So I’m sitting in this pub, minding my own business, my friend is texting her man-du-week and giggling stupidly. Really? I mean, we’re almost forty, when this guy comes in and sits down next to me. Hoping with the hope of the doomed that he won’t try to talk to me, I pull out my phone and pretend to be checking messages. I try to engage my friend in a face-to-face discussion, I root around in my bag, I crane my head around and pretend I’m watching the dart game, but then my neck is uncomfortable, and I think I probably look stupid twisted around in my bar stool. I sit straight again.
In this college town of perpetual students, professors and the plethora of
professionals that wander the streets I always attract the least desirable men. Yeah, I know: wah-wah-wah. I utilize my peripheral vision and take in the button-down shirt, the baggy jeans, the chain wallet, the skater shoes all residing loosely under this guy’s head of gray hair. I mentally roll my eyes. Winner, yeah?
It was inevitable: he spoke. I answered him politely. I stared into my beer. I
flipped my hair over my shoulder. Wait! I think, don’t do that. Isn’t that some flirting thing? Damn. He starts talking to me again. I eyeball him sideways, not willing to put in the effort of a full-on look. He twists slightly leaning toward me. I lean away an equal amount. Read that body language, Dude. He pulls on an earlobe, sips his beer, rubs a palm on his denim-covered thigh. His mouth opens, and more words come out.
I’m stuck, unless I want to be an out and out hag, and so I submit. I’m not happy. I try to look neutral, at least. The beer, the pub, the weather, you from around here? The conversation stutters on. He makes odd faces as he talks; he’s shy and this is hard for him. I soften just a touch, say something … I don’t know what … and he laughs. I ask what he does, resigned, gearing down on my ice queen act.
He tells me he’s a truck driver. Bingo. I turn my head and look straight at him, note that his eyes are blue-gray like my own. Suddenly Jerry Reed and his guitar are serenading me in my head, drowning out the frat boys in the back corner. He’s warning me about Smokey, how our time is short but the distance long. Burt Reynolds skids into my mind’s eye, that sexy black Trans-Am kicking up a cloud of dust …
“Do you use a CB?” I try to say it without sounding breathless - I can feel the cells in my body dancing, it’s big party. He says he does. I smile, make eye contact. I note his button-down isn’t blue, even if his collar is. How shallow am I? I flip my hair back again, what the hell, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment