Before the Glitter: 1971

The C Word

August 31

With the new semester in full swing, I was finding it hard to balance my full time schedule, my part time job and my full time friend with benefits. I was beginning to fall into this routine of spending my weekends at the bar watching Roger's band. I never got close to the stage because I wasn't sure that I wanted to; besides sitting at the bar long enough meant I would eventually be drinking on someone else's tab. In fact, I had been spending a lot of time with Roger and he came to my flat frequently. It was now time to play catch up. I hadn't seen my friend Chrissie in at least two weeks. We were long overdo for lunch to chat up how the semester was going and how her job at the grocer fit in to it all.

"This is it. This is the semester that I'm going to find the one!" Chrissie beamed at me with shining eyes as she glanced over the menu. I was a little baffled.

"Excuse me. Can I get um...a cosmopolitan and a water please? Thank you." I said to the waitress as she approached our table. "The one what?" I focused my attention on Chrissie again.

"The one boyfriend I've been looking for!" Chrissie insisted. "The kind of man that I haven't dated for the past six months!" she insisted. "I mean c'mon! I've told you about the awful blind dates I've been set up on. I even moaned to my other friend about it! It's been long enough, Lydia! It's time! The man I'm meant to have a serious relationship with is going to cross my path this year!" Chrissie finished excitedly. I looked at her as if she had smoked something funny before coming to lunch.

"You can't control that kind of thing let alone actually expect it to happen." I told her as I lit my cigarette and opened up the menu.

"Seventeen! I've had seventeen dates this year none of them resulting in anything more than a third date! This is going to be my year!" she repeated, eyeing me over top her menu.

"You know how to get past that third date?" I said, exhaling cigarette smoke above me as I continued to examine the menu.

"Noooo! No! Lydia! I'm serious! I want this to be the year that I finally meet someone that I go out with, have a great time with, and go on more than three dates with!" Chrissie said as the waitress returned. Though she radiated a most unrealistic zeal for her plan; I had to smile at her as she ordered. It was the first time I had been to lunch with her that she actually ordered something that wasn't a side salad and a water. Things must have been looking up at the grocer. Once Chrissie placed her order, I did the same and handed my menu to the waitress. She sighed and looked to me with her big smile plastered across her face.

"I think you're absurd but I'll humor you." I said, continuing to burn down my cigarette.

"So! Your turn! Tell me about the guy you've been...." Chrissie stopped to consider her words wisely. "...so tell me about him." She said not finishing the sentence. I shrugged at her.

"There's not much to tell really."

"Oh come on! You like him! You'd tell me everything if you didn't." Chrissie begged.

"I enjoy spending time with him. I do not like him. We did have a bit of a row the other night."

"About?" Christie asked.

"He's been different in the past three weeks or so. He's wanted to do things like put his arm around me, kiss me on the neck, hold my hand and...and hold me. He rubs up against me like a house cat! He got all pissed at me because I wouldn't cuddle up against him and hide my eyes in his shoulder during all the scary parts of Crucible of Terror!" I told her. Cuddle. Oh god how I hated that word. I don't know how I didn't burst into flames in the mere utterance of it. 

"Lydia! That movie is horrible! It's like torture porn!" Christie scolded me. I smiled at her and raised my eyebrows.

"Believe me, I know. Well worth the rental." I said with a snicker.