In profile, Kerri Hollis, 25, bends over to retrieve two beers from the icebox while mindfully ignoring the appreciative growl the workmen address at her posterior, where the orange lavafall of her hair ends.
And here the country music faded out a little, at least in Andy’s ears, triggered only by this: Kerri turning to serve the beers, her curls swinging around and cheering gleefully like kids on a carousel. It was a minor entry in the list of Kerri’s innumerable talents. Her hair had this joyful quality about it, in the way it trailed after her as she rode her bike downhill or dove off a rope swing. Andy used to admire it even when they were kids; it had already reached the border between her back and the end of her back back then, though it needn’t be too long for that, and it breathed and moved like it had a life of its own, or many. Andy used to imagine each individual strand with tiny cartoon eyes and a perennial kawaii smile, happy to participate in Kerri’s adventures, to witness every moment in the life of that promising child. When she stood in the rain, her hair welcomed the water. When it was sunny outside, it kited behind her as she ran, sparkling, greedily storing up solar energy like it planned to run a plane factory. When she sat down and read a book, which she did more often than any child and most grown-ups Andy had met, you could see her hair glowing with stored sunlight, humming quietly, shushing strangers. When they last saw each other five years ago at Kerri’s university, she had bound her hair in a ponytail while they toured the campus. She released it only briefly in the cafeteria, and Andy could have sworn she heard a collective gasp as she shook it loose. Those must have been four tough years for her hair. Now it was free at last, and Andy heard its happy song even through the depressing country music and the orcish grunts of the ape-men surrounding her.
It took another minute for Andy to notice a second novelty: Kerri wasn’t wearing her glasses. That was strange. Merriment and catastrophe ensued whenever Kerri lost her glasses during an adventure. She used to be defenseless without them. Now, however, she looked ready to battle.
She looked like she was halfway through the battle, actually. And losing.
Andy watched her in the mirror behind the bar, talking to the last man in the pack. “And for you?”
“I’ll have a beer too.”
A silence like a tropical cyclone formed above them, Kerri glaring at the guy with glasses-less, hateful eyes.
She turned and bent back down to the icebox, and the ogling and sneering through munched cigars resumed: “Oh yeah”…“There you go”…“That’s what I’m talking about.”
Andy claimed a stool at the other end of the bar, head low, left hand toying with the charm she carried in her pocket. Discreet as her entrances could be, she often had trouble keeping a low profile for too long, especially in crowded places. To counter this, she used this security blanket of sorts.
A second, completely unnoticed bartender materialized from the shadows, slapping Andy’s claimed acre of counter with a cloth. “Name your poison.”
“Coke.”
“Coke?”
“Make it Diet.”
The bartender left, an unfocused mustached blur.
“How about something to eat,” one of the men croaked at Kerri.
Kerri’s reflection stood in the mirror, dirty rag over her shoulder, arms akimbo, orange hair hushing expectantly. “What would you like, Jesse?”
“I don’t know,” said the alpha male. “Something hot.” The pack punctuated the jape with a timely snigger.
Don’t engage, Andy attempted to telepath forward.
“Some hot wings?”
“That’d be nice.”
“Any sauce?”
“More than you can swallow, honey.”
The gang laughed with fat, bearded, smug-faced laughter. Andy risked a side glance at Kerri’s face. She was holding her stance, unfazed, hatred steadily growing toward a boiling point.
“You’re revolting, Jesse.”
Something, probably the nondescript bartender, went hey.
Andy squeezed the last drops of magic out of the charm in her pocket. The country singer continued to babble his own notion of romanticism like an idiot.
“I’ll check the kitchen,” Kerri said, departing for the door. A man leaned over the counter as she retreated.
“Some well-buttered buns would be nice too!” he said, and the comment was celebrated with mirth.
“Good one, Neil.”
“You know, because ‘buns’ as in ‘ass,’ right?”
“Yeah, gotcha. Clever.”
“Excuse me.”
The whole pack turned.
Andy had stolen the five yards from her stool and was now standing in front of the gang, her jacket left behind, folded neatly on the bar next to her Diet Coke. She flipped her cap aside to show her face. Mm-hmmed comments of sexual appreciation were quickly mitigated by squinting eyes and rising eyebrows—the usual mixed feelings a five-foot-six brown-skinned woman with boots and an attitude tends to stir.
The alpha male, previously identified as Jesse, took the lead. “Yes, how can we help you, miss?”
“Well, um…” Andy’s hands moved nervously, her eyes searching for the right words somewhere on the floor. “Uh, God, I’m sorry; this is awkward…”
“Not at all,” he said with a smile of many-colored teeth.
“The thing is, I am legally obligated to respectfully ask you to stop behaving like inbred dicks before I go on to beat the shit out of you.”
Silence. The kind upon which comedians would shoot themselves onstage.
“Are you now?” Alpha calmly said, his surprise concealed behind his Ray-Bans.
“Yes, well, you see, because I’ve had military training, and lots of experience gathered here and there, I’ve become so proficient in battle that on one occasion, after a brawl in a bikers’ joint in Sturgis, South Dakota, a judge dictated that I should not engage in a fight without giving a fair warning. In particular, my nut kicks are astoundingly accurate.” She waited for some feedback from the other side, then chose to continue. “Because, you know, when you get kicked in the balls, as I imagine you know from personal experience, your ballsack just gets squashed into your pelvis. Soft tissue and your clothes absorb most of the impact while the testes themselves are pushed to safety. Because testicles are some slippery little rascals,” she said, pulling her left hand out of her pocket and showing her lucky charm to the rest of the class. The men stared blankly at what very unambiguously looked like a plastic penguin.
“See, if you examine your scrotum,” Andy went on, “you’ll notice you are able to locate the nut, but if you try to pinch it, which is kind of painful…(She roughly squeezes the toy, making it squeak, and the lower half of the penguin bloat-pops out of her fist.)…it always squirms out of your grip.”