She thought it would look odd if we left the office together;
she left first.
She told me she would walk down the street and call me when
she found a place where we could eat and drink.
I was liked an infatuated puppy, padding down the wide sidewalk
following the instructions she gave me via text, stopping finally in front of a
German bar four blocks from the office. She had already ordered a glass of
wine, telling me she needed to unwind.
“I’m just a bar girl at heart,” she said.
Other men in the bar looked in her direction, and it
occurred to me she could have had any of them, and yet she was with me.
That made me feel special and young again, a foolish notion
from a man only a few weeks from 61.
There weren’t a lot of people inside the bar, more on the seats
along the street. It was barely after 5 p.m. and most of the locals were still
making their way back from their jobs in Manhattan.
This being Tuesday, it would not get crowded later either,
just the regulars who came here to talk and drink.
The place had always intrigued me, old fashioned with a lot
of brass that made the place look golden, a few inside tables, and a long
old-fashioned bar along one side.
She sat near the far end of the bar and motioned for me to
order, too, and I did.
She glowed like the place glowed, her long reddish-brown
hair she said tended to get redder in sunlight, her big eyes emphasized by
mascara – which she wore whenever she worked. Pink lipstick decorated her
slanted mouth.
You had to look closely to notice the pockmarks – most likely
the result of cocaine in the past – painted over with heavy makeup that made
them nearly invisible in light like this.
We didn’t order food at first; we just drank, she filling in
some of the gaps in her life from the story she’d told me during our walk on Sunday,
I filled in some of the gaps in mine.
She said she could make a living as a model for her brother,
but again said she did not feel comfortable with that.
“He’s too sexual,” she said. “He talks dirty to his models
when he shoots them, after which he fucks them.”
He had affairs that only lasted a few weeks.
He had made his fortune in technology, so he didn’t need to
make a living at being a photographer. She resented him sometimes because she
had to struggle for every dollar she earned.
She again touched upon “the rape” but didn’t go into
details, determined to keep the conversation light, although again alluded to
her stalkers, the woman from New York State and the bar owner from Manhattan.
When she needed a cigarette, she put napkins on the mouths our
wine glasses and then led me out the side door to a small alcove.
The change of light altered her appearance. She looked more
intense in the dark, tougher, not mean, a street fighter in an off moment
relaxing, yet not completely relaxed. Her gaze surveyed the street and the
people that passed as if she needed to recognize them before they did her.
She kept talking, mostly about her life, occasionally pausing
to ask about mine, and what I wanted. This was not the office stuff where she
played up to me, pretending I was her mentor. This was her element and we both
knew it.
She went to the rest room briefly (perhaps to snort some
cocaine). She came back exuberant and revived, and began a long diatribe filled
with witty retorts, do rapid fire I could hardly keep up with them. When we
went back outside for another cigarette, I gave her a kiss, long and lingering,
she seemed to respond.
This did not change the conversation when we went back
inside.
We ordered food neither of us finished, learning from the
bartender that the kitchen only made the bar’s famous potato pancakes on weekends.
Time wound down; she agreed to drive me up the hill. Then, a
newly elected politician walked in. She seemed annoyed at seeing him and
uncomfortable.
We left for the short walk back to the office where she had
parked her car, and she drove me up the hill, pulling over at a famous mobster
union hall. I kissed her again. She shuttered. I got out, waved as she pulled
away. She did not look back. When I got back home, I couldn’t sleep or perhaps
wouldn’t, fearing the kind of dreams that might come out of all this.
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