I usually only performed Friday nights at The Lustig, a pretty well-known bar in the small college town of Silas, home of Silas University, my Alma-Mater. This weekend, though, the owner talked me into playing Saturday night as well, saying his normal guy couldn't make it and that I was next on his list. I couldn't refuse, nor complain, I was making money while doing what I loved, working an extra night wasn't hurting anybody. Anyway, I needed the stage time for the potential tips. I had a three year old I was supposed to be raising at home. Tonight, I left him with a babysitter, an old college friend that still lived in this godforsaken town. And thank Hermione for that because I didn't trust anyone with the little guy but myself, and that was a stretch.
Saturday night started off like any other night. I was offered a complimentary beer, but declined. I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since the kid came into my life and I didn't plan on starting now. Taking a seat at the piano, a mic set up in front of me, I led the audience through a few well-known songs, ones they'd probably heard on the radio, just slowed down and with my own twist, then I went on to the list of requests from the bar patrons, took a short break, called home to make sure the house wasn't on fire and that the kid was fast asleep, and did a few more requests before I started playing my own music. I started off with a couple slower songs, sped it up a bit towards the end of the night, and just before the DJ came on at 10, I played my newest songs and a few of the crowd's favorites.
It was around 9:45 when my fingers found themselves moving across the baby grand on the stage and the spotlight dimmed, creating a haze in the small room through the cigarette smoke, and I started singing a personal favorite of mine. It was a slower song so when the first notes rang out and it was unfamiliar to the weekend crowd, people paid attention. I was well known to the regulars there and they were always eager to hear new music.
I don't remember when I noticed her or when she noticed me, but when I looked up into the crowd and unexpectedly met her gaze, everything stopped. I stopped singing, I stopped playing the piano, time stopped, my heart felt like it stopped. It probably did. She looked so different, yet I'd recognize her anywhere. Her eyes gave her away. Those honey-brown orbs with little flecks of gold here and there, I could never forget. I'd notice them anywhere. Her hair was darker, she wore red lipstick and dark makeup around her eyes, and her heels made her a couple inches taller, but it was definitely her . Her , just more, I don't know, grown up .
It must've been almost 10 years since I last saw her and nearly three since I last heard anything about her in the small town gossip. Apparently she was a big shot reporter for some big shot news station in Toronto. Apparently. Because I definitely didn't watch her on the evening news when I could and I definitely didn't google her every now and then just to see how she was doing. She had her dream job. I honestly didn't expect anything less, she got what she wanted because she worked hard for it. She was always like that. Ambitious.
She grew up incredibly well, matured. She was the most beautiful woman in the bar and everyone around her knew it, but somehow she didn't. She was only looking at me, her eyebrows knit together, her head tilted at a slight angle as she watched me watch her, her lips were turned down in a slight frown, all while the index finger of her right hand absentmindedly traced the rim of the half empty glass she was holding.
I was only brought out of my trance when I noticed shock and recognition flit across her features, then hurt, then anger. I couldn't blame her. I felt the same way at first. But then she turned to the bar, placed her drink down, and left. She just left. She didn't turn back around, she didn't acknowledge anyone else in the bar, she just left. So, naturally, I followed her. What else was I supposed to do? She was the one that got away.
Without finishing my set, I got up, nearly knocking over the piano bench in the process, and I ran after her. My legs were on autopilot, my brain uncharacteristically quiet. I ignored the protests from the blur of bodies in the bar and made a beeline for the exit, hoping she didn't get too far. With the cold November air like a smack to the face, came her name across my lips. I shouted her name out into the empty street, once, twice, three times, but she was already gone, a ghost in the night, and I felt my heart grow heavy at the realization that I had let her slip through my fingers yet again. I was alone on the sidewalk in front of the bar, my breath fogging out in large gusts in front of me with every heave of my chest. I probably looked crazed with my windswept hair and the look of panic that was undoubtedly in my eyes.
All of this happened within maybe a minute, but at the time, it felt like an eternity. From the second I looked up and caught her eyes, it felt like the world slowed down just enough for us to notice each other and then the second we did, it sped up so much that it made me dizzy. The second I opened the front door to the bar and stepped out to the empty sidewalks, I felt like the universe was playing some cruel joke on me. It felt like the air had been knocked out of my lungs and I couldn't fucking breathe.
I started second guessing myself. Had I actually seen her? Had she actually been there? Had my overactive imagination made her up? No. She was real. I had to believe she was real. I refused to believe I was seeing ghosts from a past life. A life where we were happy together and in love, where there were no dead brothers or sister-in-laws, no nephews left orphaned after a tragic accident took his parents when he was just six months old, no therapists, no psychologists, no antidepressants with my name on the bottle. She had to be real, at least for my sanity's sake.
That night, I went home and paid Perry for watching Grayson, climbed into bed, pulled out my notebook and a pen, and cried. I never told anyone about that night. No one ever asked.
I didn't see her again until over a month later, around Christmas. There was snow on the ground and it was cold. This was Canada after all, what did you expect?
Perry was watching Grayson again and I was working another Saturday at The Lustig, going through my normal holiday set until right before the DJ came on. I announced a new song that I had written and finally felt comfortable performing. It was the song I wrote that night, five weeks ago, but I didn't tell the audience that, I just started gliding my fingers across the piano effortlessly. Then I started singing, my eyes closed as I pictured the woman that held my heart, though I doubt she knew it.
Isn't it a little late
Shouldn't you fly away
Little dove with cigarettes
Show 'em that you can hold your breath
I heard about a girl
Buried her dolls and lost her curls
Painted on lipstick red
Grew herself up and then she'd
Walk into a smoke filled room
Oh no one could keep their eyes off you
Have a little drink or two
Oh, oh how could you be that girl I knew
Walk into a smoke filled room
Little black dress and mama's shoes
Isn't it a bit too soon
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
Walk into a smoke filled room
Oh I believe love will follow you
Isn't it a bit too soon
Oh, oh how could you be that girl I knew
I didn't even make it to the second verse before I saw her and stumbled over my words. She was standing front and center in the small crowd that had formed in front of the small stage when I opened my eyes and maybe that was what made me trip up. I hadn't expected to see her again, let alone in this bar, while I was singing the song that I wrote very obviously about her.
She looked torn. She looked like she wanted to throw the drink in her hand in my face, but also like she wanted to take me into the bathroom stall and make me scream her name while she was knuckle deep inside me with two of her fingers. Honestly, I would have let her do whatever she wanted to me as long as she didn't walk out again.
She didn't.
Take a step around the room
And every head keeps turning too
Little dove, you fight 'em back
Show em you're so much more than that
I heard about a girl
Buried her dolls and lost her curls
Painted on lipstick red
Grew herself up and then she'd
Walk into a smoke filled room
Oh no one could keep their eyes off you
Have a little drink or two
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
Walk into a smoke filled room
Little black dress and mama's shoes
Isn't it a bit too soon
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
How could you be that girl I knew
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
Walk into a smoke filled room
Oh I believe love will follow you
Isn't it a bit too soon
Oh, oh how could you be that girl I knew
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
Oh how could you be that girl I knew
I finished the song without breaking eye contact with the brunette from my past. As the crowd erupted into a roaring applause, I muttered a half hearted thank you into the mic and didn't think twice about stepping down from the stage and making my way to the woman I couldn't take my eyes off of. When I finally reached her, there were tears in her eyes and her bottom lip was trembling. The look from earlier was completely gone and in its place was one I didn't recognize. I didn't know what to do. So I shut my mind off and let my body take the lead and I took her face in both of my hands and I kissed her. She didn't kiss me back right away, but when I pulled back, she followed my lips with hers, took a deep breath, and kissed me with so much emotion that I felt it crack my heart open in a way that was painful yet felt like coming home.
When she pulled back I tried to follow, but she stopped me with a hand to my chest. Her forehead was resting against mine and I could feel her breath on my lips, almost teasing. I opened my eyes and she was already watching me, tears streaming down her cheeks, as a name I hadn't heard in nearly a decade was whispered into the air between us.
"Carm" never sounded as sweet as it did coming from her mouth.