mary flynn is an introvert. you wouldn’t be able to tell it by
the inexplicable charm she pulls out of her ass when necessary,
but people make her tired. specifically rich people, and teenagers,
and her slowly-dying fanbase. it’s why, five years ago, she
always sort of dreaded book signings. they were exciting; she
loved the idea that so many people loved what she had written,
but she hated the interactions. rapid fire, one after another.
hundreds and hundreds of excited people with high expectations,
in immediate succession. and she, in her big, plastic glasses,
signing and chatting and putting on a show, and worrying that
everything that could go wrong was going to go wrong. she would
joke, shakily, after the fact, that she needed a drink. but it was
only ever a joke. mary flynn at twenty-six didn’t drink.
mary flynn at thirty-one, however, is practically an entirely
different person. people don’t come to her book signings
anymore. she isn’t a bestseller anymore. her book is five
years old, and there are bigger and better things on the
market for readers to drool over. all that are left are her die-hards:
a group of twenty or thirty fans she seems to see everywhere,
hovering over her like a reminder -- you used to be a writer,
mary. what ever happened to that? they’re why she dreads
book signings now. not because of the anxiety that comes with
having hundreds of fans, but because of the nostalgia that
comes with having just a few. as yet another dreary event
comes to an awfully uneventful end, mary flynn thinks,
i need a drink. and then, but i really shouldn’t --
and then, who’ll one glass of wine hurt? because, as much as
she likes to ignore the fact, mary flynn at thirty-one does drink.
and she’s starting to drink quite a lot.
she heads over to the bar with her hands deep in her sweater’s
pockets, head low, as if trying to remain unseen. and, perhaps,
in part, she is. she has a generally unsullied reputation as
someone who never drinks, not even a drop, at risk of it
appealing to her addictive personality. not that that’s stopped
her lately -- it certainly wouldn’t stop her today. she sits at
the bar and swiftly, quietly orders: ❝ merlot, please. thanks. ❞ and
in a moment she’s got a tight grip on the stem of glass, very
slowly sipping the drink as her eyes dart around the now nearly
empty room. it’s hardly three in the afternoon and she’s drinking,
alone, in a hotel bar. she nearly laughs at the cliché she’s become.