One Glass Of Wine

It’s been three months since my divorce and I keep coming back to the same bar where I met my ex-husband. A romantic might say it’s because I’m trying to get lost in the memories of the good times. A cynic might say it’s because I know there’s nothing for me here, so it’s safe. An honest person might say it’s a little bit of both.

Fortunately, my ex-husband does not come here anymore. He and my ex-best-friend relocated to the West Coast before the divorce was even final. Her betrayal hurt worse than his. If I’m going to be that honest person again, I was surprised that he stayed as long as he did. Even when we first met, that night at the bar, he had a faraway look in his eyes that said he’d never really settle down. Being young and idealistic, I’d thought that meant we were going to have grand adventures together. I was still in the city where I’d gone to college, twenty miles from the small town where I grew up. After three years at the company where I’d previously worked as a summer intern, I was making a decent salary and had visions of traveling to fabulous places and taking photos of myself eating exotic foods and drinking colorful beverages from oversized glasses, but I wanted someone to do it with. He was perfect: handsome enough but down to earth and funny. In other words, a perfect travel partner. Instead, we moved in together almost right away, were engaged six months later, and a year after that we were walking down the aisle and moving into our new home. We never even went on a honeymoon, because we used the money for a down payment on the house instead. It was his idea, that we’d have the house forever but a honeymoon would be over in two weeks and all we’d have to show for it was the pictures.

At least I got the house. He’d gotten a big promotion just before his transfer, so he used his bonus to pay off the mortgage and signed the place over to me as, I guess, a consolation prize. Janet, finishing in first place, would get the new house in Malibu. It’s funny how, every time I told her about how he’d found some way to disappoint me again, every time she would tell me that I could do so much better, I never heard the unspoken, “but I couldn’t.” Whatever. She had emailed me their new address – I could have gotten it from my lawyer if I wanted, but the point was that I didn’t want. I still looked it up on an online real estate service. It wasn’t in the most expensive part of town, but even the not-most-expensive part is still Malibu. The house was nice, but I wasn’t jealous. My smaller place still felt too big to me, which is why I started hanging out at the bar again. I didn’t notice the emptiness as much if I just walked in the door and straight to bed. I’d been thinking about adopting a dog or a couple of cats. I hadn’t been able to have them at my old apartment, and my ex-husband was allergic.

Maybe then I’d stop grabbing a sandwich for dinner at the office canteen and spending the rest of the evening at this table, reading a book and sipping a glass of wine until the news came on the tv above the bar. I didn’t come in on weekends, but that was even worse, if possible, because after I washed the breakfast dishes on Saturday morning, I spent the next two days reading on the couch, got up on Monday, and started the cycle all over. The worst of all was that this didn’t bother me, even though I knew it was a terrible way to live. The two people I thought I’d trusted most in the world had skipped out of my life together and I was perfectly happy with my own company. But I was only thirty-one; I couldn’t very well spend the rest of my life without socializing ever again, and the longer I waited, the harder it would be to talk to another human being outside of work. I could join a convent, but I wasn’t even Catholic, and I wasn’t sure I was suited to being cloistered literally as well as figuratively.

I wasn’t even really reading my book anymore as these thoughts went through my head. I stared at the page, lost in thought, until suddenly it was too dark to see the words. I looked up and saw a man standing there, holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. “I’m not really…”

“It’s ok,” he said. “You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to. I mean, it would be nice to have a conversation since I don’t know anyone else here. But if it makes you uncomfortable, I understand.” He offered an endearingly crooked smile. “I just moved here to start a business with a friend from college, and we were planning to come here to celebrate. I’d already ordered this bottle when he called to say his daughter isn’t feeling well and he has to reschedule. And… well, since it looks like you were finishing a glass of red yourself, I thought maybe you’d share this with me so I wouldn’t have to drink it all.”

He was kind of cute. Longish dark hair, but pulled back in a neat ponytail, and his face was clean-shaven. He had soft brown eyes, nice teeth that didn’t look fake. Probably about my age. He was neatly dressed in a white button-down shirt, no tie, clean jeans, and a brown bomber jacket. The foil was still over the cork in the bottle. I pushed out the chair to my right with my foot. “OK, but I don’t put out on the first date.” I laughed a little to show that I was sort of joking but not really. He smiled again and said, “I wouldn’t even presume to call it a first date unless you say so.”

He sat down and I watched him open the bottle. He seemed harmless enough, but I was still relieved to see that the wine wasn’t tampered with. Stop it, I thought to myself, it’s been six years since you’ve talked to someone new, don’t be so paranoid that you ruin it. I picked up the glass and took a sip. If nothing else, at least he’d picked a decent quality Merlot, fruity but not too sweet. It made me wish I had a steak for dinner right now, instead of a tuna salad sandwich on the way here. I reached over to shake his hand. “My name’s Eva. I’m sorry if I seemed a but brusque, but I got divorced a few months ago and you’re literally the first person I’ve talked to since, other than my parents and my work colleagues.”

“And I’m sorry if I seemed too forward. Ted. If it makes you feel better, part of the reason I took the opportunity to join my friend’s startup is that my fiancée just dumped me two weeks before the wedding, and I’ve been questioning everything I’ve done for the last two years. It seemed like a good time to just start completely over.”

“I don’t know if it makes me feel better, necessarily, but I’m glad you understand why I’m hesitant. Oh hell – I don’t even know you well enough to worry that you’ll hurt me, at least not emotionally. I’m just not sure if I remember how to do this getting to know someone thing.”

“Well, since it sounds like we’ve both been focusing on work, how about if we start with that? My friend’s daughter was born with several issues, so he had the idea to start a company providing medical equipment delivery, but geared specifically towards children. Kid-sized home hospital beds and stuff so it’s less scary for them than trying to make do with adult-sized gear. She’s doing better now, but it really made an impression on him to see her like that. He’s spent the last couple of years putting together a business plan and finding investors, and contacted me to help him with the tech side of things. The call came at the right time for me, so here I am.”

It sounded a lot more important than working at the corporate office of an optical chain, but he laughed and pointed out that without people like me, people like him wouldn’t have contact lenses, so there was that. In fact, we spent the next couple of hours chatting and laughing, and next thing I knew, the bottle was gone and he was asking if he could walk me to my car. I said I just lived on the next block, which was good since I wasn’t sure that I was in a state to drive, after having much more than my usual one glass. We exchanged business cards and he walked me to the corner, watching me go into the house from there – close enough to make sure I was ok, far enough to not be a threat.

When my alarm went off the next morning, I was mildly surprised to not have a hangover. I checked my wallet and his card was there; it hadn’t been a dream. I looked around the house as I got ready to go to work. Sun was streaming in the kitchen windows and suddenly it didn’t seem like such a bad place to eat dinner after all. Maybe I could even invite someone over now and then.