[Izulde]

87 Happy Birthdays and the Mocha Girl isn't one of them.

I'm surrounded by a gaggle of giggling girls that innumerable middle-aged men would give their left testicle to be with, and the Mocha Girl isn't one of them.

This is total love - when you have what so many would envy, and it all means nothing when The One is silent.

And so my replies are short. Clipped. The bargirls aren't getting the hint. Neither is Kenny, who told me the other night after he reamed me out for vanishing that he's become a manager for a series of bars like this one. He's working and trying his damnedest to make this a happy birthday for me. It isn't working.

Instead, I sullenly sip my Russian vodka - which I don't even like by the way, but I can never say no to people when I can't think of something on my own - letting the babble of broken English bubble about me. Winchester the weatherbeaten rock in the creek of cretinly chatter.

The Mocha Girl has my contact info. I gave it to her before she left. And yet, and yet, and yet.... nothing, nothing, nothing.

Kenny is pulling me off my stool now, ripping into me in a low voice because I'm being such an ass when he and the girls are putting their best effort and I'm Eeyoreing. I don't care what he's saying. I wish I'd never come here.

Then there's a commotion at the entrance to the bar. I'm not sure who's more surprised - the bargirls, the smattering of Eastern European customers (all men, of course), Kenny, or me.

After the din dies down, a figure in a vinyl yellow raincoat and yellow rubber gloves walks confidently in and pulls me from Kenny's grip with a stunning strength.

"Winchester's going with me."

"Um, what? Who the fuck are you?!" Kenny was already pissed but he's mottled red now.

"I'm sorry, but he has an appointment with me he missed and I don't want him to get charged more fees," Big Bird explains.

"Bull-"

"No, she's right, Kenny. It slipped my mind with the great time you all were showing me for your birthday." All lies, of course. I wonder why Big Bird is here. I *did* mention last time I went what today was and where I'd be, but it was just offhand as she was seeing me out the front door...

One of the bargirls breaks in now to say something clearly nasty to Big Bird in their language.

The hood turns and the reply is low, in the same language.

It take Kenny and four customers to hold back the mass of bargirls as Big Bird leads me out and into the night.