one night

I drove down to DC this weekend to visit my friend Randy. He’s had his eye on a co-worker named Beth for awhile now, and he made plans for us to meet her and a group of her friends on Saturday night.

As we walked into the townhouse that she rents in Annapolis, we were introduced to the half dozen people that were seated around the living room. Jim and Leslie were the couple on the cream colored sectional. Carolyn, Beth’s roommate, was perched on an Ottoman. And Keri, Carolyn’s friend who was visiting from Phoenix, was sitting snugly in the plush, matching armchair.

Beth asked us what we wanted to drink, a query that had only two options…beer or wine. Randy went straight for the beer while I inquired about the wine list. Beth told me that they had a selection of red or zinfandel, and while I was mulling over the dual choice that had been presented, Carolyn held out her glass to me and asked, “would you like to try a taste of mine?”

I’m no germophobe, but it’s been my experience that many others don’t share my non-segregational views toward other people’s germs. And it’s very possible that I was reading too much into the gesture, but it seemed like a rather intimate offer for someone you just met a few minutes before.

So I took a sip, went with the same choice of wine that Carolyn had selected, and ended up with Carolyn for the rest of the night…two people brought together by a shared sip of wine.

We talked over appetizers at a posh restaurant that overlooked the bay. We talked out on the dock while the moored sailboats bobbed up and down on the water in the crisp night air. We talked the whole way to a small local pub that had a heated patio, where we sat and talked some more.

We talked about how her “ass-bones” hurt from sitting on the chilled patio chairs and how, with all of our modern day technology, no one had yet invented a decent ass massager. We talked about my firmly held opinion that all food would taste better if coated liberally with General Tso’s sauce…tofu included…and she said that Tsofu would probably sweep the nation... microwavable Tsofu, Tsofu sandwiches, and Tsofu nuggets for those people that prefer their food nuggetized.

And while our conversations weren’t of the ‘where’d you go to college?’ and ‘how many siblings do you have?’ variety, I felt that I knew her better by the end of the evening than I would have if I had asked them.

The next morning, armed with a keg of coffee, I started on my 250 mile return trip home. But my mind kept drifting back to Carolyn the entire time. And I kept thinking of how much I would have loved to spend one more day, or week, or year with her.

I realize that I’ll never see the girl again, but even if she wasn’t a whole lot of miles away, chances are that however far the relationship would have evolved…considering that it was still in the amoeba stage…it probably never would have lived up to the promise of that first night.

And sometimes having only one rose-tinted memory is better than letting that same memory get dull around the edges and then shatter completely. Still, though, I keep thinking of how nice it would be to one day meet someone to share a lifetime of first nights with.