I arrive to Teatro late as usual, Pat swears she won't book me a table again but she still crushes me. Everyone makes a fuss about how I always arrive fashionably late; meanwhile, I am thinking of what, in retrospect, has proven not to be a very short shortcut. I take a deep breath, feel my fresh shower scent settling.
I'm catching up with Adil whom I haven't seen for a few weeks. He's talking to me again about how much he thinks I'll enjoy Bulgakov's Master and Margarita and tells me about the power plant contract they were just awarded. Sunny is telling me about how the art work hasn't shipped yet and the opening is in 9 days. Kate is talking about a really boring lunch she had with a new F&B manager at a 5 star hotel. Everyone is chattering about all things, the pop and the intellectual, the opinion and the factual, the boring and the less boring.
There are new faces here, one or two. Maybe I met them before at an opening. Who cares? Who cares if I've met them? I'll meet them now. They are talking. I'll meet them later.
She stretches to grab the salt and I notice her olive arm. She looks up and I look down. She looks up again and I look for a waiter. It's a second and I want to talk to her, does she? I don't know but she's noticed me. We peek at each other till dessert. We speak about what espresso does to soufflé. She said it suppressed the taste, I said it elevated it. She chuckled and I told myself "she had acquiesced."
We speak for a few weeks and book tables for two a few more times and then she must travel for work and then I must work late and then she is tired and then I am lazy. We are not in the mood anymore. Our hour is gone. We are both free. We are both cynical. We are both in short stock of time to waste and we are both moving on. Did we date? Did we break up? I know we didn't commit.
How do you fall in love amidst a rush? The metro is fast but which stop is yours? We buy day passes but never the yearly card. We say to ourselves we are buying cars soon. But it is a new century and we still stand at the station. Are we northbound or southbound? I try to walk towards the sun.
I see her again and we are civil but the passion is gone so we can be friends. I can meet her friends and her friends' friends and she can meet mine. The cycle continues into the future. The cycle sustains me and I sustain the cycle. We are symbiotic, but for a time. Sustainable coexistence continues to elude me.
It's Friday and I am at Teatro again, she is there too but on different table. I smile politely and before I leave I ask her about her projects and her yoga and she asks me if I like my new job and how often I've been to the gym. It feels awkward. It's definitely over. I am melancholy and slouch towards my car, but only because like dessert I didn't have the final bite. Life interrupted our time share. I don't want the whole thing again, just that last bite of my tiramisu.
There will always be the girl next door but I imagine her to have the same closet space and either be boring or in-cycle. Yes, I know. I am judging her.
So we must believe in luck and attend all openings in hope of our yang. I want to trade her for the next. I will remember her till another makes me forget her. The purpose of ports is to remind you that you are traveling. You call on them because you are just that, a caller, the temporary that must not exceed his stay or miss the tide. You take shelter till the worst is over.
I don't miss her, I am done with her and she is done with me. We are lines and our time was the point of our intersection. There are other lines and I will intersect them, intercept them and keep my line long and away from triangles and planes.