Sweetbitter(48)

Pigeons flew in diminishing waves between the low buildings. The sun rose. It said, Now that you’ve done this, you can never have that. Now that I’m like this, I can never go back.

—

THE FIRST TIME I came into work really hungover—ill hungover—my shoes were gone. It had a muddled logic that I accepted. When I woke with my head rattling I knew that every step of my day would be harder than normal. It was the day after Thanksgiving. I was the three p.m. backwaiter, but the trains were running irregularly, and while I had heard one sighing into the station as I ran down the stairs, my card was out of money. Which is to say, I was late.

I had seen the sun come up. Two mornings in a row actually, I had watched in real time as the night weakened and the authoritative blue of morning, flat as a sheet, hung itself in the east. There are many romantic reasons to watch the sunrise. Once it started, it was hard to leave. I wanted to own it. I wanted it to be a confirmation that I was alive. Most of the time, however, it felt condemning.

The door to the locker room opened but I didn’t look up. I was on my hands and knees looking for my clogs. Server clogs were indestructible with a utilitarian ugliness. They were built for labor, for standing on tile for fourteen hours. They were not cheap.

“You’re late,” he said. I turned to Will and he looked as sick as I felt or maybe it was the bleak light in the locker room.

“Will, I can’t talk, I can’t find my shoes.”

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“Please.”

“When in your life did you get so good at disappearing?”

“Will. The sun was up. I had been saying I needed to leave for hours.”

“You said you were going to the bathroom.”

“I meant the bathroom in my apartment.”

“You seemed like you were having a nice time.”

“Please, let’s not talk about this.”

“I was having a nice time.”

“Yes.”

“It’s funny because you laugh like a little girl one second—”

“Will, stop.”

“Is your phone broken?”

I started opening every unlocked locker.

“I texted you yesterday. We had a big dinner. With turkey and all the stuff.”

“I was busy.”

I had spent Thanksgiving Day napping, masturbating, ignoring phone calls from distant relatives who probably didn’t even know I had moved, and watching all three Godfathers. I had pad Thai for dinner. As a gesture of holiday goodwill they turned on the heat in my building. Every ten minutes the radiator sounded off like a firecracker and within an hour I had to open all the windows. My roommate had invited me to his mom’s house in Armonk. It was a pitiful moment, in that he pitied me enough to invite me, and I pitied him for having familial obligations. I probably would have been a nice buffer and we could have had a real conversation for the first time. But the parade of it, the shallow, ancient family dramas, the hours of being polite. I waved him off happily.

Scott texted me that the cooks were going out in Williamsburg. It was already ten p.m. but he promised to pay for a car home if I came. So I brushed my hair. They were raging when I got there, drinking whiskey hard, like taking bullets to the throat. I couldn’t keep up, I kept up. Scott ladled me into a car at seven a.m.

“My shoes are gone,” I said, incredulous.

“Maybe we can grab a beer tonight. Take it easy.”

“I’m not drinking again. Ever.”

“You just need hair of the dog. Ask Jake to slip you something. Or wait, he’s gone.”

“Lovely,” I said under my breath.

Will squatted next to me as I looked in the dark space under the lockers. I wanted to hit him. You did this to yourself, I said, my eyelids twitching.

“But you did have a nice time the other night.”

I didn’t answer. Was I going to get written up for being late? I had worn my Converse to work, there was no way I could wear them on the floor. Ariel and Heather were both on the schedule later, so I couldn’t steal their shoes, and Simone’s were too big for me.

“I wore them literally two days ago,” I said. “I wore them, I put them in the corner, under the coats.”

“But that’s not where they go, doll, they go in your locker.”

“But they make everything in my locker dirty.” My teeth hurt. Something in my back felt broken. “I usually put them by the coats.”

“You went out with the cooks last night?”

“How do you know that?”

“Scott told me you were wasted. He said you fell down in the middle of a crosswalk.”

“He was wasted,” I said. I didn’t know if that had happened. It might have happened. When Will said his name, I faintly remembered making out with Scott, and felt injured.

“You’re cute when you’re hungover.”

I took a deep breath.

“Will. I am very sorry. For any misinformation. I mean, misleading. I mean I’m sorry if you have ideas. It’s been a very…tipsy week.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t quite feel I’m in control of my life. I’ve been hitting it a little hard, you know?”

“Okay,” he said. He thought about it. “You can lean on me.”