Forgetting the Past

chapter two - An Encounter

Little anecdote about the title of this chapter:

Just to say that I thought about this name after having studied in English class 'Dubliners? by James Joyce, really good short stories, but god it can be depressing!!!!!

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                                                                              AN ENCOUNTER

So now, what was I supposed to do?

I randomly walked down the street not knowing where I was going. After a few minutes I felt exhausted of walking in high-healed shoes and in a business suit. I thus entered an Irish pub nearby. It took some few seconds for my eyes to adjust themselves to the darker light of the pub. At once they caught sight of a man at the bar -also wearing a business suit, hopefully I wasn't the only one- who looked apathetic toying with one of the dozen empty glasses in front of him.

He looked like to be six-feet or six-feet-two tall, Asian, I suspected,with very dark wavy hair and appeared to have a certain gracefulness in his demeanour. He looked a lot like the majority of the men I met. Unwillingly, I felt suddenly intrigued by this total common stranger. My legs moved independently from my own will towards the bar and I pulled out a stool.

“What can I serve you ma’am?” asked the barman with an Irish accent.

“Gin and Tonic [on the rocks] please,” I replied.

“Well that's one manly drink,” said the stranger in a groggy voice, as if it had been a long time since he hadn't slept. In addition, the ruffled state of his suit implied that he had stayed in the bar all night.

“Better one then twelve,” I responded eyeing his empty drinks.

“Huh,” he turned to me, “you must think that I'm an alcoholic.”

“Gin and Tonic for the missus” the barman said handing me my drink.

“Something like that,” I replied sipping my drink and staring in his deep chocolate brown eyes. “Though your suit insinuates a bad event, let's say, a bad investment?”

He chuckled at my assumption. Guess I was partially right, I thought smugly.

“No, there weren't any bad investment," he replied while looking and fiddling with the same empty glass, "just unpleasant things coming all of a sudden in life,"he finished turning his face to me, “by the way, I'm Anthony."

“Joanna.”

“Joanna what?"” he asked me.

“Johnsenn.”

“How do you write that?” he asked, facing the glasses though slightly eyeing me.

What an odd question, I thought. Why would one be interested by a random stranger's surname? I wondered.

“J-O-H-N-S-E-N-N” I spelled it out.

“As I thought, and Joanna with two 'n's?”

“Yeah,” I answered slowly and hesitantly.