I run into Fran at the bathroom steps. "Hey, Fran!" I exclaim.

"Oh, Aaron. Hi," she says.

"How are you?"

"Oh. I'm, uh, okay. Yeah, I'm okay. How are you?"

"I'm fine, fine. How are you... uh... liking the show?" Fran sort of shrugs and I say, "Yeah, me too."

"Yeah, um," she says, "Well, I better..."

"Hey Fran," I say, touching her arm as she starts to walk. "Whaddya say we ditch the show and go get some food?"

"Oh," she says, looking up the stairs. "Um, some food?"

"Yeah, there's a diner across the street and, you know, this whole scene's starting to give me a big fuckin' headache. Go split some fries. You know, like that one night..."

"Yeah, well, um, you know, actually, I still owe Deb a drink from before and I'd feel really guilty if I ditched her right now..."

"Oh." I pause, now finally realizing what I'm doing and feeling pretty stupid, tell the truth, getting unceremoniously rejected on the stairs of this club bathroom. "Well. Yeah. Another time."

"Uh, yeah, okay," she says, then pauses. "Where's, um, Barb?"

I pause again. "She had to go home. She wasn't feeling well."

"Um, okay," she says, "Well, I'll talk to you later," she mumbles, walking up the stairs.

I just stand there a moment, beating the back of my head against the wall. Stupid. Stupid stupid. Finally I get ahold of myself, start heading downstairs to go shake my useless thing over a porcelain bowl for a minute or two.