Attempts at Mating

She stares in the mirror surveying the final effect, the thicker lashes, the lips plumper and accentuated, the brows darkened and shaped into an unfamiliar thin arch, the eyes lined with kohl, the pupils sparkling gems set in the deep shadows of bronze lids, a blush creeping over the cheekbones like a pink dawn against a night sky. 

Ana’s question comes back to her, Are you coming tonight, and the way her mind coalesced immediately around a series of responses, first, of course, the strident, No! a response now exiled, then, If I'm up to it, held in reserve, Let's see, put in handcuffs in an anterior room, Maybe, a fellow inmate in the same anterior room, then finally, Yes, articulated, simple, to the point, allowing for no ambiguity, the recommended response. Now it was time to translate that three letter word into action and she feels the creep of old familiar negativities steal over her.

Reluctance courses through her, an unwillingness that's coded into her cells, an intrinsic part of her DNA. Also, an anticipation of rejection, salivation at the sound of a bell. She sees in her mind’s eye the dim lights of the bar and people talking to each other, seeing each other, men seeing other women, but seeing past her. It's hard to know the chicken and eggness of this thing, whether the rejection happened first or the reluctance, which preceded the other to make the simple enterprise of a night out the challenge of the year.

She makes it into the lift and sighs with relief that it's empty, and then her heart stops when the doors open at seven, but then the guy steps in, the one who owns the labrapoodle. Or is it labradoodle? Dogs’ breeds confuse her, there are so many of them. Like varieties of apples. Well, almost. She doesn't recognize him for an instant, she's coded him in her grey matter as “attractive man with labrasomething dog” and now by himself, sans dog, he's a stranger. It takes him an instant too, he hasn't seen her done up in this way, exteriors like veneers laid on to imbue her with confidence. Oh it's you, he says, smiles, I didn't recognize you for a moment there, and she's embarrassed, nervous, flushed, her secret is out, that she's trying. The face-paint has given it away. There's no shame in it but she'll draw out a reason to be ashamed from any nook or cranny the universe affords. I didn’t recognize you without the dog either, she blurts out, he laughs, but then she’s embarrassed, she’s revealed too much, and worse, given the impression she doesn’t know his face well enough, while she does, actually, she’s thought about him and wondered, more than once. You might even say she's studied him, if you were inclined to being accurate. But till now, they’ve never exchanged words, so, she thinks, there’s at least one reason to be grateful for dressing up.

At last the lift doors open and she’s thankful to be released, even this minor exchange has taken a bite out of her mental reserve, and she is a little spent, a few pounds lighter, a smidge less prepared to take on the evening. He waits so she can walk out first, and inclines his head ever so slightly, an acknowledgement of her sex. She smiles and leaves, unaware that he is watching the shape of her as she walks out in front of him.

She takes the one train up to 23rd, the event is at a club near there and the churning inside her increases with every second. On the platform, and then in the subway, she is hyper aware of her self, the boundary set by her skin. If she were a country, she would be an island nation, maybe Maldives or Seychelles, if she were rendered in anime the outlines would be drawn thick. She imagines a thousand eyes are upon her, evaluating her face, her hair, her dress, her shoes, her legs, her accoutrements, when in reality, her audience is of other young women who are self absorbed, commuting workers who are dog tired, teens who are out on an adventure, interested only in their own kind. Plus men, who are inscrutable, appearing to notice nothing, their senses dulled by the city's surfeit. She’s yet unaware that most other people are concerned only with themselves, really no one is looking or passing a judgement because they simply don’t care. 

The stop arrives, 23rd, and she exits, still grateful to stand shy of the final challenge, the task called mingling, but acutely aware that it’s approaching every second now, a train advancing towards her as she lies down on the tracks. She walks south to 19th and turns left to find the space, it’s between 6th and 7th, and the street is dark, and she’s hoping, praying that Ana will be there. A saint to hold her hand while she's run over or one who will pull her to safety. Either will suffice. Of course she knows Ana will be running late. Ana, relaxed, type B, happy-go-lucky, always runs late.

She almost misses the venue. She’s at the right number on 19th, but all she sees is a big door, and she realizes that when she pushes it open, the things she dreads will all be served up on the other side, a buffet of macabre delights. The massive crowds of people inducing claustrophobia, the noise, deafening, the lights, blinding, the too much talking too much drinking and too little eating enervating, the loud music headache-inducing, the saying hello to random strangers who may not hello back engendering feelings of inadequacy, stupidity. In sum, the fundamental experience of being lesser than. All this in an instant, and she stops to wonder why she’s putting herself in this situation. Why go to a ball if you don't like to dance? Whose idea was this anyway? Then she remembers, it was Ana’s.

Are you coming tonight? She mutters to herself, Well, I’m here tonight, where are you, pal? The sidewalk is dark, her phone a tiny beacon providing information. She checks for her friend’s status, ready for the predictable I’m running late, but then sees the text, it’s worse, Sorry babe, I have to cancel tonight, the pipe broke and I have a major situation here. Her first thought is one of extreme annoyance, though she knows she should feel sympathetic, she cannot believe she’s come all the way out here, dolled up, as they say, and will now have to face this scourge alone. In a fit, she wants to shoot the messenger: smash the phone, the text, the frowny face, everything, on the sidewalk, but this is not a movie, and the phone cost $800, so she flings it into her handbag, the action a poor substitute, and stares at the iron door, wondering at her next step.

Already her mind is supplying the excuses. You took a great first step, you came all the way. Give yourself permission to leave whenever you want. You don’t have to do the things that don’t feel like you. Embrace failure. Good American platitudes she can employ. She has all the answers but can’t find the truth. She has a feeling she’ll feel like a loser if she turns around and goes home after all this. So she tells herself, ten minutes. If after ten minutes, she wants to leave, she’ll let herself go. Isn't that how long a hand can survive an ice-bath? Or is it thirty seconds?

She has to pull the door hard to make it open, she wonders if it was forged in medieval times. Or something. Resistance at every stage, she can’t help but laugh. She pictures the follow up with the therapist: I got there, but couldn’t get in because the door was too heavy to open. No one would buy that, but it could be true. Wouldn’t that be something? No such luck. 

She steps inside, and it’s every bit as bad as she imagined. There must be two hundred people inside, and they all seem to be having a swinging good time. They appear to her as aliens. Or perhaps it's she who's the alien. She stands uncertainly in the doorway for a moment. Whom is she fooling, like a traveler arrived in foreign land without a map, she knows she has no idea how to navigate this space. She’s feeling gauche already in the cocktail dress that had looked so sleek, so of-the-moment, at home. Push. She pushes herself to find her way to the bar, and after being ignored for five minutes, manages to catch the bartender’s attention and gets a glass of white. What she really needs is vodka, but it’s knocked her out at times, so she settles for the weaker cousin. With one hand occupied with the stem of the glass, and her mouth and lips engaged in the process of drinking, she feels a little better. She stands by the corner of the bar, surveying the scene, and telling herself she’ll drink this, then leave, her job of trying to be out there is over. She’ll have at least tried, there’s that. Something for her epitaph. It can say, At least she tried. If she knew how, she’d give a short bitter laugh.

She swigs the drink down, prepares to find her path back to the heavy door. Just the thought of getting out of the space puts a spring back in her step and she vows to not try this again, at least for a day, a month, a year. In the ten minutes she’s been navigating and drinking, more partygoers have arrived and it’s even harder to find her way back. They are like undergrowth she must cut through to get back to a life saving daylight. Still, no one stops her to say hello or engage her in conversation. She wonders if there’s something about her energy, her stance, her walk, her very fiber, that's unsuited to a meet market. Correction, a meat market.

Finally she’s at the door, and she pulls again, hard, and it swings open, letting in a rush of cold air. She steps out through the gap, and, as the door shuts, it sucks back with it the loud hubbub of mating. Her shoulders drop and as she turns to leave, she runs smack dab into a man standing on the sidewalk. Sorry, she says, and looks at him, it’s the guy from the seventh floor, the shape of him comfortingly familiar. Too loud in there, he says, as if they’ve been in conversation all along. Then, he asks the question he's been wanting to for a while, Care for a drink?