He goes inside after passing back the cigarette, and Alice thinks of going driving. She’s only had one glass of bourbon and she feels wired, a hard, sprung coil, no longer worn out. She watches Henry out there, working. There’s still so much night to go. She lights another cigarette. If she waits an hour she can take the car and loop down to Quinn and Maddie’s. She can put the windows down and let the cold air shock her, turn the music on too loud. It’s the only thing about this place that she likes more than the city: the ability to move, to forget the things that make her scared and worried, forget her body, windows down.

Quinn stays longer than she should have, she will think later. She has that second drink, and, already, the man is more annoying than amusing. He’d fuck her, she thinks, but it would be no more than an exercise, a reminder for herself that she has a body, that she’s something other than a mother to her daughter. She’s not sure she cares to be reminded of that now. She lets him buy her a third drink because she’s too tired to argue. She can imagine, fully, what would happen—his hands on her, her body being not really what he wants so much as something warm and quiet that he can get inside for a while. She can imagine all the places she might let her mind go as he enters her and then he comes and then she cleans herself and gets dressed and walks out some big, heavy door.

She looks at her phone, but Maddie hasn’t texted her.

“I have to go,” she says, and he stands up as if to tell her not to. He puts his hand on her waist and then her shoulder, and she flinches. He looks angry, and she realizes she’s desperate to get out. She gets her coat and wonders what she’ll do if he follows. She says she’s going to the bathroom. She wants only to crawl in bed with Maddie. If Maddie’s still in her own bed when she gets home, she’ll pick her up and bring her into hers. She thinks that maybe she could crawl out the bar’s bathroom window but she isn’t sure if the bathroom has a window. She’s had three drinks and she’s not sure she could climb out a window if she tried. She walks out the front, assuming her drinks have been covered. She’ll come back during the day tomorrow to make sure.