"I am getting to drunk to drive home, can you help?" says the lady sitting next to me at the bar.
A slightly classy joint, where they have replaced live musicians with a mellow sound system that has a great mix of mellow jazz, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Tony Bennett.
Looking for small talk, she sees on the TV above the bar, a show about golf lessons and asks me "What are they doing?" as she scoots a little closer to me.
I reply "it is a golf lesson, and yes he is really hitting the ball, but it goes into a net, and a giant projection screen makes it look like he is on an actual golf course"
She makes a joke that is funny only to her, and gently touches my leg.
We make small talk, and she is looking at me intently, and twirling her hair with her fingers. She rocks and laughs and touches me again, and again, and again.
In conversation I can see that she is truly one of those stupid, inexperienced people that has used her firm smooth body, cleavage, and perfect lips to get what she needs in life.
Some more TV watching, comments on music, and small-talk about movies. Some time passes and she makes the statement again "I am getting to drunk to drive myself home"
I look and see no evidence of a wedding ring, even when you take one off there is a tell-tale indentation or a subconscious touching of what is no longer there.
During the minutes that pass I see she is not drinking that much, well not drinking as much as a person "to drunk to drive" would drink. The conversation goes to the deal she got two meals for the price of one, and tells me she is between jobs.
Seems to me asking a stranger to drive you home is an invite to have one night of shallow intimacy.
So wanting to keep conversation going I ask her "What brings you to this restaurant's bar in this part of the city tonight?"
She said "She had dropped her son off at the gym around the corner, and while he is working out she decided to come here." Which totally contradicted all of the signals I had been reading. One night stands and children don't go together.
I feigning interest asked "Oh and how old is he?"
She answered "He just turned 18 yesterday, yeah he is not my little boy any more."
With that she ordered another glass of white house wine, and while sipping looked straight ahead at the meaninglessness of all the alcohol bottles lined up so perfectly in front of the huge mirror.
As I looked at her beauty, my eyes gravitated toward her face as she sipped her wine, and saw her as her, not as one night of meaningless intimacy.
She is lonely, and so desperately wants someone in her life.
Her little boy is turning into an independent man, and will be leaving her soon. She has nothing left in her life, no career to push out the lonely feelings, no person to come home to, no one to be home for.
She feels a loneliness so deep, so debilitating.
Not knowing which way to turn, she tries what worked almost 19 years ago.
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