A Selfish Moment

3 - Jubilee - 10:00 AM

As the yellow cab flies down Queens Boulevard off the Long Island Expressway exit, I wipe away the quiet tears and tell myself that this was just a mistake and that it'll never happen again. My cell phone interrupts my somber mood.

"So, how was last night with Mr. Blue Eyes?" Sophie asks seductively.

"God damn it Sophie, I was drunk. You know what happened last time I got drunk. How could you let me go home with anyone last night?"

"That was ages ago. You said you had this covered. I pulled you aside and you said you were sure."

"I was drunk out of my mind." The cab driver glances at me in the rear view mirror and I open the window to let the cool, high-speed winds brush against my face. The slight case of vertigo has gone away, but the headache and nausea still linger.

"Are you serious? You didn't look that drunk."

"I only recall having that first drink. What was it, a Cosmo?" I take a deep breath. "I woke up this morning not remembering anything. I called him Isaac. His name isn't Isaac! I don't even know his name."

"Isaac was my date. Jesus Christ Jubilee, I know it's been years since you've been with anyone but come on, at least remember his name. His name is Everett."

"Everett! Why couldn't I remember that?" I can't shake the hurt look on his face when I called him Isaac. "He made me coffee and was about to make breakfast when I got his name wrong. I just ran out of there."

"Christ."

"I know."

"He was funny, and charming, and so into you too. There was a bar tender who was trying to get his attention and she had no chance."

I see a dark-skinned bar tender with large breasts squeezed into a tiny white tank top in my mind. "Yeah, I remember her, really pretty and huge boobs. He caught me looking at them. It was funny."

"He was perfect for you. When I came around you two were talking about the socialist direction of the country, or something like that."

His painful glare is already haunting me. "That sounds like something I would say."

"What are you doing now?" Sophie asks.

"I'm in a cab, almost home."

"Let's meet up at the diner for breakfast."

"I feel like crap. I'm so hung over. I just want to go to sleep for two hours before I pick up Aryana."

"Oh come on. I had to wake up early to meet with contractors and map out the new lighting design for this year's World Trade Center memorial...and it's a Saturday. I haven't had any breakfast yet, and I have a dentist appointment at two. I'm getting a ride to the diner in ten. I'll see you there."

"Okay, but I need to go home and put on a shirt."

"A shirt?" Sophie starts hooting as if I was doing a cabaret strip tease in front of her, and I end the phone call.

I run upstairs to my fourth floor, two-bedroom apartment in Forest Hills, just off Queens Boulevard and recall walking up the stairs to Everett's apartment. That's when he kissed me. He leaned in on the stair case, just one step below me, our bodies perfectly aligned, and put his hand on the sides of my face to pull me in for a kiss. My body starts burning as I remember how intensely his lips pressed against mine, as if he had been waiting all night to kiss me, and how my hands pulled his body so close that there was no space between us. I sprint up the stairs to my apartment cursing, wishing I hadn't had that first drink. Just one glass of alcohol and I'm a whole different person, a person who wakes up with regrets.