One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

been perfectly sober when that had happened, and his number sat in her phone as proof that he’d existed at all. She thought about calling him, about how perhaps he was waiting for her and thinking exactly the same thing, when she heard her name being mentioned down the other end of the bar.
    ‘Are you Kitty Logan?’ she heard a man ask.
    ‘Are you Kitty Logan?’ she then heard a woman ask.
    She leaned back in her stool to get a look at the people behind the voices but couldn’t see anyone through the crowd. She examined the mirror behind the bar to find their reflection, trying to get a glimpse of them before they found her.
    ‘Are you Kitty Logan?’ she heard more loudly this time, and she leaned back in her chair to see a young man in his twenties asking a smooth suit-wearing stockbroker-type man. Stockbroker boy wasn’t overly impressed with the question. ‘Are you sure?’ The young man looked him dead in the eye, all serious.
    The group with stockbroker boy laughed and he seemed to relax then.
    ‘No little operations the boys don’t know about?’
    ‘No.’ His smile faded.
    ‘Okay, Sam, let’s move on,’ the female voice said and a delicate hand appeared on his forearm as she moved him on.
    ‘Are you Kitty Logan?’ she asked the middle-aged woman sitting with a group of women.
    ‘I might be,’ the lady responded.
    ‘I think you’re lying,’ Sam said. ‘She wasn’t Kitty Logan last night, were you, baby?’
    The group of girls howled with laughter and Kitty felt they would stay with them for ever if she didn’t interrupt.
    ‘Excuse me?’ she leaned forward on her stool. The group next to her along with Mary-Rose, Sam and the group of women all turned to look at her. She raised her hand. ‘I’m Kitty Logan.’
    ‘No,
I’m
Kitty Logan,’ a deep voice came from the tables across the bar, followed by laughter.
    ‘You have a contender!’ Sam exclaimed, and as if they were part of a pantomime, people oohed.
    Kitty laughed and stood to meet her contender, who stepped out from his table. He was four stone overweight, had a beard and he stood with his shoulders back, his fingers twitching as if he was a cowboy in a face-off. Kitty couldn’t keep a straight face.
    ‘I am victorious!’ the man declared, arms punching the air, and the small audience applauded. The cool stockbrokers looked at them as if they were all a bad smell and they turned their backs. ‘I
am
Kitty Logan,’ the man declared and he celebrated one final time and returned to his seat. While Sam went to his table to shake his hand and continue the good fun, Mary-Rose approached Kitty.
    ‘Hello,’ she said. A smile transformed her face and her eyes lit up. She was an extremely pretty young woman, and though she was dressed in skinny jeans, the highest shoes Kitty had ever seen and a simple tank top, she looked a million dollars.
    ‘I’m Mary-Rose,’ she said.
    ‘Nice to meet you. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find you in here but I see that my concerns were in vain.’
    ‘Oh, trust Sam.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He makes a scene everywhere we go.’
    ‘He’s your boyfriend?’
    ‘Hell, no.’ She scrunched up her face. ‘We’re just friends. Have been since we were kids. Our moms were best friends,
are
best friends, blah blah blah,’ she finished quickly.
    ‘Kitty Logan,’ Sam joined them. ‘We’re going for dinner, would you like to join us?’
    Kitty looked to Mary-Rose expecting her to try to make a face at him to disinvite her but there was nothing but warmth emanating from her, from the two of them. They were exactly what she needed right then.
    They walked five minutes to Frederick Street to a small Italian restaurant. Inside, a table of eight people awaited them and Sam insisted on dragging Kitty around and introducing her to all of their young, attractive and incredibly fashionable friends. Still wearing her clothes from the day before, Kitty felt like a hillbilly next to them all. She sat opposite Mary-Rose, perfect position for her interview, but she doubted that would happen with the lively banter at the table. They were an exuberant lot, friends from childhood with inside jokes that were funny to Kitty because of how they were delivered, despite her not actually understanding their meaning. They knew each other well, tirelessly teased one another, and Kitty couldn’t help but feel it was the best-scripted sitcom she had ever seen, with their flawless hair and clothes. And that