DOWN IN TOKYO

Okay, so maybe she'd been drunk when she'd asked the piano player at the Fifth Street Lounge out for a drink at Dark Horizons. But he WAS cute and he DID have a good voice and he played piano well and hadn't stabbed her when she hadn't known who ZZ Top was when her old deejay friend from MIT certainly would have. So... that was a plus? She didn't even know if she was really interested.

This was how Chris dealt with dating, really, dealt with nervousness and the damned dance of trying to pretend that you gave a shit -- not giving a shit at all. Kind of just picking a random thing and going with it. It never worked. She wasn't sure that she cared.

"Oh god, just something neon pink that isn't a fucking Cosmo. Put gin in it? I don't care," she told the barman. But he was used to these kinds of stupid demands.

"Date tonight?"

"NO. I mean yes. I mean, I'm stupid. I mean, whatever," she said, sliding onto a barstool. "I think we're just hanging out. I hope so. I was drunk."