"It's pretty loud in here."
"What?" Josh put his hand to his ear as he yelled.
"I said, it's loud in here!" Anna yelled back, her own voice barely audible in her own ears amongst the din of the bar. The room was stuffed to the gills with near-clones of her boyfriend, boisterous late 20-somethings cheering along to the game playing on all the screens. "I think I'm going to get some air."
Josh squinted and nodded like he understood. "I'm good, babe." He wiggled his finger at his ear. "Super loud in here!"
She sighed and went outside. Patrons from various other bars and nightclubs stumbled on the sidewalk, occasionally peppered with a frustrated local just trying to walk their dog. A few cops kept an eye on the revelry.
Anna leaned against the brick façade of the bar's building, trying to decide what to do next. Go back in? Fuck, but it was so loud. She could go back to the hotel, fall asleep to a true crime doc or something. No, that felt too pathetic. Just a walk around the block, then. The game was only in the first quarter, anyway. Plenty of time to gather herself before Josh even noticed she was gone.
As she walked down the street, she lost herself in questions of whether or not she was acting too much like the bitchy girlfriend, if Josh was being a jerk boyfriend, neither, or some combination of the two. All she knew was that the farther she got from the sports bar, the better she felt, until she realized the crowd had thinned and the street was mostly quiet. There was an eeriness to the silence, but Anna realized that for the first time that night, her jaw was unclenched and her shoulders weren't tight.
She assessed her surroundings and saw a woman in the distance, smoking a cigarette and chatting with a bouncer in front of a bar called the Volcano Room. The woman laughed as she dropped her cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the tip of her boot. She had a loud, twinkling laugh that Anna could hear from across the street. Then she patted the bouncer on the shoulder and went inside.
Anna didn't realize she was walking towards the bar until the bouncer said pointedly, "ID?" She blinked, showed it to him, and walked in.
If the sports bar she'd left Josh at was Mercury, the Volcano Room felt like Neptune. Or the Andromeda galaxy. As far removed from the raucous beer-drinking sportsball-watching crowd as possible. It was small, dimly lit by colored globes lined with fishing nets, with soft island music piped in. The walls were lined with kitschy pictures of hula girls and vintage postcards of island beaches. All the chairs, including the barstools, were cushioned. There were no high tops, no pitchers of beer. The few TVs, only two behind the bar, played a movie with a young Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze on silent.
Anna looked around. While it wasn't nearly as crowded as the sports bar, the smallness meant there wasn't much free room. She was about to leave when she saw the woman again, sitting at a couch by herself in a corner, her feet resting on a shellacked wooden coffee table.
The woman smiled, showing bright white teeth. "Lost?" she said.
"No," Anna said automatically, and the woman laughed.
"If you want a place to sit," she said to Anna, patting the spot on the couch next to her, "you can sit."
Anna thought about saying no thanks. Despite its kitschy, touristy décor, this didn't seem like the kind of place that catered to newbies. Everyone here seemed to know each other.
But what did that matter? Josh seemed to be the life of the party no matter where they went. Any bar they stepped into, within fifteen minutes the regulars were calling him by his name. Why couldn't Anna be like that?
She sat.
"I'm Katie," the woman said. She had a deep voice, almost husky. Could be from the smoking, though she didn't smell like cigarettes. Her long black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. She wore a tight, deep-colored red top with dark jeans, and her nails were painted to match her top. Carefully applied makeup accented East Asian features, giving her eyes a smoky look and her lips a beckoning burgundy depth.
Anna had thought she'd done a good job getting herself ready for the night, but now she felt like her own blonde hair resembled straw, her makeup reminded her of an early 2000's pop diva, and her floral midi dress looked like something she'd wear to church. "Anna," she said, limply taking Katie's firm hand.
"This your first time here, Anna?" Katie asked.
"In this bar?" Anna asked to clarify.
"Oh." Katie clicked her tongue and grinned. "This is your first time in a Tiki bar period, isn't it?"
"She a Tiki virgin?" a patron at the bar turned to ask, and Anna felt herself blush.
"I think she is," Katie said, her grin widening. "You know what the Tiki gods do to virgins, don't you, Anna?" she asked.
"I..." Anna took in a breath.
"That's racist, Katie," the guy at the bar said.
"Fuck off, Artie," Katie retorted. "Your wife still making you sleep on the couch?"
Artie snorted and went back to his drink.
"It is a little racist," Katie admitted to Anna with a whisper, and Anna couldn't help but laugh. "What's your pleasure?" She pushed a laminated drink menu that had been resting on the table to Anna, who examined it. It listed the drink names and notes about their histories, but not much in the way of what was actually in them. Another hint that this wasn't a bar for casual tourists.
"I guess a Mai Tai?" Anna said. It was one of the only cocktails she'd actually heard of.
"You guess?" Katie raised a thin eyebrow.
"I'm not much of a drinker," she said. "I usually just share a pitcher of whatever beer my boyfriend gets."
"If you're not much of a drinker, then a Mai Tai will knock you on your ass," Katie said. "Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's a lot of drink for a Tiki virgin. May I?" She tapped a spot on the menu, a drink pictured in a large bowl. "Pele's Sacrifice," she said. "You can't get it at any other Tiki bar; it's a Volcano Room original."
"What's in it?" Anna asked.
"Rum. Lots of rum. And juice. But the point is, it's meant to be shared. It's Cory's take on a scorpion bowl, basically." Katie smiled at Anna's blank look. "Don't worry about it. The point is, you don't have to feel responsible for more than a few gulps if you don't want. I can take the brunt of it." She fluttered her hand to her chest, like she was pretending this would be some great burden. "Sound good?"
"Sure," Anna said, smiling. She liked Katie. Katie reminded her of the people she'd always envied in school, the kinds of girls who never wanted to be her friend. A suave, cool, charismatic party girl who could talk back to other regulars and down a drink meant for two people without flinching.
Katie whistled and snapped her fingers, and the bartender looked over at them. "Cory, I need a Pele over here."
"Another one?" he asked with clear skepticism.
"My last one was like three hours ago, I drank it with two guys, and then got a slice of pizza from around the corner." She flicked her hand dismissively. "So, whatever they say about glass houses. Turn off Point Break, by the way. We're all sick of it." She leaned forward and spun her index finger in a circle meant to represent the entire room.
Cory laughed, and started pulling out bottles and a large bowl. "She doesn't know what she's getting into," he said, pointing an ice scooper at Anna.
