Scrolling through my Discover Weekly on Spotify, I uncharacteristically hit shuffle and let the airy, vibrating, smoky sounds carry me to last December. Usually I'd need to get a little tipsy before your eyes cross my mind or your grin grazes my palms, before my heart my starts fluttering in ways my resting-bitch-face, better known as my didn't-put-a-shot-of-vodka-in-my-coffee-this-morning-face, would make surprising.
The music plays on, every song more 'you' than the one before it, every song out of my control. A mix of new and uncontrolled, nothing's been that way for a while. My nail polish is in color order, my shoes arranged by heel height, my closet has been presented by brand name and in alphabetical order and my change is sorted by the year it was made, from oldest to newest. I try to use the newer coins first. It's like the longer I keep the old ones, the more character they have. They get rustier, more attractive. More dented, more appealing. Vintage is so 'in' nowadays and it's my thesis that its because blasts from the past become the pearls of the present, fires of the future, fevers of forever. My, the sentimental tongue in the mouth of a 2 am beast is taking over, and I've barely made it through my first glass.
I can see you now, like the night we met. I remember it like you remember your first pair of Loubous or your very first kiss. They say you can't meet good men in bars but "they" have never been to the East Side. You were less like a man and more like a boy and as we cracked jokes and peanuts on the bar stools you tried to brush your hand through my hair but got your fingers caught in one of the bobby pins keeping back the curls tightly knit by hairspray and a curling iron. You told me you didn't like "gals who played games with men's hearts" and yet the whole night felt like we were playing a long game of Life. I'd met you just an hour ago but I could have sworn I'd been there when you lost your baby tooth or scraped your knee, when you decided to go corporate at only 23. One hour, two hours, three hours then six hours passed and the bar ran out of peanuts. You slipped the tender a $20 and change and asked me if I ever had tequila. I was more of a white-wine-while out and bourbon-by-myself kind of girl but I told you I craved adventure. You said this was the beginning. We took some shots off the counter and I almost choked on the shot glass while you made a joke about how shot glasses are just beer kegs for leprechauns. I outed you as an Irishman and you laughed under the assumption, a first generation German with another side you don't like to admit. I asked you how you felt with a girl whose skin wasn't see through and you said I fed your sense for escape. Adventure and escape.
I can smell you now, like the first night you came over. Like oak wood, ash and cement. The bar had closed and the tender was now rich because you'd blown your week's pay, so you grabbed my Prada purse, took me teasingly by my collar and asked if i had a car. I said I could call mine to pick me up. You asked me if I'd ever seen a princess drive a civic and when I said no, you took me by the hand and said there was first time for everything. I told you you were cliche and you asked me why I was blushing. Typing my address into your GPS, I saw when you hit 'save' and put a star next to my name. We couldn't drive fast enough. When we got to my building, I tore of my red soles, running to the door and through the lobby. I threw the doorman your car keys and grabbed your arm as we made it to the elevator set for the pent house.
On nights, or should I say, mornings, like this I like to remember how our first night felt like playing board games. I decide to play a game with myself. One glug from the bottle for every thought I have of you until I run out of the hard stuff and have to switch to Chardonnay, which after drinking two thousand dollars of last time, even drunk me has learned to be sparing with.
