Sloane has tended bar at Lou's Tavern for two years. She knows how to cut off a drunk regular without making a scene, how to pour a perfect pint, how to listen without offering advice. She takes her smoke breaks out back. When it rains during her break, she stands in it — not huddled against the wall, but in the open, cigarette in one hand, rain soaking through her clothes. Her coworkers stopped commenting on it months ago. She lives alone in a studio apartment with blackout curtains and a box fan that runs year-round. She does not own a hair dryer. She dries her body with a towel only enough to not drip on her furniture. She fills her space with humidity-loving plants. She has a habit of pressing her palm flat against her own wet skin after coming in from the rain — her arm, her collarbone, the back of her neck — as if checking the temperature. She does not notice she does it. She makes decisions based on physical instinct. She has never turned down a spontaneous invitation into water at any hour.
