Boys Life

I wake up the next day around one. Time for strong moves. I call. Forget the text message, if I’m into someone, or want to appear into someone, I always call. Ashley answers. We chit chat a bit, and I ask her about her plans for the rest of the weekend. She’s working. Where?

“I cocktail at…”

She names one of the trendiest night life destinations in New York. My heart sinks.

I mean, could she have given a worse answer? I am heartbroken, but only for a moment. I rationalize it. She probably makes good money. Maybe she’s in New York to do something cool. Maybe she’s not a social climber. Maybe she’s Not looking for some rich guy, some globetrotting friend of Andre Balazs, to pluck her out of obscurity, shower her with Kelly Bags and help her leave a suburban shit hole childhood behind. I mention a friend who works there too. She knows her. I suggest running a background check with our mutual friend and we set a tentative date for Wednesday. Oh well, fucking cocktail waitress, dream girl she ain’t. Fuck it, we’ll see what happens.

I need to stop and say that I don’t think this way about all cocktail waitresses, nor do I think it’s not a job to be proud of. It’s hard work and not everybody can do it. We all suffer for our art and to have that free time to do with what we chose is priceless. Girls doing this I applaud. There is however, another type of cocktail (waitress? or is ‘cocktail’ slang?) one I do not celebrate.

Wednesday comes and goes and we do not end up having coffee. Communicating via text after the first call, I’m getting excuses. She won’t pin down an actual time and place, but she stays in touch. This reeks of: bored with boyfriend, but not ready to step outside the relationship. I wanted to keep Facebook out of this, but after a week passes maybe she needs to see what I look like again? Not saying my picture is going to tip the scales in either direction, but maybe she’ll see something she likes and commit to coffee? Maybe she’ll see something she doesn’t like and fuck off? Anything is better than the text limbo I’m in right now. I ask if she Facebooks and she replies with her full name. I add.

Six friends. None Mutual. Profile is public. She has a twin sister: Emily. Emily I recognize from a party at Ashley’s work. Twins, with the same job. Emily has shockingly short blond hair and the same beautiful face. Almost the same, the boyish length of Emily’s hair does not quite compliment her angular features the way Ashley’s mop of black does. She seems more rigid, more standoffish. She clearly has done some modeling, and clearly been in New York longer than her twin. Back to Ashley now, and I’m examining her status updates.

I forward the link to a friend, telling him that she and I are playing text tag.
“She’s great.”
“Yeah, some of it’s retarded but some of it’s pretty cute. I’m not mad. Feeling it.”
“Yeah, you can tell she’s smart, I say keep going.”

I do something dumb, Something I end up regretting, I shift the tone of my texts. I try to be clever, crafting messages that I hope will appeal to the persona she reveals on Facebook. Still we play tag. She’s living up to her Facebook persona now. Not feeling like leaving the house. Tired from work. Staying in and watching the rain. She sounds like an angst ridden teen from central casting. Eventually I give up. I let her know the ball is in her court and to hit me if she ever wants that coffee date. She never does. I take the Ashley dilemma to my best friend:

‘Whatever, I went to college near that town in Washington State where she’s from. She’s some trailer trash whore looking for a way out. She’s cocktailing there? She’s prolly getting banged out by Jarred Leto right now. Fuck it. One and done dude.”

“One and done” referring to the amount of times a man should text or call a random he meets while out. One call or text. No response? Delete the number and move on. I heed his advice and discard Ashley’s number.


Skating 12th street on a rare warm day near the end of fall. Texts start to circulate about an early party at the Bowery. Nobody wants to go but me. Nobody has anything better to do so all of us roll. It’s downtown scene only, none of the randoms that usually make these parties fun. Oh well. I doubt I’m gonna meet anyone exciting so I settle in and gossip with girlfriends about who the hot guys there are. When I ask about someone, my friends make fun of me and my predictable taste in girls. No ladies for me tonight, but it’s totally fun. Then, Ashley walks by. Fuck it. Lets see what’s good one last time. I hustle up two drink tickets from friends and take their orders. Ashley and her friend are perched at the bar. I shuffle up next to them. Waiting for the barmen, I glance at them, and feign recognition. Ashley looks more awkward than I remember. Her hair is not quite framing her face like it does on Facebook, like it does in my memory.

“Hey, is your name Ashley?”

She and her friend glance at each other, possibly recalling that night that I met her.

“Yeah.”

“Thought so.” I give my name. “We met here like a month ago maybe?”

She remembers. I shrug, put both palms up at a 45 degree angle and make the ‘what are you gonna do’ face. The Goodfellas/Rat Pack-ish shrug I’ve co-opted from my best friend. No Diet Coke, only Diet Pepsi? ‘What are you gonna do.’ My girlfriend, fucked another dude while I was out of town? She’s a whore, ‘what are you gonna do.’ I got your number, added you on Facebook and texted you too much? What are you gonna do.’ No annoyance too small, no problem too big, ‘what are you gonna do.’

Ashley and her pal, who I learn is her roommate, are going to a dinner party. I make polite conversation, gather up my round of drinks and head back to the patio.

“How’d it go?” my female friends inquire.

“Enh, whatever, no vibe.”

I plop back down and resume gossip. I think about how awkward Ashley had looked at the bar. She was still beautiful, but something was amiss. Maybe she was just having an off night, or needed a hair cut. Something was definitely off about her hair. Maybe I’m just looking for flaws, trying to soften the post traumatic rejection, not feel like such an ass. I’m sitting with a bunch of people as Ashley walks across the patio and sits to smoke. She and her roomie light up and talk. It dawns on me that she does not know a soul there, all these fucking hipsters and she does not know a single one. It’s just her and her friend smoking. Just like the night we met, the two of them dancing, and then talking to two out of place guys when I interrupted. I mull this over, wondering how long she has been in New York, who she hangs with, who the fuck she is, and if I could have played it differently, to a different outcome. Eventually I dismiss Ashley from my thoughts and end up having a great evening.