likely, that’s their mistake,” Anetra said before she could stop herself. Her knee ached and she tried to keep a controlled grip on the doorframe instead of banging her head against it in embarrassment. She had actually said that aloud, in words, where people could hear. People who were Marcia. She might die in this vestibule.
Marcia’s eyes widened by a fraction and then crinkled in a smile that made Anetra’s breath catch in her throat. “You’re sweet. I try to tell myself that whenever I don’t get a callback. Honestly, sometimes I think I’m not good enough to be doing this. But I had another audition today, so fingers crossed for that, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, it’s Hello Dolly and I love the show, the music, the costumes, and it would be amazing to be cast, it’s just.” She rocked on her heels, tilting her chin up at Anetra. “Some days, it’s just hard.”
“That does sound hard,” Anetra agreed. “But I’m sure you’re good enough.” Marcia looked at her with a soft, wistful half-smile. A slant of light cut through the shade of the vestibule, glancing off the top of her cheekbone. Marcia took another half step closer; Anetra could’ve counted every eyelash casting a shadow on her pale face if she wanted to. She was close enough to see minute traces of stage makeup, how her dark eyes were blue in the late afternoon sun, the watery rim of a contact underlining the pupil. Marcia was here, now, in front of her, close. Anetra’s grip tightened, knuckles turning to white.
The door creaked in her grip and Marcia looked from Anetra’s hand at the door to the inside of the bar. “Are you leaving? I was just stopping by for happy hour, if, I don’t know, if maybe you want to join me? We could talk? About auditions?” She laughed a little, went a little pinker. “Or about – about other things. Stuff. Whatever you want.”
Anetra suddenly had no plans for the evening but this: talking about auditions, things, and stuff; Marcia’s smile, hopeful and more than a little nervous. They could get out of here right now, she realized. Anetra was about to walk out the door. She could hear the raised voices of Sasha and the angry bartender arguing about something inside – they could get a cab and just leave. If Marcia wanted to, they could go anywhere in the city.
Unfortunately she could also hear the clacking of Aura’s heels coming towards them from the other side of the street. “Hi, excuse me, I’m so sorry. If I could just get by you, that would be great,” Aura said politely, reaching around Marcia to catch Anetra’s elbow in a vice grip. “Just need to grab this one, because we are.” She yanked Anetra out of the vestibule, past Marcia’s astonished look, tugging her farther down the sidewalk with each syllable. “So! Fucking! Late!”
Marcia stared at the scene they were making, mouth agape. Anetra was trying to pry Aura’s fingers off her with one hand and wave goodbye in what she hoped was a somewhat endearing manner. “Get your fucking rat claws – it was really nice to run into you! See you at – I am already walking, you do not have to drag me, Aura.”
She elbowed Aura in the ribs and turned back towards Marcia. “See you at karaoke on Wednesday!” Anetra finished. Marcia waved, tentative, uncertain.
Anetra flicked Aura squarely in the forehead with her middle finger with as much force as she could muster. As Aura staggered backwards, a hand pressed to her face, Anetra looked at Marcia and smiled. “Bye,” she said, quietly this time.
Marcia smiled back at her. “Bye.” Anetra felt a little shiver run down her spine. At that moment, Aura kicked the back of her already sore knee and Anetra went down on one leg like a wounded gazelle, blinking in pain. She kept her eyes on Marcia’s face – how Marcia looked like she was on the verge of saying something else, maybe running into Anetra’s arms, or maybe about to crack up at the spectacle of them. Anetra, trying to fend off Aura’s attempt to trap her in a wrestling hold, considered that Marcia might be too well-mannered to shout at people fighting on the sidewalk.
“Hey,” Marcia said in a loud, clear voice. She looked surprised in spite of herself and Anetra bit back the wattage of her smile. “I don’t know your name!”
“Thank you for asking, her name is Anetra!” Aura shouted before Anetra could say anything. She charged at Anetra at right angle and swung her around until she had hoisted Anetra into a rough approximation of a piggyback ride. “She’ll see you on Wednesday! Bye!” Aura yelled, and took off down 13th Street.
—
Aura, sweating, dropped Anetra to her feet in front of the door of Kyokoha, checked the time on her phone, and let out a tiny, vulturine shriek. “You fucking bitch, we’re ten minutes late.”
“No, we’re not,” Anetra sighed, bending and extending her knee before putting her full weight on it. It was definitely going to bruise, but she could walk.
Aura pulled a moist towelette out of her bag and dabbed at her forehead viciously. “Are you stupid?” she hissed. “What did I say? 7 pm, 7 fucking pm, Anetra! We are,” she checked her phone again, “eleven minutes late, oh my God. I cannot believe I let you ever talk me into this, why do I put up with your ass when you pull shit like this?”
“Because I made the reservation.”
“Oh great, you made the reservation, now you can be the one to try to explain to the host why we’re fucking late,” Aura snapped and pulled open the door. “Hello,” she said, composing herself brilliantly before the unsmiling man in a suit holding a tablet. “I have a reservation for two under the name Aura, at 7–”
“Yes,” said the host, swiping a finger across the tablet. “Aura for two at 7:15. If you’ll kindly follow me.”