Mid-February. Halfway through the run.
We were at intermission one Saturday night when Gina stops me while crossing through the dressing rooms to grab a smoke.
"Is that the girl from the bar?"
"Excuse me?"
"That girl you were talking to in the bar that one night. Isn't she in the front row?"
I rub the bridge of my nose. My glasses sit untouched with my street clothes.
"I really wouldn't know."
She escapes back through the girl's dressing room. Her face bursts as she reappears a minute or two later.
"It's her!"
Seriously? Crap, don't tell me that. I can't focus the whole second act. I can see her, blue striped shellback coat sitting Stage Right, front row, aisle. Can't miss the hair, the glasses. Dear God, what does she think? Am I selling it? I'm doing everything with a Deaf chick on stage, the whole gamut of a relationship. Does it look real? Did I look hot? Can't concentrate. What's that saying? "Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture." Yeah, that's all I got.
The Lobby after the show. I've grown to detest it. The smothering, the rigamarole. If no one I know shows up I'll sneak out a side door, I detest it so much sometimes. But I can't sneak out. I gotta talk to her. I know she'll be there.
I've been envisioning this moment. I knew I'd see her again. Been planning my move. So totally gonna ask her out. Smoothest motherfucker you ever did see.
"Hey, babe, you were the hottest thing in the bar that night. Wanna go grab a beer?"
That was, honest-to-God, the line I was gonna use.
Brian, Tim, and Amber all came to see the show that night, all of them very congratulatory. Redhead's there with a friend. I make introductions all around. Friend excuses herself to leave, I excuse myself from my brothers to grab a smoke outside with the girl.
Say it! Use the line, goddamnit!
But it's so bad! It'll never work!
You gotta! You'll never get a chance like this again!
No... Wait, shut up. Let me think of something...
During a break in the conversation I just blurt it out.
"Doing anything tonight?"
No.
"Would you like to get a drink?"
Sure. Where?
"Just down the road somewhere."
Fine. Let me run home to take care of my dog. I'll meet you there.
This is all too much. As I re-enter the theater Brian can tell from my face that I'll be late tonight coming home. Tim doesn't quite grasp the whole situation but Amber smiles brightly enough for two and pulls him along, leading a couple steps ahead. I don't know where to go so I set my sights on the most recognizable bar on the strip and text her to meet me there. In the half hour I'm sitting there on my own, with the way I'm feeling, I could pick up any girl at the bar there.
And then she walks in.
And from here on out I'm lost in whatever she has to say.
I'm not the chatty one in a couple. I tend to be the sounding board, the release valve. But this girl ain't saying anything and I have to pull the conversation along between us. Her list of accomplishments reads like Lisa Simpson mixed with Ernest Hemingway. Rugby player, were you really a rugby player? Already published a book of her own poetry. Using fancy vocabulary words like "epicurean" and "synesthesia". A huge music fan, she can match me per nuance on many a modern rock band. Two people sitting alone in a crowded bar, not speaking a word, getting to know each other. Sharing things only we would know. Everyone else stealing glances.
Hers is a story I haven't experienced before, in many ways the exact opposite of mine. She recently became completely Deaf, within the past few years. Her parents are Deaf, which is how she learned to sign. She knew she and her brother would eventually become Deaf as well, and due to an operation she lost all her hearing. Her eventual fate implanted a deep sense of urgency in her. Chill, reserved irises do little to project the kinetics of her, the nitroglycerin nature of her will. Life is fleeting, intangible, and must be jumped upon before it fades.
My mind sucks all this up like a blood cell swimming in ethanol.
Then takes a double when she mentions presently breaking up with her boyfriend of three years.
What did you think of the show?
"I thought it was great. You did an amazing job, I was very impressed. But I have to admit, the first night I met you at the bar I didn't think your signing was that good."
Well, I have to admit, I was a little stoned that evening at the bar.
"Really?"
A sharp look, carried towards the exit behind her, then slid back with a smile.
Really?
"No expectations."
"No expectations" was my middle name.
In the car I try to follow her but Hermann's droning roar makes me drive slow this time of morning. She's texting me directions one wrong turn after I need them. But we get there. And it's quaint, a colonial-style village farmhouse. As if Donna Reed moved to Green Acres and rescaled the house for a 4 ft. family. She rents the whole first floor.
I break out what little wares I have. And all of a sudden the signing goes wild. People standing around me would have had their faces slapped. She just sits on the other side of the loveseat facing me, one elbow bent and propping her head up, eyes registering somewhere between awe and drool.
All the artwork in the place is original, her own. A fiery red-and-yellow self-portrait. Fuzzy Mediterranean frescoes. And this green-faced Messiah, very like a Marley blacklight poster, sitting in the prominence.
Who's that?
She chuckles brightly.
That's Adam Duritz. She has a sort of thing for Counting Crows.
Understatement.
At this point she regales to me a story that officialy makes her the coolest thing on two legs.
Whenever Counting Crows would play Rochester she had to sit first row every show. Had to. But even that wasn't close enough. So she devised a plan to get as close as possible. The next time they played she called the arena holding the gig.
"Hi, I'm a free-lance interpreter and I understand some Deaf customers have bought tickets to see Counting Crows. Could you tell me where I can park my car?"
The toughest part was finding people who could sign to play the customers. Which wasn't that hard.
At the arena the night of the gig: Parking was free, backstage pass sat waiting, friends got great seats at a rock concert, and she stood in skin-tight leather pants, 10 feet from Adam, signing every word coming off his lips.
She repeated this.
Multiple times.
One time actually catching Adam and Ed Kowalcyk from Live in a pick-up basketball game. Adam saw her, flashed a cursory glance her way. She had gotten very close. And he knew. She stopped after that.
Coolest thing on two legs.
It's getting early now. Really early. "No expectations" means no expectations. So,... nothing's happening. Right?
So I have to go home.
Right?
I don't want to crash here. That's a poor first impression. Besides, I'm so lost now. I would do anything she says. The most epochal person I have met in forever, and I'm a foot away from her. I'm soft and mushy, a puddle of wet diary pages in her living room. But I don't want to crash here. That's a poor first impression.
She asks if I'm okay to drive home.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Where's the door?"
Her text messages don't help in reverse. I've nodea wheremat. By the zoo, somewhere. Fuck, Hermann's loud. Waking the neighbors driving like this. Someone's gonna call. I can't get another ticket. Cannot. Shit, where the fuck am I? Driving around, fucking map... someone's gonna spot me. No, can't do it.
Hermann pulls over into a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot.
Just gonna relax until safe to drive. Daylight or so.
Can't keep the motor running. Cop might pull up.
Holy living fuck, this winter's fucking cold.
To Be Continued
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Now playing: Counting Crows - Einstein on the Beach (for an Eggman)
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