Sadie
It Happened One Wednesday
Lynn Painter
Playlist: “Begin Again”
Five more minutes and I’m leaving.
The guy was already thirty minutes late, and since I’d arrived thirty minutes early to get a taste of the place that’d been a bitter pill in my mouth for longer than I cared to admit, I was ready to go.
Devoting an hour of my time to a blind date who clearly wasn’t coming seemed more than generous.
And, truth be told, I was relieved.
I hadn’t really wanted to go out with a stranger, anyway.
“Another Diet Pepsi?” asked the bartender, and the way she said the words Diet Pepsi made it clear she thought my failure to order something like a dry martini was criminal.
And terribly boring.
“No, thanks. Can I have the check, please?”
She just gave me a look before walking over to the register behind the bar.
Oh-kay.
The Rosebud Bar was not an establishment for the guileless. It welcomed those who knew the rules, who belonged to the club even though the club didn’t exist. Its members possessed the innate sensibility to mock frivol and name-drop Proust while stepping out for a much-needed cigarette.
If you wanted to belong there, you never would.
The place was dark and quiet, literary and judgmental in the way I always knew it would be when Dylan used to text we’re stopping at the Bud after class.
Now that I was here, I could perfectly picture him and his MFA buddies, bellied up on these very stools, analyzing Kafka’s The Castle with the bartender while I waited for him back at his house like a latchkey kid, drinking chocolate milk on the sofa, raptly listening for the sound of his car pulling into the garage.
To be honest, I’d almost canceled the date entirely when Mr. No-Show chose the location, because it seemed like a bad omen, starting over at his favorite bar.
But then I decided to go as an exorcism.
What better way to slay my melancholic demons than to meet a date at the beloved place D had never—not even once—invited me to visit?
You should come were the three words I always longed to hear, the three words he’d never thought to say.
But now that my date hadn’t shown and seeing the inner sanctum only confirmed what Dylan had likely always known—that I’d never be worthy of membership—I was so out of there.
I paid the check and was zipping my bag when I heard “Sadie?”
I turned around, a tiny part of me expecting to see Dylan—probably because he was the only person I’d ever known to frequent the Rosebud.
But a very tall, dark-haired guy stood there instead, his eyes narrowed, his mouth in a half smile like he was looking for confirmation that I was, in fact, Sadie.
“Yes…?” I narrowed my eyes as I attempted to solve the puzzle. There was something familiar in his face, but in a distant way, like I might’ve crossed paths with him in another life.
He was—objectively speaking—ludicrously attractive, but I wasn’t in the mood for any man at the moment, hot or not.
“Jess DeLuca,” he said, putting a hand over his chest. “Freshman-year study hall…?”
“Oh my god,” I said around a laugh, my mouth dropping open because holy shit, I couldn’t believe this guy was that Jess. “How are you?”
Jess had been my tablemate for an entire semester in the ninth grade. Our school required all freshmen to take study hall, which meant that, while some students actually studied, most just spent one period a day talking to the other person at their assigned table.
Jess was my other person.
God, he’d been so cool. He wore a black leather jacket every day, which made him seem like someone who probably did mature things on the weekends—dangerous, sexy things that timid little Sadie knew nothing about.
And he had this smirky little half smile that literally made me dizzy.
Obviously, I’d had the biggest crush on him.
I never would’ve had the nerve to talk to Mr. Motorcycle Jacket if he hadn’t landed at my table, and he probably never would’ve had the interest if I hadn’t landed at his, but for that semester, we spent an hour together every day talking about nothing and everything.
He’d been a genuinely funny smartass, the kind of guy who could listen to a rambling fifteen-minute story, then deliver a one-sentence quip so perfect that the only reasonable response was to dissolve into uncontrollable laughter (which always earned a glare from the study hall teacher, for the record).
And he used to draw little sketches on the palm of my hand with a Sharpie, making butterflies go wild in my stomach every single time.
But I never saw him outside study hall, and never again after that semester.
“You look like you’re on your way out…?” he said, nodding with his chin to the keys in my hand.
“I mean, I was,” I said. “But I’m not in a hurry.”
“Yeah? Do you want to grab a drink and catch up or something?” He held up two fingers immediately, like he heard it, too, and added, “Not in a creepy way.”
“Sure,” I said, and I felt a jolt when, after gesturing toward an open table behind us, he set his hand on my lower back.
It was a barely there touch as we crossed the room, nothing intimate or out of line, but even after I sat down, I could still feel the imprint of his fingertips on the bumps of my spine.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said with a smirk that actually was really familiar. It’d been years, but I liked how comfortable it still felt. “But I can’t believe you’re wearing Chucks with that dress.”
Oh. He doesn’t like my comfortable shoes.
Dylan had been tall like Jess, and he used to always want me to wear heels.
He said it was because he was a “leg man,” but I’d always suspected it was because I was five-foot-one and our height disparity—one foot, two inches—accentuated the six years between us, reminding him of the time someone assumed we were teacher/student instead of boyfriend/girlfriend.
But since I liked him more happy than not, I wore heels whenever we went out.
A pathetic attempt at aging myself up for him.
“Why can’t you believe it?” I asked. I liked the way Chucks looked and loved the way they felt, so a man’s opinion on my footwear truly didn’t matter to me, but I was curious.
“Because, Sadie O’Connor,” he said, confirming that he was still in possession of a wicked-powerful smirk. “People who wear dresses like that don’t usually wear shoes that look like this.”
“I’m still not sure if you’re insulting me or not,” I said, but the unease was gone because his intonation told me he appreciated both my sundress—thank you very much, DeLuca—AND my shoes.
“Yeah, I’m really making a mess of this,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “I’m just a big Converse guy , and you look cool as shit, okay? I’ll shut up now.”
I was laughing when a waiter approached our table.
“Can I get you two something?” he asked, looking quite possibly more bored than the bartender.
“Do you guys have any food?” Jess asked. “Maybe some nachos…?”
Oh, you beautiful little fool, this is the Rosebud.
“No.”
Jess watched the guy like he expected more, but when the server gave him a dead stare, he said, “Well, then…can I have a Dr Pepper, please?”
“Really?” I asked, though I hadn’t meant to.
His eyes narrowed, his mouth curving back into that half smile. “You don’t approve of my drink order?”
“You just look like somebody who’d prefer a Manhattan,” I said. “Made with rye instead of brandy, probably.”
“I’m actually here for a project and still have a little finishing up to do, so I’m sticking with soda,” he said. “But I secretly suspect everyone who says they like Manhattans are lying.”
“I like a Manhattan,” the waiter said.
“Really,” Jess said dryly.
“Can I get a Diet Pepsi, please?” I asked with a giggle, feeling vindicated by the fact that someone who looked like Jess was also not drinking something sophisticated.
“So, tell me, Sadie O’Connor,” Jess said as the server disappeared, “what have you been doing since the ninth grade?”
“Wow, that’s kind of a big swath of time,” I said.
“You’ve partied through all of it, haven’t you?” he teased. “You can only tell me what you did this morning because the rest of it’s a blur, right?”
“You can see that just by looking at me?”
“Oh, I’m very intuitive,” he said, nodding. “But lie to me. Tell me what you’d have done if you weren’t just running around like an overexcited frat boy.”
The waiter dropped off our drinks without a word.
“It’s very boring, I’m afraid,” I said with a shrug, not comfortable talking about myself because I hadn’t done much of anything with my life yet. “I went to high school, went to college, and…well, I’m still going to college. I graduate next month.”
“Yeah? Same.” His dark eyes didn’t stray from mine, didn’t wander to something just over my shoulder that was likely more entertaining than me. “Tell me you majored in creative writing.”
He couldn’t remember…he couldn’t.
“I did, actually,” I said, feeling…on the edge of my seat as I waited for him to comment.
“Thank god,” he said. “Because I still think about your twisted little horror story, the one that was based on Titus—”
“Titus Andronicus—I can’t believe you remember that story!” I was smiling whether I wanted to be or not—cool was no longer an option—because it was impossible he remembered something silly I’d written in the ninth grade.
Something that hadn’t been silly to me, something I’d been breathtakingly terrified to share with him.
“Are you kidding me? I thought it was brilliant.”
You did?
“Well, thank you.” I cleared my throat, needing to change the subject away from me because my cheeks were hot and I was in danger of bursting into flames.
“And you’re still in school, you said? I would’ve assumed by the way you’re dressed that you have a big-boy job now, or else you’re just very fond of slacks. ”
He was wearing nice pants, with a shirt and tie and really good shoes, looking more like an executive or entrepreneur—or GQ model—than someone my age.