Inexplicably, Love (Sample)
Inexplicably, Love
M… swirls the bourbon around his glass just to hear the ice sing. The bartender reacts to the song the way a bartender should, moving toward the empty glass with a half-cocked bottle in his hand.
M… nods as the bartender tilts to a pour.
“More ice?”
“Please,” M… says.
The bar has been mostly vacant since M… arrived hours earlier. These hotel restaurants are often empty at this time of day. He looks up at the clock, stares at it for a second. He feels as though he has been drinking for hours and yet the clock mocks him with slowness. A series of stuttering seconds barely pass. Time slows. His drinking has not.
This is a fairly upscale restaurant for a hotel, and the restaurant portion is sporadically decorated with people. M… turns toward the chatter, opens his ears to the voice of the din. He hears a plate drop in the kitchen, turns quickly toward the noise, and the subtle whiplash of the turn reminds him of how heavy bourbon makes his head.
His phone, placed ceremoniously on the bar, vibrates and ignites with light. M… lets it go a little longer than he should. He briefly considers not taking the call at all, but the problem with cell phones is that they leave few excuses. No more, ‘I was out of the room for a second,’ or, ‘I was at the conference.’ Cell phones tether you to their violation, leave privacy somewhere in the distant past.
M… picks up the phone. It is her.
“How are you?” M… as husband asks, and then listens with his husband face, serious and considerate.
“(inaudible hum).”
“No, the meeting let out early,” he says. His mouth twists a little, thinking he could have skipped the call, and just have said the meting went long and he had turned his phone off.
“(inaudible).”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sometimes I wonder why they pay me for this every year,” he says. Then he listens.
“(inaudible).” His brow is furiously concentrated on her words.
“No, I told you. I’ve talked to them about it. I’ve even showed them how it would work. They’re all cavemen, deaf to the shifting technology. You’d think they’d be open to saving money, but…” he stops, interrupted.
“(inaudible).”
“Yes, a little.” Stopped.
“(inaudible).”
“Bourbon.” Stopped.
“(inaudible).”
“Yes. OK.” Stops. Waits.
“(inaudible).”
“Hi. Honey.” M… as daddy says.
“(inaudible).”
“Daddy misses you.” Stops.
“(inaudible).”
“Yea?”
“(inaudible).”
“Yea?”
“(inaudible).”
“OK. Daddy loves you.”
“(inaudible).”
“OK. Yes. Can daddy talk to mommy again?”
“(inaudible.)”
“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“(inaudible.)”
“Yea, I miss you, too.”
“(inaudible.)”
“I promise. I’ll stop after this one and get some dinner.”
“(inaudible.)”
“OK. I’ll be in tomorrow around lunch time.”
“(inaudible.)”
“Love you, too.”
He shuts the phone and sets it back on the bar, strokes the smooth bar top with his hand, looks at his bourbon, grabs it and takes a long drink, walks briskly to the bottom of the glass.
M… looks to the bartender, “Could I see a menu, please?”
The bartender hands him a menu, and M… stares at the cover, realizing that he doesn’t feel much like eating.
He surveys the restaurant behind him.
There is a woman sitting alone on the other side of the room. She is tapping her long, slender fingers against a small, black purse on her table. She seems to be waiting for someone, impatiently. She is beautiful, wearing a black dress that comes up about mid-thigh in her seated position, her legs sheathed in charcoal gossamer, twisting her ankles on the axis of the heel of the shoe that is grounded, the other leg is crossed and peeking out from the shadow of the table.
She doesn’t look like she knows she’s beautiful.
Why would anyone keep her waiting?
She looks up and catches him looking. He has been staring too long. He turns away, looks again at the menu, feeling hungrier now.
M… looks up and down the menu, holds the entrees’ names in his mouth, pushes and pulls at the description of the fish, weighs the pros and cons of the steak, but all this makes him nauseous. He places the menu back down on the bar and when the bartender asks what he would like, M… taps his empty glass of bourbon, “Just another drink, please,” he says as he rises for the bathroom.
As he enters the bathroom the floral antiseptic stench reminds him of his bathroom at home. His wife is a clean person–so organized. As he stands at the urinal, a rush of dizziness hits his head, and he staggers back a step.
Maybe I should have gotten something to eat.
M… approaches the sink and stares at himself in the mirror. He still looks relatively young, and yet since his daughter’s birth he has felt older than his years, as if youth had slipped away suddenly without the benefit of a slower fade.
Water rushes over his hands and as it warms he throws some over his face.
M… exits the bathroom and stops for an instant once he sees that she, the woman who was sitting across the room in the black dress, has now taken the empty stool by his waiting glass of bourbon.
He very deliberately approaches the bar, feeling suddenly more drunk than before. He sits down at the stool and counts the awkward moments that go by. Then he watches her count the moments through the mirror they both face on the opposite side of the bar.
W… moves suddenly, crossing her left leg over her right, toward M…, and her ankle catches his leg. His pants leg is up a bit and he can feel her, the thinnest layer of nylon–only a whisper–separates them from a touch.
She doesn’t move her ankle.
He doesn’t want her to.
“Are you hear for the conference?” she asks, deliberately unveiling her voice.
“Yea, you?” he says, wiping away the webs from the drink.
“Unfortunately.” They both laugh the way people laugh at a joke that is neither funny or really a joke.
“Yea, I’ve been coming here for years and it gets worse every year. I don’t bother going to any of the talks or tutorials anymore. I think I’m even going to skip the keynote tonight.”
“Living on the wild side, eh?”
“I think just being at a business conference inherently negates a wild side.”
“I don’t know about that. Your sitting at a hotel bar in the middle of the afternoon chasing the bottom of a bottle of bourbon while talking to a strange woman, and you have a ring on your finger.”
“I do.”
“My ankle is resting on your leg and you haven’t said anything. You haven’t moved it away.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” he says, smiling. She is looking at him, serious. She’s not one to play games, at least not right now, “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t move my leg away because I didn’t want to move it away.”
W… smiles now, turns the glare of her stare away from his, rubs the glass that holds her drink with her slender fingers, suddenly shy. M… wants to reach out and touch her arm–her naked arm–and just the thought of it stands the hair up on the back of his neck, and he shivers a little as he sends away another rush of bourbon, an attempt to shake away the sparks. They don’t shake.
“You’re wearing a ring, too.”
“I am?”
“I think that’s what that diamond if on your finger.”
“Oh, that,” she says, looking at the ring, “Yea, I guess were both probably doing something…well…”
“Yea.”
“….”
They sit in the uncertainty, waiting for the quiet to break.
“Were you waiting for someone earlier?” he asks. She looks at him, “I didn’t think so,” he says.
“….”
“….”
“So, what now?” she asks.
“Why’d you come over here?”
“I was lonely. I wanted some company.”
“Well, you’ve got some. No harm in that.”
“Would your wife buy that?”
He just smiles, tight. No response is necessary. So, he changes the subject, “Do you find yourself lonely often?”
“No, I didn’t know I was lonely until I saw you over here looking at me. You were looking at me?”
“I was.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you were a nice thing to look at.”
“A nice thing, huh?”
“I was looking, wondering if you know how beautiful you are.”
“I do. Sometimes.”
“Now?”
“Five minutes ago? No. Now? Yes.”
“Maybe, I’ve had too much to drink but I think you are the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
“There’s that thing again.”
“Yea, you’re defining undefined categories for me. All I’m left with is things.”
She smiles, leans her head to one side, and a bell goes off in his head that tells him he’ll love this woman….
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