(This is a fictionalized version of a series of journals. I originally intended to put together a collection of short stories -- some of which I've already posted here -- with this following the story about my abandoning her in the bar, the story about the cruise on the river, the rapper story, and the majestic story following at some point after this one -- as well as a number of other similar stories. )
The liquid sloshes as I carry the bottle into the office.
Red wine though I know she mostly drinks white.
It sloshes like it did that day in her apartment when she
didn’t have any and I didn’t bring any and we both strolled down the street to
the liquor store, where she bought it and brought it back, red wine instead of
white, sweet as blood.
Maybe it’s why I bring red wine this time, as a memory of a
happier moment when that wine led to something else just as sweet.
I hold the bottle by the neck and keep it by my side, trying
not to let it seem obvious to the receptionist what I have.
She guesses anyway, wanting to know why I’m here when its
not Tuesday, though knows that, too.
They are too close for my comfort, telling each other
everything, and I’m scared if they share this bit it’ll spoil the whole point.
How do I explain how innocent this really is, my bringing in
a bottle I promised after she – my coworker – asked for me to take her out for
a drink.
After my leaving her at the bar that night, It felt awkward
going out with her again. So, I told her I would drop off a bottle instead.
How could I be so stupid, coming in on a day that no one
expects me and so makes it all too obvious I’m up to something, and the
receptionist has a nose for such things.
But I picked a day and time when I know she wouldn’t be at
her desk upstairs, not trusting myself to see her after her screeching at me on
the phone, knew if I met her face to face at this moment I might melt, still
aching, still wishing we might go back to that first bottle she shared in her
flat, and what transpired after wards.
Too much wine has flowed under the bridge since then, red
wine, white wine, and those terrible in-betweens.
Even on Tuesdays, when I’m supposed to be here, I almost
melt, seeing her across the meeting table, struggling not to look too deeply
into her eyes.
I get drunk just looking at her, as if I am a bottle full of
wine whose cork might pop if shaken too briskly.
Or even that first time, after the texts started and how
disappointed I felt when she suggested we go out for a drink, a Thursday,
maybe, when I said I couldn’t, having still work to do, meetings to cover, and
yet utterly elated by her merely asking – drunk even before we had the chance
to have our first drink.
At least, I got a rain check.
This came around the same time she started to text him at
night, innocent ramblings at first, the drip, drip, drip of something ready to
pour down into my life, the first sips of a fine wine I opened my mouth wide,
edger to receive, joyful exchanges even when I crossed that line of sobriety I
knew I could not step back from without pain.
I wanted to drink up whatever she offered, greedily
imagining what might come next.
Back then, after such late nights, I voraciously anticipated
sitting across the table from her at the office on Tuesdays, reshaping into a
mental reality what were mere dreams the night before.
Now, here, in the office, standing before the receptionist’s
desk with my hand gripping the neck of the bottle I brought, I feign innocence,
desperate to recreate a baffled look, and then to explain how the bottle was a
gift, to apologize for a disagreement she and I had had over some work related
issue – hoping that she had not shared the truth about how I had abandoned her
at the bar, or the intense pain in her voice screeching at me as I stumbled
home drunk on too many glasses of wine, that taste still sour on the back of my
tongue.
The receptionist looks at me as if she thinks I’m drunk,
too. This is not good news. She is too close to the girl upstairs, perhaps
close enough to have shared talk about me, even though the girl upstairs keeps
secrets.
And what if the receptionist tells the boss, a man I already
suspect of being involved with the girl, as drunk on her as I am, and possibly
as jealous, maybe jealous enough to find a reason to fire me for messing with
her.
It’s only wine, I think, and I’m only doing what I said I
would do, to make up for leaving her at the bar, to make up; for not going out
for the drink she suggested we do.
I am utterly confused – as if I have already consumed the
contents of the bottle I’m carrying.
I’m scared the boss might come out of his office and catch
me here on a day other than Tuesday. So, I hurry up the stairs, determined to
get the whole things over and get out before the whole situation gets out of
hand.
Half way up the stairs, I catch her scent, not overpowering,
just there, an occupying force I’d not reckoned with, haunting, pervasive, as
if she’d left a trail from the front door to her desk, a subtle perfume that
grew more powerful with each step closer to that space she occupied upstairs.
It is the same scent from the German bar, where she posed
like a goddess, her long fingers gripping the stem of her wine glass, her pink lips
staining its rim, and me with the almost irresistible urge to stick my finger
into her white wine to paint her lips with it, to have her tongue lick the liquid
from the tip, to draw my finger into her both as if sucking the wine from it.
Her absence sobers me as I inch towards the desk, which is so
stark, it’s almost as if she might never return.
I put the bottle on and flee, staggering back down the
stairs, the images of our last encounter in the bar haunting me.
I say nothing to the receptionist, and do my best to avoid
passing in front of the boss’ open door, and once outside, I feel revived,
thinking how maybe things might return to how they were before I abandoned her
at the bar, maybe even back to that first time in the German bar when I stole a
kiss, a foolish notion, of course, but a pleasant one.
I’m all the way home when I get her text.
She is not happy.
Someone, the receptionist most likely, called her about it,
and maybe also told the boss about my unscheduled visit.
It’s like I’m back in the bar again, not the German bar, not
even the later bar, but that last bar, my mouth filled with the bitter taste of
wine I haven’t yet had a chance to sip, but know that it is sour and sad, and I
realize, regardless of the promise I made to bring her the bottle, I somehow
again made the situation worse.
I try to tell myself I did my best, made my peace offering,
and if she doesn’t appreciate the effort, I kept my promise.
This is not my fault.
But I’m wiser for the experience, knowing I wont trust the
receptionist in the future, if there is anything in the future to possibly
trust her with, and I won’t make any more unscheduled visits to the office.
Then, the receptionist calls, telling me the boss wants to
know why I have a bottle of wine sitting on my desk in the alcove.
“That was for her,” I say.
“Well, she doesn’t want it,” the receptionist says, “and the
boss wants you to remove it as soon as possible.”
“I’ll be there on Tuesday.”
“That’s not good enough. He wants you to get rid of it now.”
“But I’m all the way home.”
“That’s not my problem,” she says and hangs up.
My head is spinning. I can’t believe how bad it is, first the
thing at the bar, now this.
I take the long walk back down the viaduct, glaring at the
receptionist as I pass, not bothering to climb all of the stairs to the desk
where I put the wine, but stopping at my harry Potter place.
It’s obvious she doesn’t want peace.
I uncork the bottle and start drinking it on my walk back,
feeling a bit better by the time I get home, not quite drunk, yet pacified, not
quite back to where we were in the German bar, but far better than that bar
where I left her, feeling the buss, living with the memory of those better moments,
when we sipped wine together, seeing her still in my head, the glistening of white
wine on her lips which made me wish to kiss her, knowing I still do.
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