15. Coyote Flame
Coyote Flame
As it turns out, Angie has been to Coyote Flame before.
“I come once in a blue moon.” Avoiding eye contact, she pulls into a reserved parking spot. “It’s been a hot second, actually.”
I check over my shoulder and meet Rhys’ eye. He’s dressed in monochromatic hues of blue, absently nibbling on a hangnail. I can practically feel the anxiety emanating from the back seat.
“Then why do you have a reserved parking space?” I ask, wordlessly trying to offer Rhys some reassurance. I feel bad for him. He looks like a trapped animal, ready to spring the moment we open the door.
Angie checks her lashes in the rearview mirror, still avoiding eye contact. “I know the owner. Gave her a seller’s discount for the bar’s famous cantaloupe margaritas.”
“I bet you did.” I smooth down my dress, a tight off-the-shoulder black number that I pulled out of the back of my closet.
The last time I wore this was for a bachelorette weekend in Vegas many moons ago.
It’s a little tight now, but with a little elbow grease and some cursing from Angie, we were able to make it fit.
I used to wear this outfit with cheap pumps from Marshalls.
Now, thanks to my rising career trajectory, I’m rocking designer stilettos, a small upgrade to prevent amputating a toe by the end of the night.
And because we’re in our thirties and not twenty-two anymore, Angie and I both have backup ballet flats in the trunk.
Slipping out of her seat, Angie adjusts her bust. With her sequined green two-piece and her skin smeared with shimmery body lotion, she resembles a curvy mermaid.
“I can’t breathe,” I whisper in her ear, “or sit down.”
“Girl, don’t you think about sitting down!” She hooks her arms through mine so I can’t escape. “I expect you to dance. Come on.”
With Rhys tagging behind us, we head toward the red beacon of neon spelling out Coyote Flame. The parking lot is already full of leased Mercedes, shiny red Porsches, and a squad of parked Harley-Davidsons, along with some e-bikes (belonging to a younger clientele).
The inside is dark and cavernous, the bar packed with tanned skin and tiny mini skirts.
There’s a ton of bustiers holding up pretty sizable cleavages, a fair share of filler-plumped lips, and a general lack of inhibition on the dance floor.
Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like a Woman!
roars through the speakers. College-aged servers (all stacked men) carry trays of bottomless margaritas and country ribs.
Apparently, Coyote Flame is known for its smoked meats. Of course, they are.
“Hey Angie!”
“’Sup Angie!” A server swoops by and pecks her on the cheek. “We’ve got your usual table ready.”
She smiles sheepishly at me. “What a coincidence.”
“Sure,” I say. “Says one who practically lives here.”
“Okay, so I drop in from time to time,” Angie admits defeat. “Not to score. Let’s get that clear. They have great ribs.”
“Uh-huh.” So my roommate, thirty-three, is already dipping her toe into the Orange County cougar scene. I should probably be more surprised; for Angie, who never shies away from a good time, such a revelation makes perfect sense.
We follow Angie to her VIP booth. “I feel like I’ve stepped into the thick of a Chippendale’s concert,” I shout over the music.
“What?” Angie cups a hand to her ear.
“Never mind.”
Our butts had barely hit the red vinyl seats before a squad of sharply dressed men (who looked exactly like a troop of Chippendale dancers) descend upon us.
“Angie! Where do you think you’re going?” The leader, his shirt unbuttoned to the navel to reveal gleaming tanned pecks, grabs my roommate by the hand, twirls her until her mermaid skirt transforms into a cyclone of sparkling emerald, and steers her toward the dance floor.
“Come on, Carina,” Angie tugs my elbow in tow. “Get off your ass. You promised me a dance.”
“Give me a moment to get a drink! I’ll meet you out there!”
“What?” Angie can’t hear me over the music. She’s already shaking her booty, which causes a chain reaction of booty-shaking from her male friends.
I look to Rhys, huddled in the booth like a scared puppy. Pity ripples through me. He looks so lost and out of his element. I can relate. I’m a little out of my element myself.
“Let me just give Rhys a pep talk, and I’ll join you.”
My answer satisfies her. She’s already floating away to the dance floor. “Order a cantaloupe margarita for me and a rack of ribs,” she calls over her shoulder.
I slump back in the booth, grateful to be left alone. It’s not that I’m a party pooper. I just need a moment to breathe. Beside me, Rhys fiddles with his water glass.
“How are you doing?” I ask, shouting into Rhys’ ear.
He hunches inward a little more. “I’m starting to think this was a bad idea. I’m more ‘fancy coffee and jazz.’ I’m not a bottle service/male stripper kind of guy.”
“Maybe you are,” I try to reassure him, “you just haven’t explored the bottle service/male stripper side of you yet.”
Rhys shakes his head, oblivious to my joke. His breathing is shallow, on the verge of hyperventilation. “What if they don’t show? What if I say something wrong?” He nods at the dance floor. “I’m not much of a dancer. What if I screw up the conga line? What if — this is dumb. I’m outta here.”
He’s ‘what-iffed’ himself into panic mode.
“Calm down! Calm down!” I slide a glass of ice water toward him, urging him to gulp it as I flag down a server and place our drink order.
Rhys could use some alcohol. Fortunately, we’re still in the thick of bottomless margarita happy hour, but Rhys, needing a stiffer drink, orders scotch on the rocks.
“There’s no need to get yourself all worked up. You have a lot going for you. An enviable head of hair for one…” Unable to help myself, I reach over and rearrange the disheveled strands like a mother hen fussing at her chick until Rhys bats me away. “A good job. Some competency with the ASSET.”
Rhys side-eyes me but doesn’t comment.
“A lucrative tutoring side hustle,” I continue, “Now, thanks to me, you’re stylish too.
Sometimes you act like a decent human being.
So who cares if you can’t dance?” I gesture to the people drunk-stepping and mumble-clapping to Dance with Somebody.
“Neither can anyone else. And if you say the wrong thing, I guarantee no one will hear you.”
Rhys downs his scotch in one gulp and glances at his phone screen. It’s twenty past eight. “They’re late.”
“It takes time for women to get ready.”
“I doubt it takes that long,” he mumbles.
“For a woman of a certain age, it does. I’m sure they want to look good for you.”
Rhys doesn’t buy it and resumes scowling like he’s about to walk out at any minute.
“Take it easy,” I sigh. “It’s Saturday night at the cougar club, not a job interview. There’s no law that says they need to be on time.”
“I like punctuality,” he grumbles. “We came early.”
“That’s because we have no lives,” I say dryly.
Now, having depressed myself, I take a big gulp of my margarita.
At least they didn’t skimp on the alcohol.
The song transitions from Dance with Somebody to a song from my generation, the Pussycat Doll’s Don’t Cha, and a cheer ripples around the bar.
I suddenly feel old; I remember when this song was new.
My gaze flits over to where Angie is grinding on a twenty-something- year-old gym rat.
As my eyes grow accustomed to the dark, it becomes evident that we’re not the only millennials here.
There’s a girls’ group at the bar, decked out in ankle boots, skinny jeans, and long wavy extensions.
Clusters of millennials are peppered throughout the dance floor.
Another group is entering as we speak. In a bar for a mature audience, we’re slowly overtaking the fifty-something Gen Xers.
In a few years, this entire joint will be swarming with millennials.
Maybe they’ll start selling season passes like at Disneyland.
I shut my eyes, suddenly hit by an alarming realization. “Oh my god, I’m a cougar.”
Rhys frowns in my peripheral vision. “You’re hardly a cougar. We’re practically the same age.”
Technically, he’s one year younger, and I already feel like the negligible age difference is a gap spanning five years.
I take a gulp of my margarita. One gulp isn’t enough. I drain the motherfucker. “Easy for you to say,” I snap. “You’re in the prime of your life and you’ll probably age like fine wine. Meanwhile, my own mother told me I was aging like milk.”
He snorts, studying me with a skeptical arch of his brow. “She didn’t say that.”
“She was a blunt Asian woman. She has no filter. In her eyes, I’m an old bag.”
“Was?” Rhys asks.
“She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” he says softly.
“It’s fine. She lives on…” I tap my temple, “rent-free in my head.”
“What did she… die of?”
“Biking accident,” I say, recalling the incident. “Clipped by a car on her way home from the grocery store.”
“Oh shit.”
“I know…”
“When did it happen?”
“Two weeks before my high school graduation.”
“Damn.” Rhys seems unsure if this tragic revelation requires words of comfort and if he’s the one to give it. “For what it’s worth—”
“Yeah?”
“I can relate.”
I study his profile. “Is your mom dead too?”
“No,” he clears his throat. “She’s alive.”
“Is she sick?”
“No,” he says matter-of-factly. “She’s healthy as a horse.”
“Your father, then?”
Rhys sips his drink. “He’s also alive.”
I frown. “I don’t get it. How can you relate?”
“My great aunt is dead.”
“Okay…” I chew on my inner cheek, trying to decipher the point. “Were you close?”
He shrugs. “I barely knew her.”
“I’m sorry,” I begin slowly, “how do you relate again?”
“I’m just trying to distract you from spiraling down an existential rabbit hole.” The look he gives me is sheepish and, okay, somewhat adorable. “Is it working?”