Dreams

A surly old man plops his creaking body on the worn barstool, sighing in displeasure when he’s only just arrived.

“What can I get you?” I ask from behind the bar where I’m still mixing the last answer to that question.

“A new back,” he grumbles.

“You have to try down the street for that one,” I attempt the same joke I always make, that fake service smile splitting my cheeks.

It doesn’t land. “Whiskey.”

Bartending is a delicate job. It’s much harder than we’re given credit for. Sure, I don’t earn much, but I’m good at my job and I don’t hate it like I hated school. It’s Friday night, and I’m working a packed bar. Alone. Everyone wants their drink to taste exactly like the last time they had it, at some themed disco bar or an Olive Garden happy hour. So every drink is made to perfection, mixers measured to the milliliters, and no more than five ice cubes per drink.

It’s not an easy job, I’ve repeated over and over to family members whose thinly veiled questions reveal their belief that I’m a failure. Of course, my dad is a neurosurgeon so he thinks any other job is an easy one. I was the smart one, the one who was supposed to follow in his footsteps and spend my days cutting out people’s brains. No, thank you.

Being pre-med was too much, and while switching majors would have slightly disappointed my perfect parents, I went for the touchdown. I landed at this bar as a recent college dropout. It was just supposed to be “for now.” And it’s been eight years.

The night winds down in a flurry of tipsy college girls and drunk single men until it’s finally closing time. I kick everyone out, I close out the drawers, and I go home.

When I push open the door to my tiny apartment, I’m greeted first by my cat, Mr. Potato Head, and then by a shockingly severe wave of hunger. I pull open the rusty fridge door and grimace as I take in the lackluster contents. A pitcher of sweet tea I made three weeks ago when my mom came to visit (she didn’t drink any of it), leftover lasagna that has surely expired, and canned cat food. I briefly consider if the food poisoning would be worth it before resigning myself to a sleepless, hungry night.

I close the fridge door, blanketed in silence as the low hum of the fridge clicks off. Pinned to the steel door right in front of me is a pizzeria flyer, held up by a magnet that says “Someone who loves me went to Barcelona and got me this magnet.” It was my mom. She got my brother a first class flight to go with her. The pizzeria is two blocks away and offers 24/7 service. So consumed by my hunger, only briefly does the question of the flyer’s origin cross my mind.

All but sprinting down the street, I find the bright neon sign above the door and hastily pull it open.

When I step inside, I expect warm air radiating from pizza ovens, slightly sticky floors, and a poor college student falling asleep at the counter.

But it’s not a pizzeria at all. It’s a library. Every wall is covered in plastic-covered hardbacks, with stacks of books scattered on the floor. An open window on the far wall reveals sunlight from a bright day outside, even though it was 3 a.m. when I stepped in. There’s no one else here and it’s completely silent. The peaceful quiet of falling asleep at your aunt’s house, of stepping out of a movie at night as snow starts to fall.

On the wall to my right is a small oval mirror. I step towards it and find an old woman staring back at me. Although I’ve never seen her before, I know instantly that she is me, with wrinkles where I now have smooth skin; gray hair tumbling over my shoulders where it used to be brown.

Staring at my elderly reflection, she lifts a bony finger and points to my right. I turn and walk through the sea of books. There are thick, leather bound novels on every shelf, dipped in rich hues of purples, greens, reds. They each have a name on the spine, all strangers to me. I stop in front of a shelf in the corner, feeling the pull of an old, dusty book I somehow know is mine. It’s beautiful and ornate, a deep maroon with gold lettering spelling out my name.

I flip through the pages in awe. I see my childhood spelled out in 12-point font. Racing my brother through the woods behind our house, back to school shopping with Aunt Martha, my first kiss with Benjamin Gray. Then it’s my first year of college and the horror that was my second. Getting my bartending job, finding my cheap apartment that came with a rusty old dishwasher after my parents took back my tuition money. And then I get to the part of the story I haven't lived yet. The tone is mean and the plot is bleak. I never get a better job, I never have kids, I never write my novel. I die alone, in the same apartment I rented when I was 20. I was only 59.

I put the book back on the shelf as my vision blurs. This isn’t what I wanted. This can’t be how it happens.

I pull the book back open, full of morbid curiosity. I read that I never made up with my parents and never met my niece. Even my aunt gives up on me. Too afraid of disappointing my family, I erased myself from their stories instead.

I’ve been so concerned about not following in my father’s footsteps that I forgot to make my own. I’ve been saying that bartending is supporting my writing for eight years. I’ve never written a word.

I fling the book on the shelf and tear through the door I came in.

Outside, the night is cool and dark, the sun getting her last few minutes of sleep before the day begins. I look up at the moon, full and bright against the black sky. When I was growing up, I would spend hours in the summer laying under the night sky, watching the stars. I memorized constellations and drew pictures of them in my star notebook. That’s where I started to write, the brilliance of space too big to comprehend. I had to make up stories to fit it all together. My drawings of constellations side by side with short stories I wrote about them by the light of the moon.

There are no stars here in the city. And I haven’t been home in four years.

When I get home, I will pull out one of my old notebooks and I will write this down. And I’ll write down anything I can think of. When the sun comes up, I’ll call my mom and ask if I can come home for a while. I’ll call my manager and quit, I’ll email my landlord I’m not renewing my lease. I’ll pack up my things and tuck Mr. Potato Head into his cat carrier and I’ll drive through the day and the night until I get home.

But right now, I will look at the stars.