I Know What I'm Doing by Jen Kirkman Page A

Ryder?”
    He whispered, “Can you go and buy Daisy a drink? I’ll totally pay but she forgot her fake ID and I don’t want to go up there again with mine because I think I should lay low too.”
    First of all, how was I going to stand up and walk away with my intestines in my granny panties? And next—what am I? Some middle-aged guy who lurks outside of a liquor store in his hometown that he never left hoping some fledgling foxy high school girl will ask him to buy her some wine coolers? I looked over at Daisy. I figured now was a good time to introduce myself.
    “Hi, I’m Jen.”
    “Daisy. Hi.”
    “How old are you?”
    She smiled, “Nineteen?”
    “Is that a question?”
    Ryder answered, “She’s shy about her age. She doesn’t think people will take her seriously. But she’s an old soul.”
    Said the twenty-three-year-old.
    “Old soul.” What a meaningless expression. If Daisy were such an old soul she would be at home watching Jeopardy! repeats and then dying alone in her bed. I had no choice but to decide to be a good sport and get up from the table to get this brunette olive-skinned goddess her drink—mostly because the hot tears were starting to brew in the back of my eyes and I didn’t want Daisy to see me cry. It didn’t take a lot for me to cry in those days—a few drinks, feeling my extra forty pounds as I tried to cross my legs under a table, and the presence of young people who have their whole lives ahead of them. At the bar I ordered Daisy her vodka/soda. Maybe she was an old soul. She could handle the hard stuff better than I could.
    After my third glass of vodka, burnt sugar, and mint leaves I wanted to smoke a cigarette. Not just any cigarette. The one in Ryder’s mouth. I watched his lips around the cigarette the way us women think that guys are watching us when we eat a banana. I wanted to eat him. I wanted to open my jaw and swallow him inside of me until all that was left as evidence were his cheap sunglasses on the ground in front of me, and if Daisy later approached me and asked, “Where is my boyfriend?”—I’d wipe my paw over my mouth and burp. I took the American Spirit from his hand, pretending to be a free American spirit myself. I put the cigarette that had been on his lips to mine.
    “Damn, girl. I would have given you your own.”
    Ryder opened his pack and pulled out another. He lit up and started over.
    He said to me, “You’re aggressive.”
    I decided to act like my aggression was something that he was too young to understand—make it his shortcoming, not mine.
    “Ha, that’s just what women my age are like. You’ll see someday.”
    He stared at me. Daisy was back to texting on her phone.
    He shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I just don’t like when someone seems like they could be mean.”
    I backpedaled, stubbed out my cigarette, and dropped the older-woman-with-bravado thing. “Oh, I’m not mean,” I cooed. “I’m just a comedian.”
    “Well, I guess I’m just a musician. We’re sensitive.”
    Daisy tossed her phone down in frustration and burrowed her head into Ryder’s arm like a toddler who had missed her nap. There was some more burrowing, a hushed-tones consultation, and once again I was asked to move over—this time so that Daisy and Ryder could take their measly two-hundred pounds of combined body weight and breeze out of there like sexy shadows.
    “Nice meeting you, Jen.”
    “Yeah, thanks for the drink, Jen,” Daisy whispered.
    Sharon was already socializing around the bar. I remained at the table with Armen the Producer. He leaned in.
    “Can I buy you a drink?”
    “No. I have to go back home to my husband.”
    He said lasciviously, “I’ve seen you hanging out all night. You don’t want to go home.”
    Ewwww. I sobered right up.
    “Yes. I do.”
    There are never cabs to be found roaming Los Angeles but I walked outside as one was at the stoplight. I hailed it down and yelled, “Taxi!” When I got in, the cab driver