II Cara
II
Cara
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask Katia, the other bartender working tonight, as I cut a fresh batch of limes. She has a smirk on her face that suggests she caught me red-handed for a minor crime I have no idea I committed.
She shakes her head and smiles. “Cara, I saw the way you darted over there to meet Jack Felgate.” She rinses a cocktail shaker. “And I can’t say I blame you. I probably would’ve done the same if I’d been a little quicker to the punch.”
“What are you talking about?” Now that we’re out of the 9p.m. rush, we can have a conversation that isn’t strictly about passing each other bottles or getting out of each other’s way.
I grab more citrus, even though we probably have enough to get us through the night. I need something to do with my hands. Physically, I’m behind the bar, but my brain is still back in the room I’d just left.
“The man you just saved from those women.” She takes a sip of her soda and bitters.
I respond with a blank expression.
“You really are hopeless, aren’t you?” She laughs. “Just being aware that there are TV shows is all I’m asking.”
Katia and I are behind the bar together three times a week. She’s an aspiring music supervisor—a goth with pale skin, dark hair, and signature kohl eyeliner—who doesn’t care what medium she’s watching as long as it has a good soundtrack. Until recently, I was an aspiring production designer. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bartender in Los Angeles who isn’t an aspiring something.
This is a bit of ours: She streams every new show the week it debuts, and I glean most of my inspiration from films that predate the new millennium. These days, I’m more cartoonishly out of the loop than usual, surviving solely on old comfort watches: screwball comedies, MGM musicals, and the kind of ’90s character-driven mid-budget films they don’t make anymore.
“OK, but seriously, Cara, everyone is obsessed with this BBC show, Flames Flicker Eternal . And that hot guy you escorted to our back room happens to be the star,” Katia says, giving me side-eye. “You really didn’t recognize him?”
From across the bar, all I could see was a good-looking guy who I assumed must have some modicum of clout, given that he was about to be mauled if someone didn’t intervene. But when I stood next to him, I understood why these women were overcome, even in a city where famous people live, party, and shop at Gelson’s among us.
Jack is handsome, but in a way that suggests he’s equally likely to show up throwing rocks at a window as to play the male lead in a British drama. He’s taller than average, but not so tall I had to crane my neck to look at him; he has a lean and muscular build, but not one that suggests he subscribes to some sort of all-consuming fitness and diet routine; he has a square jaw and an 11p.m. shadow, with wide-set cheekbones, wavy brown hair, and light-green eyes. If Jack were in a boy band, he would be the second-best but still-good-looking member who somehow feels attainable, against all odds. I smile to myself, thinking about the “not-like-other-girls” superiority complex I carried around in middle school because Ramsey was my favorite member of Mischief instead of Charlie.
“Give me your phone,” Katia demands, and I comply. “Take your fifteen minutes. Don’t come back until you’ve watched this at least twice.”
“Are those doctor’s orders?” There is a video queued up: “The STEAMIEST Sex Scene in Flames Flicker Eternal!!!”
“And you might want to watch it in the staff bathroom, where you can have”—Katia notices a customer angling for her attention—“privacy.” She punctuates the end of her sentence with a wink.
Ignoring her, I head out the side door into the alleyway. I lean against the building’s facade, feeling the roughness of the brick through my shirt.
No new texts or missed calls since my last glance at my phone an hour ago. I exhale fully, not realizing I had been holding my breath until I do. No news is good news.
I hit play and prepare for what I always experience when I watch a new-to-me movie or show: my tendency to dissect it. Having spent years on sets, all I see is the devil in the details: I can picture what the shot list looked like, the conversations about locations, the crew just off-camera.
On the screen in front of me, an actress goes outside and meets Jack’s character in the rain. He hoists her up and carries her across the threshold. But instead of thinking about the camera transitions from an exterior on a London street to the interior of a carefully built set, my brain snags on the ferocity in Jack’s eyes. There’s a rawness I’ve found lacking among other contemporary actors.
I wonder how those hands would feel on my hips , I think, blushing, then, What an embarrassing thought , blushing even more.
Jack carries the actress to her bed, pulls off her clothes, and strips his. I suck in my breath as he reveals his defined chest, a smattering of dark hair across it. As he begins to lower his boxer briefs, I feel my heartbeat quicken. I still, as if I’m afraid to startle the people on the screen. I wait to see just how far down they’ll go.
Oh shit. He’s about to go full frontal. I refuse to blink.
Then, the video cuts out.
What the fuck. I tap anxiously at the screen, trying to convince it to continue through the sheer force of my will. But it hasn’t stalled; it’s ended. I reposition myself, pressing more of my back against the brick wall behind me. I hit play on the video and watch it again. And again.
At the end of my break, I stride back inside and reassume my position next to Katia, the expression on my face as inscrutable as the movie Inception . I’m good at concealing my feelings, but I’m usually masking anger or frustration, not desire.
“So, what did you think?” she asks almost tauntingly as she scoops ice into a shaker.
I scan the bar for the group of women who had swarmed Jack earlier, still riding the high of their brief encounter. I look toward the unmarked door to the private room, where I left Jack and his friends. He’s handsome, and he can act, but so what? Good for him.
“Their use of shadows in the bedroom was really interesting—I wonder who the gaffer is,” I say, yanking a vague observation from some dim corner of my mind.
Katia rolls her eyes and tilts her head toward a customer. “You, my friend, are impossible.”
Another person approaches the bar, then another, and another. And I am grateful to them for distracting Katia but also me.
Only at 1:45a.m., last call, does the bar start to empty out. When it’s Katia and me working, we take turns closing solo, and tonight I’m saddled with one lingering couple, their legs intertwined at a high top.
As I wipe down a red wine spill, I hear footsteps approaching.
“Just so you know, we’re closing in fifteen minutes,” I call out, back turned, wanting to cut them off at the pass.
“That’s fine,” I hear a mild British voice say above me. “I was hoping to settle up, if that’s alright.”
I look at Jack standing over me. All night, I’ve carried an awareness of his presence in the back room. Yet having him in front of me feels like a total surprise, like I’ve conjured him here out of thin air. I reflexively drop the rag in my hand. The warmth I felt on my cheeks earlier returns with a vengeance, there to remind me that I, like 1.2million others, have watched—and enjoyed—Jack’s STEAMIEST Sex Scene in Flames Flicker Eternal!!! Or at least its prelude.
I track his glances around the bar as he gauges if it really is as empty as it seems.
“Don’t worry,” I say, gesturing toward the remaining couple, hands all over each other as they stumble to their feet. “I don’t know if they’ve seen your show, but I think they were about to give us one.”
Jack laughs, revealing a set of perfectly straight teeth, each one working to debunk any stereotypes about British dental care.
“Oh right, your check, with a discount,” I say, shaking my head, feeling my hair loosening, like it’s aching to come down.
“No, no discount,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirking. “You were a lifesaver; you have no idea.”
“And you have no idea how happy the owners will be when they hear I saved an actor from getting Mufasa’d at their fine establishment.”
“I do consider myself more of a Timon,” he jokes, passing me his card. His wrist brushes against my thumb, and though we shook hands earlier, I feel this touch in my entire body. He sticks his card back in his wallet and his wallet in his back pocket. I follow these actions like there’s something novel about them.
We stand there silently, facing each other. Our eyes meet. The bar is almost completely silent now. No music, no lively conversation. It’s the particularly pronounced quiet of a place typically filled with sound.
My brain splits into two warring factions: The smarter, sharper side wants to come up with an excuse to prolong Jack’s visit, and the other is busy counting his eyelashes.
He opens his mouth to speak, and I can tell he’s on the verge of asking me something consequential. I can see it in his eyes. I can feel it on the tip of his tongue. I can—
“Hey, are you ready to go or what?” Jack’s friend asks as the group of them spills out of the back room to retrieve him.
Whatever words Jack was about to speak are lost.
I’d been so distracted by Jack’s presence that I forgot he had a whole crew to contend with.
The drunkest of them, the bachelor of the evening, puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “ You are seriously the best,” he says. “And thank you .” He points at me.
The group starts out the door. My eyes flicker to Jack, who looks between his friends and me like he’s watching a tennis match. He follows them out the door.
I sigh, feeling a bubble of disappointment balloon in my chest and then annoyance for setting myself up for this disappointment. I don’t have time for distractions right now anyway , I tell myself as I drag two giant trash bags to the dumpster.
I have more important things going on , I chide as I run through my mental checklist—lights out, music off, safe secured—and grab my bag.
I barely have time to work at this bar, let alone seduce actors who patronize it , I remind myself as I unlock the front door to leave and lock it behind me again.
My eyes land on a shadow looming under the awning.
Instinctively, I reach for the pepper spray in my purse, primed to make a run for it to my car if needed.
I see square shoulders, chestnut hair. Jack’s square shoulders, Jack’s chestnut hair. I bite back a smile.
“I’m aware of the irony of asking a bartender this,” he starts, “but might I be able to buy you a drink?”