Two Wrongs

I hadn’t been to a bar in years but somehow tonight my presence in one was fitting. Surrounding myself with well-dressed strangers, a sober island in a sea of intoxication. I sipped my ginger ale, wondering if I should just turn my phone back on and face my troubles instead of hiding in the last place anyone would think to look for me.

“Ma’am?” The bartender said as he poured a glass of merlot.

“Yes?”

He placed the glass in front of me, grinning suspiciously.

“This is from the gentleman at the end of the bar.”

What? People actually do that? I looked to where the bartender was pointing and a rather handsome, somehow familiar man lifted his own drink, acknowledging my acknowledgement of him. I smiled shyly and quickly looked away, hoping I hadn’t encouraged him. I touched the stem of the glass in front of me, tempted to gulp it in one go, but refrained. The night was still young.

I hadn’t intended to drink drink at all but the burgundy liquor looked so inviting, like an offering from someone’s heart.

“Hello Melissa.”

I turned to see the man from the end of the bar slide onto the stool next to mine. Close up he looked even more familiar and I tried desperately to place him but couldn’t.

“You don’t remember me,” he said, looking somehow both disappointed and amused.

His eyes, which were darker than my own dark brown, glistened in the dim light of the bar and suddenly I knew where I’d stared into those eyes before.

“Jason.”

He grinned, the same boyish grin I now remembered from a year ago when he had interned at the publishing company where I worked as an editor. Then he was young and shy, his flirtation subtle and focused on me. Even if I had been single at the time, I was nearly ten years his senior. However, his attraction to me, though inappropriate for many reasons, made me feel beautiful and I reveled in it when I had it and missed it when he left.

Now, though, his confidence was intoxicating. So much so, I began to feel like I had been drinking more than ginger ale all night. He just sat and watched me remember him, grinning. Feeling slightly insecure, I reached for the wine and took a sip. The mellow flavor helped me relax as I felt it roll down my throat warming my chest like a hug in the winter.

“I’m surprised to see you here alone,” Jason said.

“Why’s that?”

“As I recall, ‘I have a boyfriend’ was one of your favorite things to say to me. Are you two still together?”

I thought of my phone, still off, probably being bombarded with messages that for the sender were showing as undelivered, which was probably driving him crazy, a thought that made me smile despite myself.

“I didn’t mean to stump you,” Jason quipped after my longer than intended silence. “It’s an easy question.”

“Not as easy as you think.”

Jason nodded as though my short response told the whole story. In a way, I suppose it did.

“Well, what can I do to take your mind off of everything?”

“I don’t know if you can.”

“Try me.”

“Ok,” I said, taking another sip of wine, “tell me your life story. The parts you never told me before.”

“Alright,” he replied, turning my stool to face him. “I was born in Vietnam. Came to the US at three. Met you twenty-five years later and now here we are.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I know all that already.”

“Then you know everything.”

“Come on. There’s nothing between birth and meeting me but coming to America?”

“Nothing of consequence.”

“But being here now, that’s of consequence?”

“It is.”

“Why?”

Jason smiled and looked down at his shoes and I was instantly reminded of the boy he used to be; running to get my coffee, making sure our fingers touched as he handed it to me, going out of his way to be in my way. He was so adorably awkward and sweet and exactly what I needed, then and now.

When he looked up at me his smile was gone but his eyes still glimmered like a night sky full of stars.

“Because, at no time in my life before this night has fate been so efficient.”

I tried to think of something to say but no response seemed adequate. Of course, I was aware it was possible that it could have been a well rehearsed and tested line, but somehow, I knew it wasn’t. He may have been dressed in Armani from head to toe, but he was still the sweet man who a year ago was following me around my office like a puppy.

“Dance with me,” he said, suddenly jumping off his stool and taking my hand.

“I’m not really good at dancing.”

“The music’s slow. There’s nothing to it, promise.”

Begrudgingly, I slid off my stool and followed Jason to the dance floor. When he found a spot, he turned to me and I shrugged, unmoving.

“You’re going to make me do all the work, aren’t you?”

“It was your idea.”

“Luckily I like a challenge.”

With that he took both my hands, pulled them around his neck and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close to him. I tried to calm my racing heart because I was sure he could feel it but his closeness, our bodies moving together, felt so good. I could blame my pink cheeks on the wine, but my heart, that was all him.

“So,” he said, his mouth close to my ear, “what did he do?”

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does, yes.”

“Why?”

“Honestly, I was wondering how guilty I should feel for dancing with you and buying you a drink.”

Well, since we’re being honest, I thought…

“Not guilty at all.”

“That bad?”

“Worse.”

“Another woman?”

“Several other women. I found out about one, which lead to another and another. It was like a slutty house of cards.”

I laughed but he didn’t. Instead, his arms tightened around me, he sighed and leaning down close to my ear again whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He was sorry. This charming, sweet man who had done nothing to me since we met but make me feel good about myself, was sorry. And I was certain that at that very moment my phone was full of messages that I never intended to listen to from a man who was also sorry but only because he got caught. A man who, if I refused to accept his apology, would no doubt storm out and into the arms of another woman that very night and be totally free from thoughts of me by morning.

I looked up at Jason, who had stopped swaying and was now just holding me in the middle of the dance floor. As we stared into each other’s eyes, the tempo of the music quickened and around us people began gyrating wildly, but we didn’t move. We simply stood under the flashing lights as the bass pulsated under our feet.

I wanted to kiss him. I desperately wanted to kiss him. Never had I been so tempted by such inviting lips. My boyfriend had lips; I suppose. At the moment I couldn’t remember. All I could remember about him was deceit. Betrayal. Before Jason had appeared that night, I had been trying to figure out the number of lies he must have told me to keep his infidelity a secret so long. I didn’t deserve it and he didn’t deserve me.

“No,” I said suddenly, shocking Jason who immediately pulled his hands away from me, obviously afraid he had touched something he shouldn’t have. “Not you. I mean, no, we’re not together.”

“Really?” He asked, gingerly pulling me towards him again.

“Yeah really. We just broke up.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said and as if the flood gates had opened on a year’s worth of desire, he kissed me. The kiss he’d been waiting for, I realized I had been too.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you home?”

He had just ordered an Uber for me and we were standing hand in hand on the curb outside the bar.

“It’s better you don’t.”

“Well, call me,” he said, “when you…if things…just call me. You have my number right?”

“It’s right here,” I said showing him the business card he had handed me not two minutes earlier. “I’ll call you. I promise.”

When the car pulled up he opened the door for me and just before I got inside he hugged me so long that the driver started clearing his throat in a passive aggressive attempt to get me to get inside.

“Just so you know,” he said as he opened the car door for me, “I’m considering this our first date. For anniversary purposes.”

“You think we’ll have an anniversary? That’s quite a prediction.”

“Melissa, fate doesn’t lie. I’ll talk to you later tonight."

He closed the door and waved as the car pulled away from the curb. Though I wasn’t looking forward to my impending breakup I couldn’t wait to see what fate had in store for Jason and I. Maybe we would have an anniversary. Maybe we’d have several. Maybe ten years down the road he’d be boring our friends with the story they’d heard a million times before about how he won my heart with a glass of merlot.



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