After Three Martinis and A Bottle of Wine

"What can I get you?" asks the new bartender.
I forget what I want just for a couple of minutes because he has this amazing smile, the one you can only see on the walls of some dentist's waiting room. "I.."
"Another Martini?"
By now I had two of them, and probably a whole bottle of red wine. But who's counting? "Yes."
With that he starts juggling the bottles and in seconds my drink is ready. "There you go" he says with that same smile, and goes on to make other drinks for others.
I hear a cough, which sounds nothing like a real cough, and turn my head to Marty, my, well what's the sense in lying, blind-date. He looks uncomfortable. I realize I had compeletely forgatten his existence for the last five minutes, almost slobberingly watching the tall, tan, atlethic bartender.
"Sorry, didn't catch that last part" I say, in a slightly apologetic way. It's not his fault, I know, it's all Kate's fault; and so this sad man tries to talk to me and thinks I might actually be attracted to him. He thinks there could be a second date.
No way.
"I asked if you would like to go to this show on saturday, my boss gave me two tickets, and well, I haven't asked anybody else.. I mean if you're not busy or anything. So you know, if you want to..."
Like I said, NO way.
"Oh, thanks Marty. But I have this thing on Saturday.. this doctor appointment, about.. About my eyes."
"Okay, well, you know, just thought I'd ask. Hope your eye thing gets well."
"Thanks."
"Yeah."

At that moment, finally, Kate comes in and takes the seat next to me. But since I have no intention of staying a minute longer and bear the silence of awkwardness, I give a look at Kate and she finally understands it has been a drag for me.
"I see you guys have been having fun," she says to Marty with a fake grin, once again making me admire her acting skills, "but I guess it's better we get going. I can't believe it's eleven already, how time flies when you're having fun!"
Tell me about it.
And so we say goodbye and start walking to Kate's car. Because I like to think I'm a nice person, I decide I'll wait until we're actually in the car to start complaining about Marty. With the alcohol amount in my system, there might be some cursing involved, and nice people don't curse, at least not in public.
"What the hell were you thinking?" I shout right after Kate shuts her door.
"I tought it would be nice to have some company of opposite gender, to get your mind off of that jerk."
"Really, Kate? Marty? Kermit The Frog would have been a better distraction."
"Don't be too hard on him, he's a nice guy. Has a good job, good salary. Fairly good-looking--"
"Kate!"
"Okay, maybe not so good-loking."
"He was more boring than that damn documentary we saw last week about elevators."
She bursts into laughter "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I know you were doing this for me. But no more blind-dates, please."
"Sure thing, honey. Wait, WHO is that? My, my..."
Kate's looking at the direction of the bar with dazzled eyes. I look where she's looking, to see the bartender running towards us. I wonder if Marty was actually succesful in killing me with boredome and if this was heaven.
I roll down the window, and he leans in "Ladies, you're not supposed to be driving are you?"
We start grinning like two little girls, who got caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
"Come in with me, and we'll call you a cab. You'll get your car tomorrow."
Kate and I stare at each other for a second, and we're both thinking the same thing:
Damn, he's hot.

Just Another "Jerk"

Kate used to smoke.

She quitted it a year ago. Well... Supposedly. I bet she still smokes. That's the only reason for her leaving the bar to take short walks.

During the days I tried to make her quit, the only thing she, my friend of twenty-one years, said was that she liked holding it like an old friend.

I felt insulted.

I know the day she started it and the day she quitted. So what have I done to deserve this?

I don't know either.

Ten years, three months, seven days, one hour, twenty-two minutes and four seconds ago if I had stopped her from smoking her first cigarette maybe right now, I wouldn't be this miserable.

It was normal when she came to my house this evening. I swear, everything was normal.

In a weird way.

I expected her to insult “the jerk” and complain about how he acted, it (probably cheating) being so obvious and how much she didn't like him, but still she didn't say anything cause she loves me. None of this ever happened.

All she said was “Stop wearing yellow, woman.”

Those of you who don't know her, Kate is one of those people who does these long monologues that questions everything from life to a spoon with other people in the room just to start a subject. That's why when we go out to drink, she gets drunk latest because she's doing the talks while we open new bottles of red wine.

Right now, with my red satin dress on, I'm sitting on a bar stool and waiting for the barmen to change shifts just to get a new glass 'cause Marty, Kate's current partner's colleague is very boring. It's not about me, seriously. I tried very hard to focus, it is impossible. He is talking in slow motion and he is...

He is just another “jerk”. What's the point of hitting on him?

Thanks Kate. Seriously, it's really appreciated.

Well... At least the new bartender's here. I need some alcohol.

Day After

I wake up to the ringing of my cell phone, and realise it's two in the afternoon. Thinking about it, I was grateful to him for dumping me on a Friday, because I could have a whole night to myself for crying my eyes out, and an afternoon to sleep away the pain in my heart. Not a quarter of the pain is gone, but at least I don't have to explain anyone my crappy looks and even crappier mood.
Once seeing the caller, who woke me up recklessly -in the afternoon-, I know I've been wrong. It's Kate, a true psychic, who can read minds and faces, and tell a jerk from a two yards distance, and who happens to be my best friend. I can't decide wether to be happy or nervous to see her calling, because I can tell, knowing her for 17 years now, that our conversation will include both of the sentences "I'm so sorry sweetheart" and "I told you so."
Nevertheless, I pick up my phone and answer: "Hello."
My voice gives me right away and so the familiar sound of the combination of my bestfriends interest and mockery is on the other side: "What happened?!"
Like she doesn't know damn well what has happened.
"It's that jerk again, isn't it? What did he do? I swear I'm going to kick him in the ass, very soon." she says, and goes on about her plans to beat him up. I appreciate my friends enthusiasm about destroying him, but I can't bare the word of him anymore, so I cut her words and say bluntly "He broke up with me."
There is a long silence on the phone, except my sniffings, and we both don't know what to say, only for a little while. Kate does what she does best and says "I really didn't want to say this, but, I told you he was a jerk."
"I know" I say, but only to myself, still trying to solve the puzzles in my mind. Being a girl who believes in dreams but not naive enough to believe in fairytales, I had a lot of belief in our relationship. He and I weren't the dream couple, nor the best match. You could tell that our relationship was nothing near fairytale-like, and that's why I knew it was real. I knew we weren't perfect, and honestly, I always thought what made our relationship strong, was our will to stay together despite our imperfection.
Then comes my consolation, when Kate says "I'm so sorry sweetheart" and offers to visit me today after her shift at the old Concert Hall is over. I say "No need" lovingly, and tell her I need a little time on my own. She agrees, with the one condition of taking me out on Monday evening. "For drinks" she says, "to get your mind off of things". I find it hard to believe that a couple of Sex on the Beaches will help me get our imperfect-yet-perfect relationship out of my head, but I agree on it anyway.

The Ticks and the Tocks

The waitress gives me a look from the back of her dusty blue counter. If one is able to say “I told you so,” with her eyes, I swear she's an expert on it. She knows that something is wrong when I want the check with an unfinished cherry pie in front of me, because she is the same waitress that served us last night, and the night before that and the night before that.

She takes her ponytail braid to the front and fixes the very end of it while passing through the counters. She is one of those girls who like their hair braided. She reminds me of my childhood, how my mother used to braid my hair because she thought braids made me look more Tess like. Nowadays all she can do is to accuse me of being too young and too helpless.

The waitress comes to us, holding the check in her left hand. She hesitates but turns to me first, than to him; searching for a sign of responsibility in our eyes, a direction. I'm terrified to make a move. Terrified to speak or to take a breath. If it was possible, I could sit there forever staring at his green eyes waiting for a response; until a wise mind reminds me of that I cannot spend the rest of my life in a coffee shop, sitting at a wooden table, waiting.

He closes his eyes in a way that they do in the movies only. Imagine an eye and the eye closes softly, slow-motion; but you have to admit that it is so fucking slow that you want to rip the eyelid away. I wonder if he does it deliberately, to make me feel the very light essence of the ticks and the tocks.

He takes his wallet out while he switches his legs, making a move to stand up. At the same time amazing me with his speed. 5$ for his cappuccino but with less milk, 6$ for my small hot chocolate plus 40 cents for extra cream, 10$ for double sized cherry pie, no charge for a cup of water. Total of 21.40$, without the tip. He doesn't feel well, I bet he is going to forget the tip. Moreover the look on the waitress' face flashes everything.

The moment he takes a step, he pauses and turns to me. I can feel the last moments of my waiting. He bents down next to me, getting support from the wooden table. Nervous as hell, he puts a little kiss on my cheek.

“Goodbye, baby.” he says it so easily, just like the song.

I almost hear him sing “I'm gonna leave you now,” while he is heading towards the front door.

There is no reminder anymore, no lover, no braider. Even the pie maker has left the shop. But the clock is there, ticking only; 'cause it seems he stole the tocks before drifting away.

Cherry Pie (NEW STORY!)

"What are you thinking?"
We're sitting at a wooden table, located at the far corner of my favourite coffee shop, which has the best moccas and cherry pies in town. He's obviously talking to me but I find it hard to answer, so I pretend not to be listening and further pick on my cherry pie.
"That pie is suffering," he says with a forced smile.
I give out an unreasonably loud snort and let go of my fork. His coffee is finished whereas mine is untouched, getting cold. I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm mostly "not thinking". I find that "thinking" at this moment would make things worse, because I would start digging our memories and try to figure out what went wrong. Then I decide maybe he can help me with this: "Why are you dumping me again?"
"I am not dump... It's not like that. You know it's not like that Tess, it's just that..."
He's struggling for words, but he knows damn well that there are no good words, symbols or allusions for it. He's dumping me, for good.
I don't mind being dumped, even though we've been together for three years, six months and twenty-two days, I really don't mind. The "not knowing" part is killing me. I always knew we wouldn't last forever, but I always knew there would be a good reason for our breakup. A huge fight, with stuff throwing at each other and everything. But here we are, at my favourite place of all times, sitting at our special table, having our "usuals".
Nothing makes sense, really, so he might as well use any word for it.
As he keeps on mumbling reasons and apologies and stuff, I realise there's no point left staying. Life has to go on at some point, right? So I call on for a waitress:
"Check, please!"