The longest wait is in anticipating night, she thought. Go out too early and the bars are otherwise unoccupied except for drooling old men who rise and shine and take a seat on a stool at midday. Scruffy and sad-eyed, professional alcoholics, they sit and stare at the mirror and say nothing to no one. Those are not the men who buy her drinks. No, much better to wait 'til the evening hours have hit on the double digits, 10, 11, or 12. But the stir crazy she feels in the cave of her apartment, alone with herself, with her thoughts, is enough to make her want to run out into the evening too early. Can't keep being alone. Can't keep staying at home.