A Little Slip

Walking down the street on the way to Eric’s, with Gary depressed and Dani feeling for him, as she always did when he got like this, they were hoping for a cup of coffee and an empty diner.
“I don’t know what I did wrong, Dani. I really tried this time, y’know? I was as perfect as I can be with her.”
Gary was one of Dani’s best friends. They had known each other for well over ten years now and she was his favorite person to talk to. They agreed that she was the smarter of the two of them, and seemed to be good at taking in a lot and saying just the right thing at the right time.
“I can’t think of a girl who made me happier than her, Dani-mal. She’s just so…everything!”
Dani tripped on a broken bit of sidewalk. She had tripped at this spot quite often, and chastised herself every time. “Stupid,” she said.
“What did I say?” he asked.
“Not you, me. The sidewalk, again.”
“I never did get around to putting up that sign for you.”
“That’s okay. I probably wouldn’t see it anyway.” Dani walked head down a lot.
At Eric’s, it was not busy. They got a booth in the corner furthest from the door. There was a nice view of the main drag of town. Setting down their coffees, he said, “You know where we should go one of these days?”
“Where?” Dani asked, feeling better to see him enthused about something.
“Remember that little greasy spoon by Morrie Mage’s? On Halsted, I think, or near Ontario, something like that.” He was almost smiling.
“Yeah, what about it?”
“When was the last time we hung out downtown?”
“We doubled that one time,” she said, knowing it was the wrong thing to say. She could see him falling into memories of the beginnings of his relationship with Melanie, when the world was sunshine auburn-gold and perfect breezes pushed him down the street to his love. For her, it was the end of that last relationship; nothing seemed to last too long for her. Stupid, she thought.
“What?” he asked. Sometimes he was in her head.
“What?”
“You said, ‘Stupid.’”
“That was out loud?”
“Uh- huh.” He looked like a thundercloud.
“Not you, me.”
They sat in silence. After a few minutes, Dani got up and bought a chocolate brownie and got a carafe of coffee. She sat back down and handed him the brownie. He smiled immediately. “How’d you know?”
“Best friend’s sense plus a good dose of women’s intuition.”
“Thanks, kiddo.”
“I hate it when you call me that, you know.”
“And that is the root of why I call you that.”
“Give me back the brownie!”
“No! I’m sorry, I won’t do it again!”
“Yes you will.”
“Yeah,” and he smirked in that scoundrel’s way.
Four hours and not a few beers later, at Healy’s (the old Healy’s, not the new, shiny pretender to the throne), she was embroiled in selling him on Melanie’s lesser points, while Alanis Morisssette fell head over feet out of the jukebox.
“And she was not perfect, Gary. Even you know that. Didn’t she kick you out of the house one day because you talked to her father for too long?”
“I was ignoring her!”
“No, you were enjoying someone else’s company other than hers. She was always like that.”
“Really?”
“Why wouldn’t she come and hang out with us? Because she was too good for us, that’s why. She couldn’t share you with anybody or anything.”
“We’re not the easiest group to get into, Dani. The conversations we have are years old. Hell, you and Pete have been having that argument about the Citation for seven years now!”
“Still, she didn’t make the effort to try. She hung out twice and never came back out.”
“I guess.”
“She wasn’t good enough for you, Gary.”
Perplexed as only someone inebriated could be, he asked, “What do you mean?”
Sighing, then taking a deep breath before continuing, Dani said, “She never bothered to learn about you, Gar. It was all about her; you had to know about her, and yet she never asked anything about you.
“You could sit here all night and half the next day and tell me about every facet of her life, but she couldn’t tell you the name of your first dog, or your most hated movie, or the first time you swore. She never learned you Gary; she never studied you. She was with you during the easy part, and then when she thought it got hard, she left.”
“So she wasn’t good enough?”
“Nope.”
“And that’s why?”
“That, and other stuff.”
“So, Dani, who would be good enough for me?”
“I don’t know if I will ever think anyone’s good enough for you, Gary.” And she felt herself slip in her chair.
“What does that mean?” He looked so stupid right now, confused like a puppy that just heard it’s bark for the first time. She felt the flush in her skin as her beers encouraged her further despite the glow of suspicion she saw in Gary’s eyes.
“Because you’re a great guy! You’re a poet and a musician, you’re well read, responsible, punctual and a really good listener. You like to be romantic and do little things for people. You’re polite, damn near chivalrous. You’re smart and funny and you have a thing about you that makes people smile when you talk to them and everyone feels special when you’re around. You’re respectful and sweet and have a great smile and you’re strong in every way.”
She didn’t want to stop, even though she knew she should. She decided to ignore herself this one time. “Every girl should love you, Gary. You are as close to perfect as any man not Jesus has a right to be.”
Looking up at him, she said with a trembling voice, “You’re the best.”
He couldn’t respond, she saw. She was wrong; the first voice was right; she should have just shut up, she should run from the bar, from him, never looking back, forget he and his little smirk and hazel eyes that glow gold in the sunshine ever existed.
Looking down, she said, “Stupid.”
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and gently lifted her eyes to his, and said, “Not you, me.”

-Zeepdoggie