Neighborly(25)

Girls’ night out is not an appealing concept for me. A cluster of women could feel uncomfortably close to a moms group, with the resultant groupthink. As I recall the rule—don’t talk about motherhood—I’m hit with a new fear. What will I talk about? The work I’m afraid to return to? The debt we put ourselves in to get here? The fear that I’ll never pass, I’ll never belong?

When Andie opens the door, it’s confirmed that this is no moms group. She’s in a black leather peplum top and matching black leather pants with stilettos, and her strawberry-blonde hair is mostly a smooth curtain but with a slight wave toward her face, like a movie star from years gone by. I feel like I’ve made a mistake in my usually error-proof cute top and jeans.

“Do I look that bad?” Andie laughs.

“No, no! You look perfect. I just feel like I’m dressed all wrong.” Not that I have a couture dominatrix ensemble in my closet for occasions like this.

“I’m probably overdressed. Since I don’t always get invited to these things . . .” The way her voice trails off makes me want to throw my arms around her. So she’s subject to insecurity, too.

She steps outside and closes the door behind her. I’m surprised she doesn’t call back inside to Nolan or need to give Fisher one last kiss. Maybe the nanny is there and they’ve already said their goodbyes, or maybe Nolan is actually out somewhere with Fisher. We’ve only just met, and I have no idea about the rhythms, routines, and inner workings of her home. Given my reaction to Nolan, it may be better that way.

My current plan is to keep Andie at arm’s length. I’m good at that. I have people to lunch with when I’m at work, there are a few couples who Doug and I socialize with, and that’s pretty much it. My world is small and manageable.

Andie’s car is a midnight-blue Lexus sedan, almost like an upscale police cruiser. I’m instantly at ease once inside because it’s a total mess: a not-entirely-clean burp cloth on the floor, crumbs everywhere, an inch of dust on the dash. The fact that she offered to drive and then didn’t think to tidy up suggests a level of intimacy between us. Either that, or she doesn’t care in the slightest about my opinion of her.

I was surprised when Andie offered to drive, since Main Street is a pretty short walk away, but after seeing her stilettos, it makes more sense. Then I realize we’re headed in the other direction.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“A place called Hound. In Oakland.”

“We’re not going to one of the bars on Main Street?”

Andie gives me an odd look and an even odder response: “You don’t shit where you eat.”

It’s ten minutes of driving with a soundtrack of superficial chatter, and then we cross a steel grate bridge so that we’re in one of the industrial areas of Oakland. Metal cranes sit immobile in the middle distance, beside the bay. There are warehouses, some commercially inhabited but many more derelict and emblazoned with graffiti. The streets have a bombed-out look, but stylish people are loping along them. Much younger people than Andie and me. Nonparents.

At least parking is easy. There’s only one place anyone’s going, it seems like, and it’s unmarked. I follow Andie, who is doing her usual confident trot, and we enter a tiny building dwarfed by the warehouses on either side.

I’ve never seen a bar this dark, though there are paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling every few feet casting the prototypical dive-bar red light. I’ve also never seen a bar this long and narrow. The bartenders are situated along one wall, and there’s a corridor to move back and forth, plus the tables, and it’s all about eight feet wide, total. People are dancing on tabletops because where else could you do it? It’s not exactly dancing, more like slithering, which makes sense because I’ve never heard music this slooooooooow. It’s a syrupy trance, like you could fall in and never find your way out, a fly eventually hardened in amber.

When we finally reach the back wall, after maneuvering around assorted hipsters with carefully careless outfits, I see a row of retro pinball machines. It’s the most illumination in the place. Andie is texting. She reports, “Their ETA is about five minutes. Should we get our drinks now or wait?”

“Let’s wait,” I say. I haven’t yet decided if I’m drinking. Sadie is well stocked in her milk supply. A pump and dump wouldn’t hurt her, but I should probably keep my wits about me.

“We can make ourselves useful,” Andie says, “and find a few tables we can push together.”

We squint our way through the din. Some tables are round, some oblong, and some square. It takes a while to find two squares, but we do it. Andie carries one over, stilettos be damned. Everyone gives her as wide a berth as they can, given the layout. It’s actually a reasonably nice crowd, the way people are when they’re all laboring under the same poor conditions. There’s camaraderie in close quarters.

“Who picked this place?” I ask, once Andie and I are in our uncomfortable mismatched wooden chairs.

She shrugs. “Tenny, I guess? She’s the de facto leader. Though Gina’s got some pretty strong opinions, too. Have you heard her trans-urban riff?”

I’m considering whether to say something snarky when I look up and see Tennyson, Raquel, Gina, and Yolanda headed straight for us.

Tennyson is wearing black leather, too, her hair in some intricate chignon, and she and Andie laugh in acknowledgment. Yolanda is also in black, showcasing her cleavage in a partially unzipped Lycra top that has a peculiar sort of eighties workout vibe, her blonde hair long and loose with that slight threat of frizz. The three of them are like Charlie’s Angels with their vampy outfits and their different hair colors. Meanwhile, Gina, Raquel, and I are matte to their shine, the backdrop that makes them sparkle like diamonds. Like me, Gina and Raquel are in jeans and cute tops—Gina with her mushroom hair (you can’t do a thing with that, its only redeeming quality must be how wash-and-wear it is) and Raquel in her ersatz granny glasses and limp brown hair. It’s moms versus vixens tonight.