Pining For Reuben – And Then What Happened?

I’d been in the bar eight or ten times. I was hell on wheels at the rink by now. Sometimes I’d stay for the first song of the second set. The Who’s “Goin’ Mobile”.

I liked that song. I liked to hear it but sometimes I couldn’t manage because I was not that interested in the bar hijinks. I was a very old teenager. I had worked in a bar so long; there was nothing new to see. I’d get sad and I’d get bored. Everyone was meeting and mating, you know? Ack.

I did not tire of Reuben though. He was a guaranteed payoff. Ooh la la, did I like that guy. I was living off him when you get right down to it. He was how I knew I was still alive, but I never upped the ante or moved any closer to the edge. This was due my faith.

I wouldn’t have called it that at the time but that is what it was. I’d been through so much for so long I knew  something would break my way. I was not done for. I’d find a way out eventually so I was just lying low waiting for the fog to lift and it wasn’t all bad. I go mobile on my skates, you know. I’d fly.

I was at my usual table in the back, first song, first set. I was absorbing and consuming Reuben, per my habit. Damn was he something, when a tall skinny guy walked into the bar to boisterously join a large group of friends. This was twenty people sitting with their  tables pushed together, celebrating something, I imagined. I saw him at the door. He saw me too, so I looked away. Standard procedure. Sorry guy. I am someone’s girlfriend.  This is what I worked to project.

When I glanced back he was standing over his friends, talking to them but looking at me, so I did it again. I looked down.

This always worked but not this time. Instead of reluctant acceptance which was the usual response from men who wanted to engage, this one made a beeline to me and then circled the table once before he turned a chair backwards and sat down, straddling it. The circling thing was funny so I was already laughing.

“Are you here alone?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re kidding. You’re here alone?” he asked, exaggerating his surprise.

“Yes.”

“No shit,” he said. “Well how about that? I guess that this is my lucky day. Look. I am meeting a bunch of people over there,” he said, indicating his friends. “It’s a birthday party. Do you want to come sit with us? You don’t have to sit here alone.”

“No. No thank you.”

He laughed. “You just want to sit here alone?”

“Right,  I do,” I said, but I smiled and he laughed.

“Well that’s okay. I don’t have feelings anyway. Good thing or they’d be hurt, huh?”

He cocked his eyebrow at me and I laughed. He stood up as if he were going to leave and I didn’t react which left him standing, not sitting. Whoops! He screwed up. I knew I’d won the first round, but I didn’t gloat. Poker face.

“Er… so can I talk to you? Miss… Miss…”

“Elsa.”

“Elsa. I’m Jaime. And I don’t get it. What are you doing here alone?” he asked, probing.

“I was skating.”

“What?”

“Skating,” I said.

“Skating?”

“Right. I’m getting pretty good too. I’m learning to skate really well,” I said, smiling. I laughed a little because I knew I had his chain. This boy was mine.

“You are, huh?” He drank from his beer. “I can’t believe this. You’re learning to skate, uh….really well?”

“Right.”

“How well?”

“Really well.”

“Really well?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Well I should pay better attention.”

“Right.”

He laughed. “You’re a hard-ass.”

“Right. And you’re cocky,” I said, smirking.

He laughed and I laughed too but not with him. I laughed at him, just because.

“Well, where do you skate? Are you on TV or something? Are you famous? Are you some kind of famous skater?”

“No. I skate down the street,” I said. “The rink. There is a skating rink. A new one up the road. I skate at the skating rink.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me?” he said, flabbergasted. “The roller rink? You came here from roller skating at the roller rink with all the kids?”

“Uh huh. But it’s adult night,” I said with another smirk.

“Adult night?” He slapped himself on the forehead. “Adult night at the roller rink? Who’d have thunk? Do you know how long I have been looking for you?”

“All your life?”

“Right!” he said with a snort. “That’s right. And no wonder I never found you. That is where women like you go? To the skating rink? Well, fuck me! I am an idiot. I never thought of that. If I were smarter I’d have met you last week. And you go there alone? You go there and skate alone?”

I nodded, raised my eyebrows and smiled wide. “Yes. That’s what I just said.”

“Yes. Yes you did say that. I’m not listening. Well I am but I can’t believe this.”

“You can’t?”

“I can’t. Let me get this straight,” he said. “So you were skating and you just decided to come in here and have a…” He picks up my drink with a questioning look. “Is it vodka?”

“No?”

“Hmm… Gin? Is it gin?”

“It’s soda water. Give it to me,” I said because he was mocking.

He handed the drink to me and I sipped from the straw and smiled.

“What? It’s soda water?” He was shocked.

“Yeah.”

He pointed at the glass. “That is soda water?” He snorted. “Give it to me.”

I handed him my glass and he sniffed it and smiled. He took a sip with his eyes open wide. “You don’t lie, do you?”

“Uh… No. Not really.”

“Okay. I don’t get this. You go to the roller rink on adult night because you want to skate reeeally well.”

“Right.”

“And then you come in a bar on the way home to have a soda water? Uh… pardon my stupidity, but why? Why come to a bar to sit alone and drink some soda water?”

“Uh. It’s the music. I like this music.”

He smiled. “These guys? He cocked his thumb at the band. “You like them?”

“Uh…yeah. Well actually, it’s the singer. I have a crush on the singer,” I said, smiling.

“On Reuben? You have a crush?” He laughed. “Oh. Oh, well I see. Just my luck,” he said, shaking his head. “Well do you know him? Are you a friend of his?”

“Nope.”

“I see. Well, shit. Shit! Oh well, that’s the breaks. Er…you’re in luck. And so is he, apparently. See, he’s a friend of mine. And you like him? If you like, Reuben, I’ll introduce you. That’s what I’ll do.”

“No thank you.”

“Whaat? You don’t want to meet him?”

“No. No thank you.”

“Wait a minute. You say that you have a crush on him but you don’t want to meet him?”

“Right.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you want to go out with him?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. Why don’t you want to go out with him?”

“Uh… I just don’t.” I waved my hand around. “He can go out with these other girls. I’m too busy,” I said.

He snorted. “Busy, skating?”

“Right.”

“I see. Uh… can I sit down now?” I didn’t respond. “I can’t? You don’t want me to? Okay. I thought you might invite me to sit since we’re talking but that’s okay. Hey. Do you want me to leave you alone? I can go back to my friends. I’m sure that they are over there laughing at me because I am over here trying to talk to you and you won’t let me sit down.”

I smiled. He could do whatever he wanted but if he left he would have to come back, wouldn’t he.

“Well since you didn’t answer, I’m staying. But since you didn’t invite me to sit, I’ll stand, okay? I don’t want to impose.” He leaned on a chair. “I mean, I’ll lean if that’s okay. Listen. You’re not the normal kind of girl that comes in here. I come here most nights this band is here. How come I’ve never seen you?”

“Uh…  I go home early?”

“Early? How early?”

“I only see the first set.”

“One set? What? Why do you do that? These guys don’t get warmed up until the third set. The first set sucks. You should stick around. Nothing to do with me, of course.”

“I have to go to work at six in the morning.”

“Six, huh? Well so do I.”

He picked up my soda water again and turned it in his hand, examining it.  “So who are you? Some kind of Cinderella or something? Have to be home by midnight? What does a guy have to do to be invited to sit with you? Do I have to find your shoe?”

I laughed but I didn’t answer because I didn’t have to.

“That’s it. I think you’re a fairy tale. So listen, Cinderella. Can I call you that?”

“Yes.”

“Finally. Finally she doesn’t give me a hard time. Well listen, Cinderella. Let’s cut to the chase. Do you want to meet the band? Do you want to meet the guy you like? His name is Reuben and I’ll vouch for him. He’s a good guy. I’ve known him a long time. He is a very good friend of mine, actually.”

“I said no. No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I would rather not.”

“You just want to hear them play for one set and then what? You go home?”

“Right.”

“Well do you dance, Cinderella?”

“Sometimes.”

“Boy, you don’t give a guy an inch. Will you dance with me?”

I put my hand out to him. “Let’s go.”

~~~

I wound up living with Jaime for three years. Reuben became our bargaining chip. Like this:

“Come on, Elsa. Don’t be such a hard-ass. If you’ll do this for me, I’ll take you to go see your boy, Reuben…”

This is my quirky story or some of it, anyway.

The End