Scenes from a Daydream

God I hate these things, she thought to herself, which wasn’t true. She loved obligatory milestone social gatherings. What she hated was the anxiety in the first part of the evening when she felt unsure of herself. She missed smoking. There was something so comforting about having a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Got a light?” was the perfect conversation starter. Stepping outside for a minute for a cigarette was the perfect momentary escape. Instead, she was standing amidst a crowd of perfectly charming people, fitting right in and feeling like a chump.

She glanced longingly at the exit just as he walked in. She realized she’d been almost holding her breath. She exhaled and smiled. He greeted the happy couple, waved at a few friends on the other side of the room, and exchanged hugs with the friends nearby. Eventually, he saw her and they exchanged a hug.

It was strange. They only saw each other at these functions, but there was a comfortable familiarity between them. Maybe it was because the first function they’d chatted was a funeral. They had gone out to lunch afterwards and talked of grief and life. There’s something particularly intimate about death. After that first event, they’d developed a pattern for spending most of the event together whenever they crossed paths. She suspected it was because he could read her anxiety a mile away and was being kind to a friend of his friend.

This party was no exception. They fell into their natural conversational rhythm. Initially catching up on their respective partners, work, and life events. Eventually they would dive into their mutual interests, openly discuss each of their challenges in trying to stay sane or at least stable, and laugh together about it all. She wondered if he appreciated having a companion for the event when his partner was home. Why was his partner never here? She was used to going solo to social events, but hadn’t known someone else whose partner declined attendance as frequently.

The evening came to an end or, rather, the appropriate time to leave arrived and she gave her sincere happy wishes to the guests of honor. She made her way around the room and finally said her goodbyes to him. He walked with her a little away from the party, continuing their comfortable chat.

She turned to him, laughing, and said, “Okay, I’m really leaving now. Thank you for a great time, function friend.” He didn’t return the laugh. He took a breath, smiled nervously, and said, “Every time I see you, I want to kiss you. And every time we say goodbye, I promise myself, ‘Next time.’”

That was it. He didn’t ask any question, he didn’t blurt out any apologies for his confession or try to explain himself beyond that. Maybe it was his calm, expectant face that prevented her from doing any of those things either. She paused to collect her thoughts, and replied, “Yes, well, every time you start talking I just want you to keep talking and tell me more. I thought you were just a good storyteller but this one takes the cake.” He relaxed a little saying, “I guess we’re at cross purposes.” They laughed.

then it was she who was smiling nervously,”Okay.” He was taken aback. “What?” She took a deep breath to make sure she had the guts to continue. “if you were to kiss me right now, it wouldn’t work. Either it would be great, but we could both dismiss it as a ‘swept up in the moment’ thing. Or it would be terrible and we would both chalk it up to a ‘swept up in the moment’ thing. Regardless, we would both be left wondering.”

“This sounds like the opposite of ‘Okay.’”
“Well, you love your partner, I love mine. We’ve just spent a good chunkof this evening talking about just that. Neither of us are looking to get out of what we have.”
“Yes. True. So where is this going?”
“So ‘Okay’ means this. We build the perfect moment. Meeting place, season, time of day. Then we meet, and share a kiss in the perfect moment. If there’s nothing there, no spark, we laugh it off as friends.”
“And If–“
“–If there is something there… when we see each other at these gatherings, we greet each other with a kiss on the cheek. if, someday, our mutual relationships come to an end independently we can explore what that something is.”
“Oh great idea,” he replied sarcastically, “As though I didn’t have enough temptation to doubt my relationship already. Sounds like this is just fodder for eventual betrayal and heartbreak.”
“Nah. I think it eliminates the the temptation and simply offers a reassurance that whether things are going well or going poorly, there is someone out there who finds us desirable.”

He extended a hand, “Okay.”
She smiled and extended hers, “Okay.”