Chapter 18
I can’t hold it. I can’t hold it. I can’t hold it. Think about the desert. Think about Dune. Think about those silica gel packets you’re not supposed to eat.
Instead, I think about kidney stones. UTIs. I picture the irrevocable harm I’m doing to my internal organs by holding it.
The app says we’re still sixteen minutes from my mom’s apartment and the rain pounding on the Lyft is doing nothing to help me think dry thoughts.
Try to breathe. Do the calming exercises. You’re safe in your body. Except something in my body is about to burst.
And then…sweet merciful Goddess: on the next block I see a sign. A glow that’s like a beacon of heavenly light against the dark skies. A magnificent red pepper shining like the Bat-Signal. Chili’s. On 3rd Avenue.
I’m drunk (so drunk, so drunk, too drunk), but I think this is Nick’s Chili’s. I’m, like, 87 percent sure. Good enough.
“Can you pull over to this parking lot, sir?” I yell. “Right here. Please. It’s an emergency.”
The driver heaves a heavy, annoyed sigh and I’m sure my passenger rating will plummet after this.
I rip open the door of his Chevy Volt and throw myself out, stepping directly into a puddle. Sheets of rain pound the parking lot pavement as I run for the entrance. My feet squelch in my boots with each step and I hate it so much, but all I can think about is the warm interior glow of—
Actually, there aren’t that many lights on. And most of the chairs are upside down on top of the tables for floor sweeping. I have no idea what time it is, but it must be well past Chili’s bedtime.
I bang the side of my fist on the glass door. Why didn’t I wear some kind of jacket over my T-shirt? Check the weather? Brave the restroom before I left the bar?
Someone approaches the door and I have to wipe off my glasses to make sure it’s Nick squinting at me from the warm and dry side of the glass and not some random employee who’s already on the phone to report an intruder.
Nick tucks a clipboard under his arm and unlocks the door. Grabbing his arms, I shove him aside to get out of the rain before he has the chance to ask any questions.
“Thankyouthankyou. Thank. You. Sir.” I almost give him a giant kiss on the cheek, but I need to keep it moving for the sake of my bladder. “CanIuseyourbathroom?”
Nick, clearly baffled, points down a corridor and I sprint for it.
The utter relief I feel is indescribable.
After I wash my hands, I do my best to dry my shirt under the hand dryer, but I’m soaked.
On the plus side, thank God I drank too much, because I don’t feel as embarrassed as I should when I exit the ladies’ room and what comes out of my mouth is “God, that was the pee of a lifetime.”
Nick is exactly where I left him, locking the door again. “You have no idea how often people say that coming out of that restroom.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” I slap my hand onto his shoulder. “My hero.”
Nick gives me a long, curious look, tilting his head a little bit. “Just a guess here, but is it possible you’ve been drinking?”
“Me? No!”
He takes off his hoodie. “I’m glad you thought to bang on my door.”
“I loved this place in high school. Or maybe it was middle school. Actually, it might’ve been Buffalo Wild Wings.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Nick hands me the hoodie. It’s warm. It smells like him. “You can stop flattering me now. It’ll go to my head.”
“I’ll get your sweatshirt all wet.” I slip my arms into the sleeves before he can change his mind.
“I need to wash it anyway. And you’re dripping all over the floor I just mopped.”
Maybe it’s the slight haze from the drinks I consumed, combined with gratefulness and the high of not bursting one of my vital organs, but I’m sure there’s a stupid grin on my face. I follow him over to the bar area.
“What are you doing here so late?” I lean against a barstool, unsure if I’m attempting to be seductive or trying to very gradually lie down and nap.
“Period close. At the end of the month, I send inventory numbers to corporate. Weigh all the bottles. Put everything in a spreadsheet. And after this, I’m replacing the rinse pump/wash pump in the dishwasher so we don’t have to wait for the repair guy.”
“Wow, I guess my mom was right about your toolbox.” He gives me a baffled smile and I realize how drunk I sound. Using the sleeve of his hoodie, I wipe the rain off my phone. “I’ll just call another Lyft.”
“You hungry?”
“No. I’m fine.” I’m shaking my head, even though I’m famished. Or maybe I’m nodding. “That’s okay.”
Nick writes something down on his clipboard. “You’d be surprised how many different ingredients I can deep-fry.”
My whole body perks up. “Like what?”
“Little piece of cheesecake folded in a flour tortilla.” He looks up. “Drizzled with honey chipotle sauce.”
The alcohol-induced hunger must be showing in my wide, pathetic eyes.
“Taquitos filled with brisket and then dipped in queso mixed with zing sauce?”
I pick a white rag off the bar and wave it. “Okay, I surrender. Yes, please. Feed me.”
I can tell this makes him so happy. “Let me finish weighing these bottles and I’ll give you the tour.”
He has this way of unabashedly smiling that’s contagious. I feel myself breaking into a grin just looking at him. Who even am I? I take a seat at one of the stools and try to assess my level of intoxication while Nick continues his inventory.
A glass of water appears in front of me. “First one’s on the house.” He tosses a straw at me.
I down the water, my knee bouncing against the front panel of the bar. I watch Nick methodically weigh a bottle of Malibu, then a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Apple Whiskey, then Blue Curacao. Ingredients that Hal would add to a mansplainer’s mai tai.
“You’ll have to let me know which of your staff members has the heavy pours of”—I squint at the label on the next bottle—“Watermelon Schnapps.” I nearly gag.
“You must be pretty familiar with extra-sugary drinks working at a tiki place.”
“I’ve inhaled more rum fumes than any one person should be able to handle.
People love going to tiki bars for first dates.
I think it’s because they can focus on the overly ridiculous cocktail preparation instead of the mortifying awkwardness of trying to keep a conversation going for two hours.
But I get the worst secondhand cringe from having to bear witness to the entire ordeal. ”
“I drove for Uber before I got this job,” he says. “And the worst is when they’re doing their goodbyes next to my car, and neither of them is sure if there’s going to be a kiss, so they’re both stalling, waiting for some kind of signal.”
“Or when the other person goes for the kiss,” I say. “And it’s too awkward to dodge it, so you just kind of deal with it for twenty seconds before you can politely run away and block them.”
“One time, I’m picking up this woman at an Olive Garden.
They’re doing the good night thing. I’m waiting.
Will they, won’t they. The guy kind of moves in, and she leans a little bit forward and gives him this giant raspberry on the cheek and then just jogs to my car.
I asked her about it, and she told me that when she doesn’t want to give the guy a kiss, she goes in for a raspberry because it disorients them.
They don’t process what happened in time to turn their heads to go for an actual kiss.
And then she does this little jog away with a wave.
She called it the Manic Pixie Dream Exit. ”
I make a mental note to share that anecdote with Romily for inclusion in her next PowerPoint.
I can tell Nick’s trying to concentrate on filling in the numbers on his forms, so I entertain myself by humming along to the Chili’s sanctioned music that’s still playing from the sound system overhead.
“I can turn that off,” he says, reaching under the bar for something.
“No, no. Leave it.” I casually bop back and forth on the stool in a way that looks cool and carefree in my head. In reality, I’m a tipsy moron who could slide off the vinyl seat at any moment. “I’m really feeling this Maroon 5 song.”
“Enjoying the corporate-mandated ‘spiced-up experience’ playlist?”
“It’s very spicy. A solid three and a half chili peppers. ‘Your su-gar. Yes please. Won’t you come—’ ”
Nick starts placing the bottles back on the shelves. “This is actually the playlist we use when we want people to pay their tabs and go home.”
“Should I take that as a hint?”
“No!” There’s real alarm in his voice. He takes things at face value in a way that keeps catching me off guard.
“I mean, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to leave a Chili’s at one in the morning.
” Eye contact that feels too something, and I can’t believe what I’m contemplating, even as I’m contemplating it.
“But I’m hoping you didn’t come here just to use the restroom. ”
We’re still looking at each other across the bar; he’s waiting for me to reply, I’m waiting for that reply to come together in my head.
Then again, some aspects of my life have been so boring and flat that maybe I’m subconsciously devising schemes.
Inventing drama and intrigue where there’s none.
Filling in the gaps between the panels with something more compelling than my boring-ass life.
“No, I definitely want to get a tour,” I say, clearing my throat. “I would like the full ‘spiced-up experience.’ You said something about a deep fryer?”