Part One: Friday, a night with the girls
The timing was perfect. Rent was due Friday, and I was out of money for the month by Wednesday. My sister called Thursday to invite me to Appleton for the weekend, and Greg and I were asked to stay at his mom's to house-sit while she was out of town the following week. I had ten comfortable days to find a new place to call “home”.
On Friday, I stuffed the clothes I still liked into a suitcase, and my journals, pictures, and a few books into plastic crates and loaded them into Greg's trunk. I tossed my toothbrush, my makeup, and a change of underwear into my oversized purse, already bulging with my computer, journal, planner, wallet, and Hot Water Music. I hauled my futon and bookshelves to the curb and left the rest for the landlord to donate to charity. Or, she could sell it to cover a fraction of the rent I wasn't going to pay.
After Greg headed off to work, I dropped my keys into the mailbox and slowly pulled the door shut behind me. It clicked shut, I sighed, and I turned to face the street. I took in the feeling of homelessness. I felt no different than I had yesterday. I was young-white-woman-with-a-loving-family homeless, not 'Nam Vet-homeless. I would be fine. I headed toward the Square.
Michelle would be in Madison in about four hours, to pick me up for dinner with our stepsister Ann, who is in the city for school. It was too early to go to the bar without any money; I wouldn't be able to score much for free drinks during Happy Hour, and I didn't want to put up with the politicians, anyway. I stopped into my favorite cafe. Jim could tell when I didn't have money even before I ordered, but he always served me a bottomless cup to keep me writing. I tipped him the $1.37 in change I had left in my purse and grabbed a table.
I set up my computer and awaited Michelle's call. I finished two short stories that I'd been fretting over for three weeks, submitted those and three others to yet another five fiction reviews, and drank three cups of free coffee. Jim poured another refill, and I began to scour online for writing gigs. I was tailoring my resume for a blog in San Francisco when Michelle called.
Michelle bought dinner for all three of us on State Street, and I talked them into having drinks afterward. They followed me into the Silver Dollar, which looks and smells exactly like the bars we grew up in up north. Ann bought three glasses of Miller Lite and offered Michelle Tums to settle her stomach from dinner.
“Is this what you call a 'dive'?” Michelle asked me as we walked in. Cash only, concrete floors, heavy wooden tables that hold the memories of years of beer-drinking and cigarette smoke.
“Yeah,” I answered. “It's the best in town. It reminds me of home.” She laughed and wrinkled her nose as the old-bar scent reached her. She slipped into the bathroom to wash her hands before we sat down, but she was freaked out by the old-school cloth-towel dispenser, and came out wiping her palms on her jeans.
We caught up on our lives over the Miller Lite. Michelle had just started a job at a new school in the Fox Valley, and she was enamored with the kids she was working with. Ann had just started nursing school in Madison, and she was worked to the bone between homework and her full-time waitressing job. They were each recently engaged to men that our whole family adored. I had just quit school and gotten a divorce, and I was loving all of the free time I had to write.
“I want to dance,” Michelle said suddenly. “Do you know any good clubs around here?” she asked me.
I raised my eyebrows at her over my pilsner glass. I shrugged. “Pretty sure Argus has a DJ tonight in the Underground, but I think he's just playing iTunes. People will be dancing, anyway.” Do I know any good dance clubs. Of course, if you get drunk enough, you could dance anywhere, and I knew how to get drunk at the Argus.
We finished off the pitcher and allowed the Tums to take effect, then made our way across the Square.
When we got to the Argus, we went straight downstairs without ordering drinks. It wasn't very courteous of us, but they were buying, so I was in no position to insist. Downstairs, the DJ was leaning against the bar chatting with a pair of girls in short skirts while auto-tuned Top 40s played through the speakers. There were half a dozen gay couples dancing together on the tiny dance floor. I exchanged a glance with each of my sisters. Michelle shrugged, and Ann pulled out her camera. We stepped into a corner and started dancing.
Ann snapped her first picture of us, and Michelle started posing. To the electronic beat of the music, she would freeze, eyes to the ceiling and hands behind her head like a superstar. They giggled. Michelle pulled me next to her, and I flashed my best superstar smile with my hands on my hips. I rolled my eyes as Ann laughed at us both. We posed back to back and fluttered our eyelashes.
For a moment, I was swept up in memories of our childhood, the three of us traipsing through summers of Make-Believe, bicycle rides, park swings, and hide-and-seek. So close in age but not similar in any other way, the three of us had been typically inseparable each morning and intolerable after a day of indecision and competitive games gone wrong. As teenagers, we were simply the unremarkable trio of colorful, giggling girls wandering through the mall each weekend. By the end of high school, we'd gone our separate ways, coming together a few times a year like this in an attempt to maintain our bond and recapture those lost moments.
Ann's camera flashed again, and I blinked, then caught Steve's eye as he stood behind the bar across the room. His smile mocked me as he poured a PBR from the tap. I covered my eyes with my hand and turned away.
After about fifteen minutes, I was tired of dancing and posing and shitty music. I dragged them back upstairs. Ann bought a round of drinks, and Michelle started plugging the juke box and playing music that reminded us of middle school in the nineties. I never want to be reminded of middle school, least of all when I am almost-sober in a full bar on a Friday night. I finally begged her to stop, and we settled around a table in a corner where I could see most of the bar, but not the big-screen TVs.
I sat back and observed the barflies as my younger sisters started to talk about wedding plans. After a few minutes, Greg came over to our table with a full drink. It was pink.
“That guy over there with the black hair wanted to buy this for you,” he said as he slid the glass in front of me with a wink.
I laughed and wrinkled my nose at the drink.
“Vodka-grapefruit,” Greg said, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I wasn't about to advise him that my girlfriend prefers whiskey.”
The three of us laughed and glanced over to the bar to spot my admirer. We smiled and waved at him and his friends. Before Greg turned back to the bar, I gave him a kiss and thanked him for the drink.
The guy with the black hair slumped in his chair and gave Greg an incredulous look.
“Sorry, man,” Greg said with a shrug as he walked back behind the bar.
“Are any of them single?” the guy with the black hair asked.
Greg chuckled. “I think those two are engaged--” he pointed at my sisters, “and my girlfriend--” he pointed at me, “is actually still married.”
I sipped at the bitter drink and chased it with my whiskey-Seven.
Michelle and Ann were only halfway through their drinks by the time I finished both, and they were starting to slow down.
“I think we should be getting home,” Michelle told Ann, who was hosting her for the night in her apartment across town. “We're leaving Madison at seven tomorrow.” She looked at me.
I looked at the clock. One a.m. Greg was my ride, as well as my bed for the night; I would be here past close. Alone and bored, apparently, as they went to bed.
They each sipped their drinks for a few more minutes, then pushed them aside unfinished and left. I grabbed the half-full glasses and found a seat at the bar. I gulped down Michelle's Malibou-Coke, winced, then washed it down with Ann's Miller Lite.
Greg's roommate came in around two a.m.
“Thank god!” I slurred to him. “I need to talk to someone who knows how to hang. My sisters left already! I thought you would get to meet them. Man.”
“Are they cute?” he asked.
“They're engaged,” I answered.
One of the barflies ordered shots for himself and me, and Greg poured one for himself and for Nate as well.
Nate left at close, and I scooted to my usual place at the bar to wait while Greg cleaned.
Nate turned before he walked out the door and waved to me. “See you tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “I'll be out of town. But I'll see you at home tonight.” Home. “At your place,” I corrected myself. “I'll be staying at your place tonight.”
