I Love This Bar

With some of us showered and some of us not, we head out to the bar across the way. Close enough that no one has to call a cab, and even better, close enough to sneak out to use the bathroom at the hotel if the ladies room line is as long as it usually gets.

We are in luck. Arrive before the band takes the stage and the cover charge is imposed. Sweet. We head upstairs to the roof top bar to get cocktails and watch the sun set.

This bar used to be the magnet bar for young people when we were young people. Its property reached the dunes and and it had lots of outdoor space and took on the feel of a big beach bash. Then a few years ago, a competing bar with no beachfront space forced the city to enforce a code that disallows drinking on the beach, and the sandy yard by the open air bars was forced to close. It has never been the same.

Since then it attracts older people. Even a little older than us now that we are technically older people. It has finally become fun again. We have finally closed the gap a little between us and the crowd that goes there. No more 22 year olds. No more old fogies. Just us. In the middle. Dare I say, middle-aged. OMG. No, I won't.

We hear the band beginning to warm up and head to the first floor. Take up residence in the area perfectly situated between the bar and the dance floor. Most excellent. And most practical.

We run into some people Kate knows. One we've dubbed Bunny. As in Bunny-in-the-Pot Crazy. The other, Lady Liberty. I know we've been told her name a thousand times, I just can never remember it, the other details about her so overpowering. She's well over 6 feet tall, stunning, dated a famous now dead political figure, and we've never, ever, not even once seen her in anything other than a floor length gown. One that overemphasizes her boobs, but mostly by leaving the entire cross-strap of her bra showing in the back. Hooks and stains and all. Pretty.

We are making polite conversation, as best we can with Bunny and Liberty, when Kate appears next to me.

"I am about to be in a fight, I think."

And it's not even 9 o'clock.