Sweetbitter(62)

“I hate these things. Every year I say, never again.”

“What’s to hate? Free appetizers.” I looked around the room at the strange group of people who had been chosen by the restaurant. The cliques came magnetically back together after the initial shocks of being out of context. The porters and dishwashers were wearing sports coats and they sat with their heavily made-up, animated wives. The cooks had taken over a corner of the bar, where they sipped on a?ejo tequila and paused for shots of mezcal. The floor around them was wet from spillage. The hostesses and pastry girls hovered around them like a protective layer of atmosphere.

The real grown-ups were at a table together—Howard had brought an age-appropriate date who did everything at half speed. She chewed each bite to completion before setting her fork down, reaching into her lap, and pressing her napkin to her lips lightly, not enough to disrupt her lipstick. Definitely not a restaurant person. There was Chef and his rather beautiful wife, there was Nicky and Denise, who had her cell phone out on the table—it flashed with updates from the babysitter. Simone had joined the table to talk to Denise, their knees turned toward each other. I thought about them in their twenties, Denise with no kids, just dating a bartender, Simone lighter, more prone to laughter. Parker and Sasha played quarters at our table, Ariel and Will were probably in the bathroom, and Heather was trying to get Santos to dance.

It was so predictable and lovely, my heart struggled to hold it.

“As if I don’t see enough of these people,” he said darkly. “And to be here on my day off. Giant waste of time.”

“Why did you come?”

“It’s not worth the black mark for nonparticipation. Besides”—he shot back his whiskey and nodded to the bartender for another—“free drinks.”

Misha, the hostess we all still made fun of for her inflated breasts, walked by and stuck her arm out to me.

“Tess, congrats! The big win!” She giggled. I looked at my certificate. I had carried it over with me in case I wanted to brag to Jake. But next to him it looked childish.

“So embarrassing actually,” I said. I folded up the award. I nodded to the bartender. “A white? Not too oaky, please, no Chardonnay.”

“You earned it,” he said, taking another drink and looking away from me.

“It’s kind of nice, right?” I said. “People want to spend time with me. They aren’t trying to ditch me in diners. I’m not so terribly annoying.”

When he turned to me his eyes were jagged, slivered, and I was scared. I thought he must be on something. He said, “That’s the biggest whore award. You know that right?”

“Whore?”

“Come on, new girl, don’t play dumb. Your kitchen boys always send it out to whoever they want to fuck. But, oh yeah, congrats! The big win!”

“Um…” I tried to laugh but it died in my throat. Scott saw me from the end of the bar and winked. After so much crying—in bathrooms sitting on toilets, hiding next to the air conditioner in the pastry station, behind the ice machine, into my pillow, into my hands, sometimes simply into my locker—this time I didn’t flee. I stayed and the tears came.

“You…” It wouldn’t come to me. The vicious words I longed for were lost in the flotsam of being humiliated, yet again, like always. “You are mean, Jake. It’s too mean for me.”

His eyes flashed blue and then collapsed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Tess.”

I nodded. “Please excuse me.”

As I walked I forced my heels into the ground. My wineglass burned in my hand. Simone’s eyes brushed over me and went to the bar. Yes, I thought, go to him. Comfort him because the new girl with the biggest whore award called him mean.

—

“TESS?”

I picked my feet up off the bathroom floor to hide from her but I had just taken a line and sniffled. She knocked on the stall.

“You can only come in if you do drugs. Drugs-only zone.” I clicked it open. She came in. We were uncomfortably close. We could have stood by the sinks, but she locked the door behind her and sat on the toilet. She gave me her open palm and I put my bag in it. She poured a tiny bump out on the webbing between her pointer finger and her thumb. She inhaled it without taking her eyes off me.

“Please,” she said in response to my expression. “I was young once.”

She touched the end of her nose thoughtfully and I touched mine.

“I thought it was a good thing,” I said. My hands were shaking. “I really thought, oh, here I am, stuck in an elevator, I better pick someone I really…I…I picked you.”

“I’m flattered.”

I pressed toilet paper to my cheeks.

“It’s like we’re exchanging, going back and forth, just playing. And then he hits me too hard. It goes from play pain to real pain.”

“I know.”

“Simone, am I not doing this right? Everything feels like a punishment.”

“What are you being punished for?”

“I don’t fucking know—being stupid?”

“Stop it.” She grabbed my hands unsympathetically. “No one is interested in you playing the victim. Get out of your head. If you don’t you’ll always be disappointed. Pay attention.”