Forty Hours
The bar could've been real, and the first time I walked in I thought it was. The door
opened into it, and bottles racked up the wall behind the wooden bar with hanging glasses. An
afroed boy sat at the bar writing. Two bartenders made drinks. Of course, if you looked
closely you'd realize that all of the drinks disappeared behind the bar into the sink, the labels
on the bottles were peeling and discolored, the whiskey was too light and the midori looked
like radioactive runoff. There weren't enough glasses. A vending machine hummed
surreptitiously in the corner. In the opposite corner, a door hung open just far enough to reveal
the corner of a desk. The first day we learned basic pouring techniques and the bar layout.
Seemingly, Max, the afroed boy I had first noticed was the only other new person that week.
We quizzed each other on the drinks we would have to know for the final test at the end of the
second week where we'd need to made twelve drinks in five minutes, and he kept me
updated on what I missed since I only made half of the classes- they were about an hour
away and I was taking classes that summer.
Slowly, we got acquainted with the other students and the teacher, Annie, who talked
nonstop, occasionally about bartending and drinks but mostly about game of thrones, bar
customers, her sister, boyfriend, her damaged vocal chords that necessitated the use of a
microphone, and the persistent silliness of white people who drink diet cola in their drinks. It
wasn't until the second, and final, week of the forty hour course that I realized there was one
other boy who had started with us. I want to say he was really cute, but that would be a lie.
Wavy hair, a little on the short side, but he had a nice smile. Max put together that new kid
and I were both Duke kids, which gave us an excuse to talk. The three watched the new
people pour bottles and bottles of vodka into jiggers and then the sink. I wanted to know new
kid's name, but it was too late for me to ask. “How do you remember the difference between a
honey dew and a midori driver?” Max asked. I sat cross legged on the bar stool. “Well, the
honey dew is dewy because it has champagne, and the driver is a screw driver just without
vodka and with midori and club soda...” I trailed. “Dewy, dewy champagne. And lemonade.
Which is also dewy?” Max raised an eyebrow at my explanation. “Ok, well just imagine me
totally debasing myself with my silly explanations and you wont forget the two.” Max and new
kid looked at me. New kid smiled his pretty smile. I decided he looked like a Kyle.
On the way out of class that day I struck up the freshman conversation with Kyle and
learned that he's from California and pre-med via biology. He learned that I was an english
major, which is something I always feel slightly ashamed telling people in the hard sciences. I
would've talked more but I had parked my car too close to the entrance of the building.
Two days later, I sat down at the far end of the bar before class started went back to making
up acronyms for tropical drinks, which we hadn't done yet, but I wasn't going to be here on
that day of class. Kyle smiled at me and asked if I wanted to use his textbook. “I have the
acronyms she uses written down if you want them, one of the people who already passed the
test gave them to me.” I used the excuse to pull a barstool around to his side of the table and
sit next to him while we both made flashcards. “Overachievers,” Max muttered. I noticed tiny
fingers in his hair and inquired, and he pulled out a pick topped with a tiny black fist. “I need to
get my hair cut so you can see the rest of it” he said apologetically. Before I could figure out
how to respond, he exclaimed, “I love this song!” and started singing. I looked at Kyle. “I've
never heard this before.” “Oh man, this is old!” Max bopped and sang along to some girly r&b
lyrics. “My sister bought me this CD!” Kyle confessed that he hadn't heard it either, which
made me feel better. “This makes me feel so old. It must've been... 2002?” “I would think I
would've heard it.” Kyle agreed, then suggested we go to the other side of the bar to start
practicing drinks. He read names to me and watched me struggle to make them. “Okay,
Planters Punch”. I grumbled, “I'm not going to work in a bar at the beach. No one is going to
ask me to make any of these things ever. This one has bitters, right?” “Bitter men often shoot
girls.” he repeated the mnemonic back to me. I got distracted and made the wrong drink about
three times, further embarrassing myself. We switched and he confused the “G” in the
singapore sling, putting in clear gin instead of grenadine, I think just to make me feel better.
After Kyle finished, Sean went behind the bar. Kyle read him drinks from all of the
sections we had covered, and the three of us continued chatting. With all of the new people,
every bar stool was full. My knee nudged against the support. After a few minutes, the sharp
edge became uncomfortable, and I adjusted. An inch of thigh now rested against the warm
expanse of Kyle's... leg? It must be somewhere along Kyle's leg. I couldn't look. It was
electric. Did he feel the electricity too? I guess if I looked and fidgeted more I could find a
comfortable way to sit where I wouldn't touch him, but should I? If I started now, would it be
too late? Perhaps I should sit still and pretend not to notice the contact, which is what I
assumed Kyle was was doing, although I wasn't going to look at him. Maybe he hadn't noticed
it though. My thought process devolved and I imagined myself picking daisy petals. He likes
me, he likes me not. He notices my body against his, he doesn't notice my body at all and if I
walked in in a bikini he'd treat me the same. I like him, I like him not? But more importantly,
does he like me? If I moved my leg now, he'd know that I had noticed. I tried to continue to
conversation, mocking Max for fencing saber. It seems like one of those things that's cool
enough that I could mock it with impunity. “They say saberists are the dumb jocks of fencing.”
What if Kyle fences? What if he's a dumb jock? What if he thinks I'm a bitch? What if he
notices my leg?
I found myself outside the building with him again at the end of that class. As part of the
bar cleanup, we refilled all of the bottles with syrupy food coloring and paint, and I took down
the trash. Kyle walked out shortly after and we looked for the dumpsters together while he told
me about his lab work with yeast. As everyone else filtered out, we got our stuff and headed
to our cars. He smiled that redeeming smile and said, “See you tomorrow!” “Actually,” I said, “I
wont...and I wont be here on Friday, so maybe I'll see you around campus sometime. Good
luck on your test!” “Wait, what? Then how will we celebrate our bartending certification?”
And so I found myself out in a bar in an unfamiliar city on a Wednesday night
celebrating my bartending certification with Max and the now not so cute Kyle. We ended up
in a place called Neptune's. Max tried to order a grasshopper, but the bar lacked crème de
menthe, so got a whiskey and soda instead. Despite that, they made fun of my drink for being
girly. I had never had so long to sit and talk to Kyle without the pressure of memorization and
drink lessons. I noticed, for the first time, that he had a beard, so close to the color of his skin
that it was almost imperceptible. His winning smile was made of not-quite-straight teeth, and
his left canine twisted in a way I couldn't look away from. Although he had only had one drink,
I realized his voice was oddly thick, like a teenager talking around braces. Not quite a lisp, but
not as clear as it had seemed in our imaginary bar.
At the second bar, a newspaper themed, roof top patioed establishment, I drank a
glass of water. We kept up the superficial conversation, but I realized Kyle and I had almost
nothing in common, other than Duke and bartending school. He took Spanish- I took Italian.
He was interested in musical theater but too shy to pursue it in college, I played in the pit. He
longboarded. With every new fact his pulpy voice rolled over and disillusioned my ear drums.
As the alcohol dilated his pupils, his flirting became more open. “You should order a drink for
me, since you're the connoisseur.” Before I would've worried about whether he thought I was
a know it all, was he really flirting, was he being polite... but as my interest waned I realized I
didn't much care. Clearly he was interested in some regard. We stuck to the contrasting
superficials. He was in a frat, I was independent. He watched late night TV. I couldn't
comment. I liked gin, he liked bourbon (but didn't know what distinguished it from Whiskey).
At the last bar, a pop culture themed place covered in the new york skyline with a
michelin man perched on the empire state building and life sized cutouts of Harrison Ford as
Han Solo and Chewbacca, and also the only place still open, Max complained of a feeling of
vertigo but ordered another soda based drink anyway. I sat in a comfy bar chair between the
boys and we all watched a group of people dancing. I whispered to Kyle that I thought it was
maybe the whitest dancing I had ever scene, and coming from somebody who burns in direct
sunlight it might be saying something. He laughed. It wasn't funny. I knew he liked me.
Max, probably in light of our quasi- romantic actions, told us he was going home. I told
him we had to go out again the next week. He walked out. Kyle looked at me, and asked, “So,
should we head out of here?” Without really considering the implications, I agreed. We walked
to my car. “So... can I give you a ride home?” he asked, hands in pockets. I remembered how
my heart had thumped in the pseudo bar in Raleigh. “No thanks, I'm good.” We exchanged
some perfunctory pleasantries about the rest of the summer, and I went back to my
apartment.
Elizabeth,
There are tons of really grea parts in this piece. All the details of the bar and drinks are great
and really add a particular tone. It’s very hard to write college kids b/c it’s a weird time with a
pseudo environment, but you do well here, partly b/c they’re never at school. I do think that
“duke kids” in a story or anywhere outside of Duke, has connotations that I’m not always sure
you wanted, but maybe you did.
My biggest comment about the story is that though it is very well written I had a hard time
figuring out what the central conflict was or the line of tension. Let me be clear I got that the
situation is that the speaker has a crush on this guy, but it was hard to see what it is that the
narrator and more importantly the author and the piece as a whole wanted. Why tell this
short. Because all the tension was about wanting this guy, when she just suddenly didn’t
want him then it seemed to deflate the story of its main tension.
However I think that what you now have as a break to the second half of the story where she
sees that she does not like this guy might actually be the beginning of your story. I mean that
first line seems to be what the piece is about, so you should set the stakes ahead of time. If
we know that she will soon not like him than we will read the initial attraction, which you can
relay in flash backs, differently, but yes the story seems to be about this awkward
Wednesday night out at a bar with a guy the speaker no longer feels attracted to but who now
is attracted to her. I do think there’s some invitation to layer what’s at stake in these kinds of
moments within that night (maybe it has to do with class and this “duke kid” thing compared to
whatever else is around them???). Even if you don’t layer, it will be a stronger story if you
move the central conflict first, establish what she wants, which is to get through the evening
without hurting his feelings, making a big deal or actually getting close to this guy who wants
to get closer to her. Let that night at the bar be the setting for the story.
Very strong. I think if you could get in the story and the conflict that’s present, you will have a
really really good piece.
Check +
Allison