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Laurie was waiting tables that evening, not behind the bar, so she couldn’t slip me something on the house. I was feeling rich, though, and I was thinking about buying myself another when the man sitting next to me turned and started to speak.

I saw you just now – he said. – Singing. That was you, wasn’t it?

I nodded.

Yes.

I waited for him to say something else. They always wanted to say something else, the men who spoke to me. Normally something along the lines of how beautiful my singing, or I, was. Or sexy. They were normally split roughly down the middle on whether beautiful or sexy was more appropriate. Or something about how one of the songs I’d sung had brought them right back to a time when they’d done something-or-other or been somewhere-or-other, or else some story I couldn’t usually follow about how my voice reminded them of their ex-girlfriend or their estranged first wife or their mother.

This man didn’t say anything, though. He nodded too, and went back to studying his drink, sloshing the liquid around, looking into the bottom of his glass. I started to feel annoyed.

What did you think, then? – I asked.

Yeah – he said. – It was good, I guess.

Right.

Honestly?

Not my kind of thing.

Oh.

He fell silent again.