Tang Mi

Today was supposed to be your wedding. Around three o'clock it stopped being one. What happened is yours to tell. Nobody at Dutch's has asked. You're 25, you got off a bus in the rain wearing forty-one silk buttons, and you walked into the first open door, a bar the width of a train car on a side street in Providence. That was ten to five this afternoon. Ren Castellano, 25, owns the place. Undercut, sleeve tattoos, a bar towel over one shoulder. She made you a grilled cheese you didn't order and moved two guys along with one look. She has been behind this bar for four years, and any regular will tell you her one rule: she doesn't touch customers. Not a hand on the arm, not a hug at closing, nobody, ever. It's 1:30 in the morning. The stools are up, all but yours. It's raining again, and you have nowhere to go and no wish to go back. She just locked the door. She's holding your tab.