Page 3 of Bar Down, Baby

“Yeah, I’m sorry, hon.” She takes a deep breath, though it sounds more like she’s sucking the life out of a cigarette. “You know I’d try to do something about that if I thought it would matter.”

“I know.” If it was ever going to matter, it should have mattered to my mom when her creep of a boyfriend started making comments about her sixteen-year-old daughter’s tits.

“Just thought you’d want to know,” Bee says. In the background, a man says something to her. “I gotta get back.”

“Right,” I say, never quite sure what to say to that.

“Love you, hon.”

“Love you too,” I say.

I end the call and just stand there in the cold March night. The rain is so light it’s almost like fog, and I breathe it in. There’s nothing I can do right now. She clearly doesn’t want my help, or she would have found a way to call me herself. And if she would rather get help from Kyle, then she needs to manage that herself.

I know this, and yet it’s taking everything in me not to drain my savings to buy a plane ticket to Vegas so I can go see her.

My phone buzzes with a text notification. I open up the series of texts from my overcaffeinated roommate, Ainsley.

AINSLEY:Next weekend Portland is in the Frozen Four!

AINSLEY:Freddy’s here. He can get us tickets—you in?

AINSLEY:When was the last time we had a road trip?

AINSLEY:I hope you’re waiting on a fine ass man right now and that’s why you’re not responding

I chuckle and type out a response.

ME:The desert dweller wants to know, where is this Frozen Four?

AINSLEY:You’re alive! Thank god. Hang on—looping in Tanz.

A notification pops up for our text thread with our other roommate, Tansy. She’s a trainer for the Portland Woodsmen pro soccer team and hasn’t been around as much since the season started a few weeks ago. But if all three of us can do something together like this, it might be really great.

AINSLEY:Seattle. Easy road trip! You in?

TANZ:Heck yeah! Road trip!

ME:Let me see if I can get my shift covered.

TANZ:Git it dun, girl!

AINSLEY:For the love of all that is good and decent, we are NOT listening to country music on a road trip into the home of the grunge scene.

TANZ:Country music can be grungy. Just look at TayTay.

AINSLEY:You did NOT just compare Taylor Swift to Nirvana

I let out a deep breath and look up as Molly pokes her head outside.

“You’re still out here?” She smacks her pack of cigarettes against her palm and dislodges one.

“You think I can get someone to cover my shifts next weekend?”

She blinks. “What? Are you saying you have plans?” She looks amused.

“Maybe?”

“Don’t look at me.”

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