Day 53 - Salsa Story

Salsa Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

The phone number was held in place by a magnet for a restaurant that no longer existed.  

Jeff had gone camping when he was 19 with a group of friends the week before school started.  It was supposed to be a bonding experience – a way to cement a time and a place and an era in all their minds.  They were all going off to college or jobs or other places.  There was no way to know where the roads would take them all.  They all knew this might be their last chance to act like kids and make some memories worth making.

On the final morning of the trip they stopped at a roadside diner for breakfast. It had reminded him of the television show Twin Peaks, except at this diner the waitresses were not beautiful and the cherry pie was not out of this world.  And there were no dancing midgets that talked backwards.  But other than that, it was a piece of Americana right out of the TV show Twin Peaks.  He had bought the magnet so he would have a memento from the trip.

Two years later on another trip, nostalgia won and he had gone looking for the diner that he wasn’t very fond of. When he found it, he found it closed for business. He was sure that the poor service played no small part in the closing. The magnet had been on every refrigerator he had owned in every apartment he had ever rented ever since.

It usually made him smile to look at the magnet.  It was a symbol of good times.

Today, it did not make Jeff smile.

The phone number had been on his refrigerator door for three nights. He had placed it there the first night as a way to remind himself of what he knew he was supposed to do. But somehow that hadn't made him dial that number. He looked at it every night for 3 nights, and again now during the 4th day.

Three nights prior.

The first thing he noticed was the black polka dot dress she wore.

“But you came to Salsa night?”

Now that he was looking at her, he looked at her brunette hair, done up in a tight bun.

“Yes,” he answered.

“You chose to come.  To Salsa night.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t dance?”

“No.”

She spoke with a deadpan straight face. This was obviously her sense of humor. “That’s a good plan.”

If he were lucky, he would get her to smile. “I thought so.”

She didn’t smile at that, but she did lean in and touched his hand as she asked the next question. “Do you often put yourself in a position to have to go and do something that you can’t do?”

He looked at her hand; everyone in the world knew what that signal meant. Cavemen probably knew that signal, he thought to himself.  He decided to try and be suggestive.  Maybe she would smile at that. 

“Depends on which position we’re talking about...”

She didn’t really smile at that, but she didn’t pull away.  That was a good sign in and of itself.

“My friend and I signed up for this group,” he continued, “to, you know, meet new people.”

“So you’re the moral support?”

Jeff thought about his situation. Betty had sought him out, across a room full of people, all who seemingly were very capable of Salsa dancing.

“Maybe.  Maybe the other way around too.  I don’t know.  We both thought it was a good idea to get out of the house and try to do something that resembled living.”

Did he say that last part out loud?  Jeff wasn’t sure.  Maybe he had.  Maybe she would think it was funny.  Probably not the best idea to start in with the self-deprecating humor within the first five minutes of meeting someone.

If he had said it out loud she didn’t flinch.  She just moved on with the conversation.

 “Which one is your friend?”

Jeff pointed him out.

“He’s good.”

Maybe you should go dance with him, Jeff thought.  He knew he didn’t say that part out loud.

“So – your wingman is out there cutting a rug.  What about you?  You sure you don’t want to learn a Salsa step or two?”

She had crossed the room.  She crossed the room and found him.  She had done all the work.  Jeff knew all he had to do was say yes.  He thought about his last three relationships.  They had all crossed rooms to find him – literally in some cases, metaphorically in others.  They all had found him and made the effort.

"No, I’m not really feeling it."

She was disappointed.  Jeff could see it on her face.

Maybe women in his generation were more aggressive, he thought.  Or, maybe he put off some sort of signal that they had to make the first move.  He wasn’t sure about that one.  If he was putting off some signal, he wished he could learn what it was so that he could possibly direct it and use it better.

“You’re just going to sit here all night?”

Someday, he told himself, he should think more about this and decide if waiting to be chosen was the right attitude to have while looking for love.

“Well that was the plan…”

But not tonight, he thought. Not tonight.  Please, not tonight.

“Isn’t the point of coming to these groups to meet new people?”

He paused, looked her straight in the eyes, and as deadpan as he could, replied, “I thought I just did.”

That, Betty smiled at.

Three days later.

Jeff had joined the online social networking group as a way to meet new people and possibly find romance and adventure. It had in fact worked. What hadn't worked were Jeff’s fingers. They had not dialed the phone numbers. So the numbers just sat on his refrigerator door, waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more.

It wasn't that he didn’t want to call the phone numbers that belonged to Betty Hadley. The numbers were perfectly fine numbers. Betty was a perfectly fine young woman. Those were not the problems at all.

Jeff had seen enough movies to know it was his responsibility to dial the numbers he had asked for. He had asked because he knew it was his responsibility to do so. He knew these were his responsibilities to do because Hollywood, his brother, his father, and his Y chromosome all told him it was. Who was he to argue with such a seemingly overwhelming consensus of opinion?

It had been three days, he thought. Or four, if you count the day he actually got the numbers. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to count them. But he knew he was supposed to call after the exact right amount of time had passed -- Vince Vaughn had taught him that in a movie he once saw. Call too soon, you sound desperate, call too late you seem like you don’t care. He didn’t want either of those things to happen. The real problem? The real problem was he didn’t know what he wanted to happen.

Jeff was worried about putting himself out there. He was worried about getting hurt. He had been hurt before. Recently as well.  He also hurt himself over and over nearly daily by reliving painful moments from the past.  That was not a good plan for getting on with the future.  It was the back of Jeff’s mind that couldn’t let the memories go.  And if you can’t let the memories go, how can you let the pain die?  If you can’t let the pain die, how can you let the wounds heal?  And if you can’t let the wounds heal, you certainly aren’t going to go calling new numbers and opening up new opportunities to get yourself hurt.

So the number stayed on the refrigerator door, behind the magnet that was a reminder of a memory of a simpler time.