“Sharon? Please, she’s older than I am.”
“So?” Lucia arches her eyebrow.
Natasha doesn’t have much to say to that. There's not much wrong with Sharon, but not much right with her either. Natasha herself hasn't hooked up in a long while. Earlier on in the year, she'd been on a few dates but it hadn't worked out. Since then, nothing.
Later that evening, Natasha meets Lucia at the club. Natasha’s dressed in a little black body with fishnets underneath. It’s probably not becoming for a woman in her thirties, but her body is toned at least. Lucia’s hair is pinned and coiffed into a 50s style bun, and she wears some heavy costume jewelry earrings with a skin tight black dress and long black evening gloves. The club is busy, but Natasha has to admit to herself that Lucia is right, they know most of the other queer women in JP. There’s obviously been a band, but they’ve missed them. On the low stage there’s a few guys zipping drums into bags.
"She's hot," Lucia says suddenly, tongue curling around her straw.
Natasha follows her eyes and sees who Lucia is looking at immediately. She's short and chubby, especially compared to Lucia. She's got messy purple hair and eyebrows to match. Her face is immaculately made up, with acid pink lips, a tiny eyeliner heart painted on her cheekbone and thick top and bottom lashes. The girl is wearing a slashed up old Jack Off Jill shirt, exposing a black bra and transparent plastic harness underneath. She’s wearing a skirt that looks home-made from scraps of plaid shirts and half a denim jacket. Around her neck she’s got a matching transparent collar with a large silver O-ring, and a long gold necklace trailing down to her stomach, ending in a Virgin Mary pendant. She’s cute, and Natasha can definitely see why she’s caught Lucia’s eye.
Lucia leaves Natasha on the dance floor while she goes to the restroom. She returns back and grabs Natasha’s shoulder to tell her to lean in and listen, “I saw the hot girl in the toilets,” she says, “I gave her a look, y’know, but she jumped a mile and scurried out.”
Natasha laughs and slaps Lucia on the back, “Unlucky, I’m sorry!”
Natasha goes to the bar and buys Lucia a beer with a shot of tequila on the side, and asks for a soda water with lemon for herself. She notes that the chubby girl that Lucia was eyeing up is in the queue next to her. Natasha probably shouldn’t say what she wants to say, but Lucia’s wounded pride is never going to get her anywhere, “My friend Lucia said that she tried to give you the look, but you thought she was mean-mugging you.”
The girl’s eyes widen. They’re big and blue, “Shit – yeah – I saw her. Who didn’t? She’s gorgeous, and I’m here like a trash bag.” The girl flaps the empty arm of the denim jacket sewn into her skirt.
“Nah, you look hot.” Natasha gives the girl her favorite look, three seconds of sustained eye contact and then a lingering look up and down with an even slower, toothy smile. The girl blushes, looks down and trails her finger through someone else’s spilt drink, making a pattern with it on the wooden bar.
Natasha looks down the girl’s freckled arm, “Wow, is that a Keith Haring tattoo?” She knows it is. It’s not like his dumpy little cartoons could be confused with anyone else’s work.
“Yeah,” The girl reaches up to her own arm and touches her tattoo. Her arms look so soft as she touches them, her fingers sink into the flesh easily. It’s a pretty tattoo, an even black outline filled with a red heart. “I love his work,” she says, “I’m Jacquie.” She reaches out and shakes Natasha’s hand with cold, wet fingers.
Lucia must have run into some friends, because Natasha and Jacquie end up talking by themselves for ages. Natasha is good at collecting both the most esoteric and the most mundane information from people. Natasha learns that Jacquie is also from Massachusetts, but now lives in New York. She’s back for a family funeral, which is tomorrow, but is spending the night in Boston so she can see her friend’s band. She’s got a proper job, she’s a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. She laughs loudly when Natasha asks if this is a fancy way of saying drug dealer. Natasha’s sure she’s not lying when she says no, it’s not. Jacquie’s an artist in her spare time and enjoys sitting in her window and sketching people on the street as they walk by. She also knows how to screen-print and would like to improve her sewing. Jacquie’s sweet and funny and Natasha finds herself leaning into her space, listening to her as she talks about her job and her art and her friends.
Lucia returns, and gives Natasha a mournful, betrayed look as she reaches across Natasha and grabs her beer. The bottle has warmed up in the time that it’s taken for Lucia to get back, and all the condensation has run down and made a puddle on the bar. Natasha offered Lucia’s shot to Jacquie a while back, she felt a bit silly with it sitting unclaimed between them.
Natasha tries to bring Lucia into the conversation. She tells Jacquie about Lucia’s burlesque performances, and how she makes almost all of her own costumes. That carries them through for a while, as Lucia tells Jacquie about sewing her own boning and the history of corsetry. Jacquie seems shyer around Lucia and although she listens to Lucia, her eyes flicker to Natasha more often than not. Sooner
