Page 21 of Swiped
She approached the bar and looked around, trying to breathe through the panicked questions whizzing around her brain. How would she find him? Even a six-foot-something blond guy would be hard to spot in this crowd. What was she thinking? It was weird to be standing here alone. Was everyone looking at her? Should she just leave? She closed her eyes and tried to, as Justin would say, find her center. She was here because of her app. Literally, because that’s how she’d found Eric. But also she was here to defend her app, her work,her baby, against attack. Specifically, the attacks that had come from Rami. Rami and his smug smile. She opened her eyes. On this particular night, it turned out that her center was a white-hot ball of competitive fire, and that definitely did the trick. She took a deep breath, just as she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“There she is.”
Nat froze. The man standing in front of her seemed only vaguely familiar, but she had a sinking feeling that she should know him. He beamed at her with small brown eyes almost level with hers. He had a sparse beard, really more of a chin beard. Did she know anyone with a patchy chin beard?
“Nat, right?” said the man, still grinning. He pointed at himself. “Eric!” Nat’s brain registered it only as nonsense as he leaned in for a hug.
She felt his definitely not six-foot frame smoosh against hers in a wan embrace. She patted his back, a move that instantly reminded her of awkward uncles at holiday parties. But was she the uncle in this scenario, or was he? She gave him another look. “Eric?” She repeated his name as if to force it to make sense with the person who stood eye-level in front of her.
“Guilty as charged.” Eric nodded and slid onto a nearby bar stool. He pulled out a stool for her and patted the seat.
In a daze, she pulled herself onto the stool beside him. She squinted again at the man smiling at her, mentally pulling up his profile pics in her head like assembling a criminal investigation board. Egregious height discrepancy aside, there was a resemblance — or at least there had been several years ago. This current version of Eric had the patchy chin beard and also a pasty sheen to his skin that it seemed like Profile Eric would’ve left behind on all those mountaintop treks. What had looked like rakishly windswept hair in the outdoor pics now looked like a frizzy tangle in need of a haircut and styling cream. He was wearing a boxy khaki suit and, uncannily, a silver tie covered in tiny embroidered cubes like a graphic for a computer store in a 90s mall. Her mind reeled, at a loss for how to proceed with this very unexpected IRL version of Eric. Should she say something? But what could she say?
Then her social conditioning kicked in. Some long-buried zombie lich of her Sunday school teacher, her grandmother, the poor boy who farted in front of the whole class in the seventh grade and then cried about it, and her beloved childhood dog rose in her mind and she was wracked with a powerful combination of pity and duty. She didn’t want to make him feel bad. She didn’t want to be rude.
Eric tapped the bar top. “Care for a social lubricant?” he asked.
“Hey, there!” she said, finally. “Yes!” On cue, a twenty-something bartender with long, shining copper hair and a thick beard slid over two menus, and she made a point to look him in the eye with a loud thank you, because she was a normal person in a normal situation who definitely did not feel like she was in some kind of surreal play or maybe a waking dream? The bartender went back to his station.
Eric whipped open the leather-backed menu with a loud “Hmm.” Nat tried to parse the gilded letterpress script font listing the long names and even longer list of ingredients of all the drinks, but the words slipped through her brain like water.
“So, Natalie,” said Eric, his voice suddenly booming above the noise. “Tell me about you. Let’s do this. First date rundown!” He slapped a hand on the bar. The woman next to him visibly jumped. “What do you do?”
Nat watched the woman scooch closer to her much quieter date. “I’m a coder . . .”
Eric scoffed. “Ya think?” A knowing frown twisted his face. “I mean, we’re in San Fran, right? Everyone’s a coder.” He pointed out the window to a woman in tattered clothes huddled on the sidewalk. “I bet she’s a coder!”
Nat cringed and stopped herself from pushing his hand down. “I don’t think so . . .” she managed to say.
“It’s a joke, relax!” Eric held up his empty hands in a shrug. “I work for a housing non-profit. No one’s losing their leftie points here, OK?” He sighed and signaled the bartender.
Nat took another stab at reading the menu. One of the drinks had gin in it. That seemed good.
The bartender returned. “What’ll it be for you two?”
Eric leaned in as if to share a secret, but without lowering his voice. “Hey, man, I’m not sure the John Lee Hooker cocktail here should have this kind of whiskey, right?”
The bartender blinked. “I can make you something that’s not on the menu.”
Eric shook his head. “It’s just that, and I’m sure you know this, but a bourbon would be more authentic in the mix than a rye. Don’t you agree?”
The bartender blinked. “Is that what you’d like? I can make it with bourbon.”
Eric took a moment to ponder this. “Well, what do you think it should be made with, man?”
“I can make it with bourbon. It’s basically just an old-fashioned.”
Nat felt sweat prickling into her hairline as Eric snapped the menu closed and handed it back to the still-expressionless bartender.
“Why don’t you make me whatever you want? Some crazy idea for a drink that you’ve been wanting to try.”
The bartender took the menu. “How about an old-fashioned?”
Eric grinned. “Yeah! But totally different. Just surprise me!”
The bartender turned to Nat, who found it much harder to make eye contact this time. “And for you?” he asked.
She pointed at the menu. “An Edith Piaf, please.”
