By kevin urenda, kluless70@hotmail.com Date: 18 November 1998
It had been a while since I had been to Happy Hour. Particularly at that place... My friends knew that though, and rarely pressed me to go there. It was usually only once in a while that they asked any more, for it was an understood Friday ritual.
This day I surprised them. I consented to quaffing a few beers at their usual hang-out. We entered through the side door, to the sounds of dozens of conversations buzzing about through the thickening smoke of the crowded bar. Some of our friends were already their and were saving us all a table. We sat; they were excited to see me. I was almost fresh blood, I hadn’t been there in so long.
I began to relax after a couple of beers and a bit of conversation. If I hadn’t been looking for our server, she would never have caught my eye. My heart almost stopped beating in my chest as my breath left my body at the sight of her. It was the one perfect woman in the entire world. The one I had been trying so hard to avoid memories of. As I saw her move toward a table in the corner, the room suddenly fell silent to me as I noticed how every thread, every fiber of her being seemed to be perfectly in place. She was as close to perfection as any person I had ever met in my life. She smiled wanly at the server after being seated. It was obvious she was waiting for someone - a friend?
I absently ordered the next round when the server came around again, still unable to peel my eyes from my ex-lover. My friends were oblivious to my inattention to their continued discussion. I wondered how she was as I noted that I hadn’t spoken to her in almost three months. She had broken off our relationship shortly before that. I remembered how tender was her gaze when she told me “I love you,” after not having seen me for a couple of days. I wasn’t ready for the blissful ache that rushed into me at the recollection of that.
I noticed that she looked - sad? I remembered how happy she had been, once, to see me, to wrap those most perfect arms around my neck and shower me with the sweetest kisses. The bliss of my ache turned suddenly dark at that thought. She sat there with her perfect lips pressed to a glass of red wine, as she continued to sit alone lost in her thoughts. I guess I never really understood why she had left me. I was attentive to her, cheered her every success, and comforted her when she was down. She told me I had been a good lover, and I knew she was right. But why? And why now did she seem as unhappy as I had been for the last fourteen weeks?
My friend sitting next to me suddenly stopped talking and looked where my gaze had not left for the past five minutes. He asked me what I thought of the price of some stock on the Tokyo market, a little too obvious in trying to change the subject. But my attention had been averted for a second or two. I looked at the bottom of the pilsner glass as I took another long swallow of beer. Setting the glass down deliberately my gaze again returned across the room.
I was not ready for the shock. I noticed her almost beaming with radiance as the smile I remembered so well spread her sunshine into the place. Then I looked over at the door, as some man walked over toward her table, with a single long-stemmed rose in his hand. He leaned over and kissed her, and I thought that the only sound I could hear was my heart breaking all over again...