He's sitting across the bar from me. Drink in hand-dashingly handsome smile. Large, dark brown eyes set in a pale, long, and gently pointed face. His long black hair is tied back, a strand of it falling across his gracefully arched brow as he twirls it between his fingers, eyeing the woman hungrily at his side. How I long to be like him.
Honestly, I have wanted to be like him for a while now. Every Friday night for the last two months, I have watched him work his magic on women effortlessly. At first, I was jealous. Now I just want to know how he does it. No matter how crowded it is in this bustling hole in the wall, no matter how loud the horrid live music is while young college kids yell and laugh at each other, he manages to snag one to three girls every time. What I wouldn't give to be just like him.
After one month of watching him, I tried to get up the courage to talk to him. But every time I think it's the perfect moment... I am just a little too late.
Two weeks ago, I approached to ask him what his secret was to get the prettiest girls. Before I could ask him, he stood up with one linked to his arm and walked away. He left me standing stupidly in front of his empty seat, wondering if he was trying to ignore me or if he didn't see me at all. The latter wouldn't surprise me. No one really noticed me anyway, and if they did? Well, then they just pretended I didn't exist. It made me feel like a schoolgirl constantly getting rejected by boys she thought were cute. It had happened so much now that I was becoming numb to it.
Maybe it's my glasses that sit awkwardly on my face, the gold round frames of them at odds against the squareness of my jaw. Perhaps it's my unruly wavy blonde hair that I'm always pulling back into a bun, not wanting to be bothered to brush or style it. Or maybe, it's that I am just not handsome. I know that I'm too pale and skinny to be thought of as attractive. If I ate and went out into the sun more, my troubles might be less.
Most likely, it's my clothes. I dress like some guy who thinks the nineties are still in style. My jeans sag too much. The green plaid shirt that I wear constantly falls out of my pants and over my belt, giving me an air of untidiness. Sometimes I tuck my shirt into my belt instead of my pants accidentally.
In my freshman year of college, I tried to talk to a girl in my literature class. She took one look at my clothes and laughed at me before blowing me off. I struggled to tuck my shirt back in the right way when my professor stopped me. He laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "What's done is done, Phillip. There's no use trying to correct it now." I was left embarrassed by the whole situation. I hadn't tried to ask out a girl since.
I let out a sigh. Picking up my glass of water, I pretended that it was vodka and took a drink. It's useless. That guy will never stoop to talk to me, much less help me out with my dating woes. What the hell am I thinking? I took a sip from my drink and looked up at the stranger across the way over the top of my world literature book. For the briefest moment, the dark-haired man across the bar locked eyes with me. I quickly averted my gaze, stunned by the intensity of his eyes as they traced my face.
I lowered my head, afraid of what the consequences would be for staring at him. I buried my nose further down into the pages of my textbook, jumping as I felt the scrape of a wooden chair beside me. My heart began pounding in my chest. I refused to look up from my reading.
My glasses slid down my nose as I began to sweat. Surely it wasn't him who was now sitting beside me. No. No, it had to be someone else. Anyone else. I fumbled my book as I went to push my glasses back up my nose.
"It must be hard to juggle glasses and a book," a female voice said at my side.
"Huh?" I said stupidly. I looked beside me to see my friend Jenna pulling out a chair. She sat down, grinning widely at me. A look across the bar let me know that the pale stranger was still sitting there, now stroking the woman's hair who sat beside him. I counted my blessings that he had not come my way. But then again, why should he? I am no one.
"Yo Phillip! Hey man, what's up?" a hand clapped me on the back, and I turned to see my other friend Clark sliding up beside me. I swallowed hard as I shifted the book clumsily in my hands, my glasses sliding down to the tip of my nose. I pulled the text up to my face to try and shift my glasses back on with the top edge of it.
"Not much, just studying," I said. With my glasses now securely back on my face, I set the book down on the wooden bar. Looking up, I caught the man across the way looking at me again. His dark eyes searched mine momentarily before he straightened and smiled at me. The woman beside him excused herself to the bathroom, leaving the stranger alone as he ran his gaze across the planes of my face. My voice caught in my throat. I sat mute, feeling rather like a middle schooler encountering their crush for the first time. I shook my head as I tried desperately to come around.
"Duuuude!" Jenna exclaimed. "Phillip! I think that guy's totally into you!"
I swallowed the fluid that had been building up in my mouth, "What? No. Um, he's always here picking up girls."
Jenna tapped her foot on the ground. "I don't think that girls are what's on his mind right now. I mean look at him! He's totally checking you out!" she exclaimed. She flipped her long brown braids over her shoulder. "God Phillip! He's gorgeous!" She stopped briefly to smile at me. "By the way, how's the getting a girlfriend situation going?"
I sighed, "It's not going that great. I'm trying, Jenna, but no one will even give me a chance."
Jenna leaned down on the wood of the bar counter toward me while Clark shook his head and waved the bartender over to order a drink. "Ah Phillip," she cooed. "Cheer up."
"Mn," I nodded. The three of us had been friends since high school. Jenna and I since freshman year and Clark since our junior. At one point, I had hoped to ask Jenna out to prom since she was my best friend, but Clark got there first. They've been dating ever since. Honestly, I didn't even know if I ever liked Jenna that way. It just seemed easier than admitting the alternative.
What even was the alternative?
I bit my lower lip and looked across the way at the handsome man who was welcoming back his date, standing up briefly to pull a chair out for her. As he pushed in her seat, he caught my eye and smiled at me again. I swallowed hard.
"I mean," Jenna continued, "your sense of style is rough, Phillip. It's like you came out of the nineties, and not in a good way."
"Drop the issue with his clothes, Jenna," Clark said sourly, turning to her. He took a swig from the tap beer he'd ordered. "You know why he dresses that way. Drop it."
Jenna bristled, her braids sliding over her shoulders as she leaned over me to glare at her boyfriend. "You know I only want the best for him. How's he supposed to get a girlfriend dressed like this? I'm just saying, if he dressed a little more current, it would help. Don't you think, Phillip?" My friend turned to me, all long hair and dark lashes. The more she batted her large brown eyes at me, the more I felt myself sink lower and lower into myself.
"It could help," I murmured.
"See!" she yelled at Clark. The bartender approached her and asked if she was going to order anything. Jenna told him her order, a whiskey sour with three cherries in it, and then turned back to me. "We are going shopping tomorrow. Just you and me. Clark, you're not invited."
Clark sighed, his short brown hair falling over his tanned face as he shook his head. "Do what you want, Jenna. I'm not stopping you. Just be nice." He eyed me, drawing his upper lip into his mouth. "You up to go with her, Phillip? Before you know it, you'll have a full wardrobe, and she'll be barging into your house and making you get rid of everything you own."
"I wouldn't do that to him!" Jenna retorted.
I sighed, leaning back away from the two of them. The next thing I knew, Jenna and Clark were fighting over me. Clark, because he was worried Jenna would try and get rid of my clothes. The clothes that had belonged to my father before he and my mother died in a car crash when I was sixteen. The clothes which I had worn every day since. I knew Jenna would never make me get rid of them. She was just trying to be helpful. She was just trying to get me out of the funk I had been in for more than five years.
I winced as I listened to Clark and Jenna battle. How much help could the two of them possibly be? One wanted me to stay the same, and the other just wanted to help me succeed in the dating world. Jenna grabbed me by the arm and shook me gently, "So tomorrow? Phillip? Yeah?"
I blinked and looked over at her. "What are we doing?"
"Shopping?" she raised her eyebrows at me.
"Ah, sure. Yeah," I replied.
She shook her head, noticing that I was still staring at the man who sat across the way. He stood, offering his arm to the woman at his side. He smiled briefly at me, eyes gently crinkling as white pearly teeth flashed my way. He winked at me, and my breath caught in my throat. I lowered my eyes and picked up my literature text to find something else to do other than ogle him as he walked out of the bar with a girl for the night.
"Are you sure you want to date girls?" Jenna asked me. Clark glared at her.
"Yeah, why?" I glanced at her briefly before looking back at the other side of the bar. My hands were still clutching the book tightly. The page opened to a text I had not yet read.
"I'm just saying. That guy is handsome. And if you were to feel something or some kind of way about him. I think it could be a good opportunity for you. I mean, he just winked at you, Phillip. That's gotta be a sign."
"Jenna!" Clark yelled.
"What?" she waved her hand dismissively at him. "He's super good looking!" Jenna looked at me, big brown eyes in a soft chestnut brown face. Her lips softly curled as she smiled at me. I couldn't help but love her.
"It's not like that," I said. "Honestly, I just want to ask the guy how his game with women is so strong. He's always walking out with different girls on his arm every time I see him. I just want to know how he does it."
Jenna huffed, holding back some internal dialogue that she had created in her mind. "If you say so," she said, raising her eyebrows at me.
"Jenna!" Clark yelled at her again. She brushed him off.
The two of them began to fight again. Jenna and Clark bantered as I leaned back away from the scene.
As they quarreled, I tried hard not to think about the dark-haired man who locked eyes with me. I pushed the knot in my stomach down as far as it would go. Pushed down the butterflies beginning to flutter in my chest. He'd smiled at me. Winked at me. Maybe this was the invite I needed to ask him his secret to getting girls. I'd try next week. Next week I'd approach him and ask him.
As I was going over how to approach him in my mind, the bartender came over and set down new drinks. He shook his head, eyeing me. "The guy across the way wanted me to give you this," he said. The bartender rolled his eyes as he held out a strip of elaborately decorated waxed parchment.
A bookmark.
"Seriously, I have no idea," he pushed the object into my hand and left. Jenna squealed in excitement. She clutched my arm in her hands and shook me until I felt my balance on the chair leaning too far left. Clark huffed, unamused at the entire thing. I held in my breath as I looked down at the small piece of paper between my fingers, barely able to comprehend what was happening.
I turned the hand-inked, waxed paper over in my hand. On the front of it was a text I didn't understand that was embellished with elaborately hand-drawn flowers in a vibrant shade of crimson. On the back was a name.
Victor