"It's still early," Elaine said. "You want to go home?"
"Not really," Ashanti said more because she wanted to go to Earl's instead of home, and less because she wanted to go to another club or bar like she was sure Elaine was suggesting.
"I ain't even got a buzz."
"You want to get another drink?" Ashanti asked and the idea didn't seem half-bad. She felt dirty, and she wanted a shower, but another drink or two sounded good too.
"Yeah, but not in no club with loud music, crazy lights, and big dick gangsters to distract you. Let's sit someplace quiet and talk it out."
"Talk what out?"
"Whatever has you so fucked up. How to get you out of your phase."
She wanted to tell Elaine all of it, if only to unburden herself, but she feared her reaction. Elaine would be as kind as possible while piling more shame and doubts onto Ashanti. There would be no solutions from Elaine. Correction, there would be no solutions from Elaine that Ashanti felt like contemplating right now. When would she feel like contemplating them? The solution to her dilemma was a hard pill to swallow, no matter when she took it. Plan A just failed. Elaine would not have a different solution than what Ashanti already knew she had to do, but the unburdening would be there.
"Let's go in here," Ashanti said and pulled Elaine by the hand into the Reservoir Bar. It was tiny compared to the club they just left and catered to a completely different clientele. It was mostly white, bearded hipsters and fat girls, musicians, poets, artists, and nerds.
"Here?" Elaine asked while allowing herself to be led into the small bar.
The space was deep and narrow. There were two pool tables, tables and chairs down the left side, and the long bar down the right side. Late Friday night it was crowded, but this place would be crowded with a hundred people in it and there was maybe twice that in here now. The walls were also crowded with a variety of art, photographs, beer signs, and general chachka. If there was a theme, Ahsanti couldn't identify it. The music playing was not a song she recognized.
"Why not?" Ashanti said over her shoulder as she stepped between the pool tables and walked toward the crowded bar.
"Because this place is busted. These people is busted. I don't drink beer."
Ashanti laughed and squeezed between two fat men at the bar and raised her hand. The bartender noticed her and took her order. A few minutes later she was backing away from the bar with two vodka cranberries and she made her way back to the front of the bar, passed the pool tables, and found a table by the window where they could sit and watch the masses crowding Ybor City's famous Seventh Avenue as they passed.
They did stand out in their tight tube dresses among this mostly blue jeans, cargo shorts, and flannel garbed crowd. Ashanti's dress was green, fluorescent green, so it clashed garishly with her dark skin. Elaine's was canary yellow. Ashanti was with her when she bought it. They looked like two pieces of fruit surrounded by the earth tones of the typical Reservoir Bar clientele.
"Hey you two," a heavyset white man with tattoos and a splotchy beard said after they sat down. "You looking to make friends or be left alone?"
"Left alone," Elaine said quickly.
"Okay, that's cool. I am McGuire. I'll be over there leaving you alone, but," and he held up a finger dramatically and adopted a serious expression. "Should you change your mind, and decide you would like to know more about me, or want me to know more about you, or discuss string theory, or whatever, I am available and can easily adapt to new circumstances."
"Good to know," Elaine said coldly while Ashanti laughed. McGuire nodded, mimed tipping an imaginary fedora, then backed away. He turned and walked back toward a group of grinning friends while shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.
"Motherfucker," Elaine said as she took a sip of her drink.
"What he do?"
"He needs to stay in his lane."
"His lane?"
"Yeah, he roll in the Dungeons and Dragons lane, or the roadie for a local band lane, and not the hit on girls who out of his league lane."
"He was cute."
"Cute?" Elaine looked at her like she just grew a second head.
"Yeah, cute."
"Fat white boy with bad facial hair, where's the cute?"
"What he said was cuter than how he looks," Ashanti said while her mind soaked up Elaine's criticism of the man. "And he isn't that fat." Was Earl veering out of his lane? No. Ashanti veered into his lane. She liked his lane.
McGuire could be a younger version of Earl. This man, in his twenties probably, had the long hair, the cargo shorts, a band tee shirt of a band she never heard of, and was attempting a beard. Maybe a younger version of Earl was the answer. It would still disappoint her father, but at least he would be age-appropriate. Ashanti looked back over at McGuire, who had his back to them and was talking to his friends now, and tried to muster some attraction for him based on her infatuation with an older version of him. There was nothing. There was no one she found as attractive as the man who drank her pussy juice with his coffee. Maybe she needed professional help.
"Even a little fat is too fat for me. I take care of myself Ash, I want to be with men who take care of themselves too."
"How's that working out for you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean these men who take care of themselves, how are you doing with them?"
