Cigarette Stacy

Person: Stacy, 37-year-old Caucasian female from Phoenix, AZ.

Place: Whiskey Girls – San Diego, CA; Friday 1:00 a.m.

Thing: Conversation and a cigarette

After several attempts at trying to dance to “Sweet Home Alabama” and seeing my friends’ pathetic tag team pickup tactics fail miserably, I took the painful walk of shame outside to the patio area for some much needed fresh air. With my buzz fading with each dizzying step, I brushed my way through a small crowd and sat down alone at an empty table. I peered through the window back into the bar to see a mass of happy, inebriated faces singing and drinking the night away, silently judging them but quickly realizing how out of place I really felt.

I flipped open my phone to check the time, a feeling of tired resignation clouding over me. It was still early, and I knew my friends, the giggly masochists that they are, were still scheming to find that diamond in the rough who would finally allow them to rub their unexposed genitalia upon her backside.

Feeling dejected, I sighed and turned my head slightly toward the entrance where I caught the eye of my unbeknownst muse for this piece, Stacy, a character worthy of the title “desperate housewife.” Holding a box of Marlboro Lights and fishing around her black leather clutch for a lighter, she awkwardly bumped into a security guard. Laughing to myself, I didn’t think much of her until she actually started stumbling toward the empty chair at my table. Crap.

“Please, don’t sit here. Please, don’t sit here,” I mouthed to myself. But of course, to my dismay, she sat down next to me, and conversation ensued.

Without even introducing herself or asking if she could have a seat, she sat down, pulled out a cigarette and lit it. For several seconds, which all seemed like an eternity, I sat nervously, anticipating her next move. Her hazel eyes burned through mine like the cigarette cradled between her fingertips, begging and pleading for me to pay her a compliment to tame her insatiable desire for male companionship.

Now, I don’t want to bore you, the reader, with details of the actual conversation for it consists of the usual small talk you’re probably familiar with. What’s your name? Where are you from? Who are you with? Blah blah blah.

After talking to her for a couple of minutes, she flicked her cigarette butt into the street and pulled out two more cigarettes, one for her and one for me. It’s funny how much you can learn about a person during one cigarette. Sharing one with another person is a like an informal, pseudo-speed date where the cigarette acts as a sort of hourglass.

Drag by drag, she gazed off into the horizon of the San Diego night life, stammering on about her neglectful husband of ten years, an overworked pilot for Jet Blue on a red eye flight to New York, and her two out of control sons back in Phoenix. Legs crossed, leaning back in her chair, she combed her dainty fingers through her hair, bouncing her short blonde curls as if to lure me into more sexy conversation.

With Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” coincidentally playing in the background, I remained silent, taking drags from my cigarette and pretending to check text messages on my phone. The friendly yet slightly annoying chitchat turned into a semi-comedic rant about relationships and family.

She grabbed my wrists, showing off her diamond wedding band, revealing the anguish of an aging woman, and said, “I have one piece of advice for you, Mike. That’s your name, right? Whatever. Never ever have kids. Don’t. Don’t get married until you’re fifty! You hear me?”

I sat there stupefied, awkwardly nodding my head, wearing a fake smile. She sighed, gazed off into the distance once more, and took the last drag from her cigarette. She gathered her things together and adjusted her bra to reveal a little more cleavage…You know? For the boys.

“When you go back in there, you owe me a dance, ok?” she demanded.

I replied, “Sure, I promise.”

I never did keep my promise, and the last time I saw Stacy she was being escorted out by security, her friends propping her up and encouraging her not to throw up.

Whiskey Girls. San Diego. What a night…