Homewrecker

Slut, home-wrecker, home-wrecking slew. Giant great succubus cankerous cow. Piece of vile garbage trash with day-old magazine sample sour tonic perfume. A goblin-troll if there ever was one, a nightmare of her own invention. A thing so dark and deep, a thing so empty and hateful, she laughs at misfortune and eats black holes. Putrid fungal nasty gossiping vain selfish gold-digger, whose interests lie only in getting one step ahead and another bed tallied. Sad, sorry, and alone. You can't choose who you love. Why did she have to go and do it?

Ingrown

I scratch at the little dark bump, scraping away the skin, revealing the hair underneath. It sprouts, unfurls, it's been itching to get out. Looking at the hair on my body, the speck of blood under my nail and the drop of it growing on my leg, did I really need to release it? Did I need one more hair? Couldn't I have let it grow inside me and die? If it needed to burst out it would do so on its own. Not everything needs help.

Pregame

I'm just jealous because I don't have fifteen friends. Maybe I do, if I scraped the bottom of the barrel. But it's close quarters, these two small rooms, and the heat that we can't control. But what's a man to do? It would have been rude not to invite Cary, she was sitting right next to Ben, who was sitting right next to Mikey. Then there was François, visiting from France, and they weren't about to leave him alone. Soon a handful turns into a barrel and I don't know the majority of people there, in my own home. I can understand why he did it. They were his plans. And I can't say I was an afterthought, though I don't really know, and there would be no reason not to think I didn't mind. We're all just so close, physically, feeling so much hot breath. And everybody happy, and everybody drinking, and everybody loud, and everybody asking if they can put their jackets in my room. 'Tis the season for putting on a smile and saying you're having fun.

A Mask

So I'll put the cream on, I'll cleanse my face and apply, I'll let it set for twenty minutes and then wash it off with warm water and then I'll feel better about myself. I'll be smoother and cleaner, fresher and leaner, I'll be free from this dead stuff clinging to me, free from myself. Freedom from yourself, bottled at fourteen dollars a pop. Welcome to the future, it is a terrible and wonderful place.

Going Mad

It could have been the curt responses, or the silences. They years of not saying "Thank you." It could have been our dwindling sex life that I couldn't seem bothered to reheat. But, if I'm being honest, I think it was when I went to kiss her good night and coughed in her face. I laughed. It was an accident. But everything from there just seemed to go sour. It was a tickle in my throat, it was her perfume. The scent I'd insisted she buy. The scent she wore just for me. How many times did my brain tell her one thing and my body another? I'd like to see those tally marks. Those prison walls, covered in groups of five, the etchings of a man trying to keep from going mad. Which is, I guess, what we were trying to do all along.

Light They Give

The candle wax hardened in moments, suspended in a state of dripping off the dining table. I'd made my point. It was hot, but I could stand it. It could be scraped off the wood, but not off the tablecloth. It solidified an inch off the edge, but not a bit more. The carpet was ruined, dinner was ruined, light smoke curlicued toward the ceiling. A chandelier hung, fake candles perched within it, each one with a flickering fake flame. It's a shame, the light they give off, that's all it does. It only lights a room.

Being Aware

What are you doing?

What.

You're ordering another drink?

I ordered another drink.

We're going.

OK.

I mean, we're winding down.

I see that.

Everybody has an empty glass. Or an almost empty glass.

Good for them.

You know what I mean.

Tell me what you mean then.

We're about to go. You can see that we're about to go.

So.

So you don't order another drink.

But I did.

But you shouldn't.

But I did. And I'm going to drink it.

I just don't know why you'd do that.

I really didn't think about it.

Exactly. You didn't think about it. Why don't you think about it?

About what.

Anything. Other people. Me. Other people.

I just wanted a drink.

More than you wanted to be aware.

I drink so I don't have to be aware.

Hahahahaha. Well. Now I know.

Why I Like Cabs

"I like cabs because I like ignoring people. I like sitting in the back and being chauffeured, not feeling like I have to talk. I like feeling that I'm better, I like the power it gives me. So, no, I don't participate in this 'sharing' economy. I don't Lyft and I sure as hell don't Uber. I don't want to talk to the driver. The driver is the driver and although we are probably equals at that moment we are not. I don't care if they're nicer, if their cars are nicer. I don't feel nicer. And that's the point."

RHS

I took the quiz and it said I was red hot. The letters were big and bold and red and I felt they were true. The comments and opinions sounded real, real women, first names and last initials, modern love for modern men. And I scored in the top bracket, the high end, the red hot. I, the quiz confirmed, am a red hot lover.

I didn't feel like a red hot lover. I didn't feel like some Don Juan. A piece of paper that says you're a thing doesn't mean a thing unless you got something to back that thing up. If I know what to do, all the moves, all the words, that only gives me so much. I have to put up the rest.

"Red hot, huh?" Why was I doing this out in public?

"Oh, uh." She was pretty. Red hair. Lots of red happening tonight. "Yeah, I guess," I laughed.

"You leave that quiz out in all the bars?"

"No, no. Just doing it to pass the time." She seemed to believe me, which was good because it was the truth.

"Those quizzes aren't written by real women, you know. Not real women."

"I know," I said. Did I? "Like I said. Just passing the time."

She sat down. "Mind if I pass the time with you?"

"No. Please. Do. Bartender?"

He walked over. "What'll you have?"

"A Redheaded Slut."

"Make that two." A little sweet for my taste. But my taste hasn't done much for me yet.

 

Evening Out

Hard is what you'd call it. When one turns into two turns into five. Somewhere along the line it slips away from you. You feel good, feel great, feel too great, feel bad. Then you wake up and remember and feel worse.

It's not the slipping I mind. It's not the involuntary letting go, the total lack of control. It's the shaking hand, the uneasy mind. The glass you have to pour just to even out. Then you feel normal. Then you feel like yourself. Even though you're not sure who you are anymore.

Cool Down

She unfolds a small red Chinese fan, starts wafting her eau de Ricola and magazine sample. How anyone could be hot on a day like today is beyond me, long johns or no. And for a brief and sudden moment I want to know everything about her. But for a more sustained, truthful moment I wish she would put that damn fan away.

"Ooh," she says, reading my mind. "I've been so cold all day, so cold. Nice to actually need to cool down."

Until It's Too Late

I keep my coffee cup on the floor because I know I'll knock it over. I've been sequestered to the old schoolhouse desk, the working slab just bigger than a piece of paper, my necessary 15" laptop encompassing everything then some. She is sitting at a table for four, two dirty coffee cups about her, an identical glowing apple. It's a big table, and if I keep my arm on my desk's armrest I 1) develop cramps and 2) can't really even use the arm.

People die every day. They die crossing the street. They have brain aneurisms for no reason.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah you mind, or yeah..."

"Yeah. You can sit."

A rocky start but a start nonetheless! Doth not the weest babe eventually walk?

I pick up my jacket, my bag, my computer, my cup. My new wood chair is far more comfortable than the one attached to my desk and I wonder if this is an interesting topic of conversation.

Do you think these woods are different? You should sit in that seat over there to see what I mean.

I can do better. So I let ten minutes of silence go by.

"What are you working on?"

"Huh?" She pulls an earbud out from under her lovely grey beanie. "Oh. It's a grant."

"Oh, cool!" I say. "Very cool, yeah, very cool. What's the grant, what company do you work for?"

"A non-profit." Classic shutdown. I know them well.

"Awesome," and I go back to my Facebook. I'm wasting time, procrastinating, looking at Christmas gifts for my family because I know I will wait until it's too late.

"How about you?" She's asking me a question she's asking me a question.

"Screenplay, I'm a screenwriter." Why. Why did I just say that just now?

"Oh yeah? Written anything I've heard of?"

"No," I answer truthfully, "but I will," I finish with a lie.

And then it hits me. Why couldn't I write something? Who's to say a movie isn't inside me somewhere? We all have one story to tell, it's just a matter of finding it, willing it into existence. And then I think that perhaps my story hasn't happened yet. That whatever I have to tell is still somewhere down the line. That I have days and years and thousands of decisions left ahead of me before I get anywhere near it, before the prologue even hits. And I know she can read this on my face.

"You OK?" she asks, and as I'm about to answer I knock over my coffee.

Girls Dig Me, Guys Want to Dig My Grave

Not that it's anybody's business but my own but I'm doing just fine. The trick, see, is to keep it all locked up, all of it. Good, bad, ugly, yes, all of it, then they never know anything's wrong. Then you're one of those enigmas, a mystery man, you're the cool new kid with the cool leather jacket disrupting the social circle, causing chaos on the jungle gym. You're a spy, you've many talents, you're the strong and silent type that chicks just can't get enough of. They'll want you to protect them, they'll think you can, they've never met anyone like you. The guys, now, on the other hand, they might not like what they see, maybe they've met a few too many like you, maybe they're trying to do that themselves. Those boys, they lack a thing called tolerance and refuse a thing called compromise. They're in it to win it and all the while losing. Deep down, hell, they're probably even aware. They see you and out comes the alpha dog, out comes the bag of tricks, off go the gloves. It's working against them. The girls will eat it up, they'll eat their fill. And all you gotta do is not say a word.

Paler

Right now he don't have any worry, he don't have any wonder. He spends his nights walking. He takes in things around him: house, car, cat. He sees kinship in the people he sees so late. The word undead comes to his mind.

He sees his skin get pale. Every day get paler, paler. Soon he knows he will be see-through. Soon the vessels will pop, arms embossed. Soon everyone will see what's inside. Soon everyone will know.

So he keeps it late. Fewer out and those that are understand. People go through the same thing, walk through the same night. Only some call it different.

Where I Live

"Why are these under your bed?" She slid out a stack of pictures. Prints, photographs, old movie posters. "Are you going to hang them up?"

"I plan on it." Which was the truth. I'd put them there for the time being, while I situated everything else. But time being turned into time itself, and that was where they lived. The finishing touches.

She took the Butch Cassidy poster. "Hey, I gave you this."

"Sure did," I said.

She held it up over my bed, moved it to the dresser, the space above my desk. A place where it should live. She went back to the bed. Back to the dresser. Back to my messy desk.

"Why did you come over?"

She turned to me. "You asked me to come over."

"That's not really an answer." I watched the knuckles on the frame turn white, the slight scratching of nails against the glass cover. She leaned the picture on the wall.

"I guess I'll go then."

She took the bag she'd filled and left. I picked up the poster, Butch and Sundance, frozen right before their death. And flipping it over I saw the heart she drew, faded and there after all these years. I loved the way she drew hearts, I'd always tried to copy her. But I could never quite do it.

Time Machine

I was surrounded in crumbs, the sun coming up, the flesh of my mouth roof peeling from the heat of hot pizza. It was the end to my day, the kind that makes Sunday feel like Monday, the kind that reminds you that you're old. Probably a good thing. It was her 21st birthday, although you'd swear she'd turned it long ago. A 21st birthday means a night of free drinking means a night of keeping up. Never What are you having but What are we having. Pours and rocks and shots and spills and a sticky hand. When a bar closed it only meant we had to find one that was open, we had to get a couple bottles to keep in our jackets. A party is a good excuse for anything and it often is. I, for one, decided to go back in time to when I never did these types of things and do them. For one night only I was barely legal, I was unbeatable unstoppable unsinkable, I was unaware that there was anything known as a tomorrow. And turned around and in the dark and left alone I was overcome with a hunger so deep and dire I had no choice but to walk the mile to the 24-hour convenience store for rations, which I made as the day dawned and ate on my bed as it stared me square in my distorted face. Overfull, sauce-burned, flakes of pepper on my sheets, I could fend off sleep no more. And in the fraction of a second before I succumbed I knew that in fact another day was coming, that it was already here, and that I was missing it. And what a depressing thought that is to have as you begin to dream. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.

Crisis

When they say time slows down during a crisis they know what they're talking about. Like when you hit a rock on your Razor scooter and it takes ages for you to hit the driveway. Or when she says she doesn't love you and your next class may as well be on the moon. Or the time between "It smells like pot in here" and your answer, even if your answer is the truth.

You suspect the worst. You brain slows everything down so it can process. You are trying to make sense of a nonsense thing. The test results can't be positive. The grade can't be that low. That is not the garage door opening below you. But they are positive, and how do you move forward? They are that low, and is there extra credit? That is the sound of the door, and where are your pants?

Time should slow down during good times. When the pinata bursts, when the song is played, when she says yes and for the next twenty years. You have no problem contemplating the wonderful. The wonderful is supposed to be there, the wonderful should be the norm. But there's so much of it you don't even realize. And it's only when something horrible happens that you remember how great your life really is.

Dog Food Avenue

The road next to the brewery smells like my old dog's dog food. That was, what, fifteen or so years ago. Did I give him food every day? Walks were more my job. But that memory is lodged back there, that smell, and then I can see it and hear it and remember when I found that mouse in the bag and suddenly I miss my dog. And my friends are waiting for me inside and it's a birthday party and we've rented out the taproom. And tonight is supposed to be about youth and beer and girls. And all I can do is hold back tears and take breath after breath after deep, deep breath.

Sun, Moon, or Mars

I know I should be able to tell them apart. I know there are vast, significant differences. One is day, the other is night, and yet I am having difficulty distinguishing between them.

I do not know quite when it began. All I know is one day I looked up. Don't stare at it, someone said. Stare at what? The sun, I was told, don't look directly at it, not for very long. But to me it looked like any other thing. It was was no brighter nor bigger than a common lamppost. And when someone told me it had fallen into night I could not tell. They said it was full, the moon. I swear I could not see it anywhere. And now I squint at the heavens for some sort of reason why. Are there stars anymore? Are there planets?

People call me crazy. How are we alive if there's no sun, they say. How, if there's no moon. No one seems to understand that I do not doubt their existence. I am not saying there is no such thing as sun, no orb known as The Moon. But, to me, they are gone. No different from that glowing red dot some millions of miles away. I know that they are there. But that is simply all they are.

The Joy I Take in Dying

"I doubt I'm any better," I say and we walk over to Street Fighter II. I've chosen this bar arcade—a barcade, or beercade, as it were—for our second date. Something a little fun, something a little goofy. The lights and the noises and the beers make for a good atmosphere. I'm enjoying myself and she seems to be, too. She's not very good at anything, but neither am I. There's a certain charm in equally sucking at something.

She chooses Chun-Li, the lone woman, and I choose Ryu because I always choose Ryu. She beats me quickly, laughs, beats me quickly again, squeals. "Are you letting me win?" she asks. That's a complicated question. Let her win for what reason? Because she's a girl and I think she's needs help winning? Because she's terrible? Because I've been hiding my talent this whole time? None of these are true, but I can't quite answer no. However, "No," is what I say.

I suppose it's condescending. Selfish, too. I am playing slightly under my level, just enough, so that she beats me and I can watch her be happy. Can I say this on a second date? Hell no. A smile so wide and an eye so bright, any excuse I can get to look at them I'll take. And if that means throwing my favorite arcade game then so be it. But it sounds crazy, to say something like that, to say it so soon. "Too many beers!" "Not enough," and she takes our empties for another round. She orders two more and gets talked to by some guy. She says something and comes right back.

Soon I am lying in a pool of my own blood, the gleaming "K.O." hovering over my mangled Japanese body. She holds up her glass for a toast, gives me an awww face, and smiles. "Man," she says, "you're bad at this."

Innkeeper

There are a few lights and half a bulbs are broken, a few ceiling fans but only half are spinning. The slow pulse and push that you experience without feeling. The jukebox is filled with classic rock. I painted houses one summer and that station was always on, the same playlist day after day, no one else wanting to change it. I get the feeling that not a lot changes around here either.

The bartender opens up a beer without asking and slides it to me. That's followed quickly by a shot of whiskey. It dribbles onto the counter and she doesn't wipe it up. I say I like her ring. It was a present from her grandmother. That is, she got it when her grandmother passed. They'd always wanted it, she and both her sisters. They were jealous it was given to her. She had plans to share it with them but doesn't think she'll go through with it.

She asks if I like her hair. It was just done today, dyed a bit redder, cut a bit shorter. She feels like a new woman with Richard gone. For good this time, someone asks. She nods. She finally told him he couldn't be in her house anymore, told him he had to go. Told him what she'd do if she ever saw him again, heard he was in town, heard he was in a fifty mile radius. He hit her one last time and said he was better off anyway. She said of all the times she hit her that was the only time she didn't hate. It meant it was over, and how could that be bad?

Everybody is on a basis that is past first name. First look, first breath, first thought. The regulars have a way of communicating where they don't need to communicate much at all, not in ways that are heard or seen. That's what happens, she says, when you spend decade after decade with people. That's the upside to never going anywhere. At least you know one place really, really well. She smiles. I can feel the others smiling, too, even if they're not.

My beer is close to being done but I still haven't finished my whiskey. She calls me a sippin' sister. She pours two more shots and says to hurry up. I finish mine off and take the second one. She takes hers and raises it. Always toast when drinking with someone, she tells me. What should we drink to, I ask. Ain't you got anything in your life worth drinkin' to, she says. I say, Let's drink to you then, but she informs me that it's bad luck to drink to yourself. Maybe that explains the last few years, I say. She smiles. OK then, I say, to knowing places well. That seems to sit right with everyone.

Boot

They give me a big glass boot and tell me it's free if I finish it, the beer inside. If I don't? I ask. Thirty dollars. Seems a bit excessive, but so is my appetite for the sauce. Time restraints? Thirty minutes. A dollar a minute seems just about right. I say I like those odds, they look like they've heard that before. Famous last words. Watch out, someone tells me, when you get to the foot. It'll slosh up at ya.

I start fast and hard and reckless. I'm on top of the world when it hits me, a boulder in my stomach, the heaviest weight in the world, and I'm not halfway down the calf. In the high-twenties' minutes left and no way I could ever finish. Everyone is looking at me and the dance floor is filled with old people doing the polka. They are in another time and place. They don't have to worry about things like this.

Every minute or so I bring the boot to my mouth and pretend to drink. If anyone's noticing the level isn't going down they're being nice and keeping their mouth shut. I wish I could keep my mouth shut. How hard is it to do that? How hard is it not to lift a big glass boot? Finish and it's free? You can't afford not to do it. There is something in the oom-pah-pah that starts my stomach rumbling.

A moment later and I'm in the bathroom, sick. When I come out most have scattered, gone back to better things, and the remainders tell me that's it, it's over, if I can't keep it down then that's all she wrote. I get out my wallet but someone says that it was already taken care of. I look around and no one's looking at me. No one claims responsibility. People have forgotten I existed. The lively tuba and the hope of a long future with a beautiful woman are all that's left.

Plus One

No, you don't understand, I got rid of my plus one because I thought it would be a good way to meet people. Force me to introduce myself, you know; make pleasantries, ask questions, be interested and interesting. But now that I'm here I see everyone at least knows someone and nothing is easy at all. Also my decision to not buy alcohol was a poor one. And they say that coming with people keeps you in the corner, but at least in your corner you have someone to talk to, you got your corner buddy. Two can approach two easier than one can but maybe that's just what I want to think. And everybody around me has a bottle or a glass. I thought maybe that would make someone offer me something, seeing that I didn't bring anything of my own. Giving people a chance at being friendly and inclusive but I guess I should've known better. And I look around to see someone like me, another one, someone standing there too scared to talk or move, kin in discomfort. But this other one doesn't seem to be in this room tonight. What would I even say? Hello?

Fragrance

Garlic and mint, my signature mouth fragrance. A delicious yet shortsighted meal, a quick yet fleeting cure. I think of alcohol breath remedies, wonder if any of them are real, wish I had some pennies or potato chips.

"Hi," I say, and I swear she shrinks, not so small that I cannot see her but shrinking all the same. "I have to go to the bathroom," I say, and I go.

What am I going to do here? Hope a stranger has some gum? Wash my mouth out with soap? I would it kill me to choose a swanky club with a bathroom attendant for once?

After I've minutes I go back and she's gone. Can't say I blame her. There's nothing worse than thinking somebody doesn't want you, even if that person stinks.

The Rime of Simon Penske (yes like the trucks)

When I get a little tipsy

I get a lateral lisp-y!

I may be quite drunk

But I still go some funk!

Now watch me shake my hipsies!

Plates of Strangers

It's a difficult relationship, fries and me. They are my desert island food (nutrition notwithstanding, and even then it's iffy). They are the first on my plate to go, they get added even when there's a surcharge. I have been known to take a friend's plate out of a server's hand so I could finish them. I have been known, in darker years, to finish them off the plates of strangers.

I am not one of those girls that says, oh, shall we split an order of fries. If I get fries will you have some, will you have some. I have never thought about the fat or the calories or the salt intake. I do not differentiate much between an expensive cone of Belgian frites and the oiliest or driest fast food cartons. Sack fries are some of the best gifts in the world. Dropped fries which you find in the morning, an army of ants lining up for the feast, is a crime. Have I dusted the ants off in a fit of desperation? No. Have I eaten them off the curb? I am not at liberty to say. (Yes.)

When I wake and I am not hungry, when my first meal is dinner, I start to worry. When I feel more for the last few crispy stragglers than I do about the fullness of my stomach, I am concerned. Addiction is a strong word. It belongs to things like alcohol, cigarettes, and eating broken glass. It becomes a silly word when given to a silly thing, and I would not do that.

I do regret. Often. I will be chewing my final bites and wondering why, wishing I wouldn't. And I tell myself, this time could be the last time, this time in fact is. And for a while, bless my heart, I even believe myself.

Mirrors and Scales

I'm gonna go ahead and be controversial.

Oh please no.

I'm about to say something you won't like.

This is where someone comes to save me.

I think white men of today have it hard.

This is where the laugh track goes.

I'm serious.

This is where the gasp goes, when they realize you're the villain.

I'm not the villain.

No villain thinks he's the villain.

I have an explanation.

I would love to not hear it.

Up until now white men have had it easy.

You don't say.

At the expense of a lot of other people; women, minorities—

Literally everyone.

And I'm not refuting that.

Oh god go on.

But a lot of that was built in.

White privilege.

Right, white privilege. So many of them didn't know it was happening.

Really.

I didn't.

OK.

I am only now beginning to understand how easy I always had it. Or if not that, how difficult it was and is for others.

This is where they go aww.

But now people are getting back at us.

And you've lost them again.

Getting back at people like me, who had no idea it was happening in the first place.

Oh dear god no.

Or if not getting back then being antagonistic.

Make. It. Stop.

Or if not antagonistic then throwing it in our faces.

Please help ANYBODY.

I feel like you're not getting what I'm saying.

I'm getting what you're saying. You're the one who's not getting it. Honesty is painful sometimes, people get mad at mirrors and scales for doing their jobs. The reason you're uncomfortable has nothing to do with anybody else but you. The reason you're uncomfortable is because you feel bad. Which is a good thing. It means you're learning. Like you said, you had no idea how difficult it was for other people. How easy you had it. How your world was slowly formed over hundreds of years to ensure how easy you'd have it. But now that world is changing and it's not even that things are slightly harder. It's that things aren't masked anymore. You're starting to see everything for what it really is. And that's different, and scary, and to you it seems unfair. Because you didn't ask to be white and you didn't ask to be male. You didn't ask to be born. Well guess what. Neither did anyone else.

Saltwater

Two weeks from now I will be in California. Sipping margaritas on the soft white sand. I've never been but I don't think I'm far off. Orange trees, palm trees, pomegranate trees on every corner. The new taste of swimming in saltwater.

Two weeks. That gives her almost as much time to change her mind. I should have set a closer date, I should have said, "I'll be there tomorrow." I was thinking too carefully about how to be spontaneous. Maybe that's why she said yes. Say yes now, get out later. Maybe she thought I would come to my senses. Joke's on her, I have none.

I am going to bed early and getting up late. I am taking naps. I am trying to get through this fortnight as quickly as possible. Leaving my phone in the other room, leaving it at home entirely. If I'm not there to answer her call then maybe that call will never come. I am already imagining calls.

Why say yes? Why propose the idea? If you're not going to go through with it. We were both in our right minds, we both knew what we wanted. What we want. Things change, I suppose. You think it's one thing and it ends up being entirely different.

All Die Carelessly

All die carelessly, all predict nervously, repeatedly. Without an authority to swear by all is forsaken. But in comparison against timeless distinctions, whoever twists, whichever suffers, is relieved. And prevention is nothing but a forgotten prison. It is an imposing, frail world.

Very Me

I ordered two rum punches that the bartender wouldn't set on fire. I said tell me more about this new guy. His name is Tom Wolfe, she said. Like the writer? Yes. He liked having the name of a famous author even if he'd read none of his works. I couldn't argue, neither had I.

The drinks were fruity and sweet, the kind of thing that gets you in the end. I said I'd gotten to the point that whenever something seems harmless I assume it's quite harmful. She laughed and said that was a strange thing, but I've got a few years on her. She'll learn. I'd already had half.

She asked me the same thing and I said Sarah, no famous last name, she struggled with reservations like the rest of us. Oh, making reservations already? It was just a figure of speech, I said, although it really wasn't that, and also it was the truth. We were going to nice restaurant, clubs, places where I had to wear a jacket. She said she thought it was funny that I had picked this place to meet. Didn't seem very me. I couldn't argue.

Would it have made a difference, I asked. A place like this, a reservation, a coat and tie. She swirled her unseasonable tropical beverage. Of course not. Did I really think it was about reservations? I couldn't answer her because I did. I felt foolish. And that meant Sarah couldn't see my foolishness, or saw it and refused to say. Not that I could blame her. Doing one thing and saying another, we've all been there before.