Syrup by Maxx Barry

forth about her childhood and all the shitty men she’s ever known and end up in my arms attempting giggling, unsteady kisses. “Unless you feel you should. You know, to blow off all that crap at Coke.”
    “Coke is history,” 6 says shortly. “I’m thinking of the future.” She abruptly glances at the waitress, who is still hanging around. “Something you need?” 6 demands. The waitress blinks and snaps closed her little pad, then heads over to three men in Texas, who are demanding Lone Stars and making jokes about cowgirls. 6 turns back to me. “The smartest option now is consultancy.”
    I blink. “Really? With which firm?”
    “With no firm.” She shakes her head. “Scat, you need to realize that when the Coke story breaks, there will be no other option. It’s self-employment or nothing.”
    “Oh,” I say, feeling a little bleak. “Right.”
    “Obviously the soda industry is out. I’m thinking about entertainment. Maybe pop music.”
    “You, managing a rock band?” Somehow I find this a little difficult to imagine.
    “Packaging a band,” 6 says. “You buy a good, broke songwriter and match him to a group of sixteen-year-old boys with good skin. If you push them hard enough at the contract stage, the potential profits are enormous.”
    “Wow. You’ve got it all worked out.”
    “That’s where most of the packagers screw up,” 6 muses. I’m not even sure if she’s talking to me anymore. “They don’t twist the talents’ arms hard enough at the start. If you give the actors a cut of the profits, they start thinking they’re real musicians.”
    The waitress arrives with our drinks, dumping them indifferently on the table and heading off to Tennessee.
    “Well,” I say, holding up my glass, “to the future, then.”
    6 looks up, then nods. “To the future.”

the future
    “I guess we’ll need an office,” I say. “And for that we’ll need a bank loan. I don’t know about you, but my credit history isn’t exactly—”
    “Scat,” 6 says, looking at me oddly. “This isn’t something we can do together.”
    I stare at her. “What?”
    “I’m sorry,” she says. “You can’t work with me.”
    I’m stunned into silence, and when I do manage to speak, my words come out high and whiny. “But why not? I thought—”
    “Think about it, Scat. The only way to survive this catastrophe is to distance ourselves from it. And each other.” She sips at her cocktail.
    “But—6 ...”
    “I’m sorry,” she says again, and this time her voice is harder. “This is the way it has to be.”
    I don’t know what to do, so I stare at the table. I feel totally lost. Across the room, the Texans bray laughter. I reach for my scotch with unsteady hands, sip at it, then gulp the rest.
    “You’ll be all right,” 6 says. “Even if you have to get out of marketing, you’ll find something.”
    And that does it: suddenly I’m furious. I’m as furious as I’ve ever been in my life. Great, thick bubbles of rage burst inside me, spilling out everything I’ve kept pent up for the last week. “Oh. Well, gee thanks, 6. It’s so nice to have your confidence in me, after you’ve destroyed my career. It’s so great to know that after you’ve sucked me dry, you still think I can pick up a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s.”
    “Scat,” 6 says, faintly alarmed, “quiet down.”
    “Don’t you tell me to quiet down!” I shout. I lurch to my feet, failing to make the best impression because I’m still wedged between the booth’s fixed seat and table. “I’m through with listening to anything you’ve got to say! I can’t even believe I’m here with you now!” I grind my fists against my forehead. “The only reason I asked you out was because Tina wanted me to, and I’m sitting here”—yet another injustice strikes me—“drinking water with my scotch because I don’t want to offend you by drinking Coke! And you’re—”
    “Have Coke with your scotch,” 6 says. “I