Chapter six: Indentations

One night when James and Riley weren't doing a top notch job at the bar, because there were so many people and two of our bartenders were gone for the holidays, I decide to get in there and try to keep the wolves we knew as customers at bay. Everybody wanted a drink, nobody wanted food, and they wanted it now, and this bar was covered but the one near the kitchen wasn't, and I didn't realize how many people made this look so easy. In the movies, in the bar, here itself, I never thought it was so difficult to say hello and get someone their drink without spilling it over the bar counter. So my eyes nervously look for a face I like among the wolves, and I'm standing here alone, praying they just ask for a beer.

"What would you like?" I ask a girl who reminds me of Alice. She smiles.

"A glass of red wine, please."

Oh. A glass. This was easy. But how much do I pour in? Do they write that kind of thing here? I look to Victoria, pick up a phone and gesture to it. She knows what I don't know.

"You give out five ounces," Victoria tells me. "You're an engineer. Figure it out." And then I don't hear anything.

So I do. The bottle is about ten times that, so I count the gulps I take and pray this isn't too little. Or too much. "Here you go."

"Thanks." She hands me some money, and I decide she has to know how much it is or tonight's just been tough shit. It comes out of my pay whether I like it or not. "Sorry about the delay. It's my first night."

"Don't worry about it. First night's are hard."

The next guy I like in the crowd has a smile that looks like Masen's, and he asks for a beer. And the night kicks off, just like that, with my first night being bartender turning out to be the hardest thing I've ever done yet.

...

I don't see Masen for almost a week, but I'm not really thinking about him. Victoria tells me I'll go back to the toilets if I ever break a bottle, or a glass, even, and when I break a fingernail and it's possibly in someone's food, I hate myself forever. Well, till the night passes and I'm on my way home thinking about Angela and the project.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around. Come by Larry's tomorrow afternoon?"

Angela laughs, to my surprise, and forgives me that quickly. "Sure, Bella. I'll bring Cho."

The three of us sit in the corner booth and order fries and burgers, and James serves us.

"It's so weird sitting down instead of..." I look around at the empty bar. "I didn't realize how much this place has changed since I came."

"Or maybe you changed." Angela says gently. "I have the circuit in my bag, but we'll need a plug point so I can show you what's wrong."

She hadn't soldered in a transistor right, and we manage to get by with the noise I make with the gun and evade Victoria, too, within minutes. When we're out, the circuit's working and our job is done. We drink beers and it's on me, because we could've been done years ago if I took time out and got it done instead of running around in Larry's trying to make sure Masen isn't killing himself with alcohol.

Speaking of whom, I realize I have been multi-managing, and now, I have no idea how long it's been since I've seen Masen. Ten days? Maybe twelve. I shrug and let it go. I drink another beer and try harder to let it go.

...

"Nice skirt."

It was a nice skirt, and I knew it was, because it was short, and my legs weren't all too bad in pantyhose. And it was black, so it would keep Victoria at bay. Standing behind the bar now, I asked if he'd like a menu.

"If I flirt with you now, especially since you look so hot in that skirt," he doesn't put it any less crudely. "Would you make out with me?"

I don't turn around. "Are you drunk?"

"You're evading the question."

"You just might be an alcoholic." I inform him without a doubt.

He observes me, and deserts my last comment without a comeback. "When did you get posted to bartender?"

"A month ago," when you were drowning in that bottle of Jack.

He doesn't reply, but I head on to his usual and pass it to him, moving on to another customer.

"Nope, not drunk." A long pause before his voice slurs, "A little stoned, though."

It doesn't scare me immediately, because I've never been around a stoner, no one other than Jake. And Jake was my best bud. Was. There was a reason we weren't friends anymore, and, well, the stoning had nothing to do with that. "Why are you high?"

"Needed a kick to write this report. On how far I was from revealing Cummings to the world." He slams a wrist on the bar. "As it turns out, I'm not quite there yet."

"Oh."

"I may not be getting my PhD."

This sounds like something... I do not know how to handle. "I'm sorry, Masen."

Victoria eyes me from a table across and pulls me over to handle someone. "I'll be right back. Ten. Fifteen, tops. Don't go anywhere."

"Where would I go?"

I handle the customer, give him his sandwich, serve him his Bailey's and do everything that needed doing within the fifteen minutes I promised I wouldn't spill over. When I get back to the bar, though, Masen's gone, and I wonder how he eased out of the pub without my notice.

Then I see Victoria at the end of the bar with Riley.

"Where is he?"

Riley looks at me in disbelief before Victoria even bothers to answer. "Who?"

I look at her squarely. "What're you doing?"

Victoria shoos Riley away before answering bluntly. "Masen knows better than to mess with undergrads."

Enough was enough. "Can't you let me decide what he can or cannot mess with, even if there isn't any 'messing' involved?"

She doesn't look at me as she crosses over to the cash counter. Customers watch but no one interferes, and no one insists that we're keeping them from their heavy schedule of getting drunk and drunker.

"Give me his address."

"Bella... you're being fucking dumb. He's an asshole, okay? He doesn't care about anyone."

I wanted to roll my eyes but I was feeling the anger up to my eyebrows. "You don't know that, and it doesn't matter if he doesn't care. So give me his address."

She doesn't look at me even then. "How do you know I have it?"

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be doing this."

So she gives me the address and I leave angrily.

"Seven o' clock tomorrow."

I'd have shown her the finger if I wasn't such a wuss.

...

Masen lived near campus, which was near his campus. Huh. So much to know about one person, and it took so long. His apartment building was very nice to look at. Shiny, like a diamond or something. Well, he was loaded. Explained how he had the time to take girls to restaurants like La Vienna.

I sigh, slump my shoulders and hang around his lobby before deciding to talk to the watchman. A nice old fellow, he doesn't stop me from going straight up and making sure Masen's okay.

Which he is, because he opens the door in his shorts, his toothbrush in his mouth with only a second's surprise on his face.

"Get in."

It isn't a command, but he looks okay, so I almost chicken out before he forces me in by the hand. "Ow,"

"Sorry. What're you doing here?"

My skirt suddenly feels very short. "Uh, you... your thing. You know?" Adult things I have no idea of, those things, the things that are falling apart and making your life fall on you? Those things? I keep my mouth closed after that, not sure what to say. "I didn't know you smoked up."

"Everybody in humanities smokes up."

"Oh."

"You don't know anything, do you?"

I shrug. "I guess I'm sheltered."

"Well," he doesn't look at me. "Yeah."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No," I enter his bathroom. "What did you want to say?"

"I don't know, Bella. It seems like you pretty much shelter yourself. I mean," he looks at me in the mirror. "You don't go out. You don't meet people. You have no bloody friends."

I would've pointed at him with a gun, and then proceeded to shoot him, so I don't open my mouth. "I think I should go."

"And you never fucking just say it." He turns around, looking livid and wild, very unlike the man who has never lost control. I mean, sure, he drinks himself to oblivion and makes a pass or two, but all that doesn't amount to anything uncontrolled. This... I've never seen anyone like this. "The whole world will come crashing down on you and you won't want to talk about it. You'll just over-think everything. Do your own analyses and no one else will ever know! You just... how you handle things..."

"And the way you handle things makes for a pristine example. I'll try to follow your suit, but you'll forgive me if I fall short." I turn abruptly, and my body is protesting instantly at the act. "I'm gonna go."

"Wait, Bella,"

"Masen," he's got a strong grip, that brute. "Let me go."

He lets me go but I don't look at him. "Look," he doesn't sound too sober anymore. He had me convinced otherwise. "I'm sorry. It's just been a bad day."

"Apology accepted. Can I please see you another time?"

He walks me to the door, a short walk it turns out to be, and holds my shoulders for a second. I don't turn around. I feel like crying, and I can't risk that now or I'll be here forever. "Is this one of those things you say you're forgiving but you'll never forget?"

I should lie, but he's high enough to forget. Everybody deserves to forget. "I guess so."

His fingers are burned into my top, into my skin, and I cry a little on my way home. I cry a lot at home, wondering why I can't make friends, why life sucks so badly, and why Masen has to be such a hard ass over all that sap.


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