by: thelittletree

I can't understand what she's saying. It's almost like she's speaking another language. I want to ask her 'What?' again just to watch her stop and frown at me as if I'm just supposed to be sitting there listening (what's the point of my presence? For God's sake there's a wall right behind her!) and then try to explain for a couple of seconds before shaking her head and continuing on as if the fact that I don't understand makes no difference at all. I nod my head instead, swallowing back a yawn and pinching my thigh underneath the table. How did I get myself into this conversation? One question about the weather and suddenly we're talking about something to do with grammar. What the hell's a syntax? I want to stand and walk away and I wonder if I did if she'd just keep talking to the empty chair. Is she an English teacher or something? I don't even think she said her name, just started talking as if she was going to die tonight and needed to get this last lecture out of her mouth.

There's a guy that keeps making eyes at me from across the room. That look in his eye. It says he wants to get me tipsy and see what I look like without my clothes on. I'm still debating whether I'm going to lead him on even as I glance at him again and give a sweet tug of a smile to show a dimple. He looks into his washed-out cognac as if something just dropped into it and I look away. Shy and stupid. I don't want him anymore. Maybe he's not stupid, I don't know. He looks sharp in that sidewalk cement gray suit with his dark hair cut just so and his eyes sort of deep and shadowed. His nose is a little big, but it makes him look sort of cultured. Well, it did until he looked into his drink like he was expecting to find himself standing in some ritzy hotel lobby wearing all James Bond with a martini in his hand. Shaken, not stirred, I'll complain to the manager. He's just playing out some fantasy in his mind. I hate men who aren't for real, who think like predictable tv shows and expect too much and not enough at the same time. I'm not a glamour queen who can make all of his dreams come true. I'm just a fourth-year, biding my time in tiny Irish pubs until the semester finally ticks by and I get my honours English. Not that I can use it for anything except maybe to fan the face of some publisher in a high-rise who lives in a cloud filled with the stench of cigar smoke and the clamour of novels crying from the wastebasket.

God, doesn't this woman ever shut-up? All of her words run together and all I hear is the 'hamster dance' tune in my head. It's been playing on and off all day, like a little bullheaded radio that picks up signals only when I'm bored enough to start staring at the wallpaper and squinting to see if maybe I can make that one triangle move on top of the other one. I should know grammar. I should care. I don't. Don't laugh, and for God's sake don't chide me. I do know grammar, I just don't know what the hell a syntax is. Or a dangling participle. Or a freaking conjunction. I just know it all works together to form lovely little words that people use every day. If only grammar would take a break for just a minute so that this woman can stumble to a halt and give her poor tongue a rest. I can see it dancing around inside her mouth like a huge red moth trying to get out around her teeth. But she probably wouldn't even notice that she'd stopped making sense. I know I wouldn't.

The guy's inching his way across the room toward me and I'm probably the only one who notices. The bathroom's right behind me. I stopped my lurid glances and now he's making a wispy move to try and gain my attention. If it doesn't work, he can go into the bathroom as if he planned it that way. Except he's still holding his drink. Can't piss and drink at the same time, einstein. Maybe he'll drink it quickly and then look into the glass as if searching for a pick-up line. Put the glass on the pretend fireplace mantle beside him and glance around to make sure no one saw him. His one moment of reality for the entire evening.

He takes another step and I wonder for a split-second if he's actually going to make the move to tap my shoulder. Maybe I'll talk to him then. I already know I don't want him. Maybe I was looking for someone earlier, but now I don't feel like it anymore. I want Mark again. I haven't wanted him for a week and I thought maybe I was getting over him. But I want him right now, with his way of being able to make a scowl a smile and his large hands to warm mine when it's cold out and my gloves are tucked away in my pocket, too far out of reach when his hands are so close. I want his fingers touching my lips again when I frown, making me angrier and dizzy with the desire to kiss him at the same time. I want his breath in my ear, whispering satire until I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't laugh. I know I want him in a million other ways my subconscious mind cruelly remembers.

Einstein is hesitating with a hand in his pocket as if he's waiting for permission for something. I look back to the woman in disgust. He doesn't even know how to play it cool. Mark used to be able to look totally disinterested. I became so infatuated with him I once huddled behind a mailbox in my cottoncandy slippers to watch him wait for the bus. He hardly even moved, not even looking at his watch as if his mind was a million miles away.

The woman is starting to notice my disinterest. She's cracking her thumb in and out of joint -- in, out, in, out -- twitching. I feel a twinge of guilt for being so lukewarm. I want to tell her she bores me to death. I've memorized everything about her face. I would recognize her anywhere now. I don't even know her name. She looks a little like k.d. Lang but with longer hair and a lisp. I start touching my tongue to each of my teeth, counting them mississippi-style until I feel a tickle start crawling up my throat like an insect. I ignore it for the moment, staring at the woman's left cheekbone and counting teeth. It explodes out of my mouth a few seconds later and the woman stops talking, startled. There's a guffaw behind me. The guy spilled cognac on himself. Stupid reeking cognac and he's walking away. Mark would've laughed out of his nose and pulled me up to dance with him until I was both laughing and trying to get away from the cognac, angry and attracted until I can't think and I just keep dancing until he lets me go. I can't even dance.

The woman hasn't started talking again and I take the opportunity to stand and tell her good-bye and it was nice to meet you even though it wasn't really. All politeness like a student. There's an essay on my computer and a pathetic half-scribbled letter to Mark in my room. I thought I was over him. The letter's over a week old, unfinished, and I still know where it is when I can't remember which pocket my keys are in.

I suddenly realize as I step out of the pub that the cognac incident was funny. It seems a little late to laugh at it now so I just smile and start down the street with my hands reaching for my gloves against the bite of the breeze on my fingers. People I pass probably think the smile means I'm lost in some happy thought when really there's a cloud hanging just under my skull, just above my brain, making me forget what I used to like about being outside. Depressed, just depressed. It's all unfinished, up in the air, and I can only find one of my gloves. The other one's lost, lost. Lost to the sea and me. And then I remember I lost it a long time ago, when Mark made me drop one and I forgot to go back for it.

He said he'd keep my hands warm.