I went to The Boar’s Head, where she confirmed she would meet me for drinks and maybe a light dinner. We had conversed enough for her to suggest a later meeting time to accommodate one of her group projects for her politics class. I agreed. We could’ve met at midnight for all I cared. As long as we got to meet… that was all that mattered.
I still don’t drink very much, but that night I treated myself to a Kraken rum and Coke, my favorite combination of drinks to splurge on when I’m feeling frivolous. With my luck, I would have half of it consumed by the time Shannon showed up. I needed the liquid courage to flirt with her… without coming off as trying too hard.
Early, of course. I had to show up early if it meant getting a drink ahead of time and preparing myself for having private drinks with the woman I’d been in love with for over two years. I don’t want to share how long it took me to pick out my outfit. Nor will I ever forget it. I wore my sexiest pair of jeans and a form-fitting blouse as angelic white as my soul.
(Yeah, right. It was blood red, like my sinful nature. Or so I wanted to portray myself.)
The bartender was nice enough to ask me what I was up to that night. When I said I was meeting “a friend” for a birthday drink, he winked at me and told me good luck. Yeah, I knew it. I screamed how gay I was from across the room. It would take a miracle for Shannon to approach me andnotfeel the serious gay vibes I emanated every time I breathed.
I waited a long time. Long, long past the time we were supposed to meet.
I ordered some food to tie me over. With as much alcohol as I was drinking, it became more important for me to have some food the balance it out. Not that I intended to drink so much that night. I still wanted to be clear-headed enough to carry on a casual conversation with my crush. Instead, I was drinking because I knew I had been stood up on my birthday.
Even if it wasn’t my actual birthday, it still felt like a betrayal. Because Shannon had led me on all week that we would be getting drinks. Now, this? She had toyed with me for so long that I almost believed her when she said we were more than acquaintances.
I inhaled her second-hand smoke, for fuck’s sake.
As usual, things were too good to be true. I had gone through most of college without a girlfriend, and I would end it with the keen awareness that I probably would never have a girlfriend.
Hey, I know it’s common to speak in absolutes when you’re that young, but if you told me I’d make it to thirty andstillnot have a girlfriend, I’d believe you. And probably drown myself in the shallow campus stream.
Those were the feelings alcohol brought on. It didn’t help that the bartender rounded back to me around ten o’clock and kindly asked if I wanted to close my tab.
Yes. No. Mostly, I wanted to throw up.
I stumbled back to campus with a chip on my shoulder and a hole in my heart. You know, I hadn’t expected a miracle from that night. I didn’t think she would kiss me, touch me, or invite me back to her room for a nightcap and some sexual exploration. But I wanted the hope. Hope that our relationship could blossom intosomeform of intimacy, even if never sexual.
Shannon Parker was the kind of woman who pulled on my heartstrings and played them like a harp. It didn’t matter if the melody she played spoke of grand romances and orgasmic reveries. It only mattered that it was a beautiful tune that made people happy.
To have no melody at all was a travesty.
***
“So, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Jess asked the moment Shannon sat back down again.
She grinned through her apparent confusion. “Was in the area and decided to see if anyone I knew was around.”
You’re lying.She had gotten off the streetcar coming from Northwest. Based on how long it took her to get there after finding out where Jess was, odds were she was hanging around Powell’s and had to shit or get off the pot when deciding whether to travel back to Northwest or into Downtown. Even so, Jess wouldn’t call her out. That might spook her. Or it would confirm Jess’s greatest fears.
That the shoe was on the other foot.
“You know,” Shannon said, quickly changing the subject, “I would love to check out one of the bike trails around here. My ex-boyfriend was a big cycler. One of our dreams when we moved here was to check out all the trails, but we only got around to one before… before winter came.” She almost said“Before we broke up,”huh? “My friend Kelsey – you remember her, right? – doesn’t like cycling, though she has this perfectly good bike locked up in her apartment. Don’t suppose you might want to go check one of the trails out one day?”
Jess pursed her lips. “Sorry. Don’t have a bike.” She could only assume that Shannon had a couple death traps on hand, though. Nothing saidShannon Coming Throughlike a bike built for murder.
“Oh! I think I have access to a spare. Besides, there are those orange rental bikes that maybe you can take up to…”
“I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
There it was. The most sacrilegious thing Jess Mills could say in the city of Portland. Well, maybe besides“Kill all the trees!”
“Really? Still?”
“What do you meanstill?” Was this a crack at her being thirty and bikeless? Some people never learned to ride bikes! It was normal!Especially if you grew up in the woods like I did.And with an overprotective mother who would rather die of a stroke than watch her only child bike around the cliffs toppling into the ocean. Flat, paved roads were hard to come by in the woods.
“I mean… weren’t you trying to learn how to ride a bike back in college?”
“Didn’t really need to, since the campus was so small. Besides, how do you remember something like that?”You couldn’t remember to come meet me at the pub for my birthday?
“You’re trying to tell me,” Shannon said, the barista bringing over her mocha latte, “that you live in one of the most bike friendly cities in America, and you don’t have a bike? Let alone know how to ride one?”
Jess shrugged. “Guilty.”
“We need to fix that.”
“Wedo?”
Shannon grinned again. “Yup, and I know the person to teach you.”
The part of Jess telling her that this might be one of her dreams come true warred with the side cautioning her that she was better off throwing herself into traffic.
