1. VVIP

Music thrums from within the bar as well. It’s not as loud as the beats coming from the nightclub, but racy enough for many of the patrons to gyrate against one another in the small dancing space. The bar is nearly filled up with people, mostly young ones ranging from twenty-one to maybe forty, sitting on stools. and sipping various colored drinks. The bar is long, and there are about three bartenders manning at portion of it. Their moments are quick and efficient. One of them performs an elaborate routine with at cocktail shaker, spinning it in the air, shaking it according to a rhythm, occasionally opening it, and adding ingredients. The other slashes a charming grin to a gaggle of ladies at one end of the bar. This bartender is model handsome, and the pearly teethed smile makes the ladies swoon. On the other end of the bar, there is a group of frat boys taking shots, and the bartender fills small shot glasses with an amber-colored liquid.

The bartenders are all dressed entirely in black. They all look about my age.

Coraline grins at the whole display, and tugs on my arm, “come on, let’s find a seat”

We manage to squeeze onto a couple of seats in front of the bartender handy with the tumbler acrobatics.

“Oh, it has been too long,” Coraline smiles.

“Do you go to bars often?” I ask her after realizing that I don’t know much about her after-work activities when she was not spending time with me.

Coraline inclines her head in contemplation, “Well, I won’t say often. But once in a while when I want to let loose, I do. But after the shooting, I’ve been afraid you know. The last thing I wanted was to die because I had a few and couldn’t run away fast enough.”

I feel a pang of sadness for her situation and feel guilty for protesting coming here too much.

“If

back, and dunno, take you home afterward. I’m not too

her expression grateful although she says, “you have an unhealthy obsession with

at first sight and all that jazz.” She sighs exasperatedly, but I could say that she was pleased. It had been a while since she was like this, and

us after serving his previous clients with a thousand-megawatt grin. His hair is dyed an alarming shade of red, and

here, so you must

mentally slap myself

on

Caroline, much less reserved than I am when confronted with curiosity, comments with a

bar, “and obviously not my real name, but I like the

that makes me want

reply, feeling like I should provide something for

bartender’s eyebrows raise “For the Forum thing

“Yeah.”

so he faces me, “I didn’t know they

intern,” Coraline chirps before I can say ‘yeah, but my boss was

double damn. You must be

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