Pug Hill - Alison Pace [72]
“Thanks,” I say, and we all walk up the stairs of the Cedar Tavern and head to the back. Lindsay, Amy, and Lawrence are right behind me. Only Rachel declined Alec’s invitation, and so far he hasn’t said anything offensive to Lindsay, so we’re a group of five again. With the absence of Martine, a certain aggressive energy is also absent from our group. For right now it seems the only negative energy is the hostile one that pulses off Amy. I feel like I have no energy; no electric currents are coming off me at all. I just feel drained. And I have a pit in my stomach, because of the assignment.
See, I’ve been single for a long time, for thirty-one years in fact. During this time I have spent a fair amount of it dating, and I’ve had my fair share of boyfriends. And maybe, by virtue of the fact that none of them are presently here, you could indeed say that all of them are “The One That Got Away.” And when you look at it that way, while sure, yes, it could take your mind off public speaking and speeches for a while, it could also get pretty depressing. I think I’ve been making a fair-to-pretty-good effort at staying away from depressing, so why—even if it is in the name of getting away from the scariness of the moment that is public speaking—start now?
“What are you thinking about there, Hope?” Alec asks, and I tell him, “The assignment.”
What I don’t tell him is that I’m trying to narrow down the definition. Lindsay and Amy both nod, at what I’m not sure, and Alec waves an arm at a passing waitress.
Now maybe, and I know I’m rambling here, maybe The One That Got Away, by definition, is someone who broke up with you. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t do a lot to shorten my list. A lot of my boyfriends have broken up with me. I realize this might be less due to the fact that I am possibly unloveable, as it is due to the fact that I am pretty bad at confrontation. Often with boyfriends, rather than pull the trigger myself, I’ve been generally more inclined to become a bad version of myself, to spend a fair amount of time loading up bullets before handing off the gun. But maybe what I’m supposed to do is pick the best one out of all the many boyfriends who went the way my boyfriends tend to go.
Maybe I’m supposed to pick the one I wish had stayed?
Or maybe I’m interpreting it all wrong, too literally, as I have been known to do. Maybe I can talk about a dog instead?
“Dude, that Rachel chick is totally freaky, huh?” Alec leans over and says to Lindsay. She doesn’t answer him.
The waitress arrives and we all order drinks. I go with Amstel Light again. After my poem, after having to go outside for a private chat in the middle of it, I’ve already worried enough for one night that I am a giant source of shame.
The moment our drinks are delivered, Amy takes a long sip of bourbon, a longer sip than I could ever take, returns her glass loudly to the table, and speaks for me. “I just really don’t like the assignment.”
“It’s a little weird,” Lindsay says, and then Lawrence adds, “I like it. I’m going to write a poem, ‘The One That Got Away.’ ”
“I think it’s too personal.” Amy waves her hand in the air, waves Lawrence’s positive statement away.
“I think that’s the point,” I say. The unfortunate point. “Ideally, we’re supposed to get so wrapped up in telling the story that we forget we’re standing in a room in front of people.” As I say it, even though I’ve already heard Beth Anne say it a few times, now it suddenly makes a little more sense to me.
“Yeah, it’ll help us see the forest through the trees,” Alec says a bit triumphantly.
“I think you’re using the expression wrong,” I say.
“In what way?” he asks, and now I’m not sure.
“No, I see what you mean,” says Lindsay.
“I just don’t want to talk about my personal life, talk about some guy I loved and who’s gone now,” Amy adds in.
“It doesn’t have to be a lover,” says Lawrence.
“No?” I ask.
“I agree. That doesn’t have to be the way you interpret it all, I don’t think. It could be a job, a friend, a pet,” Lindsay explains.
A pet, I think again, that would be