Tequila Mockingbird
We lost to the Very Stable Geniuses.
The young suits at the front table fist-bumped each other and downed shots of Malört in celebration, because of course they did. I watched their puckered faces as they pretended to enjoy the taste.
“We’ll get ’em next time,” I told my teammates as I stacked papers and collected our pencils to hand back to Ronald. I avoided mentioning that we only lost by one point—one point that could’ve been made up if they hadn’t insisted I listen to Mark on the Mongol Empire question. But that was water under the bridge. I’d already practically moved on.
“We definitely have to do this again.” Yessi draped her purse over her shoulder. “I loved getting out of the house for a while.”
“For sure.” Kelly gave her a hug. “I will definitely make a special trip in for this.”
A frown overtook my forced grin. “Special trip?”
“I mean…” Kelly glanced nervously at Mark. “I’m moving out to Galena as soon as possible. Why keep trying to sell houses here when I won’t be around to see the sales through to closing?”
“Right,” I said.
She wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “But I’ll still be back a ton. It’ll probably take me months just to get all my crap out of your house.” She laughed.
“Yeah,” I said, imagining her space in the basement—bare and cold and lonely. What would I do with it? Set up yet another TV-watching station in my house? Maybe I’d try again to convince my mom to move in with me. Still, I plastered on a happy face and said, “Your crap is welcome to stay as long as you need.”
Kelly beckoned Yessi and me to her. “Ladies,” she said. “I want to ask you something.”
I drew in a deep breath. Here it came—the inevitable question, the one I knew was coming since the moment she flashed that ring: the bridesmaid inquiry.
Smiling shyly, Kelly asked, “Will you two be my maid and matron of honor?”
And there it was.
I’d been maid of honor in Yessi’s wedding, too—or, well, Kelly and I had been co–maids of honor, standing solidly as a unit in our singleness. We got a little drunk together (this was back when Katherine was still at the practice and I could afford to let loose once in a while), made fun of all the pomp and circumstance and hearts and flowers, and then she went and hooked up with one of Polly’s brothers that night while I passed out alone in my hotel room with Frasier blaring on the TV.
It’d probably be more of the same for me this time, but without a similarly perpetually single girlfriend to back me up. I’d be forty by then, the last unattached woman standing, forced to do shots—probably of Malört—in the corner with Kelly’s college-aged cousins.
Still, I pulled her into a hug, because what else could I do? “Kel, of course I’ll be your maid of honor.” She was my best friend forever. In sickness or in health. Through a dating drought or a marriage, I would be there for her.
I glanced over my shoulder at the bar. We needed to commemorate this moment somehow. Our era was ending, while the Mark and Kelly dynasty was just beginning, and, though my world was crumbling around me, I would buck up and do my solemn duty as maid of honor. “You guys want to do a shot or something to celebrate?”
“I really have to go,” Yessi said. “I’ve got to get home to pump and dump before I explode.”
“Understood,” I said, knowing better than to argue with a woman sporting a pair of engorged mammaries. “Kel?”
She took her fiancé’s hand. “Mark and I had better head out, too. We’ve got a long drive back to Galena. I’m staying there through the weekend.”
Galena. Tonight. So, she really was basically living there. “You’re driving the three hours tonight? You guys know you can crash at my place.”
“Mark has to open up the store early tomorrow,” Kelly said. “But we’ll definitely take you up on that another time.”
“You know you’ll always have a room in my house.” I forced another smile. “Well, it was good to see both of you. Mark, nice to meet you.” Barely looking at him, I nodded toward the new guy, the man only I hadn’t known existed until tonight.
“Nice to meet you, Annie.” I knew the kinds of guys Kelly usually dated—sullen artsy types with tattoos, like Dax, honestly. Mark seemed more my speed—safe, responsible, ink-free. I couldn’t imagine what had drawn Kelly to him. It was the kind of thing I would’ve loved to discuss with her, if she had bothered to tell me she’d met someone special before it became “ring official,” but now I felt like I had to keep my mouth shut. She hadn’t trusted me enough to let me in before the engagement, so why would she want my opinion after the fact?
When the door had closed behind my friends, I finally fully exhaled the breath that’d been stuck in my chest for hours and headed up to the bar. I parked myself in front of the new redheaded bartender. “Hi,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Peter.” He shot me a sweet, gap-toothed grin on his pale, freckly face. He looked like Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, and not much older. Peter was even younger than Dax—maybe fresh out of college. He probably saw me and wondered how many grandchildren I had.
“I’m Annie.”
“Nice to meet you, Annie.” He flashed me a kind smile. “What can I get you?” He wiped down the counter in front of me.
Sucking in my bottom lip, I scanned the shelf of liquor behind him. I’d already had my allotted drink tonight. I had to stay in peak shape in case any of my patients needed me. But, hell, what was one more? I never did this kind of thing, and what were the chances that someone would need me tonight of all nights? “Give me a shot of something, please.”
“Tequila?” he said.
“Sure, because no one’s ever made a bad decision on tequila.”
Peter set a glass and a lime in front of me, and Dax, who had been listening in, pushed a shaker of salt my way.
I wet my wrist, poured on some salt, and licked that off. Then I held up the shot as a toast and downed it, finishing up the ritual with a lime. Damn, that tasted like regret. “Another one,” I told Peter.
He obliged.
“So, your friend’s getting married,” Dax said, coming up next to Peter.
“I suppose so.” I drained another shot and twirled my index finger in the air, indicating I’d like another round.
Instead Dax set a glass of water in front of me. Buzzkill.
“You like the guy?” Peter asked.
I rolled my eyes. “No, but what does that matter?”
“Seems cool to me,” Dax said, as if anyone had asked his opinion. “Knows his stuff about wine.”
“Yeah, because that’s what truly matters.”
Dax, probably realizing his rookie mistake of wandering into this conversation, turned away and focused on glasses that needed wiping.
As I downed my third shot in short succession, the guilt started settling in. I was too responsible not to worry about the ramifications of my actions. I was the good girl, the A-student. I didn’t shirk my responsibilities. I pulled out my phone and texted my assistant Tina.
, she wrote back almost immediately.
I had no idea what any of those emojis meant, but I wasn’t about to question it.
Tonight I, a single woman nearing her forties who had just gotten very disappointing news, would doff her doctor hat and behave irresponsibly for once in her life.
“My friend kept her new fiancé a secret for three months,” I told Peter. “Three months.” I scoffed. “Though she told our other friend about him.”
He frowned. “Why do you think she did that?”
“I honestly don’t know.” I glanced at the door, holding out hope that Kelly would rush back into the bar to admit she was wrong—that she hadn’t meant anything by telling Yessi and not me. “She and I… We were supposed to grow old together, to travel the world after we retired. I even brought that up this week with her. I feel like a fool. She had so many opportunities, but she never mentioned she’d met someone.”
“You’re mad she told your friend and not you.” A little wrinkle appeared between Peter’s eyes, like he, the new guy here, was trying to catch up to my little personal soap opera.
“Yeah, Peter.” He didn’t get it. He probably lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his six best pals. He had a good ten to fifteen years before he knew how it felt to be the one left behind.
Dax wordlessly set one of his stellar old-fashioneds in front of me, wiped his hands, and walked away.
With stinging eyes, I squeaked out a “thank you.” My throat had closed up.
One of the guys from Very Stable Geniuses sidled up next to me at the bar. “Good game tonight, Wine O’Clock,” he said.
“Annie,” I choked out. My old-fashioned had gone down the wrong pipe.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’m Brad.”
Of course he was.
“You doing the citywide tournament?”
I shook my head, the alcohol and my mood and the Kelly of it all hindering my comprehension of this conversation. My brain had started to grow very fuzzy. “The what?”
“The Great Chicago Trivia Championship,” he said, brow furrowed. “You don’t know about it?”
“No…I’ve been away from the trivia scene for a while.”
He pulled out his phone. “Give me your number.”
I rolled my eyes. Okay, well, this was a new one. I awarded him a few points for ingenuity.
“To send you the info,” he said, annoyed. “I don’t want to be competing in this thing against a bunch of losers.” He smiled. “I only want to beat the best.”
Flattery would get him everywhere. “Ugh, fine.” I rattled off my number. A few seconds later, a photo of a flyer popped up on my phone. Starting a week from Tuesday, for six weeks, a bunch of different bars around Chicago would be hosting a massive, citywide trivia tournament. Teams could have no more than eight people. It cost two hundred dollars to enter, with a five-thousand-dollar grand prize. “Dang,” I said. The grand prize for trivia tonight at O’Leary’s Barn was twenty-five bucks off your bill.
“Exactly,” Brad said. “It’s kind of amazing. Teams compete from all around the city. It culminates in a big event on the final night for the top four teams. This bar is one of the host sites.”
“Cool.” I shut off my phone.
“There’s a big trophy, too.”
My ears perked up. “A trophy?” I had the perfect spot for it, too: right on the back of my baby grand piano.
“Do you think you and your friends might be interested?”
At the mention of my friends, I downed more of my drink. Yessi couldn’t get out of the house that often, and Kelly was living in Galena now. “I don’t think so.”
“Too bad,” he said. “I hope you find someone else to play with. The competition needs talent like yours.”
A lump formed in my throat. A big part of me wanted to do it. I hadn’t felt as alive as I had answering those questions tonight in I didn’t know how long, but I didn’t have a team. I couldn’t think of one single person who’d want to spend the next six Tuesdays with me. “Thanks for the info, Brad.”
“I mean,” he said, “you have my number now. Feel free to text if you’re ever lonely…for trivia.”
Somewhat grateful to be able to channel my emotions from despair over my life into annoyance at Brad, even momentarily, I focused on the new shot Peter had just set in front of me.
“Go away, Brad.” This was my life from now on: drinking alone in a bar, having no one to compete with me on my trivia team, considering a booty call with an obnoxious younger man just for something to do. I downed the shot.
“I think you’re done now,” Dax said, clearing away my shot glass and plate of limes.
“I think you don’t know what you’re talking about, my friend.” I flashed a twenty and motioned to Peter to get me another drink. He, my hero, obliged me.