July 18th and Everything After



God has a sick sense of humor.

Sunday, Danielle and I have plans to make plans -- perhaps even for Sunday night. So, I don't make any other plans for the evening, and go about my day. My old friend Brian and I have a standing Sunday coffee appointment where we talk work, girls, bitch and moan and consume mass quantities of caffeine. Somewhere around 11:30 on Sunday morning, I call Danielle -- knowing I will get voicemail -- and leave the requisite message asking her to call me so we can make plans. It is the one and only time I've ever called when I did not leave my number.

A few hours pass. No call. I go to lunch with my friend Sasha. I take as long as I can to eat. No call. The afternoon wears on. Still no call. I'm becoming convinced that she forgave me for the drunk dial yesterday but has since changed her mind. She now thinks I'm a fucking asshole. Of course, I realize this makes no sense but I'm getting worried.

By six o'clock, I'm back at the Coffee Bean for my fifth coffee of the day and I still haven't heard from Danielle. I'm severely bummed. I don't know the half of it. I get an Ice Blended and window shop up and down both sides of Robertson, from Beverly all the way to 3rd and back -- and then up and down Beverly past all the design shops there. I walk slow. I manage to kill almost 45 minutes doing this. My phone does not ring.

It is now officially too late to really think there will be any sort of date on this night. Right this moment, I'll settle for a phone call -- although I really was looking forward to seeing her and had considered several options: movies, shabu-shabu or fondue, gelato, all of the above. I wondered if on the second date I might actually rate a kiss?

At about 7:15, after sitting in my car listening to music and staring at my phone, I decide to go for a drive. Next thing I know, I'm racing down Sunset Blvd. toward the beach blasting vintage U2 and glancing at my phone when not negotiating winding roads at high speed. A million things are going through my mind. None of them particularly good. None of them even close to what was actually about to happen -- which wasn't nearly as bad and yet also a million times worse.

I end up turning around on the PCH just above the Colony as the sun really starts to set. It's almost 8:15 now and I'm becoming pretty hopeless. The return trip down Sunset isn't satisfying. The vintage U2 is just making me sad. As I cruise back into Hollywood and stop for a burrito at my local Baja Fresh, I call her again. Fuck it. I say that it's like 8:30 and I guess I misunderstood -- I thought we had plans to make plans. I ask her to call me. I say I'll be up late.

I go home. Now in a total funk I try to find something to do. It's the weekend, so I'm not going to hear from my agents. As a result, I have nothing to write. I quit smoking a week ago, stopped drinking on Thursday and have been taking B-12 vitamins for several days. Between that new regimen and the ten-thousand gallons of coffee I've consume so far today, I'm going out of my fucking mind with boredom!

I try watching one movie, get about ten minutes into it and change discs. Repeat. I try to screw around on the internet, but the guy whose WiFi connection I pirate isn't on-line at the moment so I have no signal. It's now creeping up on 10 PM and my phone is silent. Fidgety and annoyed, I grab a little notebook and a pen, throw on a jacket and set out for...yet another coffee.

This time I order de-caf and start writing, journaling really, about my experiences with Danielle -- about how I feel -- about what happened in Vegas and what's happened since. I parse every recollected word for missed meaning. I find none.

At 11:30, after I've given up all hope of hearing from her -- at least for today -- the phone rings. It's her. I'll give her this -- just about anyone else I know would've waited and called the next day.

So we talk. It still comes easy. I apologize again for the drunken phone call and, wanting to be honest, explain what happened that night -- or what I remember of what happened. I tell her it had never happened before. That it scared the shit out of me. That I was making sure it never happened again. We talked a little bit about our shadow-selves and how they don't like to exist outside of a certain "comfort zone", even if that comfort zone isn't a good place. She forgives me again. Then she slices open my chest and carves out my heart.

I stand there, helpless, as the blood courses out of my shredded aorta and spurts all over my clothes and the sidewalk below. I listen and wonder how I'm still standing. How the human body only circulates something like seven pints of blood at any given time and I've surely lost more than that. But I listen and the words come. Not so easy this time. From either of us. She tells me that she isn't over her ex-boyfriend yet. Not at all. She thought she was. She isn't. She doesn't want to lead me on. She didn't know this was going to happen. She never would've gone out with me if she had known. It was an honest mistake -- but old feelings are still there. He wants nothing to do with her but she can't let go. Her body won't let her rebound she says. She can't even bring herself to kiss a guy. She wishes it were done, but it isn't. She tells me how wonderful she thinks I am. She tells me that she's old enough to know that the, "We could just be friends for now" thing is bullshit. How I would have a different intention and she would know it and that would make things weird. She's right. I don't want to just be her friend. I tell her how excited I was to get to know her. I felt a connection with her. How I've always been a gut thinker and my gut tells me that she is someone I could get into a great deal of trouble with. I tell her that our first date was quite possibly the best first date of my life. She tells me I'm sweet and great and smart and funny (the adult version of "You're a great guy...but...). And, as she's talking, I'm trying to figure out how I'll reassemble the bits of cardiac muscle dangling out of my chest cavity. Will superglue really stick to skin? After all, it was designed as a battlefield surgical adhesive. She tells me she's so sorry. She likes me. She wishes she was over it. Ready to see someone new. See me. She tells me that I really am the only guy she's given her number to. The only guy she's gone out with since the breakup. The only guy she's wanted to. I tell her I'm crushed. She just needs time. She can't make any promises. I ask her to keep my number.
I say, "When you're ready, I mean really ready, to start something new, I would hope that you'd call me."
She tells me that she hopes she would call me, too. I tell her I'm serious. That she's made quite an impression. She won't be easy to forget. I ask her to call me anyway -- even if it's to tell me she isn't interested. That she's decided to go with Bachelor Number Two instead. I just want to hear from her. Someday.
She says she will call me. Sometime. Even if it's just to say, "Hi". We hang up. I get into my car and turn up the stereo. The tears come hot and wet down my face as I wonder why I have to be the one feeling this way. I gun the engine into Hollywood.

I wonder if I'll ever hear from her again?

Posted: Tue - July 20, 2004 at 05:53 PM      

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