The girl from the bar

She called in for a quiet almost late night coffee at a nearby 24/7 coffee shop. Told her I am pretty swamped up with work but I will definitely catch up.

It’s one of those few rare times that she calls, because usually she is out of town, out of the country, in meeting and most of the time with her coupled friends. She’s always missed.

I was already on my way, walking to the coffee shop with the green umbrella when I got a text from her to meet her at the nearby happenin’ bar.

It was Date Night.

I made my way through the crowd and loud noise..that familiar beat. In fact I can go straight to the dance floor and dance to the beat. Except that that music’s meant to stay in my iPod and I’ve retired from this scene more than a year ago.

Then, I saw her. There she was. The girl at the bar.

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I made my way through bouncers, people talking, flirting laughing, and my eyes kind of hurting from the red lights of the bar. I went over to her and she gave me a hug.

“I always like it dirty” she said, holding her glass to me. I know she’s referring to her Martini, but if I hadn’t known her since forever, I’d probably think she’s a first class whore.

“I’m not really dressed for this you know”. I told her, feeling my jeans and loafers. “ See this scarf? How much hello grandma can I get?!”

She laughed and dragged me on to the dance floor where she met her friends from the club and danced to some techno beat. I politely said that I will just stay at the bar while she dance her way into the middle of the dance floor.

She’s still that pretty, crazy friend that I’ve been missing for the past years. I was watching her from the bar and though I’ve only been at the bar for roughly around ten minutes, I could tell from a far that she’s had too many dirty martinis to drink.

I was watching her be the life of the party, while men surround her and I am at awe how, at this age, she still flirts like when we were still in our early twenties. At some point I kind of envied her early-twenties-confidence that somehow she maintained after all these years.

If this happened several years ago, I would probably go home with a dent on my self-esteem. Not because I am jealous or I want to steal her spotlight, it’s nothing like that. It’s some phase of us girls that, even though we are really good friends, we still tend to be extremely competitive of one another. No, it’s not just my personal assumption and insecurities talking. It has been studied by Susan Shapiro Barash and wrote the book Tripping the Prom Queen. Look it up.

Anyway, I am completely aware of the time and it has not been more than an hour that I have stayed there, but she came back accompanied by probably a new found friend saying she’s really had too much to drink.

I took the matter in my own hands.

“I’ll take you home.” And I did.

We hailed a cab and there she was, holding my hand talking and rambling about something funny and crazy. Mr. Cab Driver was looking at us from his rear view mirror. She’s laughing while I pretend to understand what she’s saying. Even when trashed, she looks really beautiful.

Then I caught on with what she’s saying:

“...you see, all I ever wanted was him to be man enough to love me...”

Then I recalled what I had seen on the dance floor earlier. When the DJ yelled “ All the single ladies in the house, say yeah...” She, plus probably more than half of the girls in the club yelled and wooed and the next thing I knew, she was up on the ledge and dove right into crowd and started crowd surfing. Only she can pull that off wearing that really nice dress and some fancy shoes. I don’t know how she does it, but only she can pull something like that.

Had it been several years back, I probably would’ve been quite jealous, because I’ve always seen and believed she was so cool.

We love each other since forever even though we’ve not been burning the phone lines til dawn, she knows that I got her back.

But tonight I thought we’d be able to talk about that things we don’t usually talk about. But I’m glad she was too trashed to go home because I know what it feels like to go home, alone and sober, wallowing inside an empty hole. I wanted to say that I couldn't understand how can someone this beautiful and seemingly fabulous could be so, so, sad. But I totally get it. 

We’re all looking for some sort of validation but tonight, I wouldn’t want to be like this girl I’ve taken home from the bar. Tonight, it really dawned on me that underneath this really pretty face and underneath the coolness, the flirting, and all the men showering her with flattery and attention lies a very broken heart that just wants to love and be loved in return.