Each time, the rush is a little less. Like caffeine in the morning. Nicotine. Still, the promise of flashing neon was an unfailing summons to her blood.

At the Mon ey Bar, where the walls were covered in glossy posters of tropical/ jungle scenes. Cavorting monkeys with curlicue tails. Monkeys in red livery busboy costumes. Monkeys upright, drinking toasts to one another, paws white-gloved and so resembling hands. A mirror running the length of the bar all but hidden by glittering bottles so that it was an achievement to locate her own face there, a small but essential piece in a jigsaw puzzle.

Juliana liked the raffish Mon ey Bar because it was far downtown, miles from campus. A place where you understood you would be lonely, because you were alone. Other bars, taverns, places nearer campus, you’d be jammed at the bar with many others shrieking with laughter and so your loneliness would seem more unnatural. More acute. Stuck listening to some guy speaking loudly into your face, spilling beer on you, glancing and grinning at his guy friends. Ramshackle houses on Fraternity Row, deafening rock music and drunk guys, girls careening in high heels, hours from wondering how they will get back to their residence halls. Sickening smell of vomit discovered on the front of your own clothing … By the end of freshman year, Juliana had had enough of that.

There was kid drinking, binge drinking, and there was serious adult drinking. She wasn’t interested in kid stuff.

Strange how all her life, after the Blue Moon Tavern, she’d never been a kid again. If a kid is trust, if a kid is naïve and stupid, Juliana wasn’t one of those.

At the Mon ey Bar, patrons were older. Never any guys Juliana’s age—a relief. She liked being the youngest person in the bar. That was a distinction, flattering to her. Men were protective of her, if indeed they noticed her. The Mon ey Bar was attached to a staid old hotel called the Commodore, which gave it a classy air. The taciturn bartender came to know Juliana by name, but greeted her with only a curt nod when she entered the bar. He was her father’s age, thick, dark, oiled hair like an actor in a 1950s movie.

Worse comes to worst, he’d protect her. She knew.

At the Mon ey Bar her senior year, she’d had good times. Basic premise of a bar like this is that no one knows you, judges you. And usually you don’t pay for any but your first drink, sometimes not even that. Being so young, reasonably good-looking, Juliana never had to worry, she could arrive with just a few dollars and never reach for her wallet. Older men felt privileged to buy her a drink—“no strings attached”—which wouldn’t have been the case with asshole frat boys.

No strings attached. The phrase made Juliana smile. What did it mean? She didn’t like strings attached to anything.