A strange darkness descended from
overhead and splashed onto the table, bathing Emily and her immediate
surroundings in a warm glow as the restaurant dimmed its lights for
the dinner shift. Ariel sat directly across from her, but she
appeared not to notice, her eyes focused intensely on her cell phone
and thumbs working furiously, pounding out a seemingly endless stream
of essay-length text messages. Emily chose not to ponder what on
earth her friend could have to say that was so important that she
couldn't even focus on her food or the drinks they'd ordered. She
sighed and laid her head on her hand and looked out across the
crowded dining room, surveying the young smiles and grins, the laughs
and guffaws, and the beginning hints of slurred speech that would
soon become more and more pronounced as the night continued and the
guests that began filtering in consumed more and more. Directly to
her left was a particularly young couple, definitely not part of the
prime time bar crowd, who had finished their meal a quite some time ago and
were now picking at the remains of bones of barbecued wings, french
fries, and seasoned mozzarella sticks. The boy had a bowl of black
hair, the bangs of which nearly covered his eyes and he had to
continuously brush them away to get a better look at who, Emily
assumed, must have been his girlfriend (or at the least, date for the
night): a dangerously beautiful brunette, stern eyes and a twitch in
her lips that indicated some sort of experience or wisdom beyond her
years. She intimidated him, Emily could tell. But he held his
own...he met each gaze, smiled at the right moments, laughed at all
her jokes, kept pace in the conversation. The girl was clearly
enjoying herself, but the young man was hopelessly in love. It was
written all over his face, and he was acutely aware of this,
constantly having to strain to not look so goofily smitten. Emily's
interest was momentarily held as she took all this in, and within a
moment she could tell, this smoldering brunette was going to take
this boy's virginity tonight. The scene pinched her heart slightly, and she let her mind wander, remembering when she
was so young and headstrong, how the boys used to lie down at her
feet.
Meanwhile she could see, to her right,
the bartender in another section, clad in a tight black vest,
restlessly cleaning glasses and setting them on the polished wood
surface upside down, paying no attention to the task at hand. Instead
he was focused on Ariel, who was now slumped backward in her seat,
still staring at her phone with a detached, glazed-over look, and
Emily could feel that he wanted her. She wondered what that must feel
like now, to be the center of attention: to know that every man in
the room who saw you, even glanced at you in passing, instantly
wanted to fuck you. But she let it go, because deep down she knew
that not even Ariel was aware of this or could let the whole ego-trip
thing go to her head. She was too wrapped up in her Blackberry to
know what was even going on around her, let alone the fact that she
was supposed to be on a dinner date with her so-called best friend,
whom she had not seen in a very long time and that this should be a
very enjoyable evening indeed. Instead they had spoken for about five
minutes, then the appetizers and drinks had arrived and Emily
watched, feeling somewhat dejected and ignored, as her former college
roommate simply forgot she existed. She sighed and drummed her
fingers on the table, trying to amuse herself, unsure of how to proceed.
It wasn't that Emily was particularly bitter or resented the fact
that Ariel had her own set of priorities and interests (like deciding
not to finish school) that were completely separate from her own.
Ariel liked working in a department store, selling superficial,
expensive clothes to superficial, expensive people, and spending at
least a quarter of each paycheck (after the rent and
utilities at her downtown apartment were all accounted for) at any
given number of clubs and glitzy joints that pumped obnoxious
electronic music through the speakers and allowed her a sort of
detached enjoyment—she could dance and flirt with whoever she
wanted, even grind right up against them, without ever actually
having to get too close—and Emily knew this. It was just that when
they actually decided to get together and sit down (which was
happening less and less frequently, maybe once every two months), she
found she simply had nothing to say. It was as if they were living on
two separate planets now, one where Ariel existed in her own little
bubble and floated around, poking other bubbles curiously and then
reverting to its own isolated, fixed position, while Emily meanwhile
was getting caught up in the void of the real world: commuters and
traffic and nine-to-five and coffee bars and cigarette breaks and
Letterman. What it really came down to, it dawned on her suddenly,
was that they had absolutely nothing in common anymore. She had
graduated from college over three years ago and moved on; Ariel, on
the other hand, seemed to just drift further and further inward,
never growing or expanding. Her entire experience and perception of
reality was drenched in the music and media that permeated every
aspect of 21st century life, and she did seem to not mind this,
while Emily desperately fought and railed against the
consumer-machine, trying to maintain some sense of self-control and
individuality without forfeiting what she valued most: that primal, deep connection she felt toward other human
beings, the part of her that was aching for attention and
companionship but always ended up disgusted with what she found
waiting behind every door, every phone number, every blind date in
every over-crowded, noisy cafe across the street from her office.
She snapped out of this tangential
train of thought and realized she, too, had started to daydream and
drift off in her own head. She suddenly felt very annoyed. She no
longer valued their time spent together, watching Ariel text her
boyfriends and laugh at inside jokes. Instead, she wanted to go home. She eyed the young couple to her left, who were beginning to shuffle out of the
booth, with envy. The boy, wisely, Emily thought, pulled out his wallet and
dropped a hefty tip on the table, then flashed his date a smile and
offered up his arm. What a gentleman, Emily thought. That confirmed
it: he was definitely going to score. She felt a wistful longing for
the days of her youth now, wondering what had happened to her freedom, to the days when she could meet someone's gaze and know precisely, in that moment, that they were seeing her in return, and that connection, that hidden part, would glow vibrantly and confirm what she was experiencing was genuine. She wondered what had happened to her and her
friend. No; what had happened to society. To her generation.
“I said, do you think I should try
the Yogo-Berry Martini?”
“What?” Emily shook her head and
realized Ariel was actually saying something to her. “Oh, I don't
know,” she sighed. “Why not?”
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