“Yeah, I’m here for that party. My boyfriend’s in there.” She said this as calmly as she could. He squinted and tilted his head at her, as though contemplating whether this could possibly be the case.
“I’ll need to see some ID,” he said finally. She wordlessly fished her wallet out of her bag, extracted her New York State ID—she had never bothered to learn how to drive—and handed it to him. He looked it over and gave it back to her. “All right, Katya.” He moved aside to let her through.
She didn’t respond, just walked into the bar. Asshole, she thought as she scanned the room. The bar was decorated in a kind of cozy-library-chic, with books on display above the bar, Persian rugs on the floor, and low-light Edison bulbs. Right now it was packed full of people, mostly guys. Katya took a deep breath. How was she even supposed to find Victor in this crowd? She looked at her phone—no service. “Great,” she muttered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Isabel Taylor and Andrew Shepard. Isabel was looking at her phone in one hand, even though there was no service down here, and holding a drink in the other. Andrew was talking animatedly to the guy next to him, someone Katya didn’t recognize. Should she go up to Isabel and try to talk to her? Victor would probably be pissed—he hated it when Katya did anything that seemed like she was using their relationship for work—but, fuck it, he was nowhere to be found. She took a deep breath and sidled up to Isabel, away from Andrew. Neither of them noticed her approach.
“Hey, Isabel,” she said. Isabel didn’t look up from her phone. Katya cleared her throat and said, louder, “Hey, Isabel.” Isabel turned to her with a Do I know you? look on her face. “It’s Katya.” Isabel still looked like she wasn’t sure who Katya was. “From Andrew’s party the other week? I was there with Victor Vasquez?”
“Oh, right,” Isabel said, though it wasn’t actually clear if she remembered Katya or if she had just grown tired of Katya struggling to explain how they knew each other. “How’s it going.” She took a sip of her drink—it was clear, with a lime on top; probably a vodka soda—through the little cocktail straw.
“Oh, fine,” Katya said. “How are you?”
Isabel shrugged. “Fine.” She gestured with her head toward Andrew. “You know how they are. I’m basically invisible right now.” Katya wasn’t totally sure who they meant—startup guys? men in general?—but she nodded in agreement. “Do you need a drink?”
“I’m okay—” Before Katya could finish what she was going to say, Isabel was interrupting her.
“Let’s get you a drink.” She turned to Andrew. “Be right back.” He barely nodded. She took Katya by the arm. Isabel was an expert, it seemed, at navigating crowds, or maybe it was just this particular crowd—a throng of men in their twenties and thirties wearing plaid shirts and dark jeans. She had a way of softly nudging them aside, making eye contact and smiling. It was the opposite of how Katya navigated crowds, which was to make herself seem as small as possible and try to squeeze through people so they barely even noticed her. “What do you want?” Isabel asked as they approached the bar. They couldn’t get all the way to it because it was blocked, end to end, by guys ordering drinks, getting their drinks, sipping their drinks. “Excuse us,” Isabel said sweetly, putting her hand on the shoulder of a guy in a Google T-shirt.
“Oh, no worries,” the guy said. He gestured with his head to his friend, who was wearing a blue hoodie, and they both moved aside to let Isabel and Katya through.
“Thanks,” Isabel said and smiled at them. Katya generally considered flirting with random people a waste of time—she liked to laser-focus on one person and make him (or occasionally her) her goal, and in any case, there had not been many times in the past eight or so years where she’d been single. But this was a new way of being in the world, she saw now, and it meant getting what you wanted. It was kind of the same as getting a source to talk to you, she realized. Most people, fundamentally, wanted to be liked and to please others. So that just meant putting yourself in the position of being the one to be pleased. “So what do you want?” Isabel asked. The bartender was pouring drafts of beer at the other end of the bar. Making eye contact was going to be impossible.
“I can get it.” She took out her wallet. Isabel didn’t know it yet, but she was going to be a source, and Katya couldn’t have a source paying for her drinks. Isabel leaned over the bar and gave the bartender an almost imperceptible wave—he nodded and within seconds had materialized in front of them. “Vodka soda, please,” Katya said. The bartender nodded.
“That’s what I’m drinking too!” Isabel said. Katya’s drink came; she paid the bartender and held her glass up to Isabel’s.
“Cheers,” she said, looking her in the eye.
“Cheers,” Isabel said.
“So…there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” Katya said.
“Huh?” Isabel said. It was really loud.
Katya raised her voice. “I said, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about!”
“Oh,” Isabel said. “Okay. Let’s go back there.” She gestured with her drink toward a corner of the room that Katya hadn’t noticed before, one that did, in fact, look quieter, and once again squeezed them through the crowd. “So what’s up? You wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about Mack McAllister.”
Isabel’s face went blank. “What about him?”
“Were you guys ever together?”
“No offense, but is that really any of your business?” Isabel wasn’t looking at Katya now. “Is that why you came over to talk to me, to ask me nosy questions about my boss?”
Honesty seemed like the best policy. “Well…kind of. I’m…I’m probably going to be doing a story about Mack and, um, possible sexual harassment.”
“Wait. What? Why are you telling me this here?”