(transcribed from last night's cocktail napkin)
I’m sitting at the bar, waiting for Christopher. I was coming East and he was coming West so we figured we’d meet in the middle and grab some dinner—too long a day to go home and cook—so I order a glass of wine and eavesdrop.
When I was single, I did this all the time: sat alone in bars, writing on napkins what I heard all around me. Call it what you will—observation? research?—what I was really doing was killing time, trying to wait out the inevitable loneliness of going home at the end of the night. Home was a beautiful one-bedroom that I loved, loved, loved during the day—waking up at six a.m. with sunlight flooding the windows, padding barefoot into my office with a cup of coffee and four whole hours before I had to get ready to teach. I’d read the paper, write in my journal, write stories, rewrite, random stuff, read books sometimes if it wasn’t coming, always quiet and perfect and bright, even in the winter—but at night, I loathed it. The silence was so loud! I couldn’t sleep! Couldn’t hear myself think! I’d play the Matrix over and over on the laptop (no TV) just to have some distraction—not watching it, just using it for white noise—but eventually it would be too much so I’d have to leave. Late night coffee shops or bars, like this one, and I’d sit alone with a stack of cocktail napkins and jot down what I saw. Why napkins? you ask. Easy. If you take your journal into a bar, it’s a sign for people to approach you. They can say, “OH! You’re a WRITER! Me TOO!” or, “What do you write?” (Uhm … words?) or, “You’re a writer? Have you read (insert whatever title here, but Ayn Rand is a safe bet)?” Napkins seemed safer, somehow. They don’t offer a common conversation topic, and, while I wanted to be among people, I didn’t want to TALK to any of them. I just wanted to kill time, and the best way to do that is listening.
Like now: I’m waiting for Christopher, and listening, and what I’m hearing does not disappoint.
“How do you expect me to marry you now!” says the girl to my right. I glance her way with that once-practiced look of nonchalance (“I’m not looking at YOU, I’m looking at something over THERE”). She’s turned in her chair to full-on face the guy to her right, so I can only see her back. Red sweater, expensive. Long blonde ponytail, dyed. Her shoulders are shaking, deep breath, deep breath, so I’m assuming she’s crying. On the bar in front of her is a vodka tonic and her left hand—yes, there’s the ring. Big and sparkly—and she lifts the hand a few inches and smacks it back down. The wine in my glass trembles from the gesture. “I’m so SICK of you doing this!” she says. The guy grasps her upper arm—I can’t see him, the girl’s body is blocking him, but I see his fingers just below her shoulder—“Will you lower your voice!” he says, and I think, No, talk louder! I can barely hear you as is! because the noise in this place is intense. The game (what game? I don’t follow that stuff) is on three screens bolted above the bar, and The Cure blasts through the stereo, and the bartender at this particular place is really awful. He stands at the far end of the bar inspecting his tattoos and the only way you can get his attention is to yell, so every five minutes there’s a “Hey, can I get a Guiness!?” or “I need another pitcher over here, Man!” or “Two Stoli cran and a Manhattan,” from customers or waitresses and I think, If this guy worked where I’ve worked he’d get fired in two seconds. But this isn’t one of my places.
Maybe it was. But I’m not that girl anymore. I no longer live this life.
I look back to the girl on my right. Her breathing has calmed, her back is no longer shaking, his hand is still wrapped around her arm and I can’t hear what they’re saying. I imagine grabbing an empty pint glass, pressing the open end to the top of her spine and my ear to the bottom, listening in as if I were twelve years old and this girl was a door. I want to know what’s happening on the other side. I want to hear. I have questions: what did he do? What is she sick of? Who’s really in the wrong here? Did he do something stupid, or is she just overreacting, and why, why, why are they having this conversation in a public place? I realize—as I pause to grab more napkins—that I can probably guess the answers. Not because I write fiction and can make up what might happen next, but because I might have lived this fight they’re having. Not now. Not with Christopher, God no. But before. I’ve had her manicure. Her tears. Her sudden bursts of anger intensifying as this guy sushed her. Her hands are up in her hair now, patting it back into place. Now they’re at her waist, pulling at the hem of her shirt to smooth it over her stomach. Now they’re back to the bar and she’s leaning on her elbows. She’s hyper-aware of how she looks in this moment. How she’s holding herself. Whether or not she appears pretty because maybe, maybe she still doesn’t trust this guy to love her/want her if she doesn’t look good.
I look down at myself. I got caught in the rain an hour earlier, and my hair has dried all knotted, and I have that wet-humid smell. My dress is still water-stained and my shoes are still drenched. Ruined, maybe. In the mirror behind the bar I see my mascara is smeared a little bit and then—in that split second before I’m embarrassed by my appearance—I feel a hand on the back of my neck and I don’t need to see him to know his touch, I don’t need to turn around to know that it’s him and how, how, how lucky I am.
