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SYMPHONY

T he one sound you never want to hear when you’re squished four to a seat in the back of a Ford Explorer is the retching sound of a girlfriend losing her liquor.

I’m stuffed into a red dress so tight I can’t even lean forward to see who it is. “Marietta, is that you?” I ask.

Marietta is a known lightweight, and we went through four bottles of blueberry Moscato at the Dumpling Palace before calling for this ride.

One-point-five of those bottles went to me, but I ate thirteen dumplings to slow down the booze. I’m a little giggly but nowhere near the puking stage.

“It’s Bailey,” Jenna says. She’s next to me and can lean easily in her shimmery ice blue sheath. “She’s trying to catch it with her fake wedding veil.”

“That’s netting!” I cry. “It won’t hold anything.”

Bailey is about to be a bride, and we’re celebrating her bachelorette party.

“You’re right,” Marietta says. She’s on the other side of Jenna, next to Bailey, who is by the door. “It’s leaking right through.”

The driver turns around. “What is that smell?” He lowers the music we asked him to crank up. “Did someone vomit in my car?”

Jenna, Marietta, and I look at each other. I try again to lean forward to see Bailey. No use. I can’t move. “We’ll clean it up,” I say.

The retching sound happens again, and this time, the three of us lift our hands to our noses. I’m glad to be by the opposite door. I’m a sympathetic puker.

“Poor Bailey,” Marietta says.

We all lurch to the left as the car slides off the road and into a crumbling asphalt parking lot.

I let out a squeal, clutching the door. Marietta screams.

“What are you doing?” Jenna cries.

The ground crunches as we skid to a stop.

“Out,” the driver says. “I have the right to terminate any ride at a safe location. Out now.”

Jenna lifts her phone. She called the ride. “I’m one-starring you into oblivion,” she says.

“Right back at you,” the man says. “And consider yourself blocked.”

Jenna stabs at her phone. “Where are we?”

I peer out the window. “Looks like a bar.”

Bailey’s door opens, sending a sharp breeze through the car.

We all sigh in relief at the fresh air.

“You okay, Bailey?” Marietta asks.

I’m done trying to lean forward. I open my door and throw out a leg. My three-inch heel teeters unsteadily on the broken ground. I hang on to the handle as I pull myself out of the seat.

Whew. I made it. I spot Bailey in the headlights. She’s already circled around to the front of the car.

“Hey, girl! Wait up!” I totter toward her, unsure of my footing in my tight dress. I feel like a stuffed sausage.

Jenna and Marietta scoot out my side, no doubt to avoid any goopy substances.

Bailey keeps walking toward the front door of the bar.

“Wait up, Bailey!” Marietta calls. She’s sensible in silver flats, so she easily catches up. Bailey still has her soiled veil wadded up in her hands.

Behind us, we hear the slam of one car door, then another. The driver has shut them. Before we can say anything to him, he leaps behind the wheel and peels out of the parking lot.

“Screw him,” Jenna says, typing a review as fast as she can.

I leave her and make it to Bailey, who has stopped by a pickup truck with huge tires. “Hey, you okay?”

She nods. Her dangling earrings twinkle from the light of the neon sign on the bar. “I’m a lot better now that it’s all out.”

“On that jerk’s floorboard!” Jenna says. She stabs her phone with flourish. “One-starred, reviewed, and blocked before he could do anything to me.” She’s pleased.

“I see a trash bin,” I tell Bailey. “Let me take that.” I squeamishly pinch the two sides of the ball of puke-veil and walk toward a rusting barrel. With a quick flick of my wrist, it’s gone.

“Thanks.” Bailey looks down. “I think I missed my dress. There might be some on my shoes.”

I take her arm. “Let’s go inside and get you cleaned up. Then we can call another car.”

She nods. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to drink blueberry Moscato again.”

The four of us head for the bar entrance, a beat-up metal door in the middle of the brick wall.

“The Leaky Skull,” Marietta says, taking in the neon words with the outline of a skeleton drinking a beer. “What kind of bar is this?”

I glance around at the cars. “Lots of pickup trucks.”

“And motorcycles,” Jenna adds.

Marietta’s eyes get wide. “Do you think it’s a biker club like in the dark romance novels? Are we going to get claimed by a gang leader in black leather?” She seems quite taken with the idea.

“Come on,” Jenna says. “We’ll go in, clean up Bailey, and get back on the road.” She pulls on Marietta. “And no asking anyone about their tattoos.”

“Awww, spoilsport.” Marietta pushes through to be the first one to the door. “I’m going to let a broody stranger buy me a drink.”

Jenna and I exchange a glance. It better be sparkling water, or Marietta might sit on an ex-con’s lap.

The moment she opens the door, the noise makes us all pause. Music pulses from a tiny stage where a three-man band thrashes around with drums and two guitars.

The battered wood tables are small and scattered throughout the room, all taken by the kind of men we don’t encounter much in suburban Miami.

“Whoa,” Marietta breathes.

It’s something. There are women, sure, especially close to the stage, sitting with men and sometimes on the men.

But mostly, it’s very tough-looking dudes. The motif is denim and black. Every man wears heavy boots, dark jeans, black shirts, and leather. There are chains everywhere. On vests. On belts. Hanging from wallets.

Some wear ball caps. Others leather wraps or bandannas. There are more bald heads than hairstyles.

All four of us pause in the doorway like deer in the headlights. Compared to this crowd, we look like we’ve come from a high school prom.

Jenna clutches my arm. “Maybe we should call for a ride from the parking lot.”

I glance over at Bailey. She’s grimacing at her hands. Yeah, she needs a wash down.

“Nonsense,” I say. “We’re the four whores of the apocalypse. Come on.”

I march right through the tables. We’re not going to be scared little ninnies. It’s a bar. There will be a bathroom.

I scan the back wall. Sure enough, I spot a door that says, “Outhouse.” I turn back to Bailey. “You can clean up there.” I point to the sign beyond the long bar.

“I’ll go with Bailey,” Jenna says. They beeline for the door.

Marietta is transfixed by the scene. “It’s exactly like I imagined.”

Good gracious, I better hang on to her, or she’s going to take off on the back of someone’s motorcycle in six seconds.

I thread my arm through hers. “There are some stools open at the bar.”

As we approach the long counter, I spot my reflection in the mirror behind it. It’s not hard, despite the rows of liquor bottles. I’m wearing siren red and a lot of it.

I tilt my head to examine the hourglass silhouette I achieved with a spandex body suit that starts below my double Ds and goes halfway to my knees.

It shifted my curves to all the right places. Too bad I can’t move.

Or breathe.

And judging by how tight it feels now compared to when I put it on, I better not eat or drink anything else.

We reach the stools, and I ease onto one. We’re not there five seconds when a man in a black T-shirt that reads, “Splash your skull,” sets two shots in front of us. “From the gentlemen at the end of the bar.” Then he plops down two more. “For your friends when they return.”

“Oooooh,” Marietta says, lifting the glass and toasting it in the direction of the buyers. They have beards to their bellies and black bandannas tied on their heads.

“Don’t drink that,” I hiss.

“Watch me,” Marietta says. Then she downs the shot.

“It could be drugged!”

The bartender, a young guy probably barely old enough to drink, rolls his eyes. “I poured them myself.”

“See?” Marietta croons. “Chicken.”

Oh, no, she didn’t just challenge me. I snatch up the shot and down it.

Flames lick along my throat.

Fireball. I recognize that taste from my undergraduate days. I don’t think I’ve had one since.

Marietta hops from her stool. “I’m going to go talk to them!”

Oh, Jesus.

She picks up the other two shots and heads down the bar.

“Wait. I’m coming.” That shot is going to hit her any second, and she’s holding liquid dynamite.

I hop down, glad for the mega-bra keeping my boobs from bouncing hard enough to give me two black eyes, and follow her.

Upon closer inspection, the men are easily twice our age. But Marietta doesn’t care. Based on my knowledge of her bookshelf, I know what she’s thinking.

Age-gap romance.

I crane my neck to see if Jenna and Bailey have made it out of the bathroom yet. Hopefully, a new ride is on the way. We’ll smile for a second, thank them for the drinks, and get out of here.

“I heard you got us shots,” Marietta says.

The two men grin at her. This cannot be part of her motorcycle club fantasy. They are grimy and tattered. I’m pretty sure the smell that’s wrinkling my nose is coming from them.

“Hello, darlin’,” one of them says. “Why don’t you take another one of those shots right now?”

Oh, hell no. Marietta will be under the table in five minutes from the one she already did. I snatch both of them out of her hands and down them.

“Hey!” she cries. “Those were mine.”

“You need to slow down if you’re going to talk to them,” I tell her, sounding way more like one of my many foster mothers than I’d like. All their warnings about what it takes to be a good girl are exactly what made me into hell on wheels.

“You need to lighten up, little lady,” the other man says. “Your friend here is having a bit of fun.” He turns to the bar. “Can I get another Fireball for this cute thing?”

Marietta lights up at that. Oh, damn. We’re in trouble.

But then I see him.

Another bartender. He has a confidence about him that’s wholly different from the younger man pulling a pint of beer from the tap.