LITMIR.BIZ

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bought my soap, might as well buy me a drink,” she said eventually. “Can’t go back anyway,” she muttered.

      He didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. He meandered back to the bar, got two drinks, belatedly realizing he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. So he ordered four different drinks. Couldn’t hurt.

      He carefully carried the four glasses back to her table, only sloshing a little over his fingers.

      “I bring variety,” he announced, the heat of the liquor quickly spreading from gut to his extremities.

      A nice feeling all in all. Kind of numb and tingly. No heavy failure constricting everything. He felt light and fluid. Very nice indeed.

      “So, what on earth are you doing here?” she asked, pulling one of the glasses close to her. “Don’t tell me you actually live in New Benton?”

      “No. I don’t.” He sipped his bourbon, studying her. Her eyes were almost the same blue as the sky of her tattoo. Wisps of blond hair framed her round face. She didn’t look like she wore makeup except for the slight smudge of black under her eyes.

      “Let me guess.” She linked her fingers around the glass. Long, elegant, but with blunt nails painted black. She was quite the contrast. “Central West End?”

      “No. Downtown.”

      She snorted, taking a big, long gulp of her drink. “Yeah, you’re that type.”

      “Type?”

      “Mr. Super Yuppie. That’s your superhero name.”

      Perhaps sober, practical Charlie would be offended, but relaxed, inebriated Charlie found it funny. And true. It was like this day had separated him from his life and he saw what a joke it all was.

      So he laughed and polished off that fourth drink no matter how irresponsible it was. How would he get home? How would Goat Girl, er, Capra Crusader, get home? Eh, he’d figure it out. Later. “Super Yuppie. Well, at least I’m super at something.”

      She waved a hand at him. “Oh, please, I’m sure you’re super at everything. Like I said, I know your type. Silver spoon, right? Private school. Mommy and Daddy paid for college. Oh, I know all about your type.”

      “If I’m all those things, how did I end up solo at a New Benton townie bar on a Thursday night?” Because for as much of a yuppie as he might have turned into, nothing was handed to him on a silver platter.

      She finished off the drink in a quick gulp, put the glass down with a thud and then leaned forward. Her dress was modest, but still, the leaning and the way her arms were crossed under her breasts meant he had a decent view. Meant he wondered if she had tattoos in other places. Meant he wondered...

      “My eyes are up here, sir.”

      He closed his for a second. “Sorry. Can I blame booze for my lack of manners?” When he opened his eyes, training them on her face, she was smiling.

      “Manners are kind of a turnoff for me, so you’re absolved.” She pulled another drink toward her like one might hold a treasured object. “So, how did you get to a New Benton townie bar alone on a Thursday night? Decide to slum it a bit?”

      “I grew up here.”

      Her eyebrows drew together, her nose wrinkled. “Oh.”

      “On a farm.”

      Then her eyes went wide. “I...can’t picture you on a farm.”

      “No, I don’t suppose you can.”

      “So, you hated it?”

      He shrugged. “Hate is a strong word. I didn’t love it. My father, the farmer, really didn’t love it. So I worked my butt off to do something better with my life.”

      “My farm is the best thing that ever happened to my life,” she said vehemently, reminding him much too much of Dell.

      “Yeah, well, different strokes and all that.” How had they gotten to talking about farms of all damn things? He didn’t want to talk about farms. “Why are you here? What sorrows are you drowning?”

      “My grandmother’s funeral.” She pointed to her modest black dress. “I got kicked out.”

      “Oh. Well, you win.”

      “Don’t I just?” She downed the shot, exposing the slim column of her throat, a blue light casting an eerie glow to her pale skin. “What are you drowning?”

      “Hold on. How...how does someone get kicked out of her grandmother’s funeral?”

      * * *

      MEG KNEW THIS was all wrong. Grandma would not approve. She wasn’t popping pills or snorting anything, but alcohol had led to drugs on more than one occasion. Not that someone like Mr. Super Yuppie would have any idea how to get his hands on illegal substances.

      So, really, what did getting drunk matter? It was the lesser of two evils, and if she didn’t have something loosening the tightness in her chest, she was afraid she would just...stop breathing. Drown on land.

      How had she gotten kicked out of Grandma’s funeral?

      “Apparently daring to show my tattoos was grounds enough to be told I couldn’t be in the church. Then I was informed I was deeply upsetting my mother, you know, by existing. So I couldn’t go to the burial site. At least not without causing a scene and...that wouldn’t be right. They aren’t right, but neither would that be.” It wasn’t anywhere close to the full story of her parents’ disdain for her, but she didn’t have years, and this man wasn’t her therapist.

      She stared at the drink. Three in. She didn’t feel numb or light or any of the things getting high used to do for her. She just felt heavy and sad and she couldn’t erase the look on her mother’s face, the hurtful words from her father.

      Their little failure. She meant nothing to them. A stain to the Carmichael name, the worst thing two proud, conceited, powerful people could produce.

      At thirty-two she should be over it, and on the day-to-day she was, but the fact they couldn’t take a break from protecting their precious image for her grandmother’s funeral...

      It made her feel like nothing and, considering that was what had shoved her into the drug scene in the first place, considering she was sitting here getting trashed, was just pathetic.

      “So, what’s your story?” she demanded of the man in front of her.

      “Not as bad as yours.”

      “Good. I want to hear all about it. So I can feel less pathetic. Spill. Every lame detail.” Even though it was wrong, she finished off the second drink and pulled the third one toward herself.

      “I got fired. Sort of.”

      “You? You look like a guy who spends Saturday night responding to work emails.” Just as her father would have been doing twenty-some years ago.

      “Something I would do, yes. It wasn’t... I mean, I shouldn’t have been let go. But the company I worked for was bought out and I was axed to make room for their staff. Since I’m high up on the food chain so to speak, there wasn’t really room for me anywhere else.”

      “Yeah, I definitely win.”

      “If it helps, I’m having kind of a premidlife crisis over it.”

      “That does help, actually. Tell me, Super Yuppie, what’s so terrible about losing your job? If you’re so great, don’t you just get another one?” Anytime Dad had bought out some mom-and-pop, he waved away the damage. Oh, those people will find jobs if they’re any good.

      “Well, jobs at that level don’t just sit around. But you’re right, I’m not too worried about unemployment.”

      “So why the crisis?”

      He took one of her empty glasses,

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