“Of course not,” I assured her. “In most every circumstance, I’m pro-alcohol.”
She glanced up at the hot pink sign. “Then what do you have against Starla’s?”
“Other than my first date with Nick was here? And that he sometimes still plays here? The bar is full of our co-workers.”
She paused, her tall pointed shoes settling precariously in the gravel lot. “I forgot he used to come here.” She didn’t mention Nick’s band because she rarely made it to a show. Kara tried very hard to be a free spirit, but the truth was her family had instilled high standards in her. Nick’s lack of a full-time job and real-world aspirations bothered her. She might not have been pro-divorce, but she certainly didn’t try to talk me out of it. “Are you afraid Nick is going to be in there?”
I chewed my bottom lip, struggling with the root of my fear. “Not really, no. It’s more the memory of this place. And our co-workers. I hate our co-workers.”
“Well, obviously. Everybody hates their co-workers.”
I wasn’t sure that was accurate, but it was true for me so I stayed silent. I shuffled my leather ankle boots and stared at the chalky gravel debris spread out at my feet. I wanted to be anywhere but here. But even the pissy people I worked with were better than going home to an empty house and the thoughts tumbling through my head. “I thought this would be easier,” I admitted.
She leaned forward until we were just a few inches apart. “You keep saying that, babe. It’s time to change your expectations. Then maybe it will get easier.”
Ignoring the sting of pain, I suppressed a smile because she was right. “Okay.”
“Okay to ‘Kara you’re brilliant and I should hire you as my life coach?’ Or okay to the skeezy bar where our middle-aged fellow teachers are currently getting shit-faced enough to karaoke?” She flashed a huge, toothy grin and resumed her bruising grip on my arm so she could tug me into the bar.
“You didn’t say anything about karaoke!” I choked on the thick musky air that smelled like stale beer and the remnants of burning cigarettes long extinguished. Smoking in restaurants and bars had been outlawed in Chicago, but places like this would forever hold the memories and lingering scent of when it had been legal.
The screen door slammed behind me and I felt it with a finality that reached my bones. I was here. And I was apparently staying.
And if Kara even hinted at the idea of karaoke, I would make her a fake Match.com account and set her up on dates with World of Warcraft gamers that still lived in their moms’ basements. So help me, god.
When Kara and I first started teaching at Hamilton, the faculty preferred to let their hair down at an establishment closer to school. An equally desolate dive bar, O’Connor’s had dollar drinks on Thursdays and STD’s living on the toilet seats. But it caught fire four years ago and the owners had decided to retire instead of rebuild. Anxious to impress my new friends, I had offered up Starla’s as an alternative. Nick and I had been coming here since college, Kara had been drafted in on non-live music nights and it was only a five-minute drive from school.
Walking in tonight, with Mr. Bunch, the art teacher, at the mic screaming out Tainted Love, I realized my mistake.
If we ever wondered why we had trouble relating to our students… this might be it.
The very reason.
“Let’s get a drink!” Kara shouted over Mr. Bunch’s shrieking warble.
“Please!”
She smiled at me, laughter dancing in her eyes and led the way through the crush of sweaty bodies and rickety tables. The polished wooden bar took up the length of one side of the main room. Two bartenders worked relentlessly to fill pint glasses and mix cocktails. I breathed a sigh of anticipation and tried not to dwell on how much I was planning to use alcohol as an emotional crutch tonight.
It’s Wednesday, I reminded myself.
I can’t teach with a hangover, I lectured.