ahead’ sign if I ever saw one.” She slung her purse onto her shoulder and paused. “Unless he’s, like, number four and it’s Facebook. Then you go for it. Get that coin, queen.”
The girls headed for the door. “And number three?” Kelly asked.
“Everyone in Silicon Valley works way too hard during the day. So if you’re going to go out at night?” Priya gave her a sly smile. “Have some fucking fun.”
They could hear the muted hubbub from inside the bar all the way up the bustling Menlo Park sidewalk as they approached. Inside, Kelly regarded the trendy exposed ductwork and glowing blue lights with a wary eye. Priya dove into a group of guys like a puppy into a snowbank, but Kelly inched her way more slowly into the dauntingly fashionable crowd. She settled at the bar first and tried not to stare at the bartender’s hairstyle as he mixed her drink. His head was completely shaved except for a long tuft at the top, gathered into an aggressively perky ponytail. Maybe she was supposed to stare at it?
“All of our ice is made using water unlocked from the melting polar ice caps,” he informed her, sliding her a glass. “It’s the purest water on Earth. Twenty-three dollars.” Kelly dragged out some cash.
Just once she would love to be at a fancy bar or restaurant and have an unfamiliar cocktail delivered to her table, like in the movies. No, make that a fancy dessert with some sort of froufrou chocolate thingamabob on top. “Oh, I didn’t order that,” she would say.
“I know, mademoiselle,” her waiter with the pencil-thin mustache would reply as he gestured across the restaurant. “That gentleman did.”
And she would look across and see, smiling mysteriously at her, the most dapper, debonair, dashing—
“Is this seat taken?”
Kelly turned to see the most dapper, debonair, dashing man she had ever seen.
Well, not quite the most dashing man, but this guy was certainly cute, with hazel eyes and rounded lips. Kelly stuttered.
“No, I’m alone,” she said. Probably unnecessarily.
Hazel Eyes laughed, slinging himself onto the stool. “Well, that’s lucky for me.” She blushed vibrantly enough to be visible even through the neon-suffused gloom of the bar’s atmosphere. He nodded at her drink. “Did you get the line about the ice caps water too?”
“I did.”
“To global warming. It may kill us all, but at least it tastes good.” He raised his glass and clinked it against hers with a mischievous grin. Kelly restrained herself from swiveling to look behind her and make sure he was really smiling at her. Was it possible that all she had to do was show up at a bar and within minutes, she’d found a man who was cute, charming, and interested?
“I’m Kelly.” As soon as she offered her hand, she regretted it, recognizing that it was cold and clammy from her drink. But he shook it without hesitation.
“Reece,” he said.
Kelly nervously switched her crossed legs and, in the process, kicked Reece in the shin. “Sorry!” she blurted.
“No worries—wow, killer shoes. Mind if I take a look?”
“Um …”
He bent and lifted her foot, nearly placing it in his own lap, examining her high heel with a practiced eye. “I love women’s shoes.” Kelly felt her bubble burst. Of course. The good-looking guy who was actually expressing interest in her had a foot fetish. She had a sudden vision of Reece sitting next to her at the family table at Clara’s wedding, calmly conversing with her mother while holding her foot in his lap and stroking it.
She pulled her foot back, and Reece looked up, surprised. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—” But he cut himself off as another cute guy, this one with shoulder-length black hair, approached, smiling. Kelly found herself momentarily distracted. Priya was actually right. This wasn’t so hard. She straightened, smiling back at him.
But then Reece stood up and turned to Black Hair and gave him a long, deep kiss. Very long. Very deep.
He turned back to her, smiling every bit as broadly as he should after a kiss like that. “This is my boyfriend, Marco. Marco, you have got to check out Kelly’s shoes.”
Kelly stood from her stool, setting her feet, or rather, her shoes, which were apparently her chief attraction—and they weren’t even her shoes—firmly on the polished concrete floor.
“I’ve got to go,” she said abruptly.
“Okay—oh, wait, did you think—oh, no, honey, I’m sorry.” Reece laughed.
“You shouldn’t give people mixed signals,” Kelly responded hotly, before she could stop herself.
“It’s just small talk,” Reece insisted, but Kelly was already pushing her way into the crowd, away from the bar, slipping on her heels as she went. “Try putting your weight onto the fronts of your feet!” he called after her.
Kelly managed to locate Priya and extricate her from within the recesses of a dense knot of men. “There you are!” Priya said. “Did you meet any cute boys?”
“Yeah, but they got to each other first. Can we go yet?”
“Have you found a date yet?”
“Can’t you just find one for me?”
“Can’t you stop being a pussy?”
“Priya.”
“Kelly.”
“I really just want to go home.”
The serious look that Kelly was giving Priya must have translated through the gloom because Priya took her by both hands. “We’re not going home. You need a date, and I want to see you have some fun for once! You work so hard, you deserve that! Live your life!”
“Okay, okay,” Kelly acquiesced.
“Look, this is a tough crowd. And they all take themselves way too seriously anyway. The last guy I met just went on and on about how he only uses free-trade mustache pomade.”
“Don’t you know any other bars? Like, preferably somewhere where there’s absolutely no pressure to be cool?”
Priya’s eyes lit up. “Girl. I’ve got this.”
One Uber ride later, they arrived in a visibly grimier part of town outside a club named, with an impressive show of shamelessness, Bodies. Kelly gestured to the sign, where the “i” flickered repeatedly. “This bodes poorly,” she said.
Priya gave her side-eye.
The interior was eerily similar to how Kelly imagined it would be to shrink down, Magic School Bus–style, and travel to the inside of one of her own organs. The atmosphere was dark, humid, and hormonal.
As difficult as it was to hear over the bass-charged soundtrack, Kelly and Priya found themselves approached by guys almost as soon as they wedged themselves next to the bar. But no guy who talked to them
