During this period of time, even seeing his name in my email inbox made me queasy. Our electronic interactions were nothing more than mild bile spitting back and forth. Intentions were good, but tensions were too great for it to work. Slowly we began talking again, hellos here and there. Then he got the letter from my lawyer, I was filing for divorce. It was time for a sit down, naturally we chose our old standby dinner venue Trout.
I had heard he recently got painfully thin, in fact he was the first to report this news which I only confirmed with a few people. I was nervous to see for myself.
Entering the familiar door on Smith Street, what I saw was jarring. The first shock to recover from was that he was already there, seated and working on his first of many jack daniel’s on the rocks. This was the position normally reserved for me, seated, on time, waiting for him. He stood to hug me, we kissed on the cheek. He was very thin. He was always thin, but over the years his shoulders had broadened and his arms became strong instead of sinewy. I credited him working in the metal shop for this.
I could only say what I was thinking, I was beyond hiding anything from him.
“Wow. Look at you, so thin.” Met with a nervous smile and a giggle. Typical.
“You’ve lost some weight, too” he commented. I shook my head.
“Not like you have, my goodness.”
I fell into my normal Trout habit, pouring each of us a glass of water from the carafe. His always came first, though he rarely ended up ever drinking it.
His face was completely covered in hair. Past the usual fuzziness he sported, E was full on Rip Van Winkle.
I knew why, too.
Because I was gone.
E’s obsession over his beard and sideburns was one that I despised; the insane amount of attention to creating a look as though he could give a shit was laughable. And I helped him each time. E could not complete this look without me, I was his assistant. After his hours of battling at the bathroom mirror he would summon me. Each time I did this I never was really able to avoid mentally retching at the scene; him clad in only shorts, hair in a bun standing over a sink nearly overflowing with fuzzy foam islands on murky water, faucet left on a slow trickle threatening to send all over the edge of the vanity, hair everywhere. He would turn to me, face smooth and wet, ask me how it looked.
This was my time to stand and look at him as no one would ever look at him in his life. This was the one moment where E’s facial hair would be under it’s toughest scrutiny by anyone other than himself. Years of experience taught me to follow his lead in this crazy dance because it made him feel better and I could rationalize that it wasn’t too terrible an inconvenience for me. So I would stand there, measuring with my hands and fingers the symmetry he had tried to create. I never saw what he saw; the hairs out of place, the areas he said “looked off”, but I pretended to. I would take the scissors and gently trim the tiniest of tips off his sideburn hairs. I would instruct him to look one way, then the next, showing calculated measurement taking in my facial expressions. I would trim again. Sometimes I would just hold the scissors up to his face, open and shut them, let the noise make him believe I was changing something. And eventually he would look again in the mirror and smile.
“Thank you. Looks much better.”
When I wasn’t totally annoyed by this, I felt bad for him.
So here he was, across from me with close to six months of growth. Between this and his frame, I barely recognized him. I was afraid of what I saw; someone I’d known half my lifetime that I could barely identify.
I ordered a drink.
“Gin and Tonic, please”
Something about that waiter though, something was oddly familiar. Maybe I was imagining it.
E leaned to one side of the retro booth to adjust his sleeve. Behind him at the next table, a familiar face. A Curator whom I despised working with. This person walked the museum galleries with all the entitlement of an artist herself. And the exhibitions she produced were, in my opinion, largely crap. I dodged to mock E’s posture so I wouldn’t be spotted.
My drink arrives. Again. The waiter. I know this man.
I drink.
We small talk. The kind of small talk that consists of tiny tests. He asks me about dating, I answer honestly and then cross examine with questions about his girlfriend. The one he’d had since I’d been gone a month or so.
I ask about his brothers, work, mutual friends who I don’t hear much from anymore.
I am still drinking.
I decide it would be funny to alert E to the company at the next table. He very obviously turns around and looks, again I dodge into his gesture, again I am not spotted.
He smiles, juts his chin forward from neck.
“Two tables over there is that girl from 208. You know the Midwestern one who has no chin and looks like an ugly boy?”
I don’t turn to see my old neighbor. I know who he is talking about.
Across the floor I spot our waiter again. I am itching to figure where I know him from. He is moderately attractive, blonde, but still handsome. I watch him take orders from another table, it’s clear he is one of one million waiters in the city that is also an actor. And then, like the rush of the full gin and tonic I had just finished on an hours old empty stomach, it hits me. I know this man from the dating web site. Not only that, but he is one of the maybe three users I experimentally added to a list of favorites where they user is notified you have done so. I realize I am buzzed and also mortified. But I laugh because this is too great moment to not laugh at. Could the restaurant also be serving every college friend I have lost touch with as well? Why not pile on the awkward for full effect?
He arrives to take our order. I swear he recognizes me, too. We smile, I know he can see down my shirt at the angle he is standing. At this thought I am angered because I am wearing what had become my “first date uniform” for the Summer. Without needing one more thing to fret over when it came to meeting one of these jokers for the first time, I had decided I would wear the same thing on each first date to make my life that much easier. If this guy were ever interested in meeting (again), I’d have to come up with a whole new outfit.
He leaves with our order and E excuses himself to wash his hands.
