She shifts her friendly smile over to me and removes her hand from Paul’s arm—good girl—to point me in the right direction. “Follow the bar along this way, and then take a left. Ladies’ room is at the end of the hall on the right.”
Since the restrooms are in the opposite direction of the front door, I pass a whole new set of tables and realize I may have been a little bit hasty in my assumption that I’d avoided the worst of people staring at the “new girl.” There’s a couple of middle-aged men in the corner who do that up-and-down leer and are either too crass or too inebriated to care how obvious they are. Whatever. We have those kinds of creeps in New York, too. I move on.
At the table next to them is a group of older women who also give me the once-over, but more with an envious oh-to-be-young-again expression. It’s pretty universal female language, and I give them a friendly smile.
The last table before the bathroom is the rowdiest. It’s a group of guys, close to my own age. They’re all wearing matching sweatshirts with their college name, although by the time I pass their table (to a few tacky whistles, I might add), I still haven’t figured out what the little logo on their sleeve is supposed to be. Crew, maybe? Alas, sports have never been my thing, and I don’t give it another thought.
The guys, however, aren’t as quick to forget me as I am to forget them. I barely make it back into the main room of the bar after going to pee before three of them have me cornered against the wall. Not in a threatening way, not really. They seem more drunk and stupid than menacing, but I’m so not in the mood.
I start to push through when a good-looking guy with an admittedly great—if sharkish—smile gently puts a hand on my arm. “Hey, can we buy you a drink?”
My eyes flick to the table, where there are several half-empty pitchers of beer. “No thanks.” I give him my best not-interested smile and start to walk away again, but he moves so he’s still in front of me. Still not threatening, but increasingly annoying.
I glance around as though surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I somehow give off the vibe that I came back here to be harassed by a group of boys?” It’s a low blow, considering they’re probably about the same age as me, but I mean it to be insulting.
The handsome one’s eyes narrow. “No need to get bitchy.”
“Actually, there’s every need if you don’t let me get back to my date.”
“Date, huh?” He folds his arms over his chest. “What kind of date can a girl like you find in a place like this?”
“The worst kind,” comes a low voice from behind my harasser. Paul.
I immediately start to tell him it’s no big deal, that these boys were just about to let me pass, but then I see his face. This isn’t the friendly, at-ease Paul who was talking to Kali at the bar. This is the other Paul. The Marine Corps Paul whose anger at the world is wound so tightly that the merest spark will set him off in a dangerous way.
And then it gets worse.
The stupid kid turns around and visibly blanches at the sight of Paul’s ravaged face. Then his face turns cruel as he lets out a mean laugh.
“This is your date?” he asks me, walking around Paul as though circling a circus spectacle. “This freak?”
“Don’t,” I whisper, unsure if I’m talking to the jackass kid or Paul. Not that it matters, because neither of them pays attention to me.
“What are you, an extra on a horror set?” the kid says, egged on by the laughter of his stupid, drunk friends.
I close my eyes. This is why Paul doesn’t leave his house. This is what I forced him into.
I risk a glance at him, but he doesn’t look offended, wounded, or even fazed. In fact, he looks amused. Deadly amused.
Except the drunken assholes are too far gone to pick up on nuances, and they keep on, oblivious to the fact that the “cripple” in front of them could take them out with one swipe of his cane.