Empty Stool At The Bar

We were at breakfast, sitting at a small two-seat table on opposite sides in a little coffee shop near our hotel in Charleston. We had arrived the night before and, for the first time in a long time, had gone directly to bed. We had been burning the candle at both ends for weeks and had been knocking out job after job. I guess we were tired.

We were splitting a bagel sandwich and each had coffee. Hers was black, mine had cream and sugar in it. I was looking around, taking in the room and the people in it. I always wanted to see if there was someone I thought we would enjoy knowing if we ever actually made friends anywhere. She was reading me the headlines. It was our breakfast routine every day we didn't have a job to do. I would point out someone here and there, and she would look and we would try and figure out where they had been, or where they were going. She would read a headline that would pique my interest, and I would turn to her and listen intently as she would read it in her quiet voice.

The ceiling fan above our table was softly humming and moving the air in a very pleasant way as the sun started to burn off the cool of the morning and make its presence felt through the open double door of the cafe. The morning traffic was picking up and the sound of spoons stirring and forks on plates through the room was filling the space. I could smell Virginia's shampoo from across the table and I looked over to the bar to see all but one seat taken, triggering something in my mind that I had been chasing since I woke up a couple hours before.

"Oh man, I had a great dream last night."

She looked up from reading the news.

"Well, tell me about it."

"I met you again, for the first time."

---

There was an empty stool at the bar. I always hesitate when there’s just one open seat. I'm afraid I am going to get stuck talking to someone when all I want is a drink to unwind. There’s always a bit of hope that I will meet someone important. Not a celebrity or someone like that. Those people aren’t really important. I mean someone whose brain might vibrate at the same frequency as mine. Someone I can share a dark corner with.

That hope is generally futile.

Most of the time the best I can hope for is a relatively vapid conversation with someone who has read a book or two, a little flirting back and forth, and a meaningless exchange of contact information. The information I won’t use because I can’t imagine a date being any less boring than what we experienced in the bar, and, even if we go back to your place or mine, and fumble our way through a sexual encounter, it won’t be good enough. I need a good mental sparring along with a physical bout.

I need to get over myself. I would probably have more sex if I did.

I took a seat at the barstool and ordered a Bulleit bourbon on the rocks. I couldn’t stop noticing you. You weren't poised, sort of hunched lazily on your seat. Your hair wasn't styled like you hadn't washed it after a workout. You were beautiful.

“Should I assume you were saving this barstool for someone?”

You looked at me as if I was stupid for a second before you smiled and said

“No.”

You said it so quietly. I really don’t know how I heard it. It was like it was inside of my brain.

I was served my drink and I decided to keep my tab open. It had been a long day at work, and I was out of liquor at home. Someone had shown me a tweet of future Hall of Fame basketball star Dirk Nowitzki’s likeness on a potato and then was upset with me when I hadn't thought it was funny. Another guy talked about how he couldn't decide if some unbelievable food he was eating for lunch was going to be good or not. It was that kind of day.

I did what I always did when I am trying to think of what to say next. I stared into my drink and rolled the ice cubes around in my glass. I decided to go with:

“I’m Hugo. Who are you?”

You looked quizzically at me. I didn’t blame you.

“I’m Camille.”

---

"Wait a minute..."

She smiled and asked

"We had aliases in your dream? We really have been working too much."

"I thought they were very good aliases."

"I agree, we should keep them in mind. I was serious though, we may need to think about a vacation."

"That sounds great to me. Where should we go?"

She shrugged her shoulders and it made me laugh.

"We can think about that later. Please continue with your dream."

---

I shook your hand and said

“You have small hands.”

but you were immediately upset with me.

“You are a hand murderer.”

I laughed and apologized insincerely. It happens often.

“I get that a lot. At least you didn’t cry. The HR manager at work almost shed a tear, and now he won’t shake my hand.”

I should have actually been sorry, but now you were engaging me. You were smart and really funny. Not funny for a girl, or funny because I was drunk. Just genuinely funny. I managed to make you laugh. Which is good, because I was trying very hard.

I ordered you a glass of wine, and myself another bourbon.

“Long day, dear?”

You asked like we weren't strangers.

“Yes. People are just the worst.”

We had a conversation. An actual conversation with ups and downs. The kind of conversation I never have with anyone.

My normal conversational style is to just keep asking questions. Chances are people will talk about themselves until they realize they are the only party participating, and then be too embarrassed to pull back and ask me anything. It usually works out because I am not interested in sharing details about myself anyway. So I have become pretty good at identifying the point when they realize I have contributed nothing, and then I just walk away. You were different. There were gaps for me to talk. And I wanted to talk. So we talked.

At last, I interjected:

“Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“Yes.”

We closed out our tabs at the bar, and you walked out in front of me. You have the most thrilling pace. Slow, not specifically feminine, but your hips sway methodically. I tell you this and you laugh in the middle of the din created by all of the idiots around us. They watched us walk through them like they had never seen anything like it. To be fair, they probably hadn’t.

Stepping through the door into the late spring air, you started to turn one way, and I put my hand on your hip and turned you around, pulling you against me, and kissed you. My head was buzzing with the feeling of your body against mine, the back of your shirt in my hand, the warmth of you. Our glasses bumped into one another, trying to achieve a comparable level of intimacy. My arms around your waist, I held you to me, not ready to let go yet. Your sigh shot through me unexpectedly.

We walked down the street, and I held your hand. We weren't walking with purpose, just moving together in the dark. When we came to a hotel across the street from the beach, I guided you inside to the bar, and we struck up a conversation with a bored couple sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Introductions and five polite minutes and I had the information I needed to charge a bottle of wine to their room. We walked, at your speed, to the elevator, went to the 25th floor, found the roof access, and climbed up onto the roof. I don’t know why it was unlocked. It just was.

It really shouldn’t have been.

We sat on the roof of the building, our backs against the still-warm cement barrier of the roof line, and watched the waves roll in from miles away. The ships off in the distance. The salt in the breeze. The moon was lighting the clouds and casting its long, bright light across the water. The rustle of the palm fronds and the sound of the cars driving far underneath us. Drunken and jovial voices drifting on the breeze. We passed the bottle of wine back and forth in the shadows and wondered about the people sleeping on the ships we could see, creating names and back stories.

I’d been looking for you everywhere and there you were. On a barstool, lovely and warm in your t-shirt and jeans.

It felt as though I had known you for far longer than I had been alive.

Your hair fluttered in the wind, and my heart ached a little as I thought about what it must be like to watch that for the rest of my life.

I wondered if I would ever be far enough from this moment to not feel it in my chest.

We sat close together, our arms touching, our legs touching. Everything felt endless as I tucked your hair behind your ear, and drew your mouth to mine.

The stars were bright somewhere, but not here. There’s just too much light in the city. That was fine by us. We were made to spend nights like this in dark corners anyway.

---

She was quiet for a moment. She had been smiling more or less throughout my recounting of the dream, but now seemed lost in a thought. I gave her room to take it all in, careful not to interject. The way she processed things and what came after were some of my favorite things about her. After a minute, the smile returned to her face.

"What a lovely dream. I wonder who we were, Hugo and Camille. That seemed really nice."

I shrugged my shoulders and took a drink of my coffee.

"I don't know. Maybe we will find out one day."

"I hope so. I would like to meet them, they seem wonderful."