That Night at Sandra's

It hasn’t really been that long. At least, that’s what I thought when I saw her sitting at a table at Sandra’s. The walls are practically all window, that’s why. And you can see everyone inside, you know, drinking, talking, having fun. I didn’t even know that she was back. She wasn’t alone. That should have been enough to make me head back home, it’s what I was going to do anyway. I don’t know what possessed me, really. I’m not normally what you’d call a sociable person. If it had been anyone else, I would have just walked right on, headphones on, eyes down. But it was her and… well, it was different with her. And after all, maybe it had been a bit too long. So I walked into the bar. It’d been a while—since I walked into some place like that, I mean. Of course, nowadays I don’t really go anywhere much. I remember it being warm, the bar. It was cold outside, not bad weather, just cold. It was that exact time between day and night when the sun still hasn’t started to set fully, but the light gets a darker shade of blue and kind of melancholic. It’s my favourite time of the day. They turn the street-lamps on at six, and they look all nice and yellowy when it’s still not dark outside. It’s like no-one really needs them, but there they are. I think the light looks nice anyway. Anyway, it was cold.

When I saw her from outside, the window was all foggy. You know, like how it gets when there’s too many people, the air gets hot and slightly humid, and it’s cold outside. You could just tell that the minute you walked in, you’d feel the warmth; slightly overwhelming because, well, you still have your coat on, and your sweater, and a nice and warm long-sleeved shirt under that, because it was cold outside, and the weather-man said that it was supposed to snow before four, and you don’t want to get sick. Everyone hates being sick. But it hadn’t—snowed I mean. It was cold, though. But it was warm inside Sandra’s bar, and I wasn’t dressed for warm weather, so instead of marching up to Robin, like I had planned in my head (I would walk up to her and smile and say ‘Hey Robin, it’s been so long!’), I had to squirm awkwardly, standing near the entrance, to get my coat off. I am inherently awkward and uncoordinated. I was born like that, I suppose. I must have been an awkward baby that just sat there and stared when it was supposed to laugh, or cry, or whatever the hell it is babies do for fun. But now it was awkward for me to take my sweater off because I’d gone grocery shopping and I was carrying these two large bags that were actually quite heavy, and I didn’t want to put them on the floor, but I couldn’t quite raise my arms properly, or tug on my coat to take it off. I do all my shopping in one go, so that's why they're heavy. I always end up forgetting something though. But even without the weight of whatever it was I was forgetting, the bags were still too heavy.

So, like I said, I wriggled awkwardly for a bit. I felt like a snail writhing under a rain of salt that some big mean kid had sprinkled on it. And he’s massive, like some sort of god that’s just laughing and pouring salt on you and watching you squirm and be awkward, and in pain, and he’s just there laughing. I remember it perfectly, actually, because I felt like everyone was looking at me and thinking ‘well why don’t you just leave your bags on the floor before taking your coat off’, like it was so obvious, and it was quite obvious actually, that’s the thing. I always think I’ll be able to do something just fine but then I end up doing it the only wrong way possible. So I walked towards the bar and left my bags on the floor, quite awkwardly if I may add, well because by this point my coat had slipped off my shoulders and I couldn’t really move my arms properly. I remember thinking it felt like I was in a straight-jacket, not that I've ever worn one. And while all this was going on I was listening to Japanese city-pop on my headphones, or at least that’s what some user called it on Spotify. It’s a music-genre that I've found I rather like recently, because it’s nice and I can’t understand what they’re saying so I don’t have to think about all that. I felt a bit self conscious about it now though. Because I thought it would be extremely embarrassing if the music was playing out through my headphones and everyone could hear. Which of course, they couldn’t. And everyone was busy talking anyway. But still, I wished I had taken my headphones off outside.

Then I finally took my coat off, and thank god, finally, because I was already sweating. Especially my hands, and they felt all clammy and gross. And then I took my sweater off, because it was too warm inside, really. I always feel like they never get the temperature quite right in these places. And as I stopped the music and pulled my headphones down onto my neck, I was thinking, well what should I do with my bags? Because I wanted to go and say hi to Robin, but should I leave my bags there? Or should I carry them? Because wouldn’t it be awkward to just stand there and say hi with two massive grocery bags swinging from my hands screaming 'we've just been shopping!'. So I thought I’d just leave them there, but I didn’t want anyone to take them. And then I heard her, well I didn’t know it was her but then I heard her voice and I knew it was. And she said ‘Oh my god! Em! It’s been so long!’, and all I could think was, ‘that’s my line, that’s my line. What am I supposed to say now?’. So I said ‘hi’. That’s it. Hi. And I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. And then she asked me, you know, like people normally do when they haven’t seen each other in a while, well she said ‘how have you been? How’s everything? Jesus Em, it’s been so long!’, and I laughed, a bit too loud I think, and I said ‘aww well it hasn’t been that long’. But it had. It had been quite long, actually. And then I felt I had to ask her a question so I asked her how everything was, and why was she back home? So she’s here for the holidays, apparently. She’s living in a flat with some friends up in New York but she wanted to come down and see her family for a bit. She said she got nostalgic and wanted to come back home. I’ve never really left, maybe I’d understand if I had, but I don’t see why anyone would want to come back.

Her boyfriend lives there too, in New York, not in her flat. But they’re thinking of moving in together, and maybe getting a dog or something, because that’s what people do when they want to know if they’re going to spend their whole lives together. And she has a job, I can’t remember where because by this point I was getting nervous because I could feel the conversation reaching a closed street where there was no other option but to slowly, meticulously, calculatedly, turn around, a whole 180 degrees, and I knew she would bounce the questions right back at me, and what would I say? That I was still living in the same town, that I didn’t have a job, that I didn’t have a boyfriend, that I had nothing going on, really. I would lie but then I’m so bad at it that she would definitely be able to tell, and I’m not sure which would be worse, really. So I said it was great seeing her but I had to get going home because I had plans at eight, which was a lie, obviously, and I think she knew, but by that point I just wanted to leave so bad that I couldn’t think of anything else. And she gave me a hug, and told be to keep in touch, and that we should definitely hang out some day before she left. And I remember she smelled really nice, like honey and roses, or something like that. I don’t really know what the smell actually was, but it was nice, and I remembered that she used to always smell like vanilla and raspberry in school because it was her favourite perfume, and they sold it in the vegan shop right next to the farmacy, and it had candles and perfumes, and all sorts of hand-made stuff, and everything was vegan, of course, and everything smelled nice. And then I looked at her before I left, like actually looked, and it just struck me then that she looked so much like an adult. But of course she did, we were both adults, and we had been for a while now. So I don’t know why that was strange to me, but it was.

When I went out and started to walk back home the sky had darkened and the street-lamps were the only light on the street. Well, not exactly, there was light coming out of windows, and cars, and just anywhere where people were doing whatever. But the moon wasn’t out yet, so to me it felt like the only light came from the lamps. And I felt quite sad suddenly, I don’t know why. But as I walked away from Robin I felt like I’d never see her again. I felt like I shouldn’t have even seen her just now, like she came from some parallel universe where another version of my childhood best-friend had grown up into a responsible adult, but it wasn’t her. It wasn’t the Robin I knew. She wasn’t my friend. And I wanted to cry so I had to almost jog home because I could feel the tears swelling up in my eyes, and my face felt very hot, and I couldn’t see anything because the tears were pooling up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall, mainly because if I started crying I wouldn’t be able to stop and it would be so incredibly embarrassing to cry in public. And as I ran back home, clutching my cloak so that it wouldn’t fly out to the sides and make it look like I was wearing a black cape, as the first tear ran down my face, I remembered that I’d left my grocery bags near the entrance at the bar. And then I did break down and cry because I felt so terribly useless and stupid. Because Robin and everyone else already had their own life, and they were so different, and I still felt the same, except that now I was more scared, and I was getting older, and it was getting late. And I just walked back home in silence after that, because I couldn’t bear to see Robin again, and I thought ‘I’ll just get the grocery bags tomorrow.’