An Offbeat Romance
I met him at a place called The Blue Parrot, a bit of a dive but they do have some good live music there sometimes. I’d gone there with a girlfriend to hear a band and see if we could maybe scrounge up a couple of men and some kind of love lives. If not, at least we could get blitzed and have a few laughs.
She spotted him first. He was smoking a cigarette. My friend Maddie always craves cigarettes when she’s tipsy. And she’s tipsy a lot. Still, she always puts Non-Smoker on all her dating profiles. I put Non-Smoker too, but I don’t smoke. I also check the box that says I drink socially but that’s a bit of a stretch.
Maddie waved him over, asked to bum a cigarette. He handed her the pack and pulled a lighter out of his shirt pocket. It was all silver and shiny, a hardcore kind of lighter. Serious smoker, I thought, too bad. On my dating profiles I always said I wouldn’t date a smoker.
While he tended to Maddie, I gave him the thrice over. He was wearing jeans, and a dress shirt untucked. The cuffs on the long sleeves were turned up, and his boots were properly scuffed up and abused, sticking out from under his jeans. I love boots--another point for the handsome stranger. And his hair was dark, my fave, but it was also sticking up in the front. Kind of punky. He had to do that on purpose.
I don’t go for vain guys, am totally turned off by weightlifters and bodybuilders and guys that obviously work too hard on their looks. But his hair did look kind of cool, it wasn’t too showy. Almost like he just got caught in a stiff breeze on the way over.
As they smoked, I rocked out in my seat, enviously eyeing the couples drifting onto the dance floor. Maddie nudged him and said, “My friend here likes to dance.”
“Is that so?” he said, holding out his hand.
The band was playing “Call Me” by Blondie. He may have been a little surprised because I don’t follow any prescribed dance routines. I dance freestyle, energetically and kick my long legs up a lot. Sometimes guys are intimidated—or injured— by that, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Afterward, he said his name was Todd, that he was there with friends, and they were heading out to a blues bar. He pointed them out to me. A girl and two guys were standing near the exit gate covered with netting and starfish and all that corny nautical stuff. I wished he wasn’t leaving. I had a feeling I liked this guy. I grabbed the paper menu out of the grimy steel holder on the table and in the margin, next to Grouper Nuggets I think it was, I wrote my name and phone number.
“Call me,” I said. “For real.”
He smiled. “A couple of buddies of mine are playing at Jimmy’s on Thursday. I’m not sure if you’d be up for it…”
Hell, yes, I’d be up for it. “That sounds fun.”
I agreed to meet him at his place first. I don’t know what I was expecting really but was disappointed when the GPS said I had arrived. There was a big front lawn leading to a small shoebox of a house that looked like it was just dropped onto the property almost as an afterthought. I knocked my usual soft knock that nobody hears but he opened the door right away even though he had loud music playing. It was not the kind I normally listened to, more heavy metal, headbanger stuff. I’m more of a classic rock girl.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked.
He nodded. “I just thought we might have a drink here first.”
I was thinking that wouldn’t be smart--to go inside for a drink. But I did it anyway. My inner voice gets a lot of pushback from me. When I first walked in, I was somewhat horrified. There was an entire wall of boxes stacked floor to ceiling in his foyer. Was he a hoarder? Yikes.
I was a struggling teacher and had hoped to find a lover with a better financial situation than mine. His looked to be worse. I was convinced that he was not going to be anything long-term. Then I noticed one box had Skates scrawled across it and thought maybe I was being a bit hasty. I hadn’t been on my rollerblades in way too long.
He gestured around the room, “Have a seat.”
The living room was full of musical equipment. He had a microphone stand, amplifiers, and drum set crowded into his living room, and there were guitars propped up all over the place too.
I sat on the edge of the couch, “Are you in a band?”
He shrugged. “We’re still looking for a bass player, but we’ve been auditioning some guys and practicing.”
Todd remembered I had been drinking pink wine at the bar and had a bottle of it chilling in his refrigerator. He was so gentlemanly. I decided to trust him.
We had a great night. We went to the bar, chatted with his band friends between sets, drank and danced and I ended up spending the night. You could say we slept together but passed out in each other’s presence would be more accurate. I woke up early, tapped him on the shoulder and told him I was going home. It was still so dark out.
“What time is it?” he asked, in a painfully groggy voice.
When I said it was a little after four, he seemed surprised, but gallantly roused himself, threw a shirt over his boxers and walked me to my car.
For the next few months, the scenario played on repeat, night after night. We barhopped all over town seeing his friends in various bands, drinking, dancing, and crashing. This was not my usual lifestyle. He and his musician friends always stayed up late. I always got up early, but he was so charming, handsome, and fun, I found myself falling for him hard.
On his birthday, I invited him to my place for dinner. My usual cooking style was lift film to vent, microwave on high for four minutes, but for him, I practically channeled Julia Child. After a shockingly tasty steak dinner, we stood on my tiny apartment balcony looking at the stars. He was into astrology, philosophy, things you couldn’t really get ahold of but could speculate on endlessly. He pointed out Orion’s Belt, claiming it followed him everywhere. I have spatial issues, still it seemed to me that the sky was where the stars hung out and the sky was always everywhere. But later that night when we danced in my bedroom we were in complete agreement.
The next day was Super Bowl Sunday and Todd invited me to something called an Empowerment Ceremony at a Buddhist Retreat. I’d never been to anything like that but was happy that for once he wanted to do something with just me and not with his friends. I guess you could say it was interesting. The lama was smiling and talking about kindness and thankfulness and compassion which was nice but kind of got old after a few hours. The one bright spot for me was the naming ceremony where everyone took turns kneeling and chanting and then touching heads with the lama. After he touched heads with you, he would give you a Buddhist name and you would scoot over to his secretary to find out what it meant. He gave me the name Zangmo, and I was so happy to find out it meant noble, meaningful jewel. The woman in front of me got a name that meant impatient.
We were there all day, and I was looking forward to getting back to his place, where we could be alone and maybe hit the hay awake again. Instead, when we got there, he said we were invited to a Super Bowl party.
I frowned. I thought we’d dodged that bullet. “Isn’t the Super Bowl over by now?”
“No,” he said, “it starts at 7. Don’t you want to go?”
I didn’t think I needed to explain all the reasons why that would be a NO. I hated football, had already been a good sport about the Buddhist retreat and we’d recently gone to that infamous next level. Weren’t we supposed to be closer now or something?
“I don’t want to go to a stupid Super Bowl party!”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“So that’s it, you’re just going?” I snarled.
“I spent the whole day with you. I want to see my other friends too.”
I couldn’t believe he was being this way. “We’re always with your friends. Why can’t we just be alone sometimes?”
He ran a hand through his ridiculous hair. “You know I can’t commit.”
“Who asked you to?” I screamed, storming out.
The noble and meaningful jewel was pissed!
I started the car. I never asked for any kind of freaking commitment! I just wanted a replay.
“Please come back inside,” he said, holding onto the roof of the car.
The way he looked then, pleading with me, being his usual polite self, I was tempted. I almost opened the door. But my inner voice told me it was hopeless and for once I listened. I put the car in reverse.
He would always put his friends, his band, first. I was doomed to just tag along.
As I was driving home, it occurred to me that maybe I had been empowered in that ceremony, and sadly, that we never had gotten around to skating.