A Story With a Girl Named Kay

The woman walked downtown, listening to Tom Jones on her iPod, humming along to one of her favorite songs. The bus she was waiting for stopped, and she got on. There was nowhere to sit, and the bus was crowded with standing people.

"Bugger," she muttered, wedging in between a fat guy and a middle aged woman.

The song ended, and a new one started. The woman checked the song. Humming along quietly, she tried her best to look out the window despite all of the people in the way.

The bus stopped, and the woman got out of the bus gratefully. Across the street was her favorite coffee shop, Melchester's. The only thing that bothered her about it was that there was no music. Sitting in a corner booth, she ordered a hot apple cider and then started to read from a small paperback book titled Paper Towns. She leaned back in the comfy chair. In this nice coffee shop, you could stay as long as you want.

Three hours later, the woman headed home. Since she couldn't catch the bus, she just walked the whole way home.

When reaching her apartment, she was almost too tired to climb up the stairs to her room. Still, she did so and flopped down on her soft couch. Her floor was littered with books. Recently she had a readathon, and didn't feel like putting them away. She had lots of books. The woman kicked off her shoes and searched for the TV's remote. Pushing aside the books closest to her, she found the remote. She turned on the TV to watch one of her favorite shows.

She lay there, and listened to the opening theme as she considered whether this is what she was going to do all night.

"I'll watch one episode," she thought aloud, "And then I'll call anyone and see if they want to hang out."

Halfway through the show she fell asleep. When she woke up, the TV was turned off and there was some clinking sounds coming from the kitchen. She got off the couch and went to the kitchen. "Hello?"

A short, pink-haired lady looked back at her. "Kay, you're awake!"

"What are you doing here, Raina?"

"I thought I'd stop by. Figured you'd be awake. Oh, well. The party is still happenin', and we'll be able to make it."

"I don't want to go to a party," Kay said.

"Well, then you better have some booze," Raina looked at her expectantly.

"I'll get my keys," Kay muttered, turning away. Raina squealed.

"I got the call for the party from Lou. She's already there, with Garret and Julian. Could you please put on something more suitable for a party? I mean, what you have on is cute, but we need a more 'here I am, talk to me!' look."

"Where's the party?" Kay called from the other room.

"At the pub downtown." Raina had bubblegum pink hair, pulled up in a curly mess of a ponytail. She wore her black mini dress on with high heels, and wore plenty of makeup. "Here, I know that you don't really have any party clothes, so I went shopping today and got you some."

Raina picked up three large plastic bags off the kitchen floor, struggling under the weight.

Kay returned with her keys, looking at the plastic bags skeptically. "Um."

"Here, try some on. I got you some really cute dresses."

After nearly an hour of trying on clothes, Kay finally settled with a dark green halter dress. Raina monkeyed with Kay's hair for a while before just leaving it as is, dark curls falling around her shoulders.

"Let's go," Raina urged.

Five minutes later they were at the pub, drinking Bloody Mary's as loud music boomed and people drank.

"Hallo, pretty ladies!" called out Garret, a tall man with blond hair. "Well, aren't you just looking downright fiiine!"

"Thank you," said Raina flirtatiously. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go pick up chicks." Raina turned away and walked over to a group of girls.

"Ah, Rain," Garret sighed. "If she wasn't a dyke, I'd marry her."

"Where's Julian and Lou?" Kay asked, but Garret was interrupted by their arrival. Julian had curly brown hair, and Lou was a pretty Asian girl with red hair.

"Nice to see you came!" shouted Lou as they came over.

"Raina dragged me here," Kay explained.

"Ah, well, go have fun. The more shit-faced you are, the better time you'll have!" Julian advised, walking away with Lou.

Kay stood there for a while, drink in hand. She sighed, looking around the room. "Now what?"

She heard Julian's loud laugh from across the room, mingled with the hubbub and voices of people. Kay felt terribly out of place. Her eyes wandered around the crowd. The bar was huge, with a staircase up to the next floor, where people could overlook the room below. The ceiling was really high. Kay sat down her drink and walked around. She was glad that she had chosen to wear flats instead of high heels. As she walked more towards the stairs, she heard a loud noise, a sort of crackling, and cries.

Kay turned to see what the commotion was, when she was pushed violently to the side. She vaguely heard a "Look out!" above the several yells. When Kay looked up from the ground and saw the giant hole in the ceiling, and the ginormous, shattered chandelier where she had just been standing, she put two and two together. The most unavoidable and surprising thing, though, was the man on top of her.

"Are you okay?" He breathed. She nodded, and he got off of her. He helped her up. The man was shorter than average, and had dark chocolate colored hair. The party resumed easily, while a bunch of drunks laughed and sat on the chandelier. Key brushed herself off. The guy let go of her hand after steadying her.

"Are you sure you're okay? No concussion?" The man asked, checking the back of her head.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Kay insisted.

"I reckon you need a drink," the man suggested, pulling her towards the bar. "Two Bloody Marys," he told the burly bartender.

"I'm fine, really," Kay mumbled.

"Oh, please, you were almost crushed by millions of glass shards. You do realize you are now in my debt." The man's beautiful yellowish brown eyes twinkled flirtatiously. "You could at least have this one drink with me."

"Two Bloody Marys," the bartender grunted, sliding over the beers.

"What nationality are you?" Kay asked curiously. Despite having a British accent, like everyone else in this area of this country, the man who saved her looked Indian. She took a sip of her drink.

"What an odd first question," he said, eyebrow raised. "I figured you'd ask something like, 'What's your name?', not that. More interesting, I guess. Is it because of some, ah, policy you have?"

"No, no, of course not," Kay said quickly. "I'm just curious."

"British-Indian, of Punjabi Sikh descent," he answered. "You?"

"British-Caucasian," Kay answered back in the same formal way. "And what is your name?"

"You first," he said, with a sexy smile as he took a drink.

"We're going to play it that way? Alright then. Kay."

The guy tilted his head slightly after a moment. "Are you going to tell me?"

"I did. It's Kay. K-A-Y. Not the letter," Kay said.

"Ah. Is it short for anything?"

"No, it's just Kay."

"Well, my name's Navin." Navin smiled and drank. Kay took a sip of her own, and pulled up a seat to sit down. Navin did the same.

"So, do you normally go around pushing people out of the way of falling chandeliers?"

"Mm, not usually." There was that sexy smile again. "I'm a doctor."

"I see," Kay remarked, not able to think of a more intelligent answer.

"What about you? Do you always go to parties that you obviously don't enjoy?"

"My friend Raina dragged me here," Kay explained. "And I enjoy parties...Sometimes."

"Well, I was across the room when that chandelier started to detached itself from the ceiling. Since no one else seemed to be sober enough to do anything, I pushed the poor person who happened to be under that falling chandelier. And now, nobody's injured."

There was a loud smash as the table next to them flipped over and a man rolled off, laughing and piss-drunk. "Dude, did you see that! He fell from the top floor!" someone yelled.

"Fatally, anyway," Navin added as an afterthought.

"Shouldn't you help him?" Kay asked, watching the scene.

"Nah, I'm off duty. Plus, being drunk makes you invincible."

"I don't think he'll feel that way in the morning."

"Yeah, well, you learn from bad experiences. If you never do anything stupid, how do you expect to learn anything?"

"I don't really put myself out there that often."

"Hm..." Navin said, looking around the room. "Then you'll just have to start now."

"What?" Kay said, surprised.

Navin turned to her and grinned. "You heard me. Let's put ourselves out there - carpe that diem."

"I'm not sure..."

"See, you're just out of practice. Let's go," Navin said enthusiastically. Seeing that Kay was doubtful, he added, "How 'bout we start out small? If we're going to do something really good, we got to get drunk as hell." He called out to the bartender. "Oi!"

"What?" The bartender grunted.

"Can you get us something that will get us really drunk in a good way, but sober enough to stay upright?"

"'Course. Ain't a bartender for nothin'."

"Excellent." Navin turned back to Kay. "So, before we get completely drunk, tell me a little more about yourself."

"I like to read...and drink coffee. I'm a chef," Kay added, not wanting to say anything stupid. Navin smiled in that sensual way of his, and took a sip of his beer. "What about you?"

"Hm. I don't have much hobbies. I can't sing to save my life, and I'm not into sports," Navin said thoughtfully. "Now that I realize it, I spend a lot of time at the hospital. I guess I just don't have much else to do.

"I guess the one thing I'm good at is creating mischief," Navin added as an afterthought.

"Oh really? You do that often?"

"Not much," Navin said as the bartender arrived with their drinks.

"Bottoms up," Kay said as they both took long pulls from their glasses. She coughed. "That's some strong stuff. Is it supposed to burn your throat like that?"

"That's how you know it's working," Navin said, laughing a little.

They sat there and just drank for a while, until all the glasses were gone.

"How do you feel?" Navin asked.

"Interesting," Kay said, and giggled. "What was in that?"

"I see you're drunk enough. Can I have another beer, Gil?" Navin asked, holding out his empty glass to the bartender.

"Two of those should of done the job," the bartender mused, confused.

"Yeah, well, one more. I'm starting to feel the buzz. I need to feel immune."

Navin turned to Kay, who was bobbing her head to the music.

"Okay, what are we going to do now?" Kay asked. Her words slurred a little, but she seemed stable enough.

Navin downed his drink in one pull. "Oh, I definitely feel that. Let's do this."

Navin started to sprint towards the staircase, and Kay followed as best she could.

"That was fun!" Kay said loudly over the noise after they had stopped at the top of the stairs. "Wanna race to that glass table over there?"

"I'm thinking," Navin said, and then laughed loudly. "Which is bloody hard to do when the booze starts to take effect!"

Suddenly Navin spotted something by the door behind them. Navin looked inside the door, which behind was a plain white room. Large, open cans of paint were scattered around the room. "I got an idea," Navin announced. "Follow me!"

Grabbing two paint cans and a few paint brushes each, Navin and Kay decided to make a game of it. Navin had the light green paint, and Kay had the blue paint. "Whoever paints the most things wins," Navin said, "But they don't necessarily have to be the walls."

"On the count of three!" Kay shouted.

"One!"

"Two!"

"Three!"

They ran down the stairs, and started to paint everything in sight. Navin started with the stair's rail, running down the stairs while painting.

Nobody paid any attention to them, and the people who did see them figured they were very drunk and didn't want to get involved. Kay and Navin laughed as they raced each other to paint as many things as possible. Kay started to paint the floors, because she could find nothing else. Navin started to paint over what Kay had already painted when Kay knocked him over, yelled "Cheater!", and went back to work. They were by the side of the room now that had the empty bar, the one that nobody used. Plenty of surfaces to paint!

"No I'm not!" Navin persisted. "The rules were to paint anything!"

"Not what has already been painted!"

"Fine then!" With a swipe, Navin brought the large paint brush across the side of Kay's green dress.

"I can't believe you just did that!" Kay yelled, though she was laughing very hard along with Navin.

"At least it matches!"

"Who the hell cares, Raina got this for me anyway! If that's how you want to play, then that's how we'll play!" And with that, Kay lunged at Navin, knocking them both to the ground, and started to paint him all over with her dark blue paint. She sat on top of him, while Navin tried in vain to get her off. He blocked his face, and when she paused for a moment, he rolled her off of him so he was on top then.

"There!" Navin yelled. His black leather jacket was now completely covered in paint, and his hands and arms were covered, as well, from when he had been protecting his face.

"Take that!" Navin started to paint Kay, and she squealed. "Get-off-me!" She laughed as he painted her arms and torso sloppily. As he dipped his paintbrush in the bucket of green, Kay stood up quickly to advance in attack. This would have worked, if not for the drinks she had consumed earlier. She fell to the side and was leaning against a wall, laughing.

"No more!"

Navin came and staggered over to the wall and slid down beside her. Breathing hard, they looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

"What are you supposed to be? The Jolly Green Giant's wife?"

"Yeah, well, I didn't know that you were a part of the Blue Men Group!"

They were still chuckling as they looked around the room to see the damage they had done. Because the majority of people were drunk, too, no one seemed to notice or care about the painted floor or the walls.

Until the security of the place came over, took one glance at them, and came over to yell at them. "What the hell is this?"

"I think it's two drunks who just had the time of their lives," Navin said promptly. Kay burst into a fit of giggles.

"That paint is meant for the remodeling upstairs!" The security was getting really angry now. "Normally I would just kick you out, but I've already had to kick out a bunch of jerks tonight. I feel like taking out my annoyance on you."

The security guy started to advance on them. Ignoring the fact that the guy was a tall, burly black guy with a fierce look in his eyes, Navin slathered a large green blob of paint across the man's torso. "Stay back, grumpy!"

The man staggered back a little, looked down at his painted chest, and then glared back at them. With a snarl, he picked Navin up by the collar of his jacket.

"I'm getting tired of drunks like you disrupting my peace," he growled down to Navin's face, for Navin was significantly shorter.

Navin tried to squirm out of the man's grasp, and then stepped down on the man's foot hard. The guard wasn't really hurt, but it distracted him for a moment as Navin got out of the man's hold. The black guy was fast, though, and chased after Navin. They threw punches at each other. Kay came up from behind the security, stood up on a table, and dumped her bucket of dark blue paint over his head. He sputtered and slipped. Navin grabbed hold of Kay's hand. "Let's get out of here!"

They ran until they were outside on the other side of the street from the bar. It was a dark night, but all the lights on the street made everything glow yellow. There was a nice zephyr, and Kay would have enjoyed it if she wasn't feeling sick. "Well that was fun, wasn't it?" Navin asked Kay, panting.

"Mm," Kay said, holding her stomach. She threw up on the road.

Kay had a low tolerance for beer. She didn't drink often enough to get used to the feeling. When Kay was done throwing up, she wiped off her mouth and sat down on the curb. Navin sat down next to her. "Are you okay?"

"I need to go home," Kay murmured. She felt terrible now that the buzz wore off, and all she wanted was to drink a bunch of water and sleep in her bed for a hundred years.

So she started to walk. Navin followed her. "Um, what exactly are you doing?"

Kay groaned. "Home."

"I doubt you'll be able to find home in your condition," he said. He was drunk, too, but it was starting to wear off. Kay stumbled, but Navin caught her and steadied her.

"Where do you live? Kay?" Navin shook her a little. Kay opened her eyes. "I need to go home," she repeated.

Navin walked her over to his car, and set her down in the backseat. He got in the driver's seat, and then started the car. "Where do you live?" Navin asked her, only to see that she was asleep. He sighed.

***

Kay woke up somewhere else. Warm light leaked in through her eyelids, and she opened her eyes to see that the light came from the ceiling. She rolled a little to see that she was on a white couch. The couch was part of the small living room, that was right next to the kitchen. A long counter separated the kitchen from the living room. Bombo stools lined the counter, making the area seem like a personal bar.

Kay laid back down and clutched her head. So this is how a hangover feels, she thought.

In the corner of the room, Kay spotted Navin. He was slouched over in a chair by the fireplace, which went unlit. His hand lay upon his cheek, and he seemed to be fast asleep. How nice of him to make sure I was safe, thought Kay. Of course he doesn't know where I live.

She got up, and her head throbbed with the movement. It was 2:00AM, according to the clock in the kitchen. She figured that she should get going so not to impose. She smiled at his sleeping figure. She decided that she'll leave him her phone number. Finding a scrap of paper, she wrote down her name and number and left the note on the counter. She then grabbed a water bottle, and then grabbed another for Navin, too, so when he woke up he would have water nearby, assuming that his hangover would be as bad as hers.

After setting the water bottle next to him, she left from the apartment and started to walk home.