Marc figured the girl was a vegan. Her puke had overflowed the sink and run onto the floor—tomatoes and rice marinated in microbrew lager. He’d told Vegan Girl to slow down, but her friends had won the turning-21-peer-pressure battle. Admittedly, Marc hadn’t made much effort. With twins being induced Friday and the bar’s account balance looking like his teenage allowance, he’d kept filling glasses and the cash register until Vegan Girl filled his back-bar sink. The blotchy red cheeks showing through her all-natural, organic, paraben-free, handcrafted save-the-fucking-whales makeup announced the bathroom was not an option, so he’d told her birthday friends to aim her there. Her aim was as effective as a political compromise and just as messy.
Then he’d kicked them all out.
The puddle was so wide Marc had to go through it to escape from behind the bar to the janitor’s closet. He tiptoed past some Roma puree and over sour, bloated, maggot-looking grains of rice, then his shoe began to skid. He nearly fell but caught the bar with one hand, wrenching his shoulder. His other hand went directly into the spew-spackled sink. His head whispered just past the sink’s corner.
Fuck.
There was rice under his nails.
He headed to the men’s room past the wall of ’80s memorabilia and pastiche he’d scrounged from garage sales and scrubbed all the way up to his elbow—twice—swearing the whole time. He should have invested in rubber floormats behind the bar, but it was absurd how expensive those
