She clinks her shot against mine. “Happy birthday, lass. Drink up.”
I really shouldn’t, but . . . what the hell? Tomorrow is my birthday.
I drink the shot, and take a few long gulps of my beer to chase it down.
“Thanks, Greer.”
“Welcome. So, tell me about this very important interview. Is it for a post-doc position?”
A post-doc position? Oh, right, that bad job you get after your Ph.D. Biggest downside to the fake-student personality? Keeping track of my two lives.
“Nope . . . Actually, I’m thinking of going in another direction. It’s a job writing for a music magazine.”
“Well, well, the bairn’s growing up.”
Greer is always tossing out colloquial Scottish expressions like “bairn” (meaning child), “steamin’ ” (meaning drunk), and her ultimate insult, “don’t be a scrounger” (meaning buy me a drink, you miserly bastard). Depending on the number of drinks she’s consumed, it’s sometimes impossible to understand her without translation.
“Had to happen sometime.”
The bartender, Steve, brings us two more shots that Greer pays for with a smile. He only charges her for about a quarter of what she drinks, but since I’m often the beneficiary of his generosity, who’s complaining?
She pushes one of the shots toward me.
“No, I can’t.”
“A wee dram won’t hurt you.”
“There’s no way anyone actually says ‘wee dram’ anymore. That’s just for the tourists, right?”
“I canna’ break the code of honor of my country. Now drink up, lass, before I drink it for you.”
I upend the shot and nearly choke on it when Scott claps me hard on the back. He’s a history major I met about a year ago at, you guessed it, a wine and cheese. We bonded while arguing over who had deeper knowledge of U2 and the Counting Crows (me, and me). His athletic body, sandy hair, and frank face are easy on the eyes, and given our mutual single status, I’m not quite sure why we’ve never hooked up. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s twenty-two, which puts him on the outside edge of my half-plus-seven rule. (30 ÷ 2 + 7 = 22. A good rule to live by to avoid age-inappropriate romantic entanglements.)
Scott orders another round. When it comes, he slides shot number three my way. I protest, but he flashes his blue eyes and wide smile, and talks me into it. Into that, and the next one. When Rob and Toni arrive a little while later, they buy the next two. And when those are gone, the room gets fuzzy and I lose count of the drinks that come next.
The rest of the night passes in a flash of images: Rob and Scott singing lewd rugby songs. Toni telling me she had a pregnancy scare the week before. Me blabbing on about how I’m going to nail my interview tomorrow, just nail it! Greer Coyote Ugly–ing it on the bar as Steve plies her with more shots. Someone dropping me off at my door, ringing the doorbell, and running away giggling. Joanne looking disappointed and resigned, then putting a blanket over me.
I lie on our living room couch with the room spinning around me, happy I have so many good friends, and an awesome job waiting for me to take it.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I bring my watch to my face so I can see the glow-in-the-dark numbers. 3:40 a.m. I guess it’s today. Hey, it’s my birthday. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to me.
Credits
Cover design by Emin Mancheril
Cover photograph by a.collectionRF/Getty Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from SPIN copyright © 2012 by Catherine McKenzie.
FORGOTTEN. Copyright © 2012 by Catherine McKenzie. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST PUBLISHED IN CANADA IN 2012 BY HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-211541-6
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062115423
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