I’d been on the trailing edge all night. I arrived at Dorian’s birthday party just as everyone was about to leave, at Lederhosen Lucil’s show at the El Mocambo about five minutes before she headed home and at the Velvet Underground fifteen minutes after most of the gang from the Thirsty People of Toronto left. “You missed most of them; they’re already gone,” said Nikki, who placed a free shooter in front of me. It was green and minty — creme de menthe and creme de je ne sais quoi.
I ran into one of the very few I-should’ve-asked-her-out-when-I-had-the-chance people in my life. She was there with her boyfriend, and every compliment — “I saw you on Love by Design, you were hilarious, you totally should’ve gotten the girl”, “You’ve lost weight and you look even cuter!” — was like a sharpened shard of prison lunch tray jammed into my heart. I reminded myself that I’d had an absolute blast the night before, so my net weekend so far was still far ahead of the average “Gee honey, wanna see what’s on the ‘new releases’ shelf at Blockbuster?”
Luckily, the Velvet is well within my stomping grounds, so I had a chance to chat with some other people I knew, including Jacqui from the TorFun mailing list and a number of people I know from busking. One in particular, a very cute woman tapped me on the shoulder as I was passing by the DJ booth. She was a familiar face but one I hadn’t seen in a while. She wore a red strapless dress and a string of valentine’s heart lights around her neck. The wire from the lights ran to her purse, where I assume there was a battery pack. It was cute and geeky all at once.
“Hey there, Accordion Man,” she said. “That thing makes you very easy to spot. Is that why you carry it around?”
“Hello, Heart Girl,” I said. “The accordion’s useful that way, yes.”
(By the way, the score is now Accordion Guy: 2, HelloMyNameIsScott.com: bzzzzzzzt!)
“Why’d you cut your hair?” she asked. “I loved it when it was long and you had the big forelock.”
Pleasant conversation ensued — I will never tire of hearing girls say “I’ve always loved the accordion” — right up to the point where she said “I remember the exact date we met. May 24th.”
Thank you, magic accordion, I thought. Tomorrow, I’ll clean you with real Windex and not the cheap generic brand.
“The day after that, I met the love of my life.”
Like I said, I’d been running late all night. Why stop now?
A linebacker walked towards us. I can’t say for certain that he’d ever been a linebacker in his life, but he could’ve been.
“This is my brother,” she said. “He’s come here to visit from Vancouver. I haven’t seen him in such a long time.” She did the introductions and then excused herself to go to the bathroom.
Big Brother put a beefy bear paw on my should and said “I was watching you. So, you like my sister, huh?”
I am the descendant of diplomats, and genetically-passed instinct told me to not say the truth: Why, actually, I’m having this fantasy where I’m covering her with ice cream and biting her bum. I thought I’d save the kinky stuff for later.
“I know her from before. I played some tunes for her last spring.”
“Oh. Good.”
That’s when I called it a night.