Chapter 4
Nayli and Kora
The evening of her wedding that didn’t happen, Aelanna sat in her local bar waiting for her friends, Kora and Nayli.
The Queens bar had seen better days but that night it was an emotional support bar. The huge, muscled bartender, who looked as if he belonged to a dockside hurling crates about rather than cocktails, gave her a surly side-eye. Unkinder people would call him fat, Aelanna thought sourly.
“WhatcanIgetcha?” he asked.
“A Manhattan, please. Can you bring it over?”
He didn’t give her the courtesy of an answer, so she assumed it was a yes and went to sit down.
The fairy lights overhead flickered as she strolled, choosing a booth.
She was looking for one with the least amount of rips in the vinyl, the least saggy benches, but the bar was warm, dim, and anonymous.
Perfect for broken hearts. She had texted her friends on the way home and entered the bar, a drowned rat.
Steaming gently, Aelanna set her purse and bouquet on the booth table and sat down.
Kora arrived first, sliding into the booth with the smooth confidence of someone who’d grown up dodging tourists in Brooklyn. Her black hair was pulled into a messy bun, her eyeliner was sharp enough to cut, and she carried herself like she’d fight anyone who looked at Aelanna wrong.
“Okay,” Kora said, dropping her bag with a thud before she sat. “Who am I punching?”
Aelanna blinked. “No one.”
“Wrong answer,” Kora said. “Try again.”
Before Aelanna could respond, Nayli swept in — literally glided, like a swan. Her yellow-blond hair was immaculate, her coat was designer, and she somehow made the sticky bar floor look like a runway.
She took one look at Aelanna and gasped. “Oh, sweetheart. You look like a drowned Victorian waif.”
“She looks fine,” Kora huffed.
“She looks tragic,” Nayli insisted, sliding into the booth beside Aelanna and immediately producing a compact. “Tilt your face. No, the other way. God, your mascara is trying to run away.”
Aelanna pushed the mirror to the side. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Kora said. “You got jilted. At the courthouse. In Queens. That’s like… double jilted.”
“Triple,” Nayli corrected. “It was raining.”
Kora pointed at her. “Triple. Good catch.”
Aelanna had been so choked up, she hadn’t even taken the subway; she had walked home in the rain. It took her over an hour. She groaned and dropped her head onto the table. “Can we not?”
“No,” both friends chorused.
The bartender sauntered over with Aelanna’s Manhattan. “WhatcanIgetcha?” he asked the new arrivals. It seemed his vocabulary was severely limited.
Nayli peered at the Manhattan. “One of those, please. The cherry is cheerful.”
Kora glanced up at him. “I’ll have a Pina Colada with pineapple. Double shot of white rum.”
“Darling, it’s a bit early to double down on the alcohol. What happened to pacing ourselves?” Nayli objected.
Kora was not swayed. “It’s an emergency situation. Alcohol helps you erase memories. Besides, yellow is also cheerful, and red and yellow is positively peachy.” She leaned back and twisted her body outward. “I’ll take a cherry with that,” she yelled to the bartender's back, returning to the bar.
When the drinks arrived, Kora raised her stemmed cocktail glass. “To better men.” She tipped her head back and took a large gulp.
Aelanna lifted her Manhattan. “I don’t want to erase anything.”
Kora raised an eyebrow. “Not even him?”
Aelanna sucked the cherry off the stick thoughtfully. “Maybe him.”
“Good,” Kora said. “Healthy.”
“So... ” Nayli said, leaning in after sipping hers and smacking her lips, “Tell us everything. Slowly. With dramatic pauses.”
Aelanna sighed. “He didn’t show up.”
Kora slammed her hand on the table. “I knew it. I knew that man had the backbone of a wet paper bag.”
Nayli gasped. “He didn’t even text?”
“No.”
“Call?”
“No.”
“Send a smoke signal? A carrier pigeon? A sad little emoji?”
Aelanna shook her head. “His best man showed up and told me Brad wasn’t coming. I don’t think Brad knew about it.”
Kora’s outrage showed on her face. “He just ghosted you?” She tutted. “I’m gonna find him and staple a calendar to his forehead.”
Nayli nodded sympathetically. “With the date circled.”
Aelanna laughed weakly. “Guys…”
“No, no,” Nayli said, patting her hand. “You deserve better. You deserve someone who shows up. Preferably on time. Preferably wearing something ironed.”
Kora added, “Preferably with a pulse and a functioning brain.”
Silence followed while they sipped their drinks deep in thought. Aelanna toed her heels off with a grateful sigh. One scuffed out from under the table. Kora frowned at it and then threw a quizzical look at Aelanna.
“You walked home?” Kora asked. “In those shoes?”
Aelanna nodded.
Nayli studied it and looked horrified. “From Kew Gardens? In heels? In the rain? Darling, that’s not heartbreak, that’s self-harm.”
Kora leaned back. “Honestly, I respect it. That’s heroine backbone.”
“It’s soggy heroine backbone,” Nayli corrected.
Aelanna rubbed her frizzy hair off her forehead. “I didn’t want to get back on the subway.”
“Fair,” Kora said. “The E train is where hope goes to die.”
Nayli slid her manicured hands across the table and squeezed Aelanna’s in hers. “Listen to me. You are beautiful, you are kind, and you are far too good for a man who can’t even be bothered to show up to his own wedding.”
Kora nodded decisively.
“And,” Nayli continued, “you deserve someone who will meet you at the altar —”
“— or the bureaucratic equivalent,” Kora added.
“— with flowers that aren’t from a gas station,” Nayli finished.
Aelanna laughed despite herself. “You two are ridiculous.”
“So,” Kora said, cracking her knuckles. “What’s the plan? Revenge? Reinvention? Retail therapy?”
Nayli perked up. “Ooh, retail therapy. I know a place that does emergency post-breakup makeovers. They have a loyalty card.”
Aelanna blinked. “You have a loyalty card for that?” she asked in disbelief.
Nayli sipped her drink. “I date men.” She looked away. “Or try to.”
Kora was lifting her glass to her mouth and stopped it midway. “Honey, what’s wrong? You looked scared for a moment.”
Nayli looked from Kora to Aelanna and back again. “Another time. This is Aelanna’s evening,” she said, and raised hers. “To best friends.”
Aelanna raised hers last. “To… starting over, I guess.”
They clinked glasses.
“Talking of starting over, now’s the time to tell you, I guess,” Kora announced.
“What?” The others chorused.
“You know how my life isn’t going anywhere? I’m stuck in a crap job in a crap apartment, and any men I date are rejects from the dating pool... yah de yah de yah,” said Kora, waving her hand.
“The story of my life,” said Aelanna, and rolled her eyes.
“Spill, girl,” Nayli insisted.
“I’ve signed up for the Harmonious Mates Agency—”
“Harmonious Mates Agency?” Nayli cut in. “What’s that when it’s at home?”
“It’s a dating agency,” Kora told them smugly.
The other two groaned.
“Bartender!” Nayli yelled. “Bring us three more!”
Kora’s blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “With aliens.”
Nayli and Aelanna gasped.
Kora went on. “Who are looking for their fated mates. I’m going to a galaxy far, far away.” She wiggled her fingers dramatically in front of her face at that last bit.
Aelanna thought about Kora’s crazy, impulsive plan as she walked home.
The bar was near her place in Queens, a small shabby apartment in a rundown building.
She’d already given notice on the apartment, thinking she was going to marry Brad and would move in with her husband, not in her wildest dreams imagining he was going to let her down. Where on earth was she going to live?
The other two shared an Uber. With hugs and kisses, they had said their goodnights, promising to keep an eye on Aelanna and getting her to think about Kora’s plan.
She would miss Kora if she wasn’t around.
Like Kora, Aelanna’s life wasn’t going anywhere.
What did she have to look forward to? More of the same?
Scrabbling for pennies, but with kids and a dog and a husband that was frazzled all the time about how to make ends meet?
Maybe alien worlds would be different. Maybe alien husbands would value women more, women like her. Her heart leapt.
She reached her building, turned the key in the door and entered the hallway.
The building had seen better days, inside and out.
The hall light switched on automatically, triggered by movement.
It was a bare bulb hanging starkly from the ceiling by its wire.
The floor tiles, once elegant, were worn, and the brown linoleum on the stairs was frayed and chipped.
The sorry excuse of an elevator didn’t work.
She hurried up the stairs; she had two flights to go before the lights went out.
Once in her apartment, she locked herself in and pressed her back to the inside of the door with relief and closed her eyes.
She didn’t know why she always did that.
It was dark but she didn’t turn on the lights.
The building spooked her — or maybe her life did, but Kora had shown her a way out.
She opened her eyes, full of hope. Streetlights lit up the window, neon dancing in them, yellow, red and blue.
She would join Kora on her adventure. If she woke up in the morning feeling the same, she'd do it.
She would!