Apron Strings

I hear the glass shatter before I can spot the patron at fault. I am ringing up Eddie – old, ruddy cheeks, always a whiskey neat – so my back is to the bar. When I started here I could feel people’s (usually men’s) eyes on the small of my back, where my apron string was tied in the space between my cami and my jeans. Low rise, a personal favorite. I’ve worn them long enough to see them go out of style and back in, which isn’t saying much given the shelf life for fashion trends. Dad’s agent – Delia, curly hair, Churchill martini – once told me they looked stylish on me because I’m skinny, and everything looks good on skinny people. I told her that’s exactly the kind of remark I’d expect from a woman who finds value in a martini without vermouth. She never laughs, but I always do. As if a drink named after some English political freak isn’t enough to be embarrassed about she’s gotta follow it up with an appearance judgement. At least I think Churchill was English, wasn’t he? I don’t know, lore is that mom once told dad the point of being American is so we didn’t have to know things like that. 

That’s how it all started, apparently she met my dad because he and his mates came here and they ended the night fucking on this bar. When patrons ask me if it’s true I usually tell them it was the night I was conceived so I can watch the whites of their eyes stretch. It’s mostly true – except he’s my step-dad – which, like, whatever. Everyone thinks it’s romantic that he bought her this bar for their tenth wedding anniversary. I tell them it’s weird they drink off the very wood that collected my mom’s ass sweat while my step-dad came inside her. That comment almost always gets a tip. Shock value has legs. 

I return Eddie’s credit card stacked on a tiny clip board and fish a pen from my apron. He mutters something about what a sweet girl I am, and I don’t have the energy to be angry at the misgendering. Drunk people, drunk regulars most of all, can’t be bothered to reliably sign their own names, forget the proper usage of words like “they” and “them.”

It’s clear who broke the glass by the silent mouths and lifted eyebrows from the quad in the corner. Probably college age or freshly out, like me. Old enough to possess the nuggets of maturity required to own up to the blunder, young enough still to cause it. Without averting my gaze I reach into the alcove by my end of the bar and pull a broom and dustpan pair from its nail on the wall. I contemplate handing it to them. Clean your own glass shards. This is life. Figure it out. But I don’t.

The one with red hair and frilly socks sputters a series of apologies – for the glass, the inconvenience, the fact that I have to clean it up. I bite my tongue so I don’t have to say: I’m sorry I have to listen to you crone. A bloke – and I shouldn’t assume bloke, but go with me – with a feather tattoo on the side of his neck ushers the rest of the group away from where I’m bent over and sweeping. The gap between cami and low rise is at its widest.

“Erm, sorry about her,” a pair of close-toed Birkenstocks appears just out of reach of the wineglass’ stem. “It’s her birthday, and she’s had a real hell of a year…”

“It’s a bar, glasses break.” 

The shoes stay planted. “It looks like–”

“It looks like what?” I snap my chin up for eye contact. I’m met with pale blues, the beginnings of a mustache, and the frills of the feather tattoo disappearing into a mullet. 

“It looks like you’re…um…too pretty to be the girl behind the bar?”

The comment is predictable, but the brogue that delivered them is disarming to the point where I forget I’ve been misgendered. 

“Irish, huh?”

“What gave that away?” the answer is accompanied by an eyeroll, and the beginnings of a smile. It’s our first break in eye contact.

“Is that why you have potato shoes?”

“My what?”

“Your shoes,” I say, flipping my hair behind my back so it collects by the apron string. “They look like potatoes.”

Toes wiggle under the fabric. “I suppose they do.”

I sweep the last of the glass into the dustbin and make my way to standing. “An Irish boy wearing potatoes. It’s cute. You never know when the famine will come back!”

I turn on my heel, leaving him in a jaw dropped lurch. Was I flirting? Was I being a cunt? He’ll never know.

“Hey!” I think I hear him yell, but I don’t bother to check. I empty the glass in the wastebasket behind the bar and take stock of what’s happened in my absence. A pair of polo shirts leans forward. I bet anything are about to order two beers.

“Yo, Morticia Addams!” The taller one wrings his hand in what could be interpreted as a wave. I interpret it as unoriginal, misogynistic, typical.

“Never heard that one before,” I say without moving a muscle in my face.

“Ayyy, this one’s feisty!” He turns to his friend, thwacking his chest. They have lit up in the way only men who work in finance do when they desperately need to be pegged. “Can we get two Guinnesses?”

Before I can turn to the beer tap feather tattoo has pushed in between the need-to-be-pegged polo shirts.

“For the record..I’m not a boy.” Between breathless words their shirt has opened, and I see the purple of a top surgery scar. I’m a fucking idiot. Which is my least favorite thing to be, outside bartender or daughter of.

“Well, for the record, I’m not a girl either.” I say, hoping that counts for an apology. I would rather swallow all those glass shards dry than say the words I’m sorry. I feel like shit. This is inconvenient.

They hang their head. “Guess we both banjaxed this.”

“What does that mean?”

“We say it back home, it means royally fuck something up. Like, for instance, not recognizing your own kind out in the wild.”

In the wild. What I’d give to be in the wild, not perceived, not recognized, not mesmerized by the veins that circle the feather, not noticing the sweat on their brow. Not seeing the polo shirts behind them who look dangerously close to snapping their fingers at me to hurry up. Feather tells me their name – Rory – and I offer my own, Nes. Yes it’s short for something. No, I won’t tell them. No, they can’t buy me a drink. Hold on, I need to get these bastards their beers.

By the time I turn around Rory is gone, which is unfortunate because it reveals I was looking for them, which I don’t need to be doing right now. They’ve probably rejoined their frilly-socked friend. This is fine. I have other things to do. Eddie’s seat has been replaced by a newcomer. The Shiraz at the end will need to be refilled. A credit card on a clipboard demands my attention. I busy myself, and don’t notice when Rory leaves. After four beers a piece the polo boys leave me their number scrawled on the back of the bill. I crumple it and toss it in with the glass shards.

“We’re closed,” I call without looking up. Two more minutes and the wet streaks from my evening-turned-early-morning mopping would’ve been dry enough for me to traverse the bar and lock the door. Isn’t that how it always goes? I expect to hear an apology and the bell ring on the intruder’s way out, but I hear nothing. 

“I said we’re closed.” I turn and see Rory, potato shoes and all.

“Sorry,” They shift, studying my mop streaks. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

I tighten my lips. Maybe I don’t know what to say. I cannot say my fingers would have a field day in your mullet because then I might actually end up with my fingers in their mullet and all the proceedings that would get us there, and the headlines that would follow. Felgate Offspring Sluts Around With Other Gender Whackjob. 

“It’s funny,” they start. “Not to bring up the whole misgendering thing again, but isn’t it wild that the two of us are so stuck in a world where no one is like us, that we assumed the very shit about each other that we wish people didn’t assume about us? Like, how stuck around these cisgender freaks am I to where I’ve gone backwards?”

I don’t answer.

“Maybe you’ve got tons of rad gender anarchists around you or whatever, so maybe I’m making a full eejit of myself right now, but I think we got off on the wrong foot. The wrong potato feet if you will.”

This really isn’t that big of a deal, I want to say.  And not all of us want to be clocked all the time, even by other nonbinary people. I take stock of their open shirt, the fresh fade around the mullet, and wonder if they’re the kind of person who – and I shudder to think this – actually enjoys their expression, their presentation, and  wears their gender queerness as a statement. Top surgery as resistance to the state, mullet to honor the ancestors. Rainbow flags in their window and pronoun pins on their jackets. The kind of person who finds comfort in labels and talks openly about their feelings. A theatre kid or something. Loud.

I avoid people like Rory at all costs. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t make me go to a fucking parade. Don’t draw attention to me. It’s great that you like it, but I don’t. What you’re seeing isn’t a statement, it’s a middle finger and the instruction to stop perceiving me. 

“So,” they say, hands moving back and forth. “Maybe we could start over?”

“You want to start over at 3am?”

They look as if they’re sharing an inside joke with themselves. “I thought you might say that, so I kept talking myself out of coming here, which only made it later and later which made the problem worse and worse and now…here we are.”

I want to punch them with my lips. 

They take a step forward. “Plus, it’s kinda romantic to be in a bar alone at night…”

“Sorry, what?”

“I mean, it’s a romantic story, meeting alone in a bar after hours, don’t you think?”

My mouth turns to ash. Of course. “You think that’s funny?”

“Whoa, sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“You think I haven’t heard that joke before?”

They stop midstep. “What joke–”

“No, you need to listen to me. Because you really had me going there for a second. You know how many times someone has said some version of that line to me? Told me they’d meet me here after the bar closes, or that we should have our first date here or – worst of all – they straight up tell me they want to fuck me on top of the bar. Do you know how deeply fucked up that is? Imagine if everyone found out the story of how your parents met and used it as a pickup line. Like, how is that even supposed to work? I’m supposed to be turned on by the thought of my parents getting it on? Obviously that’s not gonna work, but people like you don’t think that through. You’re thinking about some romantic story you’ve fabricated in your head and you’re not actually seeing me as a human being. This has nothing to do with how we treat each other as a community or whatever pop psychology words we’re using to sugarcoat the fact that no one actually knows how to connect with each other anymore. But I’ll tell you one thing, using the playbook from my parents tired, old story sure as fuck isn’t the way to do it.”

My voice echoes through the empty bar, which tells me I was yelling. I expect Rory to make for the door, tail tucked between their legs, but they look at me like a five year old who was just told their birthday party has been canceled. They have no idea what I’m talking about. Fuck.

Their voice comes out small. “Listen Nes, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it seems like you’re really angry about something–”

“Shit, Rory I’m so sorry–”

They back up, hands lifted. “Honest, I’ve got no idea who your parents are or what story you’re talking about but it sounds like people have been treating you pretty shit. I’m sorry for that, but I was genuinely trying–”

“Rory, I’m so embarrassed can we please start ov–”

“It’s all good!” They’re almost to the door. “I’ll just head out and we’ll pretend this never happened, alright?”

I cover my eyes. The only thing worse than exploding at Rory would be crying in front of them. 

“Listen, ah, you have a good night.” I hear the door open. “And next time someone shows the least bit of interest in you, maybe don’t bite their head off.” Click.

The bar feels the largest it’s ever been, the stools are the ugliest I’ve seen them, the lights are the dustiest, the paint the worst color I can imagine. My streaks are dry. The dishwasher hums. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and hate everything looking back at me. I need a drink. I scan through the bottles, choose one, and set it on the bar. Probably the very spot this whole cursed story began. I pluck a wine glass and instead of filling it, I hurl it onto the floor. Glass sprays. I stare until I pull the broom and dustpan pair from its nail on the wall. Clean your own glass shards. This is life. Figure it out. 

I untie my apron string and bend over to clean up the glass in silence. I pretend the silence is peace.