Babs

She had been there for a minute, I think, but I didn't notice her until she had actually stepped across from me to complete the diamond the three of us had left unrealized and announced politely that she would like one of our party to help her with a New Years' kiss. Hmm? Flushed, I continued to behave as if she wasn't there. A reflexive glance right and then left to the guys and an equivocating widening of the eyes was all I could manage; a cursory nod to acknowledge her presence froze and died in my shoulders. By the looks of it they'd felt the same, a little taken aback probably by the forwardness of this pleasantly-shaped, attractively-dressed and lightly made-up young lady with unbroken heels and determined features, this bright young thing determined not to remain a cipher tonight in this dark woody bar with all these gropers and fornicators, this firecracker with a stand-up-don't-fall-in approach to NYE barhopping. Well, maybe firecracker overstated her case a little--the defiance in her mouthset played only at the pleasure of the fear in her bright blue eyes.
All the same, we knew right away that one of us would have to man up, dive in, sally forth &c., and though no one particularly wanted the job it was, for better or worse, a drunkard's holiday. Oftentimes, as the stock pickers say, it's so hard to just do nothing. And besides, it just wouldn't have been polite not to reward (indulge) the initiative.
So she waited, looking a shade too nervous or sad both to savor for any rational third party to make the case that she wasn't riding the rebound train just then, while we stood (it was too crowded to mill--ed.) and kept an open line to the bar. There followed some of the strained if ultimately goodnatured jostling for position that occurs between non-alphas in these situations, but it was never going to be particularly sharp given that the other two had already-established entanglements and even with the volume at eleven this just didn't have the makings of a night on which any of us might feel the need to risk any sort of long-term damage for the sake of a laugh. As per tradition, the subject herself turned to her friend with apathetic airs until the dance had completed, after which period, naturally, the work fell to me. I stepped up: a chaste kiss, a break, and another chaste kiss identical to the first. Soft lips, she had, with a touch of pleasantly tasteless applied moisture, and an safe feminine musk-perfume. Good: there was nothing to regret here. A nervous smile, from me as well, and she thanked me, turned back to her companion and with hesitation attempted to insert herself into the flirtatious exchange which had developed between the girl and her muscled young guido mark from Across the River. And I turned away and laughed with the others about the whatever that had just occurred and we all went back to standing in our allotted couple cubic feet doing whatever it is we were doing.
But the ex-cipher had won an important victory and she wasn't going away, standing awkwardly there a few feet off in the in-between and just glowing in her shattered dirty-blonde anonymity. She looked proud of herself and disappointed--really disappointed, so disappointed that the defiance looked to have crept up into her eyes and extinguished those second thoughts--in me. I couldn't even take solace in the notion that the guido was partly to blame as he'd moved on and now it was her friend who stood with hesitancy as she fixed an increasingly tense gaze over at us. I waited. She steamed. I looked away. She smoldered. I examined my phone. She baked. I walked--

--no, skipped around and around the establishment, tracing and retracing steps and throwing careless cross-eyed glances at people and places I'd seen multiple times. I even smacked my way into the men's bathroom once and again, smiling apologetically at no one sober enough to care. Three hours gone by and it the crowd was still pulsing with life in the standing-room-only open semicircle surrounding the expansive bar. What vigor! It's all in the music, I thought and thought and thought and thought and thought and my head pulsed and stabbed with the idea of it, the soundtrack's noisy, bassy embrace keeping me sure I knew exactly what was going on in this place with regards to music and social control and balance-striking. Things had died down a bit in the two satellite rooms to the bartender's left and front, wet snowy grit and drunkenly discarded articles of clothing sullying the polished wood floors and chairs and benches. The couples and small groups left rollicked and thrusted as before, but there was a different tone now, the smallening volume and expanding emptiness in these less-open spaces weighing down the eyelids and heartstrings of those still gathered. This of course was how they wanted it (wanted it-wanted it-wanted it-wanted it pulsing in waves across my viewspace) but that wasn't important enough for me to consider just then and after another even more urgent series of glance-throws I fucking just spun out from the front room for the fourth time in ten minutes or however long and had to stop, dizzy, near my friends just off-center from the bar to catch my breath and fought through the haze to prevent myself from letting on that I'd been deliriously chasing a dirty-blonde whose name they didn't want to know (those fucks!) and whose meaning they couldn't possibly appreciate. They barely noticed me, wrapped up as they were in their cars and beers. Good. Good. Good good good. This was my thing anyway. I got into it and surely I could work my way out of it satisfactorily, I thought--think--thought--think? They had expressed their support for me getting to know her, I remembered, so what more did I need from them? They were like, she's cool, do it man. I did it. I totally did it. Or I had done it...I thought...but then what had happened? Something had happened. I couldn't really remember what had happened, but maybe I was still too spinny from the all the glances I had been throwing, maybe I just needed to catch my breath a little or stop the room from being so unfriendly and loud for a minute. Eyes--
Where was she? I mean...alright. We were talking, right, hours' worth of it; she was telling me all about her shit and we were getting pretty into it, I talked to her friend, who informed me the guido was actually her fiance (didn't see that coming), and--then what? More talk, more talk, more talk; small talk, talk-bef0re-leaving-the-bar-together kind of talk--then what? Talk, talk--where did you come from, where are you staying? Somewhere close, me too me too. Where do we go from here, what do we do now, that kind of talk...
Where was she!? Okay, okay, okay. She wasn't still in the bar, she couldn't have been, must have gotten a jump on me (us?--we were kind of trying to be in this together, me and the guys, right, or were they going to throw me under the bus now that somehow something had gone wrong with the situation; but no, they were supportive types, bros before hoes and all that), just thought she was going to go get her coat. That's right, that's right, that's what happened! Want to go to another bar, I had asked, this place is getting loud you know. And she said yes, that would be cool, do you know anywhere; but I didn't know any other places, so I said well we can just walk around with our friends I guess, wouldn't that be fun, and I seem to remember her agreeing. Maybe she didn't though. She must have equivocated, or maybe agreed with no intention of actually being agreeable about it (funny!) or something like that, you know, maybe not wanting to hurt my feelings about not wanting to hang out more or whatever. But why not just say that? And then--right!--she had to go get her coat, and her friend who was actually her older sister too took her by the arm with this final look in her eye as if she knew that they wouldn't be seeing me anymore. Dammit. The old let me get my coat routine, the old let me get my coat routine, the old but but but where did they leave from--my buddies and I were standing between the bar and the exterior door, the only way out, not that we were really looking for her or them or anything because that would have been creepy but somehow they snuck past us without saying goodbye. They could have said goodbye at least! I mean what did I do wrong, I just asked her about stuff and told her stuff when she asked but we mostly just talked about her I think and she was pretty forthcoming, friendly even, you know kind of damaged and reboundy but really nice and enjoyable to talk to if a little bland but certainly not too bland we couldn't have taken the air together outside on a chilly but not frigid New Year's early morning and maybe done some other stuff afterward if the moment had been right. What did I do wrong to get the old let me get my coat routine response thing, the brutal runaround kind of thing where someone humors you to the point where you think they like you but maybe you've had too much to drink or are too hopeful and underestimate them so you don't realize they're just humoring you. Or maybe it was the friend sister's fault, all her fault maybe when she didn't like me from the start because she seemed kind of unfriendly so I didn't look at her much when we talked, more at her fiance and at the dirty-blonde cool girl and not her. Not almost at all actually, maybe like once or twice when she asked me a direct question to be polite Maybe that was it, must have been, must have told her sister not to go any further, this guy's no good or I don't like him kind of thing, must have been that. Wouldn't have been the dirty-blonde herself, right, you can't make that kind of misjudgment no matter how many vision-field pulsings you're having, right? Fuck dammit, she was definitely gone though. Out the door. What did I do wrong? People are supposed to be honest, right, just say hey I'm not really digging it, or even well hey we have to leave because my fiance's not digging it anymore or never was, you were okay or whatever but we have to move on! But that's not what happened, and now everything spin spun spin spun fuck dammit man. Outside, outside, better outside. Dirty-blonde's out there, dozens of others, millions, not in the bar. HNY HNY HNY HNY HNY everyone said to everyone else but with the winding down of the night it was probably time to do some loss cutting and let's just get out of here, guys, I thought, I remember thinking it anyway, can't remember if I said it though, but I know we left at some point well after the dirty-blonde and we were gone, she was gone, like it never even happened and the bar probably closed for however long bars stay closed in the early morning hours and then something like that probably happened the next night to two other sets of individuals...maybe not the next night actually because who goes to the bar on New Year's Day except people for whom situations like that are going to end way, way way way worse like in the hospital or jail kind of worse, not just sad kind of bad, but definitely the night after that for sure.