Note: I wrote this last night and thought I scheduled it. Maybe it was all a dream because I just found it in my drafts unposted. Ha.

So I’ve heard “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” lots before. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t pay a lot of attention to the lyrics to some songs (although when I’m up for karaoke, I’m kind of surprised about how much I do remember–subliminally?!). I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to this song’s lyrics and when I saw, “sleeping for the wrong team,” I thought I could go off in a new direction. I just couldn’t figure out what that direction might be. So I went in the expected direction and here we are. I’m actually using another song too. “You Don’t Know Me.” That song says to much when you need it too.

Revelations

Amy always calls me to grab the table. I’m the only one she knows who will get there on time and do what she wants. I’m like her dog, except her dog probably gets treated better and gets better treats.

Earlier she called, said, “Houston’s tonight. Table for five.”

I left at the end of my shift at the book store, rode my bike over to Houston’s and grabbed the required table.

Trixie, the Friday night waitress with the most beautiful red hair and warmest brown eyes you’ve ever seen, sidles up to me. “Where’s your blonde Amazon?”

Trixie is pretty in that way that the best friends on TV shows always are. Cute. Dimples. Splash of freckles. A breathy sometimes slightly nasal voice like she’s catching on fire inside. Somehow, she’s decided that Amy may not be worth my time. Did I mention that Trixie is probably smarter than me?

I mumble: “She’s coming.”

Twenty minutes later Amy stumbles in with a guy taller and blonder than her. She’s clinging to his arm like he’s the last life preserver on the Titanic. A couple of minutes later Jeff and Susan come in. I am officially the fifth wheel.

Amy is literally all over this guy who is finally introduced as Branch. Branch? What kind of name is that? Was he born a little sapling? Sure, his arms look big enough to be branches, but seriously, Branch?

I chug my IPA. Trixie brings me another and then karaoke begins and Amy and Branch (Branch?!) get up to sing. They sing that song from Grease, “You’re the One that I Want” while doing all of the pointing and posturing and I am thinking that it’s time to just throw some dollars on the table and call it a night when Trixie bounces up to the stage after they finish.

“Howdy! Yes, I’m your waitress, but I asked Jimbo if I could sing a song tonight. It’s kind of a message to one of the bar’s patrons and maybe he’ll figure out who he is by the end.”

Trixie unleashes this sexy vulnerable voice singing an old song, “You Don’t Know Me.” She’s looking at me. Me? Just as she speaks all breathless, her singing voice is equally low and full, and her lips glisten red and I can’t understand how I’ve missed this all this time.

“God, her singing sucks,” Amy says.

But it doesn’t. Trixie can sing.

“Seriously, Steve, you can’t think she sounds good,” Amy says.

“She sounds perfect,” I say. Perfect, I repeat inside my head.

“Puh-lease, she’s a waitress.”

Those words still me. I have been dense. How long had I thought Amy was perfect? Perfect for me?

When Trixie stops singing, she runs from the stage.

“God, if I were her, I’d run from the stage too,” Amy says.

And I know that Trixie’s mortified because she just put her heart and soul on the line and probably thinks she made a fool of herself. Now, all I have to do is convince her that she didn’t, that I understood.

end

Sascha Darlington