“Very creative,” Bernardo says. “I wouldn’t have thought of that either.” He takes another sip of wine. He eyes the vodka. Dude is drunk. He reaches for my hip bone, a place that has been dying for his touch. He purses his lips into a kissing face and strains toward my cheek, but I’m too far away and he’s too off balance, so he ends up kissing the air.
It seems impossible that we’ve been hanging out for such a short amount of time. Maybe because Bernardo is all mine and everyone else in my life is someone I have to share, but I feel closer to him than anyone else right now. When Arizona and I were more like the same person, I felt closer to her. Like we shared cells. That’s gone, but I feel some version of it with Bernardo already.
Maybe it’s the pink hair. Or the way we kiss. The perfect fitting together of lips. Or the way we listen to each other.
“Should I make cocktails?” Karissa says when there’s a lull in charades and conversation and energy. “Have you guys had martinis before? I could introduce you to martinis!”
I don’t want to be drunk like I was at Dirty Versailles with Karissa. But there’s a full bar down here, and Karissa starts clattering away with bottles and glasses and a metal shaker. I like the way the martinis sound, getting made. I like the way Karissa adds olive juice and speared olives and the way Bernardo has to lap at the top of his like a cat. I almost say no to my own precarious glass, but I reconsider the smell, the coolness of the glass, the lightness of the laughter coming out of Karissa and Bernardo. The way it felt to be Karissa’s best friend at Dirty Versailles. I consider the phone call Karissa must have gotten a few years ago when she found out her whole family was gone. I consider the darkness of the night. The fact that streetlights don’t reach the basement. I consider the Swedish pop Bernardo is playing from his phone and the tinny, two-dimensional sound of music without real speakers.
I consider it all, and sip from the splashy top.
It tastes like rubbing alcohol and olives.
“Is this what it’s supposed to taste like?” I ask.
“Need more olive juice?” Karissa asks.
“Needs less . . . everything,” I say.
“I guess I’m not a great bartender,” Karissa says, and Bernardo and I nod and cringe at our drinks, and I wonder at the way she is imperfect and still somehow perfect.
“You guys are so comfortable with each other for having just met,” Karissa says, slurring and spilling some martini down her shirt. “It’s so much like me and Sean.”
I put down my drink. It’s disgusting, and I won’t be able to stomach it if we talk about him. About that. About it.
“I don’t want to talk about my dad.” I take the bottle of wine back from her. It should go to Bernardo next, but he’s getting all particular about which Swedish pop band is the best Swedish pop band for late night in the Village while drunk on white wine and having an awkward relationship talk. Turns out, it’s the musical stylings of Club 8.
“Right. Of course,” Karissa says. “Let’s talk about Bernardo’s dad!” When Karissa’s drunk, she’s good at sliding between topics, at finding hidden doorways into new conversational spaces.
So we talk about his dad for a while instead. How he loves poetry and the History Channel and didn’t get mad when Bernardo said he didn’t want to play any sports, even though his dad loves baseball.
“He’s Mexican from Mexico?” Karissa says. She asks questions that I don’t know how to ask.
“Yeah. Met my mom when he was visiting here. Couldn’t bring himself to leave her. Or the city. They’re stupid in love.”
He talks a lot about love, for a guy.
He’s all lit up. He’s beautiful. Holy shit.
We play more charades and drink more wine until I’m even drunker than either of them. I want to text Arizona and tell her about the night. She’d hate that Karissa is here, but I want some part of her to know I have a life, that I can move forward too. That if she can become a whole new person, so can I.
I drink martinis now, for instance. And think about having sex with a boy with pink hair. I can even wonder about love, in this state. I can be less afraid of it.
“You guys totally saved this night,” Karissa says. “I needed that.” She starts dancing, like it’s reason to celebrate.
“Maybe I’m drunk, but I want to say something to you,” Bernardo says, leaning over to my shoulder, which he kisses. “I needed this too. You. I needed you. At this particular moment in time.”
I blush. It’s a little too much, but in the good way. Like being stuffed from a delicious meal. Overdone but for all the right reasons.
“Okay, good,” I say. I smile at both of them. It’s cozy down here, wine-drunk and love-happy. “I think I sort of love you so far,” I say to Bernardo, words plucked from some part of my brain I didn’t know was there. I mean to say it in my head, but the wine makes me say it out loud and in a bedroom-y voice that isn’t my own.