Surviving Valencia

“Your friend is tall,” said Josh.

“She’s probably taller than any of us,” Jake agreed.

“I don’t have a problem with a tall woman,” declared Jarid.

I held up my empty drink glass. “It’s my birthday. I’m twenty-one,” I reminded them.

Our new friends wished me a happy birthday, and Jake went up to the bar to buy us another round. I noticed Dannon down at the other end of the bar trying to talk to the bartender. She was a skinny woman who looked like she was in her late twenties. I couldn’t imagine what Dannon found attractive about her.

“Is that a friend of yours?” asked Jarid, motioning to the bartender.

“No, that’s the girl Dannon likes,” said Luna.

“Likes?” asked Jake.

“Dannon likes girls,” said Luna. “You didn’t notice her shirt? It says I

like girls who like girls.”

I cringed, afraid our free drink suppliers were going to abandon us. The exact opposite happened.

“No way,” squealed Josh. He and Jake high-fived each other.

“That is so awesome,” said Jarid.

“She is hot,” said Jake.

“Keep the drinks coming and we’re going to see some girl on girl action,” said Josh.

“Just look at her! I only come up to her tits, man!” said Jake.

“She is the hottest girl I have ever seen.”

“Look at her legs. She’s got to, like, run marathons.”

I noticed that Luna was crying. She wasn’t as familiar with being ignored as I was, and here she was, falling apart. To make matters even worse, she and I were down to just the ice cubes again.

“Let’s go,” I whispered.

“Okay,” said Luna, sniffling. She ate her maraschino fingertips and gathered up her sweater and purse. We stood up.

“Thank you for the drinks,” I said.

“Where are you going?” asked one of the guys.

“We’ll be back in a minute,” Luna promised.

“Meet us at the Dane,” I whispered to Dannon on our way past her.

“Sure, sure. I’ll be right there.”

“Listen, yogurt girl, I’m supposed to be working,” we heard the bartender telling Dannon as we left.

So the night did not start out that great, but we did get quite a few free drinks. Neither Luna nor I had harbored very high expectations, so we easily snapped back from the letdown of Paul’s Club.

We got to the Great Dane and sat at a table near some guys playing pool. Luna was smiling again. It was getting late and since it was May, a lot of students were studying for finals and we had the place mainly to ourselves. We ordered wheat beers with orange slices and waited for Dannon to show up. Neither Luna nor I typically drank much so we were very drunk, and giggling like crazy about every little thing.

“Ughh, she must run marathons,” said Luna in a deep, dumb voice.