‘What can I getcha?’ he mouthed over the muffled noises that passed themselves off as music, the notes spilling into the necks of the red-walled space that was decorated to resemble a bar. It was a nicer bar than the average hole in the wall, where people liked to gather and spend time with friends, or their sorrows, on the occasion the sorrowful finds it favorable reprieve from the alternative.

Hair stretched back into a tight bun, a rich shade of red perfectly painted on her lips, he watched her nails on the chipped lacquered wood beneath her fragile hands, waiting. The gloss of the peachy french tips made the sheen of the old bar look sad and worn.

‘I’m sorry, one second,’ she flashed with her eyes, returning to her pouch by her side, fingering gently for something missing. Her small shoulders shifted slightly, her whole being at that moment more like a lost creature than a woman who belonged in that moment.

‘Sure no problem,’ he carried as he walked away. Having determined with a quick sweep of his eyes no one else at the bar required anything he could provide, he leaned himself into the corner and waited. He liked the slow nights, at least every once in a while. Standing still for a moment, it was his own private show.

‘LAST CAAALLL!’ the stout girl-woman yelled from the end of the bar, returning almost immediately to her awkward bent bobbing, thrusting glasses into a pool of unseen water. She could have been 23, or 28, or a young 35. Her breasts waved from beneath her low-cut tee, two large bowls of fat cradled together, strapped in from beneath. One couldn’t see her face without also seeing her breasts, and so they became all there was to see when most people saw her.

The bartender continued from his leaning perch, watching the couple at the end of the bar flirting helplessly in the cloud of their drunk, tumbling towards the nearing end of tonight’s party for two. Waiting for a sign that the perfect bun and red lips would need something, he flicked at his phone and paced the bar once before returning to her still distracted gaze.

‘What can I getcha?’ he tried again, friendlier, but with an undertone to hint this might be her last chance. He congratulated himself for his subtly; a friendly yet firm reminder all in one simple breath. Again she paused, and again he measured her gestures, the length of time she put between them making the seconds feel like slow motion.

The couple at the end of the bar shrieked and the breasts paused their bouncing, reaching for a rag and gently swaying as the large girl-woman continued her cleaning, making her way down the bar towards the quiet standoff.

‘Do you have Prosecco?’ finally aligning herself upright, towards the bar. Smiling, he bent and turned backwards, opening a cooler and retrieving a bottle. The breasts danced momentarily between them, the large girl woman washing in a rhythmic motion like a street cleaner, breaking their path, offering a brief glance and pouted lips as condolences for her interruption.

‘Sure,’ he said, reaching for a glass.

‘I don’t like to drink alone,’ she said, checking his eyes for meaning.

‘Oh, well’ he wondered what else she could have intended by coming in here alone, ‘it looks like there’s only a glassful left.’

‘Then we’ll share it.’

He poured two small, yellowish fuzzy glasses and, setting hers gently in front of her, raised his glass in a toast.

‘To the New Year,’ she said. ‘It must be a new beginning somewhere.’