Beautiful Mistake

“What would you like to talk about? Current events? Music?”

“Don’t give me that, missy. You know what I’m asking.”

I smiled at Charlie, completely aware of what he was asking. “I’m not sure I do.”

“You’ve been moping around here for a week. What’s going on? Boy trouble?”

Charlie was tough on the outside, but had an ooey-gooey soft center. It was one of my favorite things about him.

“Everything’s fine, Charlie. Just a busy week is all.”

He shook his head. “You’re full of shit. Twenty-eight years on the job. I know when someone’s full of shit.”

I was about to deny it when I thought of something. “How can you tell when someone’s full of shit? I mean, what are the telltale signs?”

“There’s body language that can give you an idea on most people, if you pay attention.”

“Like what?”

“Well, there are the obvious ones—the person won’t look you in the eyes, they get fidgety, they touch their mouth or face. Although most good liars know those signs and work to control them. There’re smaller things that are better indicators. For starters, their shoulders sometimes rise a bit. It’s because their breathing gets a bit shallow when they lie, and that’s the body’s natural reaction to the change in breaths. Some also stand rigid still. When people are talking, they have a natural sway to their body. But when they lie, they lose that natural comfort. Aside from that, there are hints in speech—like saying the same words or phrases repetitively. “I didn’t. I didn’t.”

“Interesting.”

“Who’s lying to you?”

I exaggerated raising my shoulders and repeated myself. “No one. No one.”

“Wiseass.”

Charlie cared about me, and I knew he wouldn’t pry too deep into things like Ava would, so I was honest with him. “The guy I was seeing broke things off. I get the feeling he’s not being truthful about why.” I sighed. “Maybe I’m just looking for a reason that doesn’t exist because of my own ego. I don’t know.”

“We talking about that professor?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to know whether his heart’s still in it or not? You’re thinking there’s some crap in his head that doesn’t reconcile with what’s inside his chest?”

I nodded. “I guess so.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out if a man who’s running the other direction really loves you.”

“What’s that?”

Charlie looked me in the eyes. “Move on without him. A man comes to his senses really quick when he thinks you’re not waiting around for him anymore.”

Caine

I was full of shit.

Only this time, I was lying to myself, too. The department chair had emailed to ask that I do a write up of my observations on Rachel’s thesis project to pass around to the other professors to help solicit a new advisor. I’d been dragging my feet to give her a chance to reconsider, and now I was using it as a reason to see her—pretending I needed to turn it in fast when I had no intention of doing any such thing.

It was the mid-semester break, and six days of not seeing Rachel was about all I could take. If anyone got a hold of what I’d resorted to, they’d think I’d lost my mind—and they might be right, but I didn’t give a fuck after six days.

This month’s Rolling Stone magazine had one of those quizzes Rachel was obsessed with. I’d noticed it while thumbing through two weeks ago and put it aside so she could take it. Missing her this morning, I might have taken it myself.

What Your Music Says About Your Love Life asked a series of questions based on which songs you related to most. When I tallied up my score, the prediction it assigned to me about my future was, of course, completely inaccurate. Curious, I read the other predictions anyway. One hit home, only I hadn’t scored between a 52 and 68. That particular answer couldn’t have been any more perfect for Rachel to read today if I had made the shit up myself. It read:

You’ve already met your destiny! Although you may not know it. You’re an old soul who connects with people on a cosmic level. Trust can be an issue with you, and you often avoid relationships because you follow your head instead of your intuition, sometimes blindly. In love, sometimes you need to throw caution to the wind and jump in with both feet. You’ve known your soulmate for a long time, but only recently have realized it was meant to be. Stop fighting it and feed your soul.

The quiz was a series of fifteen questions. I retook it, only this time I answered as Rachel would. Drinking a scotch on the rocks, I rattled the ice around in the glass as I tallied up her answers. Her score would be somewhere between 40 and 43. You’ve yet to meet your destiny!

“Yeah. Not happening,” I grumbled.

Sucking back the rest of the scotch, I figured she needed a boost of eighteen to twenty points in order to be safely ensconced where she was supposed to be. I picked the four questions where I was most certain of her answers and manually changed the point rating to increase it by five each.

“Much better. “

Jesus Christ, I’ve been thoroughly pussified.

I tossed the magazine on the table and scrubbed my hands over my face. What the fuck was I doing? I’d resorted to editing love quizzes and taking them as Rachel. I needed to not have a second drink, sober up, shower, put some clean clothes on, and go down to O’Leary’s before I resorted to calling and hanging up on her just to hear her voice.

Growing some balls, that’s exactly what I finally did.

I’d decided not to text her before showing up so she didn’t have the opportunity to tell me to email over the unimportant stuff I was pretending was important for her to take a look at. I drove to O’Leary’s at almost the end of her shift. The thought of seeing her soon had me in a better mood than I’d been in for two weeks. I whistled along with the music on the car ride over.

Ava was behind the bar when I walked in. I remembered Rachel had said her friend’s bartending abilities were limited to covering quick breaks and trips to the bathroom, so I figured she must be in the restroom or doing something in back.

I took a seat at the bar to wait, opting for the emptier side, opposite where Ava stood with her back to me while she talked to a patron. Still in my good mood, I tapped my fingers on the bar to the sound of Jack Johnson’s “Better Together” playing overhead.