Something’s bothering her, I can tell. She only wants to be left alone. She doesn’t want to dance. She has her own bottle and her own table, her own troubles of which I know nothing. So I draw back a chair and put one foot up in it, rest my elbow on my knee. “How come?” I say.

She cups her face in her other hand and dabs at the ashtray with the cigarette.

“Oh. You know. Just getting away from everything.”

“Yeah,” I say. I know the feeling. I begin wishing I’d never walked over here. “What’s your name?”

“Lorraine,” this Lorraine says. She doesn’t ask me my name.

“You look sad, Lorraine. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, apparently only mildly pissed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just want to be by myself for a while. I’ve just got some things I have to deal with.”

I know. I know all people have things they must deal with. I have things I must deal with. I must deal with lonesome Friday nights, and these little semihostile confrontations sometimes occur as a result. But I don’t know when to stop.

“Don’t you like to dance?” I say. I feel like a fool. Am a fool.

“Sure. Sure I like to dance. I just don’t feel like it tonight.”

“Well,” I say. I hate to get shot down, blown out of the saddle. But most of the time, I get shot down. I hate to have to turn away and go back to the bar without even a dance. I hate for them to beat me like this. But she probably does have some problem. There’s probably a man involved somewhere, somehow. Possibly even a woman.

“Don’t take it personally,” she says. “Maybe some other night.”

“Sure,” I say, and I turn away. I walk a few steps and stop. I look back at her. She’s taking the top off the bottle. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I go back to her table.

“You sure you don’t want to dance?” I say.

“No,” she says, not even looking up. “Not now. Please leave me alone.”

She’s just lucky is all. She doesn’t know just how damn lucky she is. The last of the Budweiser is almost warm, so I raise it aloft and signal to the sullen barmaid. I know her. She knows me. Her wet swollen hands reach into a dark cooler. I give her money but she doesn’t speak. She doesn’t want to look at me. Her heavy breasts sway as she rubs the bar hard, her eyes down. I watch them move. I watch her move away. She finds something to do at the other end of the bar. I take a drink.