UNDONE

Inappropriate


Order


Shortcut


(A conversation between a married traveling salesman and his single girlfriend)





Lighting her cigarette, she mentioned that this would be the last time she would meet me. I watched the ashes accumulate at the end of the cigarette as she took a drag.

I suddenly realized, “You don’t smoke.”

“I do. There is a lot you don’t know about me.” Smoke escaped her mouth when she spoke.

I was seeing the person sitting in front of me for the first time in six years. Six long years of us meeting for drinks. Four long years of inappropriate conversations. Two long years of us deciding what we are doing. I order a seven and seven. I wanted to get straight shots of whiskey. I wanted to dull the pain that was settling over every part of my body.
“What will you do?” Her voice was angry.

What could I do? How could she ask me that? “I don’t have an answer.” I really didn’t know who the person sitting in front of me was.

I neglected that I have been married the whole time we had this relationship; we were friends. We talked about everything. I respected my wife by keeping our meeting to lunches, dinners and drinks after work, nothing more. There was more; a lot more.

A lot more went on in my head. I had thought this was the woman who was my equal. Nothing between us wasn’t honest, or so I thought. Now I realize she always told me what I wanted to hear. When we got scared and felt it was time to love or leave- we decided on neither. She was the one who decided we are like family. We have been stuck in "friendship" limbo until today. I knew this was going to happen, I just didn’t know when.

She said as she took another drag from her cigarette, “when I get married I will tell my husband, when he asks me what I want, that I want everything. In our relationship, when you have asked me what I want, what have I always said to you?”

“You said you didn’t want anything.” I took that for granted. I thought she was fiercely independent and it was nice to have someone who didn’t need anything from me, no pressure. Maybe that is why our relationship has taken this shortcut, from drinks to doom, without all the other stuff I have with my wife- wedding, mortgage, kids, cars, bills, stress, obligations. I had no obligation to the person sitting in front of me now.

In my head I was going crazy. Watching her smoke, made me think of all the other things I didn’t know about her. I didn’t know what the inside of her house looked like. I didn’t know what she had in her fridge, or if she could cook. I didn’t know what she wore in side of her house. Did she wear a t-shirt & shorts or was she the matching top and bottom pajama kind of person? Did she drink from stem ware or plastic tumblers? What did she do from day to day? I didn’t know. I didn’t know this person. Why didn’t I ever find out? I was so sad I had to stop watching her.

“It is time for me to want some things.” Agitated she put out her cigarette. She stood up when the waitress brought me my drink. I knew what she wanted. I couldn’t give her anything. She picked up her purse pulled out her phone and started to make a call, and with a nod, she turned and walked away. I picked up my drink and motioned to the waitress to bring another.