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For RGF.
We got a gig to go to tonight. Be ready at seven. She'd never even heard anyone use the word "gig" to refer to anything other than catching frogs before she met him. It still cracked her up. But tonight it just pissed her off. They went out all the time. He was in "the industry" as they called it. Another word that made her grin. Such an incongruous word to describe the profession of men with smooth hands that reminded her of veal. Most of them didn't even know how to check their own oil. It all made her chuckle. The business, the hangers-on, the need to see and be seen. But tonight she'd just had enough of it. She wanted to stay in, watch a movie, eat ice cream until she felt sick. Anything else. Anything but having to spend another night of forced intimacy with the total strangers he called "friends." He'd grown up in this city, and was masterfully trained in the endless linguistic shadings of the word. A "friend" could be anyone--the lover you wanted to be rid of, the lover who wanted to be rid of you, the pizza guy, your best friend's wife that you fucked on the side, your dealer. It was a complicated secret language she still struggled to decipher.
Everyone thought they were so cool, so fucking hip. A striking couple. He'd told her he liked watching her talk to people. It interested him, he said, to see how others were slowly drawn to her after initially passing her by. How men and women came back to her because she wasn't perfectly beautiful, but imperfectly so. It was the imperfection that demanded a second look, he said. There is graciousness about you that people aren't accustomed to. He said it was that whole southern thing. People don't expect southern women to be smart. It amused him. She was never quite sure how to take that sort of commentary. It made her feel a little like a lab rat.
She didn't tell him she wanted to stay in. She never told him anything, never asked where they were going. It didn't matter. She just went along. Always went along. They had dinner at Dan Tana's and arrived at The Whiskey around midnight. After the usual round of polite chatter with the usual A&R crowd, he led her to a small table up front. They sat down and the lights dimmed. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a very special guest." She looked up and saw her. The one she'd told him would make her want to cry if she ever met, whose every lyric she knew by heart. The one who made her feel stupid and sad and ecstatically happy. The idol of her adolescence, the one she'd loved fiercely for as long as she could remember. She wanted to giggle when she looked at him because he knew. She could tell from his eyes that he'd had a plan. And most importantly, she knew that he'd done it for her. Not for business, not to make the scene. He'd done it because he knew that it would mean something, everything, to her.
She wanted to sing along but knew that would be going too far in this crowd. So she sat there holding his hand under the table, looking through the smoke at the stubble of her diva's armpits, thinking how happy she was. Thinking how she loved him, how they would marry and have babies, and how anything else wouldn't matter anymore. They went home late. They laughed and screwed until they fell asleep. She woke up in love with him still. She got up, fed the cat, and started the coffee. He was in the bathroom, rubbing the steam off the mirror with one hand and shaving with the other. He didn't bother to look at her. "I've been thinking," he said. "It might be better if we were just friends."
We got a gig to go to tonight. Be ready at seven. She'd never even heard anyone use the word "gig" to refer to anything other than catching frogs before she met him. It still cracked her up. But tonight it just pissed her off. They went out all the time. He was in "the industry" as they called it. Another word that made her grin. Such an incongruous word to describe the profession of men with smooth hands that reminded her of veal. Most of them didn't even know how to check their own oil. It all made her chuckle. The business, the hangers-on, the need to see and be seen. But tonight she'd just had enough of it. She wanted to stay in, watch a movie, eat ice cream until she felt sick. Anything else. Anything but having to spend another night of forced intimacy with the total strangers he called "friends." He'd grown up in this city, and was masterfully trained in the endless linguistic shadings of the word. A "friend" could be anyone--the lover you wanted to be rid of, the lover who wanted to be rid of you, the pizza guy, your best friend's wife that you fucked on the side, your dealer. It was a complicated secret language she still struggled to decipher.
Everyone thought they were so cool, so fucking hip. A striking couple. He'd told her he liked watching her talk to people. It interested him, he said, to see how others were slowly drawn to her after initially passing her by. How men and women came back to her because she wasn't perfectly beautiful, but imperfectly so. It was the imperfection that demanded a second look, he said. There is graciousness about you that people aren't accustomed to. He said it was that whole southern thing. People don't expect southern women to be smart. It amused him. She was never quite sure how to take that sort of commentary. It made her feel a little like a lab rat.
She didn't tell him she wanted to stay in. She never told him anything, never asked where they were going. It didn't matter. She just went along. Always went along. They had dinner at Dan Tana's and arrived at The Whiskey around midnight. After the usual round of polite chatter with the usual A&R crowd, he led her to a small table up front. They sat down and the lights dimmed. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a very special guest." She looked up and saw her. The one she'd told him would make her want to cry if she ever met, whose every lyric she knew by heart. The one who made her feel stupid and sad and ecstatically happy. The idol of her adolescence, the one she'd loved fiercely for as long as she could remember. She wanted to giggle when she looked at him because he knew. She could tell from his eyes that he'd had a plan. And most importantly, she knew that he'd done it for her. Not for business, not to make the scene. He'd done it because he knew that it would mean something, everything, to her.
She wanted to sing along but knew that would be going too far in this crowd. So she sat there holding his hand under the table, looking through the smoke at the stubble of her diva's armpits, thinking how happy she was. Thinking how she loved him, how they would marry and have babies, and how anything else wouldn't matter anymore. They went home late. They laughed and screwed until they fell asleep. She woke up in love with him still. She got up, fed the cat, and started the coffee. He was in the bathroom, rubbing the steam off the mirror with one hand and shaving with the other. He didn't bother to look at her. "I've been thinking," he said. "It might be better if we were just friends."
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