people left
at the bar, the piano player gone, and the piano itself covered up. He didn’t see anything out of place, didn’t hear anything
out of place. The hotel seemed sane again.
He headed upstairs to his room, where he put on every light and then immediately went around turning them back off when the
brightness made his headache flare. It was past eleven now. The strangest day of his life was almost done. He felt a powerful
need to call Claire, tell her every weird and frightening detail and hear her responses. No, the hell with calling Claire,
he wanted to talk to her face-to-face, to see her in this bedroom. And the hell with
talking
to Claire, he wanted to take her right here on this large, luxurious bed. Wanted to be tugging her jeans off those long legs,
wanted to feel them catch on the rise of her ass the way they always did.
Damn, but he missed her. Felt it the way old people feel arthritis in their bones, an unrelenting agony carried every day,
every hour, every minute.
He’d met her at a deli in Evanston, where she was in her first year of law school at Northwestern and he was merely passing
through after visiting a friend, this the summer before he’d moved to L.A. He had finished a sandwich and was sitting at the
table with a newspaper, almost ready to go on his way, when she’d walked in with a friend and sat down across the room. He’d
watched her cross the room—something about the way the girl moved that loosened his jaw, left him staring with his mouth half
open—and she looked over and gave him the smallest of smiles, an awkward gesture more than anything, forced politeness in
response to the unanticipated eye contact.
What he’d read in the newspaper over the next twenty minutes, he couldn’t say. He kept his eyes on it only to avoid staring,
and he sneaked looks as often as he dared, watching her talk and laugh and eat a Caesar salad, gesturing with her fork every
now and then, waving bits of lettuce around in the air. She was facing him, caught his eye a few more times, gave him another
cursory smile. She was eating too quickly, though, and so was her friend, and both were nearly finished with their food and
ready to move on into the day before he ever said a word to her. He wanted so badly to say a word to her. He was not insecure
with women, had no trouble asking for dates, but approaching a strange woman at a deli at noon on Tuesday was a hell of a
lot different than approaching one in a bar at midnight on Friday. And with her friend there, there was that extra barrier
of potential eye rolls and laughter.
Then the friend stood up and left the table, walking to the bathroom. Fate, Eric decided, it had to be fate, because the friend
was the last excuse he was giving himself, and now she’d just checked out. He set the paper down and walked over to thisdark-haired girl with the wry smile and the amused eyes and said, “My name is Eric, and I would love to buy you a drink.”
What a breathtakingly original pickup line. She regarded him for a few seconds without speaking, then said, “It’s a deli.
They don’t serve alcohol here.”
To which Eric had responded, “Well, then, how do you feel about lemonade?”
They’d had the lemonade, and later that night the real drink, and a day later the first kiss and fifteen months after that
the wedding vows and the honeymoon.
“Shit,” he said now, lying on his back in a hotel room in Indiana, Claire a couple hundred miles away. He sat up and reached
for the remote, seeking distraction.
Don’t let this start. Don’t let these thoughts be the cap to the kind of day you already had.
He found the remote, then leaned back in bed again and kicked his shoes off and turned to look at TV. When he did, his eyes
caught the bottle of Pluto Water on the desk. He frowned, stood up, and walked over to it. The damn thing was sweating. Covered
in beads of moisture, a wet ring beneath it.
When he
at the bar, the piano player gone, and the piano itself covered up. He didn’t see anything out of place, didn’t hear anything
out of place. The hotel seemed sane again.
He headed upstairs to his room, where he put on every light and then immediately went around turning them back off when the
brightness made his headache flare. It was past eleven now. The strangest day of his life was almost done. He felt a powerful
need to call Claire, tell her every weird and frightening detail and hear her responses. No, the hell with calling Claire,
he wanted to talk to her face-to-face, to see her in this bedroom. And the hell with
talking
to Claire, he wanted to take her right here on this large, luxurious bed. Wanted to be tugging her jeans off those long legs,
wanted to feel them catch on the rise of her ass the way they always did.
Damn, but he missed her. Felt it the way old people feel arthritis in their bones, an unrelenting agony carried every day,
every hour, every minute.
He’d met her at a deli in Evanston, where she was in her first year of law school at Northwestern and he was merely passing
through after visiting a friend, this the summer before he’d moved to L.A. He had finished a sandwich and was sitting at the
table with a newspaper, almost ready to go on his way, when she’d walked in with a friend and sat down across the room. He’d
watched her cross the room—something about the way the girl moved that loosened his jaw, left him staring with his mouth half
open—and she looked over and gave him the smallest of smiles, an awkward gesture more than anything, forced politeness in
response to the unanticipated eye contact.
What he’d read in the newspaper over the next twenty minutes, he couldn’t say. He kept his eyes on it only to avoid staring,
and he sneaked looks as often as he dared, watching her talk and laugh and eat a Caesar salad, gesturing with her fork every
now and then, waving bits of lettuce around in the air. She was facing him, caught his eye a few more times, gave him another
cursory smile. She was eating too quickly, though, and so was her friend, and both were nearly finished with their food and
ready to move on into the day before he ever said a word to her. He wanted so badly to say a word to her. He was not insecure
with women, had no trouble asking for dates, but approaching a strange woman at a deli at noon on Tuesday was a hell of a
lot different than approaching one in a bar at midnight on Friday. And with her friend there, there was that extra barrier
of potential eye rolls and laughter.
Then the friend stood up and left the table, walking to the bathroom. Fate, Eric decided, it had to be fate, because the friend
was the last excuse he was giving himself, and now she’d just checked out. He set the paper down and walked over to thisdark-haired girl with the wry smile and the amused eyes and said, “My name is Eric, and I would love to buy you a drink.”
What a breathtakingly original pickup line. She regarded him for a few seconds without speaking, then said, “It’s a deli.
They don’t serve alcohol here.”
To which Eric had responded, “Well, then, how do you feel about lemonade?”
They’d had the lemonade, and later that night the real drink, and a day later the first kiss and fifteen months after that
the wedding vows and the honeymoon.
“Shit,” he said now, lying on his back in a hotel room in Indiana, Claire a couple hundred miles away. He sat up and reached
for the remote, seeking distraction.
Don’t let this start. Don’t let these thoughts be the cap to the kind of day you already had.
He found the remote, then leaned back in bed again and kicked his shoes off and turned to look at TV. When he did, his eyes
caught the bottle of Pluto Water on the desk. He frowned, stood up, and walked over to it. The damn thing was sweating. Covered
in beads of moisture, a wet ring beneath it.
When he
Similar Books
