new york | the stranger, the better

new york city | november, 2003

"Fuck," It was good to be home.

Francis sidestepped a pile of trash on the street and pulled his coat closer around him, ignoring the yelling from the man crouched near the bottom of the steps of brownstone nearest who was clutching an obvious brown paper bag. It was the culmination of all the things that he loved the most about New York; angry people, no semblance of niceties just for the sake of them, culture. The city wasn't home, not really, but he was planning on making it that for the night. On Thanksgiving Eve.

He couldn't tell if it was actually colder there than it had been in London, but it was certainly less wet. He could tell the tumultuous night sky was threatening snow but it was unlikely given the time of the year. Without even having to think, he followed the same path from his old apartment to the regular bar that belonged to his friend Mike and was home to many a night that he'd long forgotten. There was a new ostentatiously fancy looking cafe on the corner that threw him off briefly, but Frank continued on after a few choice words.

Inside it was warm. Warm enough that it took him a moment to properly assess the situation. The place was filled (suspiciously so) and he didn't recognize a single face. Ten years ago it would have been all people that he knew stuck to the side of the bar and talking shit. This crowd was— well, significantly younger than he remembered. Frank pushed back his hair from his forehead as he shrugged off his jacket. "What the fuck," He muttered to himself distractedly as he wandered to the bar and ordered a beer.

"Mike around?" The bartender let him know (as uninterestedly as humanly possible) that he was upstairs and that he'd be down soon. Frank was quickly sucked into a crowd of kids slurping through straws their bright blue Long Island somethings. Without thinking, he sank into a booth with a heavy sigh, only realizing it was inhabited after he'd already made himself quite comfortable. "Sorry, this one is reserved," He lied, giving the woman a quick glance over before looking again to the stairs for a sign of his friend.

@Cathy Neeley

Cathy wasn’t going home for Thanksgiving. Not talking to her family was pretty satisfying on its own, of course, but there hadn’t been a major holiday yet since she’d been in New York. Aside from her eighteenth birthday, maybe…but she didn’t have to reach out to anyone for that, and getting cards in the mail had just been kind of sad. This was different. She relished the thought of being conspicuous by her absence. ”Cynthia, where’s that charming Cathleen?” “Oh, did I not mention? We drove her away by refusing to treat her with kindness and understanding.”

Whatever. It was an unconscionable, historically revisionist holiday anyway. And she didn’t even like turkey.

Her dad had written to tell her how nice it would be if she came down for the holiday, and how much her mother would like to see her, which made her certain that he’d written without her mother’s knowledge. Her poor dumb dad. Every time he tried running interference all Cathy could think was how exhausting it must be. If she were him she’d have run away with a hot secretary years ago. But of course, his letter started getting her all conflicted about it, so she did a special eyeshadow look that took an hour and a half and went out to party. Or to sit around drinking, as it turned out. Everyone else she knew was home with their stupid families. She ought to start making friends with more orphans, she thought.

A long-haired man sat down across from her, which Cathy did her best to not be visibly surprised by. Obviously she was in no mood to discourage the attention of strangers—at least, she wasn’t until he opened his mouth.

She smacked her lips off her cocktail straw and narrowed her eyes, affronted. “Doesn’t have your name on it,” she replied, acidly, to the stranger.

What a headache.

Francis scanned the small but demanding crowd all of whom he could only assume were on some underage quest for cocktails served in plastic cups that held as many different types of liquor as possible, with a splash of cranberry. A particular memory from his twenties related their own version of blue Long Island Iced something came to mind. He shuddered, then turned back to the stranger who was holding his gaze in a way that he found unnerving.

He’d kind of expected her to just get up and leave, his unbridled off-putting nature usually did the trick, but she wasn’t budging.

Frank let out a sigh before pulling the bottle of cheap beer to his mouth— definitely not an attempt to bide his time, he reminded himself as he settled back into the booth smugly. He wished more than anything that he could point out his name etched into the worn, yet somehow still overpolished tabletop, but no such luck. He was sure he'd left traces of himself there over the years but he would be hard-pressed to find any of them at present.

"Alright, fine, I'm just avoiding—" He conceded as nonchalantly as he could muster, just as the sound of a drunken happy birthday cut through the top hits pumping relentlessly through the bar. "— fucking fantastic," Frank perked up slightly, nodding to where the crowd had started to pool together. "Better go join your friends," He almost grinned. "Sarah's waiting," He cooed over the end of their cheers. He thought he might like to suffer alone more, but there was a part of him that was curious about his new angry companion.

The stranger appeared to be dismissive, and probably a misogynist, which was sort of disappointing given how bored and under-appreciated Cathy had been feeling. She’d worn a super hot dress. Done her makeup perfectly. And the first man to talk to her not only didn’t have the good grace to make a move, but treated her like a foolish annoyance? Bullshit.

She pushed her straw around her glass and considered. Maybe someone to be rude at would do just as well to get some frustration out. “I don’t know Sarah,” she said—which was a lie, of course: like anyone in the United States she’d gone to school with several. But she wasn’t here with any of them, so her point stood. “Wish I did, though. I’d rather sit with her than you.”

It was a magical bar popular among the youth, so naturally most of the people here had gone to Ilvermorny a few years or so ahead of Cathy. She wouldn’t admit it, but the man had a point. She probably should have joined them. But she wasn’t really here to have fun, was she? There were times when one went out to have fun, and times when one went out to be mysterious and depressed, and this was very much the latter.

That sounded like something she had in common with this asshole. “Avoiding what?” Cathy asked. “You talk to Sarah like she was a stupid kid too?”

"Well..." Frank gestured to where the not-so-mysterious Sarah in the birthday sash and tiara was draped over two of her friends as they hit the final, ear-shattering, notes of Happy Birthday. He meant to ask 'so, what are you waiting for' but thought better of it at the last minute. The two of them were at a standstill, unwilling to admit they while they seemingly didn't want each others' company, the prospect of anything else was far less palatable.

A death you don't know is worse than the one you do Francis reminded himself darkly— something his uncle had said far too regularly to be normal.

In truth, he was impressed by the effortless anger she was able to point in his direction. "No," Frank stated plainly. "Didn't get the chance to," If he had, he might have, he figured, spoken to her like she was 'a stupid kid, too'. "But, for the record, I talk to everyone like this," He said over the lip of his ber before taking a swig, eyebrows raised slightly yet still marked with an air of nonchalance. Frank wasn't particularly skilled in making pleasant small talk with strangers.

"So, what's your deal then?" Clearly, neither of them were giving up their staked claim on the booth so he might as well kill time, Frank figured. The blonde wasn't there for the party, and no greased back man had come up to pull Frank away, so there had to be more to the story as to why she too was there alone.

He talked to everyone like this. “Charming.” She also talked to everyone like this, of course. Customer service may have tempered her on the job, but she found herself being angrier outside of work as a result. But she was a cute girl and thus more charming by default. It never struck her the same when men were mean. That was a lot to accept from some idiot who only shaved his chin.

Occasionally she made exceptions if they were funny about it, or at least fun to be mean back to. This guy was showing shades of the latter, but Cathy was going to reserve her judgment.

She took another sip and looked back at his weird, big-nosed face. Would her friends would think he was good-looking or ugly? Cathy usually liked to confer before committing to an opinion. How were adults supposed to get along without yearbook photos to judge each other by? It wasn’t like he was a guy so it didn’t really mean anything—but she still felt like she should consider the matter.

He asked her her deal. “My deal?” Cathy repeated. As if what she were the one getting in strangers' faces. “I’m at the bar. To get drunk.” She probably sounded very drunk, but was drunk enough not to notice. “Do you have a deal?” she asked. “If all you do is show up places and be rude I don’t know why you go out at all.”