The bar was eerily empty. I was, unfortunately, the first to arrive, which left me with the task of finding a comfortable enough table for my friends. I looked around as nonchalantly as possible, inexplicably embarrassed as I turned my head right to left, eventually deciding on a large booth in a somewhat desolate corner. I sat down, took out my phone, and tapped absentmindedly, having nothing of importance to look at. After a few minutes, a young woman walked up on the bar’s makeshift stage, tapping the mic tepidly and pulling up a stool and guitar. Once she sorted out a few technical issues, she took a deep breath, shaking slightly, and began plucking the strings delicately, as if any more force would cause irreversible damage to the guitar. She started singing a Spanish song of old, one that sounded vaguely familiar. Her voice cut through the looming silence of drowning sorrows and lonely people like a sharpened knife. My gaze was now fixed on her. She wore her curly hair in a tight bun, a few strands dangling from her forehead like gymnasts swinging from a rope. Her eyes were closed, her left leg crossed over the other, her back straight, her voice slightly raspy. She was transported into a world of her own, and it was one I wanted to visit, to be a neighbor in, to occupy politely.
I forced my gaze away from her and onto a man sitting at the bar. He was slumped over, gray hair hiding his face like a dirty, wet mop, letting out the occasional snore and gargled cough, reminding the few of us inside that he was not actually dead. As the young woman moved on to her next song, the front door opened. Emily stepped inside, looking around nervously just as I had done when I arrived. I waved my hand to grab her attention and her expression changed to a wide smile in an instant. She was wearing baggy light-wash jeans and an oversized white graphic t-shirt that complimented her ivory Chucks nicely. I hadn’t seen her in over three years, but her style didn’t change a bit.
I stood up and hugged her. She said I looked handsome, and I told her she looked very pretty. We sat down and shared a moment of silence that felt more natural than awkward. I was beginning to realize that I missed her very much, and my mind wandered to the night we shared a kiss. I think I liked it more than she did. I had a terrible habit of falling in love with just about anyone, even for just a second. I was the most hopeless of romantics. People like Emily were as cynical as they come.
“You’re giving me that look again,” she said smugly.
“Look?” I asked, clueless. “What look?”
“That look you gave me before we kissed.”
She was so bold. I envied her.
“It’s okay to think about it,” she said reassuringly. “I think about it too.”
What a strange conversation to have after such a long time apart. I suppose two people with history don’t adhere to time’s strict rules as closely. That’s the benefit of a kiss, a slip of the tongue, a curious finger. The foundations of a friendship change into something more nuanced. Our time apart wasn’t the detritus of our romantic complications, but of our changing circumstances. I moved to Washington, DC after accepting a job offer at a newspaper publication. She stayed in LA to pursue a career in real estate, something that seemed completely out of character for her.
The young woman finished her short set and disappeared behind a black curtain that blended into the walls. The door opened and Keith entered. He saw us immediately, nearly jumping with excitement. His hug was tighter and prolonged. His warmth reminded me of our kiss just one year prior. His tongue tasted of cigarettes and grape juice. Did he still smoke? There was only one way to find out, of course.
“Oh, Theo!” he exclaimed. “You’ve become so beautiful. How is that possible?”
“No clue,” I said, blushing slightly. “You look wonderful too.”
Keith wore a cream colored turtleneck with black dress pants and blacker boots. He dressed like someone who had secrets, the kind of secrets that reside on one’s neck and chest, the kind of secrets that looked like red spots and scattered blemishes. Who was he the night before? Did he think of me? I looked at Emily and saw her eyes focused on something behind me. I turned around and was welcomed by the young woman. She introduced herself as Marianne, shaking my hand with the same deft she handled her guitar with.
“Hello,” she said calmly. “I couldn’t help but notice you noticing me earlier.”
“Me?” I asked, dumbfounded. “You noticed me noticing you?”
“Yes,” she said, as if there was nothing remarkable about it. “Would you like to join me for a quick walk?”
I turned to Keith and Emily, who wore smiles of promiscuity. I accepted and the two of us were off.
The sun was setting its tired head down behind the pointed mountains, casting an orange glow across the sky. The air was cold and sharp, and Marianne pressed her shoulder against mine like we had a familiarity that went back years. What a strange woman, I thought. So bold. I envied her too.
We walked to a nearby public library that had an abundance of flowers and greenery that surrounded the brick building in its lush blanket of tiny critters and breathing stomata. She insisted we sit on a bench. The seat was cold to the touch, but quickly warmed up as we placed our bottoms on top of it. She told me to put my arm around her, so I did. She told me to make some room for her head to rest on my shoulder, so I did. She told me to kiss her on the cheek, then on the nose, then on the lips, so, of course, I did. She was parched, presumably from all that singing, but her lips quickly became wet from our continued kissing. Our session ended unceremoniously, in which she was picked up by someone who remained unknown to me. I walked back to the bar, hands in my pockets, shivering slightly from the biting weather. I liked being told what to do. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I was doing something wrong, or if I wasn’t doing enough. There was no room for ambiguity in her instructions, and I was more than happy to oblige.
Perhaps I was in love? I wanted more of her, but is that love or craving? It was impossible for me to ascertain such things, though I’d come to realize this was a lack of critical thinking on my part than it was anyone else’s lack of subtlety.
When I got back to the bar, Miranda had arrived. The three of them sat at the table I found, chatting and laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world. Miranda’s bright green eyes and smile lines turned to me. How beautiful, I thought to myself. She was always so beautiful.
She was wearing an oversized green jacket that hugged her black shirt perfectly, the jacket zipper hanging down the waist of her black cargo pants. Two months prior, the two of us shared a kiss that has remained on my lips ever since. Her lips met mine under the shabby roof of a sushi restaurant in Little Tokyo. The rain danced and echoed on the metal above us as we stood there, waiting for the sky to clear and the rain to subside. Perhaps it was our heated conversation about the nature of love, its layered, never-ending quality that can’t be pinned into a corner, that can’t be understood by anyone to the fullest extent. She argued that love is just like any other emotion, that it isn’t any more special than hate or longing or jealousy or joy. I disagreed. Love, to me, was always more than the sum of its hazy parts. Love doesn’t have a specific form. It doesn’t take a single shape, but rather, a million shapes at once. Love dictates other emotions; love rules over them with an iron fist and a cold, beating heart. She refused to agree with me, but she kissed me nonetheless. I asked her if it was love she was feeling to make her do such a thing. She said it was curiosity.
At the bar, she hugged me close, squeezing my back and letting her closed lips graze the side of my neck. I sat down next to her, and we let the silence cast a shadow over our table. The young woman wasn’t there to fill the bar’s emptiness with old Spanish songs. The moppy haired man wallowing in self-pity was no longer hunched over the bar with empty whisky glasses scattered around his large arms. The bartender was nowhere to be found. The sun was asleep. The lights were flickering on and off, trying and failing to stay awake. The black walls started to blend in with the night sky, no stars, no clouds, just darkness. We didn’t get up and leave. Doing so felt impossible for some reason, though not painful, almost euphoric. This is what it is to taste what others feel.
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