Music is not my only love, but neither is she

(And now for a piece of memory from the author, titled)

(Violin Strings, Blonde)

She doesn’t want to be called Lauren

I didn’t know how I felt about her then, and I don’t know much more now. I thought she was glamorous, worldly, another of the free spirited and country-hopping girls who can’t understand why you haven’t been outside your local in the last two years. I can’t remember how we met, only the night at the underground Moroccan lounge where she was dressed like she had just quit the corral: cowboy boots, tight jeans and a cotton shirt that hinted at her shape. And her blonde hair. She was one of those that can make you decide to not make an attempt, that it’s better to have the dream and not ruin it. To just shut-up, stay back, watch.

. . .

Mom, Dad, Ms. Johnson, I’m sorry

I used to play classical piano. Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Clementi. I had little plaques with their faces bronzed into them, peripherals of genius whose accomplishments would let them live on forever in the left side of my sock drawer, beneath the underwear and beside the Tae Kwon Do belts. Every two weeks from when I was five until fourteen I would be driven to my lesson, sitting perfectly still, inwardly rehearsing all the scales and songs I didn’t know. The lesson would start with my mother pretending to read on the couch, my teacher and I bowing to show our respect, after which I would lie my face off about how I had practiced to keep my mother from scolding me. Not that the lying really mattered, because as soon as I’d start to play it became evident how little practice I’d done. It took nine years for my parents to let me quit.

We’re a collective, the piano-lesson quitters. We sit around our houses trying to make it up to our parents that we didn’t continue, feeling sorry for everyone involved—the brothers, sisters, the piano instructors, the other children and parents who politely sat through our songs so brutally misrepresented—who had to put up with the half-assed practicing, the Christmas concerts, really, the whole ordeal. Not that it was easy for our parents who went to the same church as the piano instructor and were socially bound to not quit unless the family was moving at the very least to a different province. But I did eventually quit and did other things with my life. Like playing video games. I still like playing video games.

It even smells the same

When you walk into the University of Alberta’s Convocation Hall after stalking through the tree and snow lined pathway to the heavy oak doors while your shoulders haunch your jacket up to your ears to give them the warmth of your neck, the tight and cloistered feeling of the cold evaporates almost as quickly as the snow. Quick steps are amplified by the high stone ceilings and tiled floors, and any hope you could have of showing up late and unnoticed is made as slim as the hallway you walk to enter the concert hall. A grinning man handing out programmes and two more doors lead you into a room three stories tall with a ceiling lined by brass organ pipes. They’re just as bronze and impressive as I thought they were when I was six. The stage is adorned in a long curtain, red as supermarket steak, bleeding to the stage floor.

This last night that I went the start of the show had been pushed back, and the hall was semi-full of people standing while some sat with their feet on top of the movie-theater-fold-out-seats in front of them, while two children ran around up and down the center aisle. I found a spot in the front row on the far left side and tried to order the memories now mingling with the conversations happening behind me.

How many times had I played here? There were the Christmas concerts, the spring graduation ceremonies, that one night of jazz in college. I had a bit of a history with this room, mostly of sheer fright, the kind that comes from having to play a song you only half know that a six-year-old Chinese girl played better than its composer at the last concert and being sure that everyone in the audience knows what the song is supposed to sound like and the inevitable look you’re going to get from your mother and father for having embarrassed them so very thoroughly. It took as much time for the experience to come back as it did for my ass to find the groove in the seat, and this time I couldn’t fall asleep with my head in my mother’s lap. But maybe I would still buy myself a Happy Meal afterwards.

The musicians, University students, all of them, began to file out from behind the red curtain, dressed in black pants and skirts, argyle socks and stockings. Each sat, unfurling long sheets of music on their music stands and began to tune. The violins squealed, the cellos moaned, and I sat trying to find one violin in particular among the crowd, one sitting on a shoulder, caressed by blonde hair.

A whisk of the curtain’s corner caught my attention. The conductor walked out in rigid strides, his arms never more than an inch from his pockets. He was tall, composed—even for a conductor; he wore a tweed jacket and his face was as smooth as a window. When he arrived at the front of stage he bowed and the crowd gave a smattering of applause. He said a joke that hinted at a veiled accent, something Eastern European. I laughed with the audience like we could all afford to be polite. He talked about the program, his decisions and arrangements, while the musicians were as silent and still as the chairs they sat on. They looked like dolls, each looking forward blankly, instruments resting across their thighs, each thinking about the part they would probably screw up, what they would do when they got there, how little they practiced, that they should have done more. One of the male cellists was quite visibly sweating. The conductor introduced the first song, turned to the musicians and lifted his baton. Knees straddled cellos, croaking as they shifted, and necks and shoulders crooked to accommodate violins. Saluting the curtain, pausing long enough for someone to cough, the conductor began to slash the air, and from each cut bled music.

That sounds ritarded

The song began rubato, the baton sliding through the air. The point would flip and skewer the dust loosened from the curtain. The violinists drew their bows, and the strings hmmmm’d a soft affannato. The side of the conductor’s face, his sloping eyebrows, his tense cheekbones, relaxed while the band played sognando. He turned to the cellos, poking at them with the baton. Each began to softly saw, fingers tense along the neck of the cellos, hands wagging to create an operatic vibrato. The conductor pumped the baton in his fist, and with a punch, a sforzando shook the building, while the baton went back to twirling tight circles. Another punch, another sforzando which reverberated, bouncing back and forth between the walls and windows. The conductor walked backwards. He thrusted the violins into irato. The musicians pulled their bows in unison like marionettes caught in each other’s strings. The conductor lifted his knees and stomped with each new sforzando that flew against the walls. Bows greasily swayed back and forth with the glissando. The conductor seemed to tear with the lugubre, and smile with every gustoso, while each musician’s face was like blank marble. Eventually, their shoulders relaxed, the conductor stood upright, the cello’s released their grip, and the violinists began to sweep their bows like smoke along the strings. Adagio, adagio, and the music returned to the somber tone. As all sound slowly died, the conductor’s hands fell limply at his sides, and the musicians once again became part of the backdrop, like the curtain. The crowd’s applause swallowed what was left of the echo.

Feigning distress

It was very, very good.

The conductor bowed to show his respect, and informed the audience there would be a twenty-minute intermission before they finished the program. While he talked about a show that was going to happen in the spring, I found Renne. I couldn’t see her face, or her hair, but in the second row of violins I found a wide red leather belt, and I knew. I hadn’t seen her wear it before; I just knew it was her. People stood, and we saw each other and she tossed her blonde hair out of her eyes. She waved, I reciprocated, she left the stage, I crossed my legs and waited. I looked at a cut on my hand from washing a broken dish that was beginning to heal.

What would we talk about? The music? Her playing? My cut? The miracle of the human body and the careful ratio of blood to oxygen that keeps it from scabbing inside our body? I didn’t know anything about violin, and I didn’t listen to classical music. How cold it was outside? What was she doing? How was school? What did we talk about last time?

I turned around in my seat and watched the crowd. The hall was little over half-full, with the musicians talking with their parents and friends, cellos laying beside the chairs, and the violins being held by the neck like cats, hanging limply. Sitting directly behind me, several rows back I noticed Renne’s roommate. She waved, I reciprocated, she kept waving, and I turned around to see who she was waving at. And Renne was walking towards us in those heels, in a black skirt and top, with her blond hair, and her bright red belt sitting atop her hips.

How cold it was outside?

Whatever you call her it’s not important

Renne’s roommate’s name is Janya, very Ukrainian, but I don’t remember names. I only remember it now because we saw each other recently on a trip to Canmore. I played with a band in a lodge; she was rafting with her medical student friends. They came to the lodge one night and the band went back to their cabin, filled with food and alcohol and boys’ dreams. At four in the morning I hoped I wouldn’t have to walk back to the lodge. I walked back.

Renne sits on my right. Janya sits on my left. I have my hand in my pocket to keep it from becoming a conversation piece (it’s also slightly gruesome) and I stare at the novelty-sized organ pipes running the length of the ceiling and all over the place because I’m not really involved in the conversation and they keep resorting to inside jokes because they’re roommates. I’m happy enough sitting beside them. I mostly sit at home and think about sitting with women somewhere, with little opportunity to ever actually do it.

Renne wraps up the conversation because the band is going back on and she takes off down the narrow hallway beside the stage. I watch her walk the entire length of the hallway. I sit with Janya, who’s brought her guitar because she happens to play classical, but is learning flamenco, love music. I’m suddenly trapped in some kind of Baroque revision of an Archie comic, unsure whether to go for the blonde playing Stravinsky or the dark brunette that can summon gypsy nights with her dark eyes and wide-fretted guitar.

There’s a point when the room gets louder, when the people are telling stories, when Janya is reading the program, when all I can do is look at the warped floorboards at my feet and a certain old smell hits me and I realize I wouldn’t be here if not for piano. If my childish whims would have had anything to do with it at all I could’ve been halfway to being a paleontologist, learning how to properly brush dust off of rocks and things that resembled rocks. Instead I’m able to have some rudimentary understanding of music that makes me interesting to what I would think is a relatively closed off circle of women who might find me talented or more importantly attractive. I prayed a blessing for my parents and my piano teachers and every bronze peripheral in my sock drawer as the conductor again comes out, his face less shiny, his pocket-handkerchief possibly oilier. The lights dimmed and the crowd quieted. He gave no jokes, he offered no explanation of song choice or historical context at the time or writing or what he thought the composer was writing about. He bowed to the audience. He turned to the orchestra. He raised his hands and again began to weave a musical tapestry that hung in mid-air while he stitched the colours and shapes together.

I see foggy streets,

with hazy lamplight.

A cobblestone boardwalk where demons trap seductive women.

I see clouds that hang over lakes,

drifting limply,

tired of being clouds and becoming fog through the evergreen trees,

melting into lakes and drifting to the basin floor to mix with the mud and earth.

I see birds and lizards that shuffling over gravel paths,

delegates waving from the stairs of planes,

filthy and haunted ballrooms,

the tile shifting into sand,

showing the muted steps of ancient waltzes,

I see stars that hate how they appeared in the photograph of our oxygen.

I can see the solidness of the walls and chairs and floor around me.

But I can’t see the reason that I quit.

Amidst all these things I look up, and for a moment, in and amongst all these dreams and hallucinations, and I thought to myself that there could be nothing more beautiful than a woman, reclining, naked, playing the violin.

What a life is the writing life

Finally! I couldn’t understand what could possibly be keeping you away; I’ve been waiting for your arrival for more than an hour now and I wondered if I should spoil a new story on someone less distinguished. I see my worry was in vain and the nightmare is over. Pull up a chair, pick a drink, and please don’t ask any questions; I’ve been cooped up all day with no one to pontificate with and I could’ve fallen off the roof with the want.

Death isn’t something I like to talk about with guests, but there was a funeral here today you see. I’m sorry, not a funeral, a wake. I was completely unaware of what this was like, the funeral experience. As hard as it may be to believe I’ve never attended one, being so frequently hung up by my work.

The bereaved arrived today, a day where the last thing anyone might have thought of was their mortality, in the middle of the afternoon. Wsunglight and hile everything outside the Bonne Nuit was sunlight and spices, everything inside took on a terminal aspect: the darkness of the wine, the ornamental stillness of the curtains, how the floorboards seemed to petrify under the guests feet. The men pulled at their white shirts and suit jackets of varying fits and sizes, some wore sweater vests and polite striped shirts with stiff cuffs that had been crumpled and rolled up the arm. The women wore humble skirts and dresses with opals and pearls. One woman displayed too much cleavage, another disproved loudly about the other’s cleavage, and the men were caught between staring at the one and agreeing with the other. The guests discussed the wine, the newest art exhibit, the construction around the city, the atrocious directions for finding this place, and of course, they spoke of the dearly departed.

Someone had placed picture on the bar, and a young man who sat beside it occasionally glanced at the frame as though the face would start berating him at any moment. The picture displayed a woman in her seventies, standing on a dock, and looking into the camera with the lake behind her. Her hair was a cold white, her eyes thin, and her mouth was the faintest slit beneath her nose; she hadn’t cared to smile in the picture. She didn’t seem unhappy, but seemed above having her picture taken, as some people are. One could wonder if she assualted the camera person with the camera afterwards. Story after story gave her character, but the most popular of topics surrounded her vocation.

Her name was Rosamund Ueller and she was a writer. She specialized in journalism and the editorial style, these being of the utmost challenge considering the only embellishment could be in how she garnished chalk-white paper with elegant prose. They requir the strictest truth if they are ever to be printed and the most honest interpretation to ever be considered enjoyable, and it was this challenge she enjoyed so very much. Her work had been published in short story collections, in magazines, two entire novels, and she regarded each piece with a hint of resentment and distance, like a nephew that never quite realized his potential. She would hold public readings and organize them to include other literary companions, most of whom made up the crowd present at the wake. The pieces she chose were never just projects she had tucked away; each story had to have been noted or published or referenced or plagiarized before she would ever read them to her public. Many said it was because she needed proof they were fit to share. She lived alone, spent many nights either writing or sharing stories with friends, and otherwise travelled to writing conferences or to find inspiration for her next piece.

She was found two weeks ago sitting on a bus bench near her house, dressed in a pale blue suit and matching sun hat, her chin on her chest, sunlight resting on her shoulders and warming her cold hands. The contents of her suitcase revealed a ticket to Brunei, a dress shirt, two pairs of flip flops, a small towel, and a bottle of what appeared to have been strong pain killers. Few of the guests had been considered worthy of knowing this last detail, those that wouldn’t hold it against her.

The night carried on, the guests besting one another in jousts of story. The wine flowed with the conversation until a man—short and bald, with tortoiseshell glasses that matched the colours in his moustache—stood and asked everyone to be seated. The guests formed loose columns in the middle of the room like schoolchildren and rested their glass of wine atop their thighs. Every glass was filled, every story was finished, and when the door was locked and all was made private the speaker raised his glass, leading those seated to do the same.

“To Rosamund Ueller, the most mysterious of spinx’s.” This received a reserved chuckle from those who got the joke, snorts from those who didn’t understand but wanted to seem like they did, and a respectful silence from those who honestly thought he had meant to say ‘sphinx.’ Each guest took the slightest swallow as though taking holy communion. The host grinned at the wine inside his glass and said, “I’m sure if she was here she would say this was a wine not to be trifled with.” He made several other jokes—some with greater success than others—he hinted at the poor directions on the back of the funeral service pamphlet; he made sport of a man who had been the sole reason there would be no open-mic at this event. It was a jovial atmosphere, and the air in the room softened in the lamp light. Several onlookers stared from the sidewalk into the Bonne Nuit throughout the night, dissapointed that they were not allowed to join, thinking this might be a celebration of some sort. At times it very much was.

“Someone take that man’s keys before it’s too late.” The crowd laughed and the the host took another drink and placed his glass on the floor, freeing his hands to clasp themselves together, pressing his thumbs against each other and pulling them apart. “What a day this has been. What a week! To go from hearing the news to joinging together like this, I thought the whole affair might seem longer, but such as life, all things pass much more quickly than we expect.” This got a humble grunt of agreement from the crowd. “Rosamund asked us to gather at the Bonne Nuit was not only to drink their highly palatable wine but to enjoy each other’s company as lovers of all things literary. From many of the stories told I can tell she held a better rapport with some than with others, but to see so many faces gathered is something I think she would have been proud of. While many of us likely held our own difference with her at one point or another, she was someone who valued this community. But I did enough speaking today at the ceremony so I don’t feel the need to go on about who Rosamund was in this community. Actually, she requested someone in particular for this tonight.

“He became a good friend of Rosamund’s in her last months. He is a fellow writer, and recently won the Brigadier General Literary Arts Scholarship.” He waited for some kind of congratulatory reaction, of which there was none. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Arnold Whispe.”

Chairs creaked as guests turned to each other wondering where this Whispe might appear from among them, and one by one each noticed the thin figure of the young man—the one that had been sitting at the bar all evening beside Rosamund’s picture—rise from his stool at the bar, finish his drink, and walk to the front of the room with a collection of pages he repeatedly furled and unfurled, eventually folding them down the middle, his fingers slight and delicate, the fold pristine. At the front of the crowd he gave a slight nod to the group and waited for a nod or smile in return. The group stared discontentedly.

“Hello. My name is Arnold Whispe, and apparently Rosamund wanted me to talk to you all tonight.” He paused, trying to choose where might be best to start, looking at the lights, staring at the back wall. “I really don’t have a lot of experience with public speaking.” Here he paused, making his last point quite clear. He watched the faces of the guests, flipping from face to face, looking maybe for acceptance, possibly for forgiveness. The silence of the moment became something crawling up everyone’s leg.

“I guess I met Rosamund through Professor Robert Illian—” he pointed to a man in the crowd who gave a slight nod. “I wrote a piece for his class, something based on the current trends in internet meme culture in young adolescent males that was, well, borderline autobiographical, and Professor Illian said that I should enter it into the annual BGLA scholarship. Like was said, I was lucky enough to be accepted which I didn’t expect at all. Normally I write poetry so it was quite a happy surprise. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the scholarship, but aside from the money you’re also paired with a local writer who works with you on the piece, afterwhich you do a public reading of your work. It’s funny because the administrator for the contest asked who I’d like to be paired with and I said I normally wrote poetry so if I could get someone in that field I’d prefer that. She said that would be fine and that she had a few poets she could pair me up with, but in the end was somehow paired up with Rosamund, who obviously doesn’t write poetry. Sorry, didn’t. Anyway, I was disappointed but there wasn’t anything I could do, so I decided to make the best of it. And then after I was able to find some of her work online I thought all hell was going to break loose when we met and she wouldn’t rest until it read like one of her pieces, which of course were fine but it wasn’t what I wanted to write. So I didn’t really know what to expect.

“We started talking over email and I sent her the story and she said she’d look over it but she wanted to meet in person. She chose Border’s downtown, but we eventually ended up meeting all over the city at other small coffee shops like the Pinecone and Mary Bittersweet’s, all the writerly joints around the city. The first thing she did was tell me almost everything that was going on in her life at the moment, like the local Rainforest pledge ceremony that she was organizing, how she was preparing to go to Montreal to talk about the feminist movement after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Hungary, writing the piece that was actually just published in the Everbrook reading series. After we’d talked a little bit about who I was she took out my piece and it was covered in more pen ink than printer ink and she said holding her chin, ‘Do you know the difference between it’s and its?’ As far as my ego it was all downhill from there.

“She broke down to nothing by the end of the that first talk. She said the chronology wasn’t working, she didn’t understand half my terminology, but the ending worked well and it had it’s own voice, so there was probably something worth working out. She even somehow knew I was a poet from the way I wrote, and then when she went back to read my piece she actually undid a few of her revisions. When I told her this was the first thing I’d ever submitted I got to see that sort of half-raised-eyebrow with a little grin she hid behind her fingertips when she knows something’s good but doesn’t want to let you know she knows. I can see from some of the grins here that you know exactly what look I’m talking about.

“The more we met the less it became about the story and just about writing in general and school and everything else. She loved to tell stories, but she also loved to hear them. One time we somehow ended up talking about my love life, and I told her about how this girl I had wanted to date had said that she didn’t want to date but was happy that we could now be friends. She was just so involved with everyone else’s story, she let herself get absorbed into it, even something as mundane and cliché as bad college romance. It made some of the more boring parts of my life seem worth mentioning.”

He paused, and in the moment the sound of traffic and the hum of the lights became another presence in the room, seating themselves between the chairs.

“So we met several times and worked on the piece that went through more revisions than I’d care to mention—I think I had said it was finished about four times when it wasn’t—and when it finally came to the reading I wasn’t nervous. Well, I was nervous. But it had nothing to do with the piece, and not because I thought the piece itself was good. That was something that Rosamund also pushed home, she always told me that writing had nothing to do with thinking something was good and everything to do with whether or not it was absolutely true. I should mention now that I heard several of you talking about how she needed her pieces to be recognized before she ever read them in public. Rosamund told me that she did that for other people. She never liked anything she wrote, and I understand that now. By the time we were done editing, and after a month of walking away from my piece I never wondered whether or not it was ‘good.’ It’s real, and because of that I can read it at anytime and know who I was when I wrote it. And it’s amazing that I have something like that.”

The paper seemed to straighten itself in his hands, and Johnathan stared at the front of the page, looking almost unsure of what he was holding.

“So Rosamund wanted me to read. This isn’t the piece that won the Brigadier General, this is something we were working on in the last couple of months that I finally had the nerve to finish. Mostly because of tonight. It’s a little longer than she instructed I ever read out loud to a crowd, so I hope you’ll bear with it.” Johnathan waited for the noise of traffic and the humming of the lights to politely quiet down, and when everything was silent it seemed as though the pages themselves began to speak, such was how Arnold was able to speak. So many of the guests had long forgotten their early readings. They had forgotten how it felt placing a part of themselves in the hands of strangers—infinitely worse, friends. Johnathan’s words spilled to the ground and wet the ankles of his guests. The story filled the room, a story about a bus driver he had met, how they had seen one another on several rides, how they had seen eachother once in the grocery store but were too shy to say hello to one another. There was a beautiful imagery, words and pictures linked by the most tenuous of feelings, always suggesting but never admitting, never allowing the audience to fully understand him but never leaving them behind. Minds drifted along with the story, some guests wondering about their fathers, others thinking of how they loved their children, and others wondering if they had ever become who they had always wanted to be, all brought forward by the tenor and dry tongue of a twenty-three year old who had never traveled, never loved, and never felt he had accomplished anything beautiful.

The silence that followed the ending was almost as much a part of the story as its title. It was consumed by the polite applause of the audience, and Johnathan stood nodding, silently thanking his guests. When the applause passed his eyes returned to the papers, which he folded over and over until it disappeared in his hands as though the whole thing had been a magic trick. He looked back up at the crowd, exhausted.

“I wish I could thank Rosamund for tonight. I know that she wanted me to read because of the connections I could make from it. She never said that was why but I know because it was the sort of thing she would do. And that says so much about what she thought of my writing. I never had the nerve to tell her that I made the decision to not be a writer. It wasn’t a decision I made because of money or the lifestyle, which is something we talked about often. I just know it’s not the path I want to take.” He looked out over the crowd, over the faces that had suddenly grown grey. “Thank you for coming tonight, and thank you for listening to me talk about this part of my life.” Johnathan turned to the host, standing without a thought of what to do or say, turned to the guests, smiled at them once more, walked to the door and unlocked it and walked outside without so much as a sound to acknowledge that he had ever been there.

I can tell you there wasn’t much atmosphere after that. The host tried to resume the night, but chairs were shortly put away and good-bye’s were given and guests walked out to try and breath the air back into their lungs. Death can be a very sobering thing, and how sobering is a day with two deaths.

And I wonder what Rosamund thinks of this. The woman in the picture on the dock would be horrified I feel. The woman described by the guests would likely be dissappointed but would move on, not wasting her time on such a listless rube of a boy. But Arnold’s Rosamund would likely enjoy the sad hilarity of the moment. And of course the honesty, the unalterable truth of a path not taken simply because it wasn’t wanted. And while he turned at the fork in the road, I’m sure he will be able to look through the bracken to the other path he could have crossed and see Rosamund’s footsteps and where they might have led him. And he will thank her for the time spent.

Thank you Rosamund.

Back so soon? . . .

I had a distinct impression you’d be back. Even before you’d arrived I had Serge prepare the same drink you had the last time. I assume someone who comes in to a lounge two weeks in a row by themselves at such a late hour to sit in soft light and conversate strikes me as someone who would have a usual. But if you were interested in branching out tonight we’ll count this drink as the evening’s welcome-back. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume you’re coming back for something more than alcohol, and the reason’s not likely to be the carpet or the flaking paint. Serge is an interesting story, but, unfortunately, I don’t talk about the people I work with.

Telling tales of the average customer who walks through the door is easy enough: I don’t have to worry about the boring details and how given the context what they said really wasn’t all that bad and whatever else—all things that get in the way of a good story. Not that Serge would likely do much of any of that. He’s quite tight lipped about details, and the angels as well as the demons are in the details so all I’m left to work with is a quite mortal story that leaves most of everything to the imagination, the bastard.

A life lived without being attentive to detail is one not worth being spoken of amongst spirits, ethereal or ether-eal. You can be the type who wouldn’t care to give them, but ignore them is something completely different. On the one side is sophistication; the other side is for those who would rather watch a sitcom than sit behind the window of a café and invent stories of all the people who walk by. And give you so much with just a walk-by that you hardly need to invent at all: the way the hands swing, the colours they wear, how they hold their face. But why am I telling you? You’ve done this more than anyone.

I’ve arrived at this from you’re reappearing here and drinking the same cocktail and asking for the same seat. It leads me to believe that you are someone who enjoys the detail, the marrow. And I can assure that the Bonne Nuit offers all sorts of intricacies, it’s is a place built up from detail: stories lodge themselves underneath the tables to keep them from wobbling, they polish the mirror behind the bar so you can clearly see yourself, they fill the cracks to keep out the drafts, they make sure the door is not ajar, they wrap themselves around the lights to warm them, to keep them from glowing cold and hollow. That is what details are to this place. And they rub off on you. There’s a new detail in how you’re holding your glass right now that you didn’t the night before.

As I was saying, devil’s in the details, everything else, and of course I have a story that jumps to mind. Two days ago, two gentlemen come in for lunch on that beautiful spring day and sit against the wall near the entrance. They’re dressed as the same person: fitted suit jackets, pants with perfect seams, costly watches and shoes with fine laces tied in uncomplicated knots, though one can find differences if looking attentively. The one I come to know as Darryl, the one facing away from the window, is your stereotypical tall, dark, not-quite-handsome-but-not-quite-ugly type, straddling the line between GQ perfume advertisement and neanderthal brutishness. He had what I’m sure was an intentional five o’clock shadow and strong eyebrows (the eyebrows seemed to be intentional as well), and when he sat he immediately took the menu in hand, not pausing to notice some of the women who had come in taking cursory looks at his jawline and groomed sideburns.

His friend, Morgan—of a similar build and style—took a moment to straighten his pants before he sat down, though the point seemed moot considering his pants were hemmed too short. Not that you could see the bottom of his knees, but this being the sort of lounge that it is those who come here can tell if you’re right or left handed by the hem of your pants. He sat down and brushed his straw-hair behind his ears, taking care not to touch the pieces that fell on his forehead. He leaned back in his chair, placed his arm over the backrest while interlocking his fingers and looked around the Bonne Nuit at all the women appreciating Darryl’s uniquely-sculpted façade, and then out the front window.

“You’ve really never been here before?”

Darryl kept looking through the cocktails, giving an answer that either showed him to be an incredibly curt or effortlessly annoyed kind of person. “I haven’t.”

“You need to come here. This is the sort of hole-in-wall-place that people remember, and then when they go to that place they think of you.”

“I know we’re in advertising but do we have to live our lives like it?”

“I just mean for people in the industry. You’ll have an easier time making connections if you can be the guy who knows all the hidden trebuchet’s around town.”

“I don’t think . . . never mind.” Darryl tucked the drink list between the table and the wall and folded his hands on the table. “So what ‘guy’ are you then?”

“I am many guys. No one guy defines me.” Morgan smiled at the server as she approached. The two ordered light cocktails, Darryl taking care in his pronunciation and Morgan rattling off several details about how he liked his drink and how he was sure the bartender was competent enough to make it, he’d been here before. The server smiled, took a glance at Darryl who was inspecting a dry patch between his second and third knuckle, and walked toward the bar. Morgan watched her walk away. “If there’s any guy I try and be it’s the one who notices when the server is taking glances at me.”

Darryl looked up at Morgan who subtly pointed to the bar.

“I think she took a shining to you.”

Darryl went back to inspecting his knuckle.

Morgan looked over his shoulder and watched the server lean over the bar, play with her notepad, fix the placement of her shoe by pressing her left foot into the floor. “What do you think of her?”

“She’s fine.”

“Darryl, there’s a difference between being married and almost married, just give me a quick beef rating.”

Darryl dropped his hand to the table and looked at the server. “Low choice cut. Ask her out.”

“Of course I would ask her out, I’ve been in a dry patch for the last couple of months, I was wondering if you could get Najya out of your head for a moment and give an objective opinion.”

Darryl leaned back in his chair and placed his hands evenly on his thighs. “Stop trying to work up momentum with me and just ask her out.”

“She’s not even looking at me, she’s looking at you, and you can’t ask a girl out where she works, you novice.”

“You mean cowards can’t.” And after Morgan saw Darryl’s smile he smiled back and the two smiled at their server when she brought them back their drinks. She quickly went to the next table without making eye contact.

“Do you think she heard us?”
“You wouldn’t have asked her out if she didn’t so what difference does it make?” The two sipped their drinks. Morgan kept his glass no further than three inches from his mouth at all times while Darryl placed his drink back on the table looking like it didn’t taste like he thought it would. He licked the inside of his cheek before carrying on. “So what’s going on with all your current prospects?”

“All dried up, I’m afraid.” Morgan took another draw from his glass.

“You lost the account with Campari?”

“Oh, you meant business prospects, I thought you meant women. Campari has to get back to me but I’ve got them, and you want to know why? Because the Vice CEO called me and said that they just went to Migurney’s downtown and they thought of me.”

“So the trick works.”

“The trick works.”

Darryl waited for Morgan to expand on his business, but Morgan just kept looking into his liquor. “So things with Alicia didn’t work out I’m guessing.”

“That was weeks ago, where have you been?”

“Was there someone after Alicia?”

Morgan thought. “Katie.”

“And what happened with Katie?”

“She said she wanted to be friends and that she’d call me.”

“And did she call you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I told her not to call me.”

When Darryl’s cheeks stopped clenching he placed the glass back on the coaster. “I can’t remember the last time I had a gimlet this tart.”

“Have I told you I respect what you and Najya have? I have this understanding now of how hard it is to find someone like that. And to keep it. I used to think it was so simple.”

Darryl offered the usual conciliatory response of, “I’m sure there’s someone out there for you too.”

“I’m not sure anymore. I used to have three things going on at once and now I’ve got nothing. And then the other day I was trying on suit jackets, did I tell you about this?” Darryl shook his head. “I was trying on a dress shirt for Andrew’s wedding and the guy working the change room made a pass at me.”

“What sort of pass?”

“I asked him what my shoulders looked like in the back and he said ‘As straight as’ and then he trailed off and went back into the change room mumbling to himself.” Darryl tried to interject but Morgan cut him off. “He had a look on his face too, okay? Anyway, I bought the shirt—“

“Of course you bought that shirt.”

“I bought the shirt and then I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if I should just be gay.” Morgan took another hit of his drink, leaving a barely visible portion for the ice to sit in. “I seriously considered it, the lifestyle.” Morgan stared into his glass, as though he had just revealed a hole he had been trying to cover up, as though he had just renounced Mother Church of which he had been a deacon all these years. Neither spoke for a moment, forcing Darryl to move the conversation along.

“So what did you come up with?”

“Well, I have to admit something first.” He looked up at Darryl. “I imagined us as partners.”

“Why the hell would you pick me? What about Liam? Liam’s a much more obvious choice.”

“I didn’t think we’d get along as well.”

“Well what about Grant.”

“He has awful cologne.”

“You mean you considered other people beside me?”

Morgan lifted his cup, “Congratulations,” kicked back his head and drained what was left. He pushed the glass to the end of the table, signaling to Choice-Grade server that he needed another. “There was a lot more than just considering which of my friends are the gayest. There was compatibility, habits, interests . . .” He trailed off while Darryl spun his glass. After a decidedly long consideration of other possible topics to segue into, Darryl bit his lip and asked out of the side of his mouth:

“So how much did you consider?”

“I didn’t . . .” Morgan swallowed the rest of the sentence as their server came to ask if he’d have another drink. He nodded and watched her walk back to the bar and Morgan continued, now conscious of how many people were sitting around them. “I just thought about the day to day life of it. The relationship part.”

Darryl kept spinning his glass.

“For example. You don’t like to drink very much and I do, so that would work out if we ever had to go to a party together. I’m a talker, you’re a listener, I’m outgoing, you’re an introvert, neither of us is anal retentive (get rid of that smirk, you know what I mean), and we both hate the Rangers. What could go wrong?”

“You can’t just make a relationship out of—“

“You also like to drive and I don’t. We’re roughly the same size, so there’s the clothes-sharing thing that some couple do.”

“I wouldn’t be comfortable with that.”

“Okay, so we wouldn’t share clothes, and I wouldn’t be the type to get bent out of shape about it so that’s another thing we wouldn’t have to worry about. You have your side of the closet, I’d have mine.” Another hush blanketed the table as the server returned with Morgan’s drink. She told Darryl that the bartender was wondering what he thought of his drink and Darryl said he liked it and she said it was because he was trying a new balance and if he didn’t like it he could send it back. Darryl nodded and said he liked it fine and she smiled and he smiled back and she walked back to the bar. Morgan took the opportunity to elaborate. “And I know you have a problem returning food you don’t like—“

“It’s not a problem, I just don’t want to be rude—“

“So we could just switch plates if you didn’t like something and I could do it for you because I’m a jerk anyway.”

Darryl considered. “I do like every book you give me.”

“And how often do we go to see movies because Najya isn’t interested in anything you want to see?”

“Najya doesn’t . . .” Darryl paused, stared off into space, took another drink, winced. “Where would we go on holidays?”

“I was thinking Sao Paulo.”

“Good choice, interesting enough to tell people but not a cliché.”

“Well we both hate nature and prefer metropolis sites.”

“What would we do there?”

“Go to the beach, maybe take some lessons in a samba school, eat out every night. We’d make it coincide with their Pride parade.”

Conversation paused as the server returned with Darryl’s drink and started again with her leaving.” Who would cook?”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, staring out the window. “We’d eat out, I hate cooking.”

“We can’t just spend money like that while I’m still getting on my feet.”

“Well then we’d eat out with my money and we’d use your money for rent and utilities.”

“But then what do I get to spend?”

“My money.”

“I’m not comfortable with that either.”

Morgan adjusted how he was sitting as the server returned with Darryl’s drink. “Fine then, separate bank accounts.”

“Whose parents would we see on the holidays?”

“Most likely yours because my parents wouldn’t be talking to me.”

Darryl leaned forward. “So you actually figured out everything from vacations to which set of parents we’d see?”

Morgan nodded. “I was depressed. I ate a bag of chips that afternoon. A whole bag.”

“At least I could get your pants hemmed for you.”

“What do you mean?”

Darryl considered the comment, what would come of it, and decided it was time. “All of your pants are hemmed short.”

Morgan kicked out a leg and measured with his eye how much sock was visible. “Are my pants hemmed too short?”

“Have you been taking them to the Sui Chou?”

“No, I’ve been taking them to my own girl.” Morgan shifted his foot out in front of the table staring at his ankle. He almost tripped a CEO-looking gentleman on his way to the door. The man stared at Morgan who stared at his ankle whose polyester pattern stared at Darryl.

“How many kids would we have? Did you think of names?”

Morgan was still staring at his ankle. “We wouldn’t have children.” He looked up to catch the grin fading back into Darryl’s face.

“How could we not have children?”

“We’d what, adopt a small Nigerian child we’d name Johnathan and have him running around while we try and teach him English? I already imagined this conversation and you agreed, no kids.”

“Well we need to re-imagine it for my benefit because I don’t see why I’d ever agree to that.”

“We wouldn’t be making enough money until we were in our mid-thirties and you agreed that mid-thirties would be too late to be chasing around after a child. You said it’d be bad enough to have two gay white dads, worse if we were both old.”

“Well regardless of how smart Gay Darryl is, I want to have kids.”

“And I would say no.”

“Well this would be a break-off point for me.”

“No it wouldn’t, your break-off would be points would be if I put writing a novel above our financial security or if I bought an American car.”

Darryl looked back to his knuckles, the space between the second and third that was flaking, that itched.

Morgan played with his cuff. “What?” Darryl’s finger hovered over the patch, his nail prepped for scraping, but he folded his hands instead.

“I haven’t talked to Najya in two weeks.”

Morgan stopped playing with his cuff. “When is the wedding?”

“In five weeks.” They kept staring into their respective areas of dead space: Darryl, his knuckles; Morgan, Darryl’s forehead.

“The kid-thing just . . . now of all times. Eight months ago would’ve been the time but I guess it just never came up.” Darryl leaned back into his chair and looked out the window, squinting in the noon sun that fell through the air to the floor. “After you explained our holidays I thought this might not be such a loss anyway.” Darryl waited for his grin to evaporate before bringing the glass to his lips. Their silence was overtaken by the talk of other customers, the noise of traffic issuing from the open door, and the chatter of ice inside their cocktails. Darryl watched the traffic. Morgan watched Darryl.

“I’d ask if you had tried talking to her about it but it seems like a stupid question.”

Darryl placed his drink on the table and scratched his knuckle. “You’d said that thing before about it not being easy to find what I had with Najya. Well apparently I didn’t even have it.”

The server returned and before she could ask anything Morgan interrupted. “Would you like to go out sometime?”

She seemed to consider her response. “I’m not interested in being anyone’s experiment.” She placed the bill on the table, picked up their drinks and walked back to the bar.

Morgan looked at Darryl and shrugged. “I thought it might make you feel better.”

Darryl stared out the window. “I haven’t found anything that’s made me feel better in two weeks.”

Without saying anything, they slowly stood up and looked at the bar. Then to the front door. Darryl buttoned his suit jacket while Morgan took out a few bills and pocketed their bill.

Morgan looked up from his chest. “Well . . . since I won’t be seeing Choice-grade anytime soon . . .” and grinned.

“I suppose there’s always Sao Paulo.”

Darryl pushed his chair in while Morgan walked to the door, wondering out loud if there might be any children to adopt along the sandy sidewalks and sun-filled fronds.

It’s the details that kill us, isn’t it. The peanut crumbs. We send out our hopes, they flip, and everything we expected is turned to ash in our mouths and smoke in our eyes and there’s nothing left to do but pay the tab.

Speaking of tab I’ve gotten Serge to start one for you, but if you’d like to pay tonight that of course is perfectly fine as well. And one last piece of advice before I leave you for the evening:

Get your pants professionally hemmed. They’re an important detail.

Is This Your First Time Here? . . .

Good evening, my name is Huford. I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’ve worked here for some time now and I know faces but I don’t know yours, and that leads me to think that tonight is your first night at the Bonne Nuit. And of course I would remember a face as distinguished as yours. We’ve had a lot of distinguished faces in this place, between the vases and the building stages, but yours is the kind I’m sure I’ll remember. Distinguished faces have a way of returning here.

And I don’t care if you think it’s pronounced vawwwwzze. A decidedly Greek woman who came here on a rainy evening (what a Greek is doing in a French lounge I haven’t a clue, she must’ve tried everything else already) and she herself, born on an olive orchard—as her story went— said it was pronounced v-A-s, and all the people who said it the other way were self-important Americans who should really be calling them urns if they’d like. “It rhymes with face,” she said. And then she kept talking until three in the morning and the only thing she ordered was a taxi. I have a thousand stories like these.

You see, I’m something of a permanent fixture in the Chateau. Been here for ages. Part of the walls. And I’ve been part of the walls through all the different paint jobs, the remodels, removing the awful floral wallpaper, putting in that glass window you see on the front, the terrible first three weeks it read Chateau Bonne Oui, which a lot of people said wasn’t a completely awful name but you can only imagine the owners disgust at it. Benjamin Yerczek—a Hungarian who spent a little time defending French borders and then fled to America and decided to open a French restaurant. His story is all very kitsch but I suppose he’s kept me in electricity all these years, and light conversation with a couple of transient, distinguished faced people such as yourself. Some might think it’s torturous but really I think it’s quite wonderful, something that comes quite naturally, likely built into me most likely.

I must say you remind me of someone but I can’t put my finger on it. When you walked in the door and Julienne seated you I swore I had seen you before, but I could hardly think of where. And even now, in moments when you tilt your head in this light I get these flashes and I don’t quite know what to think. I’m sure it will come to me. Memories come as the brain relaxes: the next time you forget something, think about something entirely different. You’d be surprised how quickly the thing you want to remember comes back to you. I use this trick all the time. People come in here wanting a story and I have so many that sometimes they get jumbled together. (And between you and me, some stories are just more interesting that way. But of course I wouldn’t do that to you, distinguished looker that you are. I save those tricks for the men that come here with loose ties who reek of apertif and who could give a damn about a good story, they just want to wallow in something. And the female equivalent of a loose tie is a loose tongue, and I quite frankly can’t be bothered to fight trying to tell a story.)

. . . I forgot what we were talking about . . . Well as I say, forget it and it shall return to you. It’s a trick I use. But how to forget it, that’s the question . . . one of my favourite topics actually are the dings that you see around this place—hardly noticeable, Benjamin does a fantastic job of looking after everything here, but there are a few noticeables that have been dinged or scraped by a good story.

For instance, the stain in the corner—if you look past the beam in your way you can see it—well, let’s just say that it involved a sailor and his wife and that it isn’t wine, if you catch my meaning. And there’s a divot caught in the wood along the window sill over along the edge which has been here for ages which Benjamin won’t fix because it was made by a saxophinist by the name of Illinois Jacquet back in the late 50’s. I can’t be bothered with things like music so I had heard of him until he walked through the door to play one Valentine’s evening here. In the throws of a particularly active solo—saxaphones are likely to take solo’s such solos—he turned and knocked his little horn right into the wall there, right along the edge of the window. Two inches to the left and he would’ve taken out the glass. Three weeks after the show he came back and thanked Benjamin because somehow the knock changed the sound of the horn and Mr. Jacquet was quite fond of it, so Benjamin never fixed the ding in the wood. His wife even had to talk him out of putting a commemorative plaque alongside it. She found it slightly gauche, and I quite frankly would have told him the same, but these things take a wife. And then of course there’s the dent in the front doorframe–

That’s it. I remember what we were talking about now. But I was wrong. I’m sorry, let me include you: I was saying you remind me of someone. But you don’t remind me of someone, you remind me of a story, and it’s that story, the dented doorframe. And it’s your hair, something about how it’s parted, you might want to go to the bathroom and look at it because this is one of my favourite stories of this place and I love telling it so go take a break or whatever you need because it would be absolutely horrendous to stop me in the midst of it.

You see what I mean about forgetting it and it coming back to you? I could patent it, sell it to old-folks homes and late-night doctor’s offices and make a fortune.

This was some time ago, though I couldn’t give you an exact year. You see, back in the days of Golden Cinema, and I mean the real Golden years, when the actresses were all dying their hair as close to white so it would look emphatically blonde on screen, the Bonne Nuit was quite the hotspot for several of those years. And you’d see everybody here: writers, agents, directors, producers, actors. That was the death of the whole thing, really, because word got out and then no one could show up without being harrassed by someone pushing a pen for an autograph or worse. I mentioned gauche before, but I’d see every kind of social and cultural abondonement from these people. But this was later on. Initially, it was more like what painters went through in the 60’s, that sort of refined graceful period where they could walk around and talk to their fans, before the hysteria of fame set in and they were just worshipped for their work instead of admired for it.

So this night I’m talking about was dark. Unusually dark, you could see the lights from downtown clear through these front windows, and cars headlights would streak pass the front window and stain the glass and the eye for a few seconds after passing. There was some kind of anniversary happening for the Grauman’s Chinese theater, and even though we’re no where near the thing Benjamin had the idea to put up these awful red Chinese lamps around the store. A way to ingratiate the film industry types I suppose.

It was tastefully done at the very least, so the walls and the tablecloths were all dressed in a tender red light that let the men look distinguished and the women much more dramatic and less cosmopolitan. The Bonne Nuit was relatively empty as I remember it, there was a couple in the far corner of the restaurant, another along the wall, and a man at the bar. Whatever conversation was going on was light, and it looked like it was going to rain. It was that kind of darkness she walked in from at a quarter to midnight.

I’d hardly expect you to have ever heard of her, so I feel mentioning her name would hardly be eloquent and I’d hate to appear like someone who drops names. Suffice it to say that at the time she had been having some small success, and the word around the Bonne Nuit was that she was sure to become the next major star alongside Hepburn and Garbo, but she never did. She walked into the lounge sometime before or after midnight, dressed in a simple cream dress, wearing the mink scarf that must have been passed around the studio because everyone seemed to be wearing the same one, and a hat to match her dress that she’d tipped slightly to show her blonde hair that curled around her neck and came around the right shoulder down to her breast. She couldn’t have walked more than ten-steps that day in the shoes she was wearing, and I now imagine she had gotten her driver to wait for her outside, five steps away, waiting for her to finish her errand for the night because to expect her to walk anywhere more than five feet in those shoes would be analogous to . . . well the sidewalk would hurt her feet.

Anyway, the server boy asked if she would like a table and she waved him off, saying something about the bar, walked into the middle of the lounge and stopped. The two couples, the one in the corner and the other along the wall, stopped talking and watched her. She seemed to be preparing something, going over it in her head, like script lines or instructions for washing her mink scarf. She was meditative. But then her face relaxed, she applied a smile as elaborately coiffed as her hair, and she walked to the bar and stood beside the man who had been drinking alone for the last two hours, leaning her arm along the bar and waving to the bartender. She ordered a gin fizz, a single, and while the bartender busied his hands, she turned to the barfly who kept looking at his reflection in the counter.

“I had my first gin fizz with you. Do you remember?” He kept staring at his reflection. “I remember. It was at Eddie’s downtown and you had to carry me out at the end of the night.” The bartender’s vigorous throttling of the cocktail shaker cut her off, and she took it like she would’ve taken any interruption, with a perfectly disguised disdain that noted to everyone how obviously rude they were being and how adroitly polite she was. The bartender poured the glass, placed it in front of the madame, and went to the far end of the bar to polish the already well-lacqured counter.

“What are you drinking tonight Bernie? I can’t say I’ve ever seen you drinking that before.” The barfly, Bernie, said something only she could hear, though the two couples and myself included were all ears across the lounge. “And how many Singapore Slings have you had tonight?” She watied for his answer and got none. “It strikes me as a comfort drink. I’d never known you to have a need to be comfortable. But I guess there are several things I didn’t know about you. And several things you didn’t know about me.” She took a moment to purse her lips at the edge of the glass, took in not enough to fill the space between her molars, and swallowed the liquor along with the ruse. She kept the cup in her hand, tapping her fingers lightly to keept each from getting too cold.

“I don’t like to admit this to people, but I prefer it when I have large amounts of ice in my drinks, but that’s not the bartenders preference here. But I discovered a trick. When a bartender wants to slow down a man’s drinking, he’ll start putting more and more ice until there’s hardly any alcohol left at all. Just a cup of ice. And who would want to drink something like that?” Again she lifted the cup to her lips, drank a teaspoon, and placed the glass back on the counter, tapping once for good luck on the counter top and then placed it on the coaster. “Does that sound familiar Bernie?”

It was difficult to tell if Bernie said anything or remained silent, both from the quiet and from the absence of a reaction from the actress.

“You see, when I look in your glass, that big ol’ ice cube is floating, but just barely. It’s an artform, I mean a real talent to for a bartender to know how to get the balance just right so the drink is just the right amount of alcohol and just the right amount of cool. Of course, you’re probably good and zingered by now so what would you care.” She tipped her glass back, tapped it on the counter, placed it on the coaster. “But for the good people out there, it’s important Bernie. They don’t want a drink with a lot of ice. They want their liquor. They feel cheated otherwise.”

Bernie the barfly didn’t move.

“And being cheated is an awful thing. I think we both have an understanding of that feeling now.”

Everyone, from the bartender to the couples, probably to the wallpaper to the carpet, was expecting the barfly’s head to snap toward her and to either spit alcohol or fire in her face. It was the tension in the room. But he sat there, staring at the counter, waiting for the last line of dialogue so he could do what he always did, decide what to cut and what to keep, and given the nature of the situation most would end up on the floor anyway.

“I’m wondering if you’ve figured out while you’ve been sitting here floating around in your glass that people didn’t come for you, they came for me. And they got a taste and they’ve haven’t been able to get enough of it. And there ain’t a drink out there where anyone gives a shit about the ice.” She leaned in next to his cheek, her blond curls rubbing the side of his face. “So while all these people have been coming around and lapping me up, I’m wondering if you ever put any thought into how little of me would there have to be left until you couldn’t float around anymore.”

She paused. Slowly pulled back. She kept her eyes on the barfly while she took her drink in hand, took another sip, tap, and placed it on the counter half-empty. She placed a tip worth fifty times the drink beside the coaster and closed her purse, staring, waiting for a response.

She turned towards the door.“Keep cool, Bernie.” And started walking.

The couples watched her walk to the doorway, her smile gone, her face stiff as plaster and porcelain. Three feet from stepping into the street, a block of ice smashed into the doorframe and shattered in the tender light of the chinese paper lamps. The actress turned and found the barfly sitting in the same position he had been in for two hours, his glass empty, his hands dripping. She turned back towards the door, and the shards of ice snapped beneath her shoes. When she opened the door it smelled like rain, but it was as dry outside as the bottom of an umbrella.

She did her best to make it in the film industry but I suppose it just wasn’t enough, and the barfly kept working in the directors chair until he drank himself clear to a coma. That’s the joy of serving people in the film indusry, everything’s so dramatic. I hope you don’t take offense to my comparing you to that story, now that I look at you I’m not sure what made me think of the comparison in the first place. Your hair’s perfectly fine the way it was, in fact I liked it better than that what you went and did with it now.

Looking at the time, I must apologize. You came here for a night alone and I’ve gone and talked all the way through your cocktail. Allow me to give you a reprieve from my babbling, at least for tonight. As I said before, faces such as yours have a way of showing up here again. And if you didn’t like that one, I have more stories of all shapes and colours.

And before I leave you, remember the forgetting trick.