Monday, 21 September 2009

• The Man with the White Shoes

  It all starts at a bar.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  The music is too fast and the room is too dark. I stroll to the bar and offer my friends a drink. I turn my back on the bartender and they all take turns giving me an embrace. I missed my friends.
  
  But then behind one there is a man who looks at me for a brief second. Did I really see it? I turn back to the bartender and he pushes over our melonball drinks; my friend in a martini glass and mine in a shot. We drink simultaneously and we both cringe and laugh.
  
  One of my friends is lost in a European conversationalist and I am searching for something... I walk across the bar and look for this mysterious "upstairs room."
  
  As we pass by the well-dressed Hollywood regulars, I see some of my friends across the room motioning towards me. He is with them.
  
  I walk to them quickly and he looks at me again. I reach out my hand. "My name is April." I push out a dazzling smile and he catches it. "My name's Charlie."
  
  We pass through a walkway, forced to be inches away from each other. The bouncer doesn't let us in. We laugh it off and retreat. There are other places to waste our adventure on.
  
  So we stroll outside and everyone takes their cigarettes out. I light mine and we all condense into our small circle of friends. I look down and he's wearing immaculate white shoes.
  
  As the group leaves for the next bar, we both seemed to walk slower on purpose. His smile is genuine, shy, not knowing how beautiful he was. I don't remember what he told me as we walked together, something about his dimples, or his smile, or his light blue eyes.
  
  We enter again, now without hassle at a place called Ecco. This one is louder and more cramped than the last but there is a different energy here. We all knew we were going to have fun tonight.
  
  I go towards the corner of the bar and a few local strangers say Hi. I do my best to try to entice them. "Why not?" I thought as we laughed together. I notice him looking at me from across the room. He decides to come over to tell me that I'm popular. But it didn't matter, because I'd already stopped talking to everyone else as soon as I saw him looking at me.
  
  He leaves briefly and my friends decide to snitch on him. "He's totally into you."
  "Really?"
  "Yeah, he said his favorite month is now April."
  
  I don't notice when he comes towards me and grabs my hand. He whispers, "Let's Dance."
  
  The music changes when we get to the middle of the room. He won't look at my eyes but I keep looking up at him in hopes that he will catch mine. But the moment passes too quickly as I foolishly follow my friends to the outside patio and leave him by himself.
  
  I immediately regret my decision.
  
  I try to go back but we have already lost it. I sit down again and he sits beside me. I don't know what I was thinking when he asks for my number. Somehow, I go into a monologue of how I need a challenge and play coy and pretend I'm not interested. I give him a business card anyway but with someone else's number on the back of it, of course, in self-destructive fashion. I laugh and he doesn't see through my joke.
  
  My friend Sam tires of the bar and wants to leave so I follow her out. I leave him behind, knowing I will never see him again. But me, in my delusional optimism, still wishes he will call me.
  
  I know that we have lost the moment. I know that I had my chance. And all I can take from it, apart from his eyes and his smile, are the vision of his white shoes that he told me he had worn for the first time that night.
  
  Have you ever had "The One Who Got Away"? What would you have done differently?
  

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