She sat against the wall and the stool to her right was taken. I wasn’t sure how best to intervene; she’d have to completely turn around in order to talk. I stood behind her and stared at the back of her head, and when I glanced up, I saw that she was watching me in the mirror. I waved at her reflection.
“Hi,” I said behind her. “I’m Stratton.”
She turned in her stool and smiled casually without showing teeth. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m Stratton.”
“Carolyn,” she replied.
We shook hands, at that dreaded moment post-introduction when something had to be said and I had no clue of what that something might be. She had a full drink in front of her; offering to buy another seemed excessive. She stared at me, waiting. I shrugged once and let loose a nervous laugh I’d been holding on to since I walked down.
“If you want the truth, I really have no idea what to say right now. Just, um, just wanted to say hello, I guess. I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
She chuckled, causing her smile to widen, and in turn revealing teeth that seemed to go in every direction, which explained why she hadn’t shown them the first time. She had appeared attractive from afar, and from up close her beauty still held, but the good looks she possessed were greatly diminished by showing those pearly whites of hers, which weren’t pearly at all, but closer in tone to the neglected drapes of a smoker’s home. Discovering this negative quality allowed me to relax a little; I felt it somehow dropped her to my level, and I could see she was happy I’d come over by the way her face lit up. And in its sudden radiance I discovered an altogether different feature I’d overlooked in the bar’s dimly lit interior: what Carolyn lacked in a smile she made up for in her eyes, which were a vivid green, flecked with the cool aqua color of Caribbean water, and framed by perfectly shaped brows. But there was more to them than that. They were big and bright, like a toddler’s, though downcast in a way that made her seem vulnerable, maybe even sad. I couldn’t stop staring into them.
“So,” I said, stalling in the way people sometimes do when beating around the bush. “You live nearby?”
She nodded. “Kind of. I live in Logan Square.”
“Have you ever been here before?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Just jumped on the train and wandered around until I ended up here.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Nope,” she said again. Her voice was soft and timid-like, and she approached the conversation like a student talking to an overbearing teacher.
“That’s impressive.”
She shrugged and looked away. I assumed that she wasn’t used to being hit on in bars. I lifted my drink.