The bar, moderately crowded for a Wednesday night, was one of those dimly-lit, shabby-chic places which pretended very hard not to care about decor, and through this pretension— you couldn’t escape pretension, not in Brooklyn— exposed itself as caring far too much. Chintzy, mismatched couches and fading brocade wallpaper, flickering candlelight pooling on tabletops; the atmosphere brought to mind a 1920s Paris artists’ salon, or an intimate underground speak-easy. Julius thought it was nice, if a little on-the-nose, a little too intentional— even though the furniture did look authentically rescued off the curb. He was here with Greta, a horsey girl from Berlin with a fabulous Marlene Dietrich voice, her peroxide hair dark at the roots, the two of them leaning lazily against the wooden lip of the bar and talking, Julius accompanying his recap of the weekend with an abundance of hand gestures while Greta smoked (surely not allowed, given that they were still in modern-day New York and not whatever chapter of the past this bar seemed stuck in; yet, no one had stopped her). Now she was telling him about her boyfriend’s new experimental film, or maybe Julius was still recounting an episode of drama from a recent party. It was hard to tell where one voice in the conversation ended and the other began, amidst the overlapping chatter of the bar. “I mean, to confront me in front of everyone like that is bold. I’ll give credit where it’s due,” he was saying, turning to retrieve the drink a bartender had placed on a cocktail napkin behind him. “But actually asking me to change my review? That’s like groveling to a teacher for a better grade. So undignified.” One sip and he grimaced, holding the glass out and eyeing it suspiciously in the bar’s muted light. This was not the Negroni he’d ordered. With a frown and a sharp complaint at the ready, Julius turned to confront the bartender— then saw his drink, sitting on the bar, a few inches away from the damp napkin where he’d evidently stolen someone’s unsuspecting wine spritzer.
Now frowning in a different way, more puzzled than annoyed, he looked to his left and caught sight of who the stolen drink must belong to. He blinked, then stared. Who was this girl-child? She looked to be of some indeterminate age between fourteen and twenty (though even twenty seemed like a stretch), with flaxen hair, doll blue eyes. Like some porcelain shepherdess come to life off the shelf. “Do they not card at this place?” he asked, openly incredulous. “Are you even old enough to be in here?” Next to him, Greta ducked her head out to get a better look. “Maybe she has a good fake,” she suggested in her husky, slightly-flat voice, both amiable and indifferent. In Germany, children probably drank Weissbier at breakfast. Julius narrowed his eyes disapprovingly, then replaced the offending spritzer on the napkin and slid it across the lacquered surface of the bar in the girl’s direction. “I’m not going on record saying that I approve of serving alcohol to minors, but here, you can have your watered-down Riesling back. Barely touched my lips. And I don’t have mono, Scout’s honor.” Not that he’d ever been a Boy Scout, but whatever.
