Fred Aiken Writing

“We have a bet going on,” I introduced myself to her. I figured I might as well tell her the truth, see how it goes. At least in my head, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. The truth, that is. The truth shall set you free. -said by some asshole. “…to see how many women we have to talk to before we get their number.”

“How many women have you asked that tonight?” she says with a knowing smirk.

“You’re the first, in fact.”

“What’s the real number?”

“No, no, I’m being completely honest. Or at least, I’m trying to be. We kinda just got here, my friends and I.”

“How long ago?”

“About an hour.”

“That’s not recent.”

“I mean, by party standards it is.”

“I suppose. You’re not entirely wrong.”

“Also, if it means anything, it’s taken me a minute to save up enough courage to come over and talk to you.”

“Just me or…?”

“I suppose any woman, really. Not to suggest that talking to you doesn’t rev up my anxiety levels off the Richter scale.”

“You’re just saying that to flatter me so I’ll give you my number.”

“I suppose that was probably the reason why I shouldn’t have told you the reason why I came over to talk to you. I guess it makes everything I say, especially the compliments, seem rather shallow. I mean, even more so than usual.”

“It certainly didn’t help.”

“If it’s any consolation, I do mean it. You are quite stunning. If anything, one could say I normally would never have had the nerve to come over and talk to you if I hadn’t had some dumb bet with my friends.”

“What would you have done instead?”

“I dunno. I suppose whatever is normally done at parties such as these.”

“Which is what?…for you?”

“Who’s to say?”

“You. You’re to say. I would think you would know what you do at parties on the regular.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m being rather coy, aren’t I? I promise it’s not on purpose. It’s more of a reflex, really. Something tells me I’m probably going to regret being completely truthful.”

“But the truth is like a broken spigot; once it gets going, there’s no real turning it off.”

“Well, if I didn’t talk to you tonight, then I would more than likely spend the night nursing a beer as slowly as possible. I would try to make it seem like I drank too much an hour to an hour in a half in, and then I would quietly leave without much fanfare.”

“That’s sad. You’re bumming me out.”

“I’m sorry. Yeah, I know it’s not all that exciting talking to me.”

“At least not when you’re being a bummer.”

We each take a swig of our respective drinks. The silence balloons. Electric magnesium synthesizes beneath the surface. I’m at a loss for words. I hope she will say something to keep the conversation going. Or better yet, I hope she simply turns towards her friends a few yards away, and walks off. Never to be seen again. 

“Do fake numbers count?” she asks.

“Pardon?”

“Fake numbers. Do they count in whatever little game you have going with your friends?”

“I dunno.”

“That seems like a huge hole within y’all’s game. I mean, if there’s no rule against it, then couldn’t you just make up a whole bunch of phone numbers and say you talked to those girls?”

“I suppose…I mean, in theory…But what if they checked?”

“Do your friends seem like the sort that would check your dumb bar-game homework?”

“You have a point. Does that mean…you’re going to give me a fake number?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still considering my options.”

“You know what would be crazy?” I ask, but I don’t wait for her to respond. “Whatever if this is our origin story.”

“Origin of what?”

“How we met. How we got together. How we started dating. Casually, at first. But then it develops into something serious. Before you know it, I’m thinking about asking you to marry me. But I sweat over the thought. Not because I don’t want to marry you, but because I always had it in my head that I would only ask one woman for their hand in marriage…in my entire life. So, I guess I would want it to be perfect. Also, I would worry about whether you would say no or not. But finally, I dunno, I guess I would eventually think of the perfect proposal, I hope. And we would get married, move into a small condo. I might start a business, or a band—I don’t know which one first. Then maybe we get pregnant. We move into a larger home. We go on cruise vacations. We grow old. We tell people about this moment during anniversary parties, or whenever anyone asks how we met.”

“That sounds…”

“Like too much, I know. I’m sorry. I realized I was kinda rambling in the middle of that, and I don’t know why I couldn’t seem to shut up.”

“Me neither.”

She looks freaked out. Her mouth agape. Her eyebrows arch like they’re building a bridge. I can hear the bones in her spine creak with the whisper of flight as she studies the bar for all of its exits. A switchboard operator crossed wires through the synapses running laps in her head. The wires got tangled. The switchboard operator went out for a smoke break. The smoke break lasted longer than anticipated, because in her head she thought of a time in which smoking still wasn’t bad for people. In fact, it was downright healthy. Emphysemic cures the weary, wandering distractor blithely pulling her along for the ride.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I must be freaking you out.”

“You could say that.”

“I’m just not used to meeting people.”

“I suppose neither am I.”

“Can we start over?”

“No, I don’t think we can. I never understood that phrase. What’s already done is done. So, even if we were to ‘start over’, as you say, it would still be built on what’s already occurred tonight.”

“I guess you’re right. I wish you weren’t, but you are.”

“Does that intimidate you?”

“Yes, a little…Maybe more than a little. Everything about you intimidates me. I have a hard time remembering why I came over to talk to you in the first place.”

“Because of the bet.”

“Yes, the bet.”

“That you had with your friends. To get as many phone numbers as possible.”

“Yes, that.”

“I still don’t feel comfortable giving you my number. Not even a fake number. I don’t know if we’ll ever meet again, but I don’t want it to be one of those future meetings where we exchange awkward glances before you muster up even more courage to come over and confront me about that night that I gave you a fake phone number that you tried calling for days, perhaps weeks, on end. What good would that do either of us? I don’t want to be stuck in that sort of story. That sort of non-romantic romance of possibility. I’d rather cut it off, as it were.”

“Cut it off, I see.”

“If it means anything, this was a bit of fun. I mean, this conversation. At least for me it was. I suppose I shouldn’t speak for you.”

“You can if you want. I won’t stop you.”

“Goodbye, I guess. I don’t know your name, but it’s probably for the best.”

Before he can exchange his name and thank her for her momentary company, she leaves. She turns unceremoniously, and then disappears into the ether of the bar where ethanol fumes and grapefruit vapor envelopes her and the rest of the bar’s patrons.