She’d idly dropped in on a show off the Morgan stop the other day, and the opening band was this goth outfit, and Vera was rocking out when she realized the bassist was one of them. The girl was just hanging out, doing her thing, in heavy eyeliner and a black minidress. Nobody seemed to care. Vera weighed this right there watching that girl—how it shouldn’t have shocked her, yet it shocked her. Something so blasé hadn’t been normal for Vera until that moment, a truth that until she died she’d carry around with her in a way she could never express.

For good or ill, the littlest stuff in this stage of Vera’s life kept turning up butterfly-effect meaningful. Example: The other day, she’d gone thrifting for a winter coat. Her old one was falling apart, and she wanted to get a new one cheap while it was warm. The weekend before, a man had said hello with a smile and she’d said hello back and his face had done a thing and as she’d passed by she heard “THAT’S A MAN!” She walked just a little faster and heard “THAT’S A MAN!” She turned around and the guy looked pretty angry and was pointing and shouting, “THAT’S A MAN!” And then she turned the next corner and threaded herself through a crowd. It occurred to her she was wearing a fire-engine red hoodie, and this made her stand out in a crush of people. So when Vera went thrifting for a coat, she selected one that was black, and the next time she thought about dyeing her hair, she coloured it midnight blue, and her wardrobe gradually cycled into blacks and whites and dark blues and silvers, and that became how Vera set out visible to the world in the mid-morning of her womanhood, how she would look for a long time, and how everyone from this period would remember her.

Lucy and Annie posted up on stools. “Yeah … ” Vera deadpanned, gesturing to the empty tables, “gonna be a while before I can serve you. We’re pretty slammed.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Lucy laughed and bought a round. “How you been?”

Vera wiped the bar. “Eh. You ever have an ex in your life too long? I’m dealing with that.”

Both women nodded.

“Did you get laid at least?” Lucy said in her English lilt.

Vera winced. “No, actually that’s part of the—she wasn’t good to me. Anyway, that cord is cut. It’s done.”

“Was she cis?” said Lucy.

“Yes—”

“Well, hurrah!” she said. “Vera, can I buy you a shot? Cheers to less terrible cis exes in your life!”

They did a shot and Vera grimaced. “Enough of my bullshit. How are you guys?”

“I have the opposite problem,” Annie said, her Afro’d hair gleaming in the bar light.

“Not enough exes in your life?” Vera snarked.

Annie shook her head and looked into her whisky. “I think I fucked it up with this girl I was seeing.”