She doesn't remember, but the last time she was here we made out. Tonight she's here with a young conventionally good looking guy. I bet his name's Dirk or Cato or something equally on the edge of pretension. Her name is Lily and she looks like she's on coke. She looks like the sort who maybe Dirk hired for the night. Maybe he did. When I kissed her, it didn't cost me a thing, though, so I don't pretend to know all the angles. I just sit here at this bar, night after night, and wonder who will sit down beside me next and if I'll want to talk or not. Some people really interest me. Lily interests me. She reminds me a little bit of my cousin Rachel. Rachel was always a little misunderstood and constantly running away from home. I wonder if Lily is a runaway. I bet she is. I stare at her in a loose fitting white top. It's backless and she's bra-less and it gets me thinking. She's got great arms, thin but muscular. I bet she does yoga. I bet she can climb trees. I see her fingers as they reach up and play through Dirk's curly brown hair. She's blonde and her hair hangs long and straight just past her shoulder blades. I watch as she slides her hand down to the back of his neck and pulls him into her. She kisses him with her eyes open. It's startling. I wonder if she kissed me with her eyes open. As she pulls back from him for a moment, her eyes sink solidly into his and then for a brief millisecond, she flashes those beautiful blues at me. Am I imagining it? I don't think so. Her smile shifts. Maybe she does remember.
I signal the bartender for another Jamesons on the rocks. His name's George. He's a good guy. He brings me my drink and juts his chin towards Lily. "Let her blow you sometime," he said with a wink. I nod slowly. Maybe I will.
"My man, good to see you," a new voice says beside me.
It's my friend Roy. We used to jam together in a band a few years ago. He still plays. I don't. At least not much.
"You on stage tonight?" I ask, signaling George to bring Roy the same thing I'm drinking.
Roy nods. "Sit in with us," he says. He always says that.
I smile politely. "Thanks, man, maybe." I always say that.
We clink our glasses together as soon as George sets Roy's drink down. "To the sun," Roy says.
Back in my music days, Roy and some of the other guys we jammed with hopped a plane for the tropics to see what the scene was like. Just thinking about those two weeks of suspended real-life brings back the feeling of sun on my face and a dull ache in my veins. It was fucking great. On the last night there, Roy and I were in a shitty little bar where everyone was trying -- quite successfully, I might add -- to sell us drugs and Roy stumbled into a girl -- a woman -- sitting alone at the bar. She told him her name was Jane, but I think she made that up. Anyway, Roy was trying to work some magic on her and I could see she was uncomfortable, so I turned his head towards another girl making waves on the dance floor and I took this strange Jane by the hand. It was an electric moment. It was like all we needed to do was press our palms together and our lifelines fused forever. The band was some kind of reggae hip hop workshop but I took sweet Jane and spun her around and then pressed her close to me. We swayed back and forth with our eyes locked into each other and moved slowly and deliberately and without any consideration for the music. Something came over me -- maybe it was just the intense heat of what we were doing -- and at the last moment, I dipped her low, her back arching towards the ground. I don't know what we looked like, but I felt like a fucking ballroom champion dancer at that moment. As I pulled lovely Jane back up to standing, I saw tears streaking down her face. "Thank you," she said to me. Thank you! And then she ran outside. I stood completely still for a moment before I chased after her. She hadn't gone too far, just outside the door. She told me her boyfriend had dumped her earlier that day. Left her for another woman. She lived on the island, she told me, and she had never wanted to escape from paradise more than she did that day and somehow my arms around her made a difference in her life. She brought me home with her and the next day, I got on a plane and came back to Somerville, Massachusetts. I wonder if her name really is Jane. I wonder that all the time.
"To the sun," I echo back at Roy.
Lily is positioned directly behind Roy so I can keep watching her move while I talk to him about his kids and his ex-wife. I don't have kids or an ex-wife. Listening to Roy talk, I am thankful for both of those things. Instead, I have girls like Lily in my life. Looking around the room, I can count at least four men who have fucked her, Roy included. I haven't fucked her. Not yet, at least. Maybe I will. The night is young. Life is young. I order another Jamesons as Roy claps a hand on my shoulder and excuses himself to set up for the music. I fix my eyes on Lily but I do it in a non-creepy way. At least, I think that's what I'm doing. She doesn't seem to notice me. How could she? Her hands are busy working Dirk and her tongue is sweeping the inside of his mouth. I watch her jaw move. I like what I see. I remember what it was like to be Dirk. I hate that asshole.
I don't know if I'm drunk yet. It's hard for me to tell anymore. I wonder if it even really matters. I live two blocks from this bar so I'm within easy stumbling distance. I wonder if I should be looking for someone to stumble home with instead of fixating on Lily. But I can't stop looking at her. When she turns to the side, I can see part of her breast. I am staring now. This realization hits me and I feel like a predator, so I shift my gaze down into my rocks glass. When did I become this guy?
My girlfriend would roll her eyes at me if I asked her this question. She'd say, "What kind of guy do you think you are now? You're a guy, that's for sure." But she'd say it kindly, with her arms wrapped around my neck. Her arms aren't as nice as Lily's but they're nice enough. She's also not really my girlfriend. I call her that when she's not around because it best defines how I feel about her, but she's probably in a bar a few blocks away with her hand in some other guy's back pocket. I don't let my imagination run the full gambit. I know she winds up in beds besides mine but I can only picture her curled up next to me. She sleeps with her mouth wide open. It's wild. I love everything about her except for the fact that I know she's pressed up against some other man right now. Fact, I don't know that for a fact. But I let myself assume.
I let myself stare at Lily.
Roy and the boys are starting to play the first song. Lily and Dirk have suddenly vanished from sight. I think about George's endorsement -- Let her blow you sometime. Dirk, you lucky bastard. I turn my attention to the music. Reggae tonight. Roy's "To the sun" toast suddenly makes sense. I let my head move slightly out of time with the music. I wait to see who else will sit down beside me.
First line written by Tom Lada
From the short story collection Sobriety (And 49 Other Fine Stories) by Sarah Wolf
Published by Wolfstar Press (2013) and available both in paperback and for Kindle
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