I caught a ride with Todd Maisel, one of the Daily News photographers, and ran the few blocks over from where he dropped me off. I found the place, tossed my cigarette, and tried to act my most cool, though I was anything but. My hands were shaking and I had no idea how it would this date would go down. So I hoped for the best, steeled myself for the worst, and went in with as little expectations as possible.
When I came in she was doodling on a napkin and talking with a boy at the end of the bar. I assumed he was hitting on her and you couldn't blame him. There she was. The red-headed vixen whom I had no idea who she was or what she was about. But she was here to meet me for drinks so I introduced myself and sat down on the stool next to her.
I don't remember if we hugged right off the bat, I was more concerned with getting a drink so my hands would stop shaking. She noticed them and I tried to play it off like it was the coffee I had hours ago (granted my caffeine intake doesn't help). I had a Stella and I believe she had a Blue Moon.
The first thirty minutes are lost to oblivion, but after that, something weird happened. I realized I wasn't chatting away nervously. Rather, she was doing all the talking, telling me about her life in Virginia as a teacher, her last serious relationship six years ago (with a musician of course), and how she gave it all up to become an artist.
The parallels in our lives were uncanny. I felt as if she were repeating back to me my own life story. I also left a long term relationship and a secure job to pursue my passion. She playfully lightly slaps me and says "I like you..." lingering on that last syllable, or perhaps I imagined it, but it moved me.
Someone I had perceived as a hard ass, who hadn't dated seriously in years, who was so pretty as to be near unattainable, she liked me. She felt comfortable and opened up with me, which is something I've always had within me. People always tell me anything as I tell nearly anyone everything. I'm an open book as I find it impossible to hold back my feelings.
When she apologizes for "babbling on", then looks away, I take her chin in the crook of my finger, lift her head back towards me, look her in the eye and say "Don't apologize for telling me things, that's what I'm here for, I want to get to know who you are." And then I kissed her.
I just couldn't help myself. To see her in that moment, embarrassed or ashamed for letting herself speak so freely, something I hate that society has made us feel bad about, I just needed her to know that every word coming from those lips of hers was everything I had ever wanted to hear.
I never thought anyone would understand me. I was a grown up way before my time and so had lived my life backwards, acting the part of partying twentysomething as I ventured into my thirties. I gave up a comfortable life for suffering and adventure. No one gets this, as most people follow the school, college, career path pretty straightforward-like.
But she knew she had something else to offer the world, something she owed to herself to set out and accomplish, just as I had. And here we both were at the end of an epic journey which we had both crafted into a very personal artist's statement of a book. That chapter was over, the first act completed. What came next?
More drinks, some whiskey, as the heart covered bartendress played oldies songs. I went to the bathroom and took a photo of the I LOVE YOU TOO...REALLY that was written on the bathroom wall, not thinking too much about it, not allowing my mind to take this and run with it. This was still a first date after all and I wouldn't repeat the same mistakes.
When I got back we split a Guiness with two straws. I wish I could remember what songs were playing as we shared our modern equivalent of a soda shoppe malt, but I was too in the moment. I know the Big Bopper was in there, but the full range of old school do-wop love songs surrounded us as we melted into one another.
I walked her home, just a few blocks away, and then took the subway back to my apartment. Did that really just happen? Did things indeed go that smoothly? Was I falling for this girl that had not even noticed me before? Just as I had given up on dating and relationships, she knocked on my door, and I answered.
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