Page 45 of Bar Down Baby!
“Absolutely not.” I sipped from today’sKiss Me I’m Pregnantmug.
Marcus poked his head out of the slot into the kitchen, “You’re bringing him to karaoke?”
“No,” I said at the same time that Josie said, “Yes.”
“I’m not sure he’s going to talk to me after last night, much less sing karaoke with me.”
“What do you think his song is?” Marcus asked.
“‘Sexy And I Know It’?” Josie guessed.
“‘Don’t You Want Me’?” Marcus said, and I glared at them both.
“He probably doesn’t even have a song,” I said. I tried to imagine Barry singing karaoke, huge hands around the little green mic that Josie hooked up to a machine probably as old as me. Karaoke was a quarterly ritual; we’d gather at Josie’s house to sing and eat Marcus’s empanadas with some of he and Josie’s other friends. Kate came once, but she really didn’t like karaoke, so I doubted she’d come again if she didn’t have to. She did get wine drunk and sing Shania Twain with me that one time, though, so I think she had a good time.
In December we’d be singing in a karaoke bar instead of Josie’s living room—special occasion for Josie’s birthday.
“Everyone has a song,” Marcus said before retreating into the kitchen to watch whatever was on the stove. I dipped a fry in my ketchup and chewed it slowly. The bell above the door rang, and Josie smiled and told them she’d be with them in a minute.
“Just invite him. You’ve got a few weeks to make nice,” she said, and stole one of my fries before walking away from the counter.
Kate picked me up after breakfast for shopping, and the ride was quiet, neither of us really talking or singing with any of the songs on the radio. At one point Kate slid an old Kelly Clarkson CD into the player, but even through the first two tracks shedidn’t so much as hum along. I picked at my already-chipped nail polish until she told me to stop picking at them. I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be mad at who just then, or if I was overthinking things and Kate was just tired. We didn’t have to talk all the time, but usually we did.
“I think it’s gonna snow today,” she said when we pulled into the parking lot, and I mumbled a lament about the cold.
The store was mostly empty as we made our way through the women’s clothes toward the section where all the plastic mannequins had big, distended bellies stretching the loose blouses and wrap dresses. We both went to the sale racks first, one of us on each side. Kate didn’t have to ask my size, just started grabbing things and slinging them over her forearm. I was looking for a couple pairs of pants, a new bra, and a minimum of three shirts. Kate said I should get something nicer, too, maybe a dress, just in case, and I said maybe.
An early 2000’s pop playlist played quietly above us with the slight hum of the fluorescent lights.
“Are you mad about the date?” Kate asked as she studied the tag on a pair of denim overalls. “I’d have been mad if you didn’t tell me.”
“I was being a little ridiculous,” I said, because Barry was right about that. “You aren’t expected to tell me every single thing that happens to you.”
“I know,” she said. She held up a blouse with a loud floral pattern, and we both shook our heads before she stowed it back on the rack. “I just didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“Do you like him?”
Kate shrugged and looked through another few shirts, their metal hangers sliding against the rack. “I thought I might.”
“What happened?” I held up a purple shirt with ruched sides that wasn’t entirely offensive, but the front dipped low and I was still trying to adjust to my extra cleavage. I put it back on the rack and investigated a black long-sleeve.
“I thought the date was going really well, but then he was asking me about my aspirations.”
“Like a job interview?”
“No, I think he was just trying to get to know me.”
This sounded like reasonable first date talk, if not a little formal. Maybe he was just like that, though, a real academic type.
“Did you tell him you run a successful company?”
“That’s the thing.” Kate put a dress over the stack of clothes on her arm that I would never wear, but I’d try it on to humor her. “He was weird about it. Kept asking if it was really what I wanted to do, like running a janitorial company was something no young person in their right mind would actually want for themselves.”
“Oh no.”
“I know!”
“Jerk.”
