"You didn't?"

"Of course not. Nobody does, not in New York. You decide on a career in the arts, and you wait tables to make ends meet, and it begins to dawn on you that bartenders make more money and don't have to work as hard, plus they never get yelled at for dropping a whole tray of pasta dishes on a table full of people from Ridgeway, New Jersey -"

"Did that happen to you?"

"No, but it could have. So you go take the course at the American Bartenders School, which isn't exactly rocket science, and you get a job when you graduate, and you mix martinis and screwdrivers, which isn't exactly brain surgery, and you quit when the boss puts his hand up your skirt-"

"Did that happen?"

"No, but it could have. So you get another job, and you finally find a place where they treat you right, and one day you notice you haven't been on an audition or a go-see in months, and for a while you feel guilty about it, and then you feel guilty that you don't, and then that's it, you're a lifer, you'll be mixing Salty Dogs and Harvey Wallbangers until the cows come home. But that doesn't make it a career."

"Wow."

"I'm sorry," Sigrid said. "Way too much information, huh?"

"No, actually it was pretty interesting." She drank some more of her gin and tonic, and I seized the moment to take a sip of my Laphroaig. It was definitely improving.

"I don't know what got me started," Sigrid said. "Except it's been a long night, and it didn't help that there was a guy hitting on me about an hour ago."

"Oh, come on. That must happen to you all the time."

"It does, but most of them take no for an answer, and the rest generally takefuck you for an answer. This guy thought he was God's gift, and he couldn't believe I didn't see it. Come to think of it, he's been in here before, and-"

"And what?"

"And nothing." She grinned. "My train of thought just pulled out of the station, and I wasn't on it. You know, you were starting to ask me something, before I went into my rant."

"I was? Oh, right. I just wondered if you ever gave any thought to going into the law, and I guess you already answered that. You set out to be an actress."

"Actress and model, actually."

"Oh? I can't believe you didn't get modeling jobs."

"The camera likes you to be really thin, and so do the misogynists behind the cameras. I got work anyway, but nobody ever wanted to use me more than once. I had a bad attitude."

"Oh."

"I still do, but it's okay for a bartender, especially if you've got the tits to go with it. But no, I never thought about becoming a lawyer. Why?"

"Because tonight I was beginning to wish I hadn't, either. Though this"-she raised her now-empty glass-"is definitely helping."

"Another? You got it. And how about you? You all right with the Laphroaig?"

I said I was fine, and she went off to assemble another gin and tonic.

"What did she just call your drink?"

"Laphroaig," I said.

"That's what it sounded like. Is it some kind of cordial?"

"It's scotch. It's a single malt from the Isle of Islay."

"Is that near the Firth of Forth?"

"It would have to be, don't you think?"

"I guess. Is it good?"

"It's getting there. I figure another three sips and it'll be excellent."

She nodded judiciously. "It's an acquired taste, and you haven't quite acquired it yet."

"No."

"But you're getting there."

"It improves with each sip."

"Thus the small sips," she said. "If you were doing shots, you'd be blotto before you got anywhere close to liking it."

"That's exactly right. What was so horrible about your evening?"

"Just that I never thought I was going to get out of the damn office. I'm a lawyer. You probably figured that out."

"I took two and two," I said, "and I put 'em together."

"I'm with this firm about ten blocks from here. Very convenient, walk to work, and most of the time the work's fine, but every now and then you get one of those deals that has to close, if it goes past deadline everything's screwed up and you have to start over, and sometimes it's even worse than that, so we had one that had to close by midnight, and of course everything went wrong."

"Of course."

She reached and picked up the gin and tonic that had magically appeared in front of her. Sigrid, having noticed that the two of us had struck up a conversation, had set it down and moved off without a word. I don't know if they teach that in American Bartenders School, but they should.

"It was a transaction involving a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana, and it could have been worse. We could have had to go to Shreveport for the closing. But since the buyer and seller both live within a few blocks of each other on the Upper East Side, we decided, hey, whatthehell, we'll do it right here."

"And whom were you representing? The buyer or the seller?"

"The lender. Like, who cares who gets the better of the deal, because our client's just holding paper. Anyway, wheels are coming off left and right, and it has to close but it looks like it won't, and on top of everything the paralegal I'm working with is a moron, because the one I like, the one who always gets everything right, has to leave the goddam office at six oh fucking clock to go on a date." She held her glass aloft. "Pardon my Latvian, but I get carried away just thinking about it."

"Latvian?"

"I got in the habit of not saying French. You know, like Freedom Fries?"

"Oh, right."

"Which is getting old now, but I like the way it sounds. 'Pardon my Latvian.' You take really small sips, don't you? How was it that time?"

"Almost delicious. I'd offer you a taste, but you'd hate it."

"Never mind then." She looked at me, her brown eyes intent. "I'm Barbara," she announced.

"Bernie."

She thought about it. "Barbara Creeley."

"Bernie Rhodenbarr."

"I don't know that name."

"You're not alone. Millions of people don't. Why, in China alone-"

"And you don't look familiar, either. I could swear I've never laid eyes on you before."

"You and all those folks in Shanghai."

"Unless I saw you in my peripheral vision or something. Do you come here often?"

"No. What's your sign?"

"Yeah, I can't believe I asked a question like that. 'Do you come here often?' And anyway that's not how it feels."

"How what feels?"

"The feeling," she said. "I have this feeling that I really know you on some almost mystic level. More than that, I have the feeling that you really know me." She frowned. "This is ridiculous. I didn't think I was feeling the drinks, but evidently I am. I'm babbling away like an idiot."

"More like a brook."

"What a sweet thing to say! Bernie?"

"Bernie."

"If you drink up I'll buy you another La-whatchamacallit."

"Laphroaig," I said. "But one's plenty. Why don't I buy you another of those instead?"

"Thanks, but no. I'm not really much of a drinker, although you wouldn't know it by the way I made the first one disappear."

"You needed it."

"I guess. I'm in here more nights than I'm not, but it's rare for me to have more than two drinks. Although the other night…"

"What?"

"Well, it was weird. I had my usual two drinks, nothing fancy, plain old gin and tonic, and I think I must have had a blackout."

"Oh?"

"I can't even remember leaving the bar. I woke up with the worst hangover I ever had in my life. I mean, I don't have hangovers. I don't have blackouts, either. I think the only time I had one before was in my freshman year in college, when we played this version of Truth or Dare where you kept having to take a drink. God only knows what I drank that time, but it was a whole lot more than I had the other night."

"Ah, youth."

"I was young, all right. And I didn't have a hangover, I woke up feeling fine, but I didn't remember the last hour or so of the evening. But everybody told me I was perfectly fine, I didn't do anything weird or outrageous."