The First Time

October 29.

The date alone guarantees that no matter what happens between us and no matter what becomes of us, I will always remember the night I met him.

October 29.

Important things happen on that day.

I pulled my little white orphan car up to the coffee shop, picked up my ukulele by its neck and headed inside.  The girl behind the counter smiled and asked, “Are you our musician tonight?!” excitedly.  I nodded.  We introduced ourselves to one another.  I set the ukulele down on a chair sitting at the edge of a cleared out space near one of the windowed walls and headed back outside for the rest of my stuff.

I think he was already sitting there.

As the night went on, friends and coworkers filed through those doors into that place stuffed full with warmth and the scent of fresh coffee brewing.  They’d smile and wave, and I’d sing, and say hello between songs.  It was casual.  I didn’t have a microphone up, and sometimes the coffee grinder was louder than my electric piano.  I didn’t care.  I was singing.  These wonderful people came out to see me.

It was a good night.

I moved back and forth, behind the piano, to the stool beside it, holding my ukulele.  Especially when I sat on that stool, I was terribly aware of him.  My foot bobbed along with the beat and he gazed back and forth between me and what I would later find out was a book by Garrison Keillor.  I was torn between the performer in me, excited to make a connection in the audience, and the girl in me, who was pretty sure he was paying more attention to me than he was comfortable showing, feeling pretty uncomfortable and more than a little giddy about it myself.

I had invited somebody to come that night.  Somebody named Andrew.  And he’d said he probably wouldn’t make it, and that was fine.  It was fine as long as he didn’t want to see me again.  He hadn’t been able to make it for weeks, and I was fine with finally letting it go.  He didn’t show up?  I moved on.  Simple as that.

I finished up my tiny little hour and a half of music and bashful thank yous and I started to make my way around the room.

So many people showed up!
More than I would have ever expected.
That coffee shop was FULL of people I knew.

Except Andrew.

And that was that.

I went table to table.

I sat.  I chatted.  I drank coffee.  I talked business.  I thanked and smiled and made silly faces at the kids who’d had no choice but to tag along with their mom to see me.

And at the end of it all, he was still sitting there, gazing up from that book far too often to actually have been reading it anymore.

I smiled as I walked past him, on my way to talk to the one table of friends I hadn’t made my way to, yet.

He stopped me.

He complimented my music.
We started talking.
I sat down.

My friends waved and let me know they’d just catch up with me later, no big thing.

We kept talking.  Music mostly.  Other stuff too.  I found out he didn’t own a computer, which, considering the year I’d just had, completely intrigued me.

The barista approached us.  They were closing up.  No rush, but would we wrap it up?

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said.

I looked at him, bewildered.

I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.  Or a date to the sock hop on Friday night.  But I was still fairly new in town.  I was tired of trying to make friends and having them float away in front of me.  I was tired of people who exhausted me asking for my time, and people I could relax with just disappearing into my memory.

I needed him in a way I didn’t even know I did, until I met him.

No, until long after I met him.

So I said,

“Under normal circumstances, this would be my email address.  Or the URL to my Facebook page.”

He smiled.

“So, here.”  I handed him the piece of paper I’d ripped right from my songwriting notebook.

“I’ll give you a call sometime, ” he said, right before offering to help me carry my things out to my car.

I declined.  I just let him go.

And I loaded up my car and I drove home, caffiene and adrenaline pumping through my system.

Did I…

?

I did.