She excuses herself from the group and goes to the bar to order another margarita. Before she gets to the only free stool she notices the two men flanking the empty seat. One is busy talking to a woman and the other is just nursing his beer. She makes a mental note. She leans over the stool, without sitting on it, and tries to get the bartender's attention. She can tell from her peripheral vision, or just woman's instinct, that the man nursing the beer is looking at her.
"Hey, Duke, the lady needs your help!" says the man, looking at the direction of the busy bartender. She looks at him and finds him looking at her, smiling. She smiles and thanks him. He shrugs with a carefree smile that makes her feel better about sitting down. He extends his right hand and says, "My name's Tom." She shakes it, firm, and replies, "Julie. Nice to meet you."
The bartender comes over and gets her order. She had half expected the man to order it for her, "my treat", as they sometimes say. But he doesn't. He takes a gulp of the dark beer and says, "New here?"
"New in the bar? Yes. And new in the city too. I am visiting my friends," she replies.
"You know that most people here are single? You can tell, especially when they start talking, they are often talking to a stranger," he says, and leaning over a bit to whisper to her, "Like the couple behind you." She gets a better look at him. His cologne is nice. His clean shaven, and the features on his face are all perfectly put together. His fit, not bulky, but slim and fit. He's wearing a shirt of the kind of blue she likes, royal blue. She suddenly imagines being with him. Going home with him. Taking his clothes off and touching him. She's embarrassed by the thought. The man is looking at her, not taking his gaze off her but not staring either. He says, "People come here because there's nowhere else to go. I mean, this is Harvard Square, where else do you go to forget about your work, which, for this adult crowd, is research or professorship or both. All the kids just go to their parties and get drunk or, worse, talk about their research if they are grad students." He says this as a matter of fact, but he says it in such a way that she believes him absolutely. He's not talking to himself. He's not afraid of sharing this wild conclusion with her. He's talking to her, as if his words grab her like strong arms and put her where she needs to be to understand his point.
He continues, "But it's such a mess. I tell you from experience. It's a mess. There's so much colliding energy here you can measure it, I am sure, with some instrument someone's brain here can invent. Are you an academic?"
She shakes her head, feeling an urge to tell him all. She says, "I work for a software company in New York. I live in a tiny apartment in Astoria. Just visiting my old college friends here for Thanksgiving."
That's a lot of load to unload, she feels. Those few sentences say a lot, and by the look of his face, that he's thinking now, though not in any confused way, she knew that he read between every word and line. He asks, "You get asked for your number a lot?" That's when he actually looks at her up and down, very subtly. She feels a little nervous but still she feels she has to tell him. "No.... Not really. I guess I don't project any energy of wanting to give away anything. I am too shy."
"Guys love asking shy girls for their phone numbers. But you're right, you're not projecting the right energy. But I wouldn't know," he says.
She was almost expecting him to ask her for her number. She was almost devising a clever response. But then his last sentence throws her off.
"Why not? You seem like a very charming man, you must have measured and studied energy from different women?" she says, almost flirting, not at all embarrassed now.
He looks at her, his eyes betraying a different kind of emotion she can't immediately understand. He says, "Oh, I don't look at women a lot. If anything, I think they are interesting subjects to study. I am, well, to be honest, exclusively interested in energy given off by men."
It takes her a few seconds to process that, a few more still until she realizes what he is saying. There's a sense of relief that nothing will come out of this, but that is nothing compared to her disappointment. No one at a bar, actually, has ever asked her for her number, and this man comes close. He's actually quite normal and his charm is effortless. But then he's not available, not ever.
They talked a bit more and she just feels more and more want to go back to her friends. But she can't. She doesn't really want to. Only finally when he decides to leave did they part ways. She takes a big gulp of her margarita, tasting the fire that burns in her throat as she returns to her group, al the more despondent than before.
