The Dry Martini

Tara takes my picture outside the Dry Martini. I’m under the sign next to a bunch of smokers huddled near the building. You see them outside of every bar since California enacted a no-smoking-in-bars law. As Tara takes the picture, I see myself years away and small and distant and four-by-six in a photo in a book Tara’s lover is flipping through and she’ll ask who’s that in the picture and I suppose Tara will bend over and say, that’s Nick, a friend from a long time ago, and before you know it, the page will be flipped. The people next to me smoke away and their faces change color as the lights on the sign come on and off.

Tara and I sit at one of the outside tables. People are already drunk, are already making asses of themselves. Whooping and yelling and screaming. A guy across the street is screaming, for no apparent reason, into the face of another man. They don’t seem angry at each other. It seems to be some gesture of friendship.

Our cocktail waitress, whose name tag reads THUNDARA, comes out and asks us what we’d like to drink. Tara asks for a martini, dry.

“How dry?” Thundara asks..

“Dry enough for cactus,” Tara says.

I ask for a Bass ale, then I say, “Save yourself a trip. Bring me two.”

Thundara shakes her head and clicks her gum. “No can do.”

“Why not?”

“State law,” she says. “One drink per person.”

“What about a double?” I say.

“What?” she says.

“A double,” I say. “Twice the amount.”

“A double … beer?” she says. “The glass would already be full.”

“Then bring me two,” I say.

“I can’t,” she says. “You’re a one.”

“I’m a what?”

“You’re a one—one person. If you were a two, I could bring two drinks. If you were a group, you could have a pitcher.”

“Look,” I say. “I’m having a hell of a day.” I see Tara look down.

Thundara gives me an it’s-the-rules shrug.

“I’m a group of people having a lousy day—how about a pitcher?”

She says, “You’re a one.” She looks hard at me. “A one gets one drink. I’ll get you one drink.”

I don’t know why I’m giving her a hard time, but it’s like when you fall down and you want to stop it, but you can’t. Control has momentarily slipped. “Is your name really Thundara?” I say.

“You want a drink?” she says.

“Fine,” I say. “Get me a drink.”

And I feel instantly like shit. The way you judge people is by how they treat food-and-drink service people and I have failed in some way.

I look over at Tara. “Sorry,” I say.

She shakes her head. “You okay?”

“No,” I say. “But I will be—don’t worry.” I pause and wonder if I should ask what’s on my mind, and curiosity gets the better of me. “Do you have plans for later?”

Tara nods.

Loneliness clubs me. I resist saying I thought you needed time alone.

But we’re adults, we’ll get through this, we’ll be able to talk sensibly about this, I suppose. We know the rules here, as easy to follow as those dance-lesson charts. Step here, step there, that’s the way through this dance. I used to think it was easier to get dumped than to dump someone, but I’ve learned they both suck in ways language can’t reach. Just a flat rusty sadness that can’t be approached and the easier side is the side you don’t happen to be on this time around. Plus, Tara’s dealing with dumping Jenny, and she loved her, too, even if it didn’t work out. She’s got her troubles and I’ve got mine, and like Mr. Frank Carr said, we gather to talk about the troubles we share.

A woman with very short platinum-blond hair walks by in thigh-high boots, fishnets, and a black miniskirt. She’s wearing a gray top with spaghetti straps and she’s muscular and her shoulder blades are perfect, like two parentheses. Tara and I watch her walk by, her ass sweeping like a pendulum all the way to the pool tables in the back.

I shake my head.

“Hot number,” Tara says. “You should go for her.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m having a little woman trouble.”

“The fillies getting you down, sailor?”

“You must be reading my mail,” I say.

She smiles and it feels momentarily good. We’re still tight. This is a shift, not an end. There’s still a history here, still words to use that don’t sting.

Thundara comes out with Tara’s martini and my beer and she treats us like tourists, especially me. She goes away quickly, all pouts and anger and superiority.

Tara shakes her head. “Bad form.”

“Well, I wasn’t at my best.”

“Still, she’s rude.”

“Not a crime,” I say.

“It should be,” Tara says. “She should be shunned.”

“Shunned?”

She nods. “That’s my new thing—I think we should bring back shunning.”

We sit for a couple of minutes, and I knock back the beer and want another one as soon as it’s gone. We go back and forth on our who-to-shun list, which so far starts with Thundara and ends with Jewel, Fiona Apple, and anyone from that hideous band Creed, since pretentiousness is a shunnable offense, according to Tara.

I’m trying to find Thundara, or anyone else, to get another drink, when I see Sergei coming across the street. He makes it to our table, breathing hard and looking nervous.

“How’d you know I was here?” I say.

“Checked desk at Lincoln. Checked room. Start looking at bars.”

It staggers me that I’m that easy to find. At work. In my room. Or drinking. I need to get more interests. I ask him what’s going on.

He looks at Tara.

“It’s fine,” I say. “What’s up?”

“We have trouble. Need to talk.”

“It can’t wait?”

“It can’t wait.”

Sergei says, “FBI called us.”

Tara says, “The FBI?”

I tell her it’s okay, though I’m sure it’s not.

I take Sergei out of her earshot, out by the sidewalk, and I say, “How the fuck did the FBI get our number?”

“Probably Frank Carr.”

“Fuck,” I say.

“We must go.”

“Where?”

“To bomb shelter, Nick Ray. Let this blow over. Need not to be here when FBI starts looking.”

I tell him I’ll meet him at his place in five minutes.

“No time, Nick Ray.”

Five minutes, I tell him.

“No,” he says. “I wait here.”

I go inside and tell Tara I need to get going.

Tara asks what’s going on, and I tell her I can’t talk about it, but I try to act like everything’s cool and that this is minor, this is a speed bump, this is nothing to get excited about.

“Doesn’t sound okay,” she says.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “Some people who need to be shunned—that’s all.”

She looks scared, which must mean I look scared, and she says, “You’ll call me tomorrow?”

“What if I told you I was going away to straighten up for a while and that when I come back, I’ll get a job and try to prove to you I’m someone worth you being with for good?”

“Is that what you’re doing?” she says. “Straightening up?” She looks really worried about me, and I just want to kiss her for caring.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” I say. “What if I did that?”

“Call me, Nick.”

“We can talk about this?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Can we talk about this? About us, when I call?”

“We can talk about this, yeah.”

I kiss her on the head before snaking my way through the crowds with Sergei.