Although there was no chance of Bethanny’s coming into this particular bar, I still felt anxiety about what we were doing. I knew I wasn’t fully in command of the situation while outside of Daphne’s home—there were variables I couldn’t control—and all I could think about was getting her home at the end of the night.

She moved her drink across the table toward me and smiled. I took a sip and nodded.

“Melon. Yum.”

“You don’t have to pretend. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

When I gave it back to her, she took a long sip, then held her cheek.

“Maybe I’ll just have the one,” she said.

She winced through a smile.

“It sucks getting old. Don’t do it,” she told me.

“I’m on the fence.”

“It doesn’t get better than where you’re at right now.”

“That’s not really comforting.”

“I spent so many nights here looking for trouble. You don’t even know.”

I asked her to tell me the stories.

“I could have been any one of these young girls in the pictures. Except I was prettier. And more wild. This place used to be packed with people. And dressed like you wouldn’t believe. They’re probably all gone now. Or maybe they’re all doing great.”

“They probably moved to Florida.”

“They didn’t change the carpets. They haven’t changed a thing. It’s exactly as I remember it.”

She turned around and looked past the jukebox to the hallway.

“What I did in that bathroom!”

She leaned back in the booth and laughed.

“Tell me about your father,” I said to her.

She looked at me, confused.

“My father?”

“Yeah, what was he like? What was your relationship like?”

Daphne sighed and looked at the wall for a little while.

“I don’t know. What can I say? I wish he loved himself enough to know how to love me.”

She looked at me and took a sip of her drink. I didn’t know how to answer that. It wasn’t a question.

She looked at me like, Those weren’t the kind of memories I came here to have. So I just sat quietly while she drank.

“You want me to tell you about some big epiphany, don’t you?” Daphne asked.

“No. I don’t know. Unless you have one?”

“I don’t, really. I’m just a person.”

“I know. I’m sorry. We can talk about something else.”