the reaction

scene - indoor hotel balcony - early evening

we are sitting at a bar, my friend and i. we are half celebrating, half mourning the success of a scheme, having made a business of diy prayer beads. we have a collection of charms that people have wanted to incorporate into their design, each with a meaning, each with a ghost. we are feeling guilty and trying to talk ourselves, each other, into believing we are doing something good.

there is a man in a suit walking a flight below us. the floor is round and polished and his footsteps echo against them. when the sounds stop we look up and he is there, offering us something we don't want. he is tall. handsome. mysterious. he is everyone we ever locked eyes with on the subway, he is no one we've ever met.

we giggle.

he starts talking to us and we listen for traces of an accent. he is some mix of farm and city grown. he is impossible to place. this is just a way to make some extra money he says really i work in television. me too! i exclaim perhaps too excited and my friend rolls her eyes and turns back to her cocktail.

he asks for my number and stands to the side. i pull a cocktail napkin off a stack and start writing my name, but it doesn't come out right. i pull another and another, each time giving myself a new name, slightly off, slightly wrong. i am panicking. my friend is laughing at me. it has been far longer than it takes to write a name and number.

he thinks we're toying with him, deciding on a fake name or number and he comes over. nevermind bitch! he yells this or something like it, where it stings and the words are immediately forgotten, soaked up into your skin. it feels like failure.