Eggs

I was at the bar ordering a drink when I saw Dana walk in. It had been three or four months since I had seen her last. She still looked as beautiful as I remembered; in fact my faulty memory barely did her justice. He hair was a little longer now, but still raven black, the perfect contrast to her pale colored skin and soft green eyes.

“I haven’t seen you in a while” I said as I walked up to her. “What have you been up to lately? Where ya been?”

“Well… I actually met a guy, that’s the reason I haven’t been in here much in the last few months.” She told me, and with that my heart fell out of my chest and flopped around on the beer stained floor of the bar.

“Well that good, congrats. He treating you good?” I tried to sound happy for her. I hope she couldn’t hear the disappointment in my voice.

“Yes he is great, we are actually getting married soon.”

And with that, this girl that had broken my heart so many times in the past, gave it one last devastating stomp. I tried my best to seem sincere as I congratulated her.

I told her that the smoke in the bar was bothering me and that I was going to go sit outside for a while. I walked outside and sat down on a bench; setting my drink on the ground in front of me I rested my head in my hands.  

* * *

I had met Dana seven or eight months ago. At first we were just passing acquaintances. I would say hi, mostly because I thought she was cute, and she would say hi back. It didn’t go much beyond that for weeks, and even after we were introduced we didn’t remember each other name’s the first four or five times we talked. That all changed though, on the night I fell for her.

When we saw each other that night and at first we just said our usual “Hi, how ya doing?” But then I decided that tonight I was going to talk to her and tonight I was going to remember her name. “You know, as many times as I’ve been told, I still don’t remember your name.”

She laughed and then said to me, “That ok, I forget yours too, maybe we should just stop telling each other, than we won’t feel bad for not remembering.”

I told her I thought that was a perfect idea, and we sat and talked for a while longer. We talked movies, politics, philosophy, and whatever else our drunken minds could think of to say at the time.

Then the conversation turned to relationships, we had both been through too many bad ones, and we both agreed that neither of us wanted to do that again anytime soon. Little did I know that by the end of the night my view on relationships would be very altered.

“You see,” she said to me later that night. “Relationships are just totally irrational, crazy and absurd.”

“Then why exactly do we keep putting ourselves through them?” I asked her. “I mean, shouldn’t we know better by now.”

“I guess we all just need the eggs,” she said to me and began laughing.

It took me a minute for my alcohol-hazed mind to connect the dots and realize what she meant. But when it dawn on me it made me laugh. “Did you just quote a Woody Allen movie?” I asked her. “That’s Annie Hall right? The joke about the guy who’s brother thinks he is a chicken, but he doesn’t want to turn him in because he needs the eggs.” It was at that moment that I realized I had met a girl that was different from the ones I had met in this place before. Anyone that quotes a Woody Allen movie definitely gets a few cool points in my book.

“Wow, you actually watch Woody Allen movies?” she asked. “I don’t usually meet people in this little trashy bar that actually like Woody Allen.”

For the rest of the night we talked Woody Allen movies. And by the end of the night I was asking for her phone number and she was turning me down. But she did at least give me her name, and this time I was not going to forget.

Every Saturday after that for the next few months we would see each other at the bar, and we would always talk movies and what ever else came to mind.

As the weekends went by I slowly fell in love with her. How could you not love a girl that could just randomly throw a Woody Allen quote into a conversation?

I’m not sure if she ever knew how I really felt. And maybe I should have told her. I guess I thought the little routine conversation we would have at the end of the night made it clear enough how I felt.

Before we left every night, I would ask her for her phone number or to dinner. Every time she would say no. And then I would always tell her that I would stop asking if it was making her uncomfortable. She always told me too keep asking, I might get lucky sometime. I guess she didn’t really understand how much it killed me every time she said no.

Then one weekend she just wasn’t at the bar, and she wasn’t there again the next weekend. I didn’t see her again for another three or four months. During that time I thought I had gotten over her. But there is nothing like hearing a lost love tell you she is engaged to start the heart break all over again. Which brings me back to here, sitting on this bench, with my head in my hands, just thinking about her.

* * *

As I sat there going over my own misery in my mind someone came and sat down in the bench next to me. I took my face out of my hands long enough to see that it was girl, and a very attractive one at that. Long red hair, blue eyes; a combination that I would have a hard time resisting in other circumstances.

“Are you doing ok?” she asked. “You look a little unhappy.”

“Well, I was just thinking relationships, and how crazy they are. Sometimes I don’t know why people even bother with all of it.”

“Well, I guess most us just need the eggs.” She replied.


Author's Note: I wrote this story many years ago during a creative writing class. Looking back on it now, I can see a lot of errors that need to be corrected and many things that could be fleshed out a little more. However, I am going to post it as-is just to see what people might thing. Feel free to comment.