Free The Same Woman by Thea Lim Page A

conversations, drifted and imagined herself floating peacefully in a green pond.
    Octavia sat beside her in the red plush booth and squeezed her arm.
    â€œI’m so happy that you’re back,” Octavia said.
    â€œMe too,” Ruby lied convincingly and squeezed her arm back. She wanted so much for it to be true. Where was Tariq, she wondered. In her dulled state she wanted to find him and give him a kiss.
    She got up from the booth, and considered drinking all the time. When she was tipsy the effort of pretending to be sober kept her mind off everything else.
    Before she left the city, she had been a regular at this bar. She had learned how to play pool here. She had kissed her first adult boyfriend in the stairwell by the bathrooms, and had never been able to walk down there since without remembering the breathlessness and the feeling of his forehead resting against her own for the first time. Two people were sitting on the stairs, which seemed like a bad idea in such a narrow staircase.
    Ruby kept walking. Two doormen were blocking the entrance, checking identification, even though almost everyone in the bar was over 25.
    â€œIs that Ruby?” One of them said. “Hey Ruby!” It was Yousuke. He had been a bouncer at the first bar Ruby worked at. He was tall and lean and beautiful.
    â€œIt’s so good to see you honey,” he leaned down from what seemedlike mountainous heights to kiss her on the cheek. “I didn’t even know you were back!”
    â€œYou know me, like a bad penny,” Ruby said, and immediately regretted it.
    â€œI saw Tariq a few minutes ago. You guys are still together?”
    â€œWay to cut to the chase buddy,” the other bouncer snorted.
    â€œOh well, you know, we weathered the storm,” Ruby cringed at her own words and asked herself why she couldn’t stop talking like a fool.
    â€œI guess it’s my loss then,” Yousuke said and winked at his co-worker.
    â€œIt was nice to see you,” Ruby said, relieved that she had finally said something normal.
    â€œYou betcha,” he winked at her this time and she blushed, slightly embarrassed to be attracted to such a “man”.”
    â€œI.D.s please.” Yousuke and his partner turned to check a group of three people who were coming in. Ruby glanced at them, and her bar-induced fuzziness stopped short. It was the boy who had danced across the café patio, Ronald, and Frankie.
    Tariq was sitting at a stool in the middle of the bar. The bodies around him formed something like a rugby scrum, except their object of attention was beer instead of a ball.
    He was watching an animated program playing on the TV set on the wall, trying to follow the dialogue by reading cartoon lips. Ruby pushed through the crush easily. She was extremely assertive when angry. Her chest and her cheeks felt like they were going to explode. Rage gushed inside her.
    â€œI’m going to throw up,” she said to him. He put his arm around her and pulled her body to him, “Did you have too much to drink?”
    â€œNo,” she said and her voice was so laden with enraged tears that she could hardly say, “Frankie’s here.” There was nothing to say beyond that. All the expletives in the world were useless tonight, too puny to convey her anger. When she did speak her voice seethed through her teeth, so soft that Tariq could not really hear her.
    â€œShe’s here for Octavia’s birthday. How fucking ridiculous is that? She’s not friends with her. She knew I would be here. She knew you would be here. I don’t know what she wants, I don’t even care, I justwant her out of my face.” And then she said, every word choking out of her as if each was a sentence on its own, “I. Have. Had. Enough.”
    Tariq looked over Ruby’s shoulder, scanning the room for his ex-lover. He found her with her face turned away from him, talking to a coiffed skinny boy