The first thing Sarah noticed about the men was their sameness. Their artificial smiles and moussed hair above the neck, their unbuttoned polos and severely white shoes below.

Even their positioning, leaning back in chairs and interlocking fingers behind their heads, mirrored each other as if they were more accustomed to being in close proximity than not. They shared a large stretch of life, potentially the turning points of adolescenthood. All of it brimmed with privilege — rectangled pools divided by volleyball nets, imprints of condom rings in the leather of wallets, blinkered romances with girlfriends that were tall and anorexic, not in an unattractive way. Were they nice to them? Erring on the side of generosity, Sarah decided that half were and half were not.

She could hear their conversation from across the room, all of it loud and inflated. They weren’t out of place, no one’s voices competed to overtake theirs. Rich people antics overheard by other rich people — comments about the last hole of their game, how one of them had left their driver on the green. It was a joke to them, the disposability of things.

How do you just lose a club?

Clubs aren’t even easy to lose. They’re not small, y’know.

How many is that? What’s the count?

Dunno. Maybe three?

It’s definitely more than three.

So what if it is?

Christ.

Oh, you’re one to talk.

Last I checked all my clubs are accounted for. The man pointed to the leather bag resting against the wall, shiny rods stuck out from the top like trophies. Only one showed any indication of use, bits of sediment and blades of grass caked on the end.

So I’m not Tiger Woods, is that a crime?

One of the men in the center patted the other on the chest for comedic effect, and they laughed, some of them slapping their napkinned knees or the table.

Sarah shifted her gaze to the rest of the bodies in the room, scanning for some sort of female acknowledgment, a shared recognition of the boyhood that had spilled into grown-up realities.

There was no one. No one to share her observations or take interest in her thoughts at all. It was unsurprising, her expression unchanged. If Sarah were to assign any weight to the moment, she would be struck with a crash of loneliness. She chose to ignore it.

The men at the table liked her. They would’ve liked any female under the age of thirty. It didn’t require much effort on Sarah’s part to please them. She performed the motions that had become second nature, sucking in her stomach and smiling without her teeth. She introduced the drink menu before mentioning any of the specials.

Now you’re talking. The man who first accepted the sliver of paper had an artificially full head of hair shellacked against his scalp.

Whaddawe got? Their bodies all bent toward him, encircling the menu like crows to a carcass.

The drinks they ordered were topped with sprigs of greenery and dried fruit. Their appetizers were oysters resting on a bed of ice and lemons. They hardly touched them, requesting another round of drinks and a spontaneous plate of fries.

Oh just what I was hoping to see. Sarah unloaded the glasses, a circle of crystal already sweating on the white cloth. All my drinks.

Sarah laughed politely. She didn’t mind granting them the small gesture. There were no remarks expressed about her, nothing that would leave her feeling deflated now or even after they were gone.

The man on the perimeter picked up the tab. He was quieter, joining in on the winds of laughter, rather than causing them. His shirt was patterned with vertical lines, a glint of a gold chain when he turned his head.

He handed Sarah his card, his fingers grazing hers. She looked at him to murmur an unnecessary apology but stopped as she noticed his eyes. She expected them to be swimmy and thoughtless. Instead, they were the opposite. A kaleidoscopic spiral of moments, shards of life refracting her own gaze.

She cleared her throat. I’ll be right back with this.

No rush. He smiled politely, also without his teeth.

What a class act.

A true gentlemen.

We should tell Janine about this, tell her what a standup guy she raised.

Sarah shuffled away, leaving the clammy dampness of the table and entering a cool pocket of air conditioning behind the counter. Still, she felt warm and hyperaware. The pull under the arms of her collared shirt, the calcium in the grooves of her teeth, the loudness of their laughter.

She tried to assign value to each fragmented thought as if it could be quantified, reconsidering her assessment of the group, the man in the striped shirt. The possibility of her own incorrectness. How improbable it all seemed at first, but, somehow, more likely now.

The clientele was starkly worse at Sarah’s last job. Exclusively men, bitching about wives they did or didn’t have. The gravity of each conversation was cemented in anger. Some regulars neutered it with a lower voice, a softer expression. Each was as effective as spraying a gardening hose on a forest fire, flames still ablaze, but the danger dampened and less imminent.

They patted the buckled leather beside them, asking her to sit, which Sarah did. Complacency was key. It was Her against Them, even when it seemed like it wasn’t.

Her thighs stuck to the leather-like glue, spreading out and looking much larger than they were when she stood. The spandex uniforms seemed to universally be a size too small, leaving mangled marks on her stomach when she removed it at the end of the night, wreaking of fried food and beer.

Drinks were purchased for her every night. It was better for everyone if she accepted. She could tolerate listening to them, allowing the alcohol to cloud her thoughts as she stared silently at a plate of congealed, unnaturally orange wings.

She’s just a fucking bitch when she wants to be. And I don’t mean that disrespectfully, I’m just telling you how it is. How it really is. I already work seven days a week. Seven days! Even God rested on the seventh day, didn’t he? Now, I’m not a church-going man, but I’m still a man of God. You don’t have to go to church to know that. It’s a fact. A fact!

Mmm. Sarah nodded along, sometimes making passing eye contact with one of her own, spandex shorts riding up their ass cheeks unavoidably as they passed by, shiny red baskets of food in tow.

They were unspokenly united. Their breed of intelligence wasn’t acknowledged by the outside world. More often than not, people seemed to think the lives they led were small and decided as if their existence was so compact it could fit on the head of a pin.

Your eyes. The man breathed on her. He wreaked of whiskey. Bottom shelf, the only thing they poured shouts of. They’re such a pretty blue.

Thank you. Sarah took a sip of her own drink, a vodka soda. Water gone sick.

Why do you work here and not down the block, sweetheart?

Men coined different terms to avoid referring to the Purple Parrot by name, although Sarah never understood why. Disguising something so intentionally only drew more attention.

Sarah had never been inside, but imagined it drenched in darkness, only the shiver of stage lights through the haze of cigar smoke. Were the women even visible through it? Or were there just clouds of pollution and bare bodies behind?

Any man who went there as his first stop was off the Richter scale. Sarah learned the term from Wray during her first week. Wray tattooed her own forearms and claimed to have only ever cried once in her adult life, which was at her mother’s funeral. And even then, it was only a single tear.

And I liked my mother, too. Wray pointed a finger of chipped polish at her. We actually got along. Even when I was sixteen and kind of a bitch. You know.

Sarah nodded, pretending to understand. There wasn’t a single part of her that did, but it was best to avoid the introduction of any differing perspectives before they knew each other. It was only their second conversation.

The first, Sarah had initiated. It was unbearably beige. Something about the inserts they had to stuff inside their bra. She pointed to her chest, how cartoonishly large it looked, stretching her shirt to unbearable lengths. Wray shrugged.

At least we get to cover ‘em – would be worse if we were at a titty bar. Although, I would work in one of those. Wray gnawed on the inside of her cheek, exacerbating its concavity. Would you?

Sarah considered what it would feel like to be that on display, that much of a spectacle. Once, she sat as a nude model for the local college’s drawing class. It paid fifty dollars an hour and lasted for two. The entire experience was cold and uncomfortable. All those eyes on her. The scratch of graphite against parchment. Stodgy, amateur artist fingers smearing blackness onto a white notebook. Her, bare. Them, not.

When it was over, Sarah was handed a scratchy robe that she threw over her body. A gangly man in open-toe sandals and a ponytail asked if she wanted to see the sketches. Sarah could only manage to rush past him, leaving her clothes behind and gulping in the outside air.

Cars sat in traffic, a line of red brake lights. Couples walked by, arms lazily interlinked. The world was unaffected by the most recent moments of her life, everything around her just as mundane as she had left it. Nothing about her experience mattered in the scheme of anything.

I don’t know? Maybe, Sarah answered.

Wray nodded and fiddled with her vape, a lopsided arrow inked on the side of her wrist. She stored it inside the pocket of her shorts when she worked, its blockish shape jutting out from her thigh even when she was still.

Maybe? Wray asked. ’What’re you? Rich or something?

There was a small silence before Wray grinned, emphasizing that it was a joke. They were the same, Sarah understood, testing the lengths they were willing to go, how much they were willing to give. Sarah realized that Wray would go much further, giving more of herself and feeling fine about it. As if the roles they fulfilled were all just droplets of existence that would eventually runoff and soak into the ground.

The man in the striped polo returned. This time, he was not in a polo at all, but a t-shirt made of a thick material that refused to wrinkle, regardless of how he sat. He was alone, but still at a table with multiple chairs, exacerbating his aloness. He seemed unbothered.

The negative space between Sarah’s body and his was much smaller this time than it was when she first saw him, not granting her the freedom to pause and absorb the scene as she had the urge to.

Hello again. His tone was jovial, smiling as if they were old friends who happened to run into each other.

Sarah ran her tongue along her teeth.

Hello. How’re you?

She spoke too quickly, presenting the words in an uncharacteristic slurry. Her neck splotched with redness and warmth. They expressed standard niceties, dialogue that would look bland on paper.

After he ordered, his face changed, the prescribed current of their conversation shifting.

Listen, I just wanted to make sure I came back here without the goon squad to let you know I’m sorry.

Sarah tilted her head as if she were oblivious of the groundwork being laid. What?

I know we’re obnoxious, he said. We’ve just known each other too long.

Oh, that’s okay. She waved a hand in a no-nonsense way as if she hadn’t given their presence a second thought, their anorexic high school girlfriends.

We also had too much to drink before we even came in here.

Did you? Sarah raised her eyebrows. Could’ve fooled me.

Listen, I’m willing to admit my flaws. I have quite a few. I can’t swim in water over five feet deep, I don’t understand how to use a charcoal grill. Even with lighter fluid. I don’t get it. He looked around for dramatic effect, lowering his voice. I honestly think they just fill up those containers with water and sell ‘em.

She laughed without meaning to, then reoriented herself. I appreciate the tip.

Would you like to admit any flaws?

I’ll pass.

Because you don’t have any?

He smiled. His canines were sharp. Like a dog who lurched excitedly when his owners returned home, but was still hardwired with a biological evil if placed in a specific situation.

Sarah began to back away. Exactly.

It was a trailer park that Sarah grew up in. She didn’t not enjoy it. There were neighbors that let her splash in their kiddie pool. It was a light blue color with a faint pattern of fish on the bottom, faded from sunlight and children’s grubby feet.

There was a group of them who sat in it, sometimes in regular clothes. Faded denim darkening with each splash, tie-dye t-shirts becoming uncharacteristically heavy. They brought Barbie dolls in with them, brushing their hair and dipping them under. When they got out, they unscrewed their heads, flinging out any droplets that were stuck rattling around the hollow of their bodies.

They had one brother, who was smarter than all of them combined, books splayed out on the floor, detailing the geography of Africa, the different types of clouds, the history of the Slinky.

When they were hungry, they ate Eggos that were still frozen or microwaved pizza rolls that burned the roofs of their mouths.

Fuck it’s hot. The girl spat into the sink and ran cold water over her tongue. Strands of her hair fell into the stream, darkening and clumping together like overcooked spaghetti.

Sarah didn’t curse. She made an effort to avoid it, not even letting herself write it in her journal. Once, she used an asterisk to substitute the a in damn but quickly smudged over it in a rectangle of graphite that nearly tore the page.

If her mother were to hear her curse, she would slap her across the face, a volcano of a wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. It was just the two of them in the trailer. The floor was littered with boxes of cheap hair dye and oversized trash bags of clothes that Sarah had outgrown. They never used real plates — only the disposable kind — but still threw them in the sink, caked with sludge and inevitably swarmed with gnats.

Her mother never cleaned, not even for the men who visited. Men with sideways cigarettes and long cargo pants and gruff voices and dirtied fingernails. Sarah only caught glimpses of them, her mother shutting the door of her bedroom as soon as they arrived, leaving Sarah with a cloud of body spray and marijuana that remained after they had disappeared. She imagined them as cumulonimbus, large and angry.

Sarah collected what the men left behind. She often found them on kitchen counters or between couch cushions — needles, change, cigarettes, foreign wads of lint. The objects felt like they had the potential to become important.

She scotched taped them to pages of her journal, inked arrows with question marks and timestamps as if the items were part of a case that needed solving. As if Sarah didn’t already know what it all meant.

More frequently than not, she could hear muffled moans coming from behind her mother’s locked door or find a deflated condom bobbing along the still of the toilet water the next day. She stared at it for a moment, then shut the lid and flushed. A furious rush of water, and then, when the water resettled, nothing, as if there had never been anything there at all.

By the time Sarah’s shift ended, it was already dark. Her eyes didn’t have to adjust. The lights inside dimmed to match the outside world.

There was a film that clung to every part of her exposed body, which was most of it. She could feel it goosebump when she stepped outside, wind billowing through the neighboring alleys.

The employee parking spots were placed in the back, beside the dumpster. There was a silhouette of a man pissing on the bricked wall. His hand was pressed against it, hands splayed to steady himself. Sarah was surprised by how quickly she recognized him as one of her regulars. His large stature had never been part of the equation when he was seated. But now — even from afar — he was large in a way that was impossible not to notice.

Ironic, considering how small he was as a person, his biological makeup. All of him, overweight and underwhelming. He used to be in a band, but their lead singer dropped out right when they were about to make it big.

Sweetheart, you have no idea. We had a record deal and everything. Then this guy — this fucking guy — just decides to stop because his wife’s knocked up. I swear to you, I’m not makin’ this up. The whole thing was so fucked. Can you imagine? I started this whole band from the ground up. Just me, letting everyone get a slice of the pie. And whaddayou think I get? A big fuck-you-I’m-out. Does that make any goddamn sense? Does it? Does it? On Saturdays, he went to the Purple Parrot, but he wasn’t off the Richter Scale, always stopping in to see Sarah first and telling her where he was headed next. His grubby fingers touched her thigh as soon as she sat down. A strip of cold from his wedding band. He asked her to join him, and she took a gulp of her watered-down vodka, excusing herself to scrub his touch off in the bathroom. She didn’t stop until her skin was pink and raw.

Is this your car?

Sarah felt very small, like an ant. She gazed up at the sky. There was no moon, only cirrus clouds, a slate of black behind them. The street light buzzed above her, a curl of gnats swarming it.

Her against Them.

If she were to say no, it left space for him to disagree, escalating the scene into a situation that felt more severe, difficult to compact.

The spandex of her shorts had already worked its way into her crotch. She could feel it dampening with sweat. All of her was sweating, a bead running down her chest and absorbing in the stretched fabric of her shirt.

Sarah thought about Wray, what she would do. Wray, who started selling her underwear to customers, carrying used panties in her apron during her shift, then handing them off at the very end, wrapped in a brown bag. It was so indiscreet it almost drew attention.

Don’t you get worried? Sarah asked.

Worried? About what?

I don’t know, what if one of them starts stalking you?

For a couple hundred, they can stalk me all they want.

Sarah already knew Wray would let this man get in the car with her, allowing him to do anything he wanted. Wray would visualize the profit in the future, outweighing the pros with the cons.

Sarah tried to play the scenario out in her head, but couldn’t think clearly, flashes of fear muddying it. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, but she couldn’t place her finger on a time when she had experienced it before. There was a blockage that felt physical as if parts of her mind were completely inaccessible.

The journals she had edited, blacking out text in storm clouds of ink. Sometimes small blocks, and sometimes entire pages. She had no memory of it. But that was the point, wasn’t it?

The man walked closer to her, closer to the car that belonged to Sarah.

If she were to write down this moment, she would redact it immediately.

’This your car? He asked again.

Her hand closed around the handle. She was careful to not break eye contact. In a single motion, Sarah jumped into the driver's seat and peeled away without her headlights. She couldn’t see, adrenaline filling her ears, burnt rubber stinging her nose.

Her hands shook even after he disappeared from view. She escaped from something that had never become anything. It was silly to be so frightened. She went over the moment once more in her mind, a short conversation with a customer she knew. That’s all it was.

Sarah felt instantly better, unsure why she skipped her shift the next day. And then the day after that, and the day after that. She ignored her manager’s texts and calls until she eventually blocked the number. It felt illegal, how easy it was to avoid people if you put your mind to it.

The only thing Sarah awaited was a text from Wray, keeping her phone face up on different surfaces, checking it repeatedly after random spurts of time had passed. It never came. It was as if Wray had known all along that Sarah’s presence was temporary, aware of an inevitable ending before it began.

When Wray’s name appeared in the paper, just below the fold, Sarah had already stopped thinking of her. She even blocked her number to eliminate the possibility of any future contact. The action came with an instant sense of relief, transforming the situation into a decision that Sarah had made rather than something that just happened to happen.

But as Sarah first read Wray’s name, she devoured it with hungry eyes, a swarm of sentences that she didn’t process until after it was over.

Wray had been arrested. Not for anything that she had done, but for her position around people who had done something. Two men, each with illegal firearms. They stormed a gas station, holding up a woman at the register. There was a grainy security camera photo next to the story, their stances mirroring each other almost exactly.

Wray wasn’t pictured. She had been in the car, which also held cocaine and heroin and a jumble of pills Sarah didn’t recognize the names of. Sarah had always assumed Wray was addicted to something, it seemed like a foundational part of her personhood, but she had never considered what it was she had been addicted to.

Wray had met the photographed men at the Purple Parrot, where she started working. Even through the faded image of the paper, it was palpable how off the Richter Scale they were. Did Wray not see how it would end with these men? Couldn’t she visualize their demise? Why had she allowed it to play out? Or was it something else? Was she scared for the first time in her life?

They were questions Sarah would never receive answers to, only guessing blindly at the negative space between their lives, the parts Sarah purposefully thought around.

He returned for a third time. Sarah looked at the name on his credit card after his last visit, but she had forgotten what it was. It was a detail she pretended to know, standing under the gently tornadoed air from the fan above her.

I’m practically a regular now, he said.

You’d be my first.

He looked doubtful, squinting at her. The beginnings of wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes. No Botox. I doubt that.

I’ve only worked here a week.

Oh. He paused. Then I’m honored to be your first.

Sarah swallowed and wrote down his order, a formality that they were both aware was arbitrary. Privately, she wondered if he could tell she didn’t belong in a place of this caliber, if he had seen her enough to know her existence was that of an outlier.

When Sarah gave him the check, she could tell he was gearing up to address her in a way he hadn’t before. His posture was straighter, the flyaways in his hair had been tamed as if he splashed sink water in the bathroom during the intermission of Sarah tending to surrounding tables.

Here you go. Sarah slid it across the table, purposefully releasing the silver tray lined with the receipt just as he began to grasp it.

Oh, thanks. He dropped his card in the center. Hey, before you go.

Sarah had already started turning away but stopped. She raised her eyebrows, another polite smile on her face. It wasn’t unfriendly, but didn’t welcome any statement that he had planned.

I feel like this might sound weird, and if it does, you can tell me to fuck off.

Sarah stiffened, her tongue pressing to the roof of her mouth. She felt sorry for this man, who didn’t know the world like she did. He thought he could act in a certain way and achieve a desired result.

If I gave you my number, would you use it? He laughed, running his hand along the beginnings of stubble. Like, if I wrote it down, that wouldn’t be presumptuous? I don’t want you to think I’m like that. You know.

Presumptuous. The word was large in the small space between them.

Sarah never broke her polite smile, one hand tucked neatly into her front pocket. Presumptuous? That was all she said.

Yeah, like, he trailed off. There was no plan for this sentence, for their interaction at all. I would like to take you out, but I don’t know if it’s really something you would be interested in.

When she looked at him — really let her eyes meet his — she could see the shards of life again. He was a stranger, someone she didn’t know and had no intention of knowing. But something had occurred in his own life, fragmenting it in a way that could unite them in a different lifetime if she were anyone but herself.

I don’t really know you at all. Sarah gave him a forgiving smile, a polite exit to the conversation that never should have begun.

But you could, he looked overly enthusiastic now. His canines were hidden, his eyes puppy-like and eager to please.

Sarah purposefully looked out the windows, passed the squared shrubbery and onto the greenery of the golf course. The sun was too bright. She stared into it, letting it burn a hole into her vision that remained even when she closed her eyes.

A sodium flash of her mother. The curdled air of the trailer. Strangers' hands on her thigh. Her pinkened skin in the bathroom. The text from Wray that never came.

Without thinking, Sarah spoke. Depends if the price is right.

His reaction was visceral, his eyes suddenly distant and his smile erased as if it had never been there at all. She wasn’t serious. Was she? Sarah searched her mind, what was left of it.

Out of habit, she winked, trying to make a joke out of something they both knew she meant. Suddenly, she felt the urge to apologize. She was sorry, but for what?

Sarah wasn’t sure.