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The bartender’s been watching their group for the past fifteen minutes. Angelica’s not paranoid, she’s talked her way out of worse things and, frankly, he looks like the type to turn a blind eye to underage drinking. Most bartenders do, over siblings weekend.
They’ve dressed Peggy up a bit, anyway. Plum lipstick and a push-up bra, a dress that shows off her legs. The way she’s nervously shredding her cocktail napkin will give them away before her appearance.
“Stop that,” Angelica says, snatching what’s left of the napkin out of Peggy’s hand. She risks a glance back at the bar. Two of his friends have appeared, one almost comically taller than the other. But even as he pries off the lids of their beer bottles, he’s smiling past the smaller one’s shoulder, over Angelica’s own head. She follows his line of sight and lands on Eliza.
She can’t blame him, because she really is a vision tonight in her black slip dress and two-toned Chanel pumps. She’s catching up with a leggy bleach-blonde Chi Omega, all warm smiles and effortless grace, oblivious to the attention. Angelica sneaks a glance back at the bartender. He sees her looking, flushes, and his eyes flicker away.
Interesting. She passes a pint of Strongbow off to Peggy and crosses the room. He’s far more handsome, closeup, even a little familiar — she’s seen his photo, maybe, somewhere. Or maybe she’s been in this bar before, met him in a dreamy, alcohol-fueled haze. The baggy, plaid flannel and equally ill-fitting jeans don’t do him any favors — his frame is already so slight. But it’s the black hair tied into a loose knot, the long lashes framing dark eyes that, in the bar’s dim lighting, look almost black, the soft Cupid’s bow curve of his upper lip. Yes. His face is a memorable one.
“Relax,” she tells him, noting the way he anxiously drums his fingers along the wooden bar. She takes her seat on a stool next to his smaller, curly-haired friend. “I know you weren’t watching me.”
He gawks a moment, then smiles, in a way that makes Angelica’s stomach flip-flop. She doesn’t miss the look that passes between the bartender and the two men sitting next to her. And then the larger one is smirking, climbing off his seat and pulling the other away.
“I didn’t mean to creep you out,” he says, wiping his hand off on a dishtowel before offering it. “Alex Hamilton. What are you drinking?”
She smiles at that, shakes his hand. His name, too, isn’t entirely unfamiliar, though she can’t think of any Hamiltons worth knowing. “Angelica Schuyler. Nothing, now. But my sister loves Long Islands.”
“Which one?” he asks casually, scrubbing at a spot on the perfectly clean bar with the corner of his rag.
“The one you’ve been staring at.”
Alex looks up at her, a mischievous glint in his eye, almost eager. Angelica decides, then, she won’t make it easy for him. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the bar, lets her cleavage peek out of the top of her shirt.
“Something about you is familiar,” she says. Alex fills his cocktail shaker with ice, pours in some Cîroc, and shrugs.
“Maybe we have a class together.”
Angelica furrows her brow, a bit thrown off.
“Oh. Maybe.”
“You thought I didn’t go to school here,” Alex says, no heat behind it. Jumping to conclusions, passing judgment — she’s tried to stop that shit, but wonders if it’s just ingrained in her, now, despite her efforts.
“Sorry,” she says, sincere. That earns her a smile. “But, really. I know you.”
Alex garnishes the Long Island with an extra lemon wedge and starts on a second drink. “I have a byline every week in the Spectator. I work 13 hours a week at the reference desk — ”
Angelica mentally sifts through the pile of newspapers on her bedside table, a light bulb goes off. “Right, your full name. Alexander Hamilton. You wrote that editorial on PRWORA.”
He looks up from where he’s lining maraschino cherries on a toothpick, like a tiny kabob. “You liked it?”
“It was incredible,” Angelica says. She’d read it over twice, passed it to friends in class. “You’re right. It’s a slap in the face to single mothers. I mean, child care costs are astronomical, especially when you figure most of these women are stepping into low-skill, dead-end jobs. Not to mention the workplace discrimination...”
“Exactly,” Alex says, pointing at her with his cherry kabob. He stabs part of the toothpick into the lemon wedge to keep it from falling into the ice, nudges it toward her. “You seem like a Tom Collins type of woman.”
She’s indifferent — doesn’t have much of a taste for anything with sour mix. But she humors him and takes a long sip through the straw. A little tart. She’s had worse.
Alex nods down at the Long Island. The ice has already started to melt. “And your sister…?”
Angelica twists around in time to see Eliza turn back to her friends with a flick of dark hair. So, she’s been watching.
“What time do you get off?”
He checks a chunky black sports watch. The rose gold watch on her own wrist suddenly feels like it weighs five pounds. She puts her hand in her lap.
“Five minutes,” Alex says.
“I’ll introduce you.”
The sun is rising dark-orange when Eliza steps inside her building. She stares mournfully at the ‘Out of Order’ sign posted over the elevator doors. The stairwell will be chilly, but she has the ratty gray cardigan she plucked off Alexander’s closet floor wrapped around her bare shoulders. It smells like the bar — cheap beer and Old Golds. She’ll throw it in the wash before she gives it back to him — if she gives it back to him, that is.
She fingers a button thoughtfully and shrugs. It’d be an excuse to see him again, at least.
That’s not part of the plan , she tells herself as she kicks off her shoes and picks them up by the heels. She wore them on the subway and walked all of two blocks — she can afford to take them off now, carry them the rest of the way. The stairs are clean enough. She’s jumping right in the shower, anyway.
She hears chatter in the kitchen as soon as she pushes the front door open, cringing at the way the hinges squeak. The voices die down and she tightens the grip on her shoes, rounding the corner, jaw set. Might as well get this part over with.
“Look at you! You little tramp.”
Angelica grins, barefaced and clad in a silk kimono robe, perched on a stool along the counter of their half-wall kitchen. There’s a pottery mug filled with steaming coffee next to her elbow. It’s almost like she woke up early, just to be present for Eliza’s return. Peggy, standing over the stove flipping pancakes, looks her up and down, lip curled in unbridled disgust. That doesn’t bother Eliza as much — natural, from a 17-year-old girl who won’t even admit she’s done hand stuff with her lacrosse-playing high school sweetheart.
“As if you have room to talk,” Eliza reminds Angelica, dropping her heels by the sofa. She sits, tugs her dress down a couple inches and crosses her legs. “You’re both up early.”
“Daddy’s coming in around eight to pick me up,” Peggy says. “And you better clean up before he sees you.”
Eliza glances at the clock on the mantelpiece, self-consciously twirling the thin chain of her necklace around a finger. A little over an hour – she’ll be fine. He’ll think she just woke up. She presses her fingertips into the wood coffee table, over the spot where Peggy spilled her drink the night before. It’s not sticky. They’ve cleaned up any traces of the weekend’s festivities. Thank God.
“So what was he like?” Angelica asks with a suggestive wag of her eyebrow. Peggy turns back to the pancakes with an exaggerated gag. “Share. He clearly didn’t take you out for breakfast.”
“Probably couldn’t afford it,” Peggy snickers. Angelica doesn’t echo the laugh. Peggy shrugs and waves her spatula in Eliza’s direction. “I’d put that sweater in a garbage bag if I were you, or at least wash it. Bed bugs.”
“Peg,” Angelica scolds, twisting around in her chair. Eliza rolls her eyes and tugs the cardigan snug around her shoulders.
“He doesn’t have bed bugs,” she calls over her shoulder, making her way down the narrow hallway and into the bathroom. Or, at least, she’s pretty confident. People from all walks of life get bed bugs, she reminds herself. And his apartment was clean. Cluttered, but clean.
She closes and locks the bathroom door behind her and turns to the mirror. Not as bad as she thought. She tilts her head to one side and then the other – smudged eyeliner, a couple hickeys blossoming on her neck and above her collarbone. She sniffs a fistful of hair. A little musty. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a shower and a little cover-up.
A hard knock at the door makes her jump, banging her knee against the bottom of the sink, blind as she struggles to pull her dress over her head. She drops the dress on the floor and closes her eyes, taking a calming breath.
“What?” she asks, trying – and failing – to keep her tone even. She throws the door open and finds Angelica on the other side, a towel draped over one arm. Eliza lets her look – the kiss marks purpling on her breasts, a tangled bra strap. She thinks, maybe, it’ll cause a stir – that Angelica’s protective instincts will kick in and she’ll be reprimanded – chastised for something Angelica’s done proudly since her freshman year. But Angelica only grins and holds out the towel.
“You forgot this,” she says. Eliza grabs it and waits, senses there’s something more Angelica wants to say. “I wasn’t joking around earlier – I want some details.”
Eliza can’t help it – her head is pounding and the skin on her heels has peeled back from her too-small shoes, but her lips curl up in a smile, and then she’s laughing along with Angelica. The sleeve of Alexander’s cardigan, forgotten on the floor, catches in the door as she closes it on her sister and, as she pulls it out and dusts it off she thinks, maybe, she’ll run into him again.
If nothing else, he makes a good story.