The Persistent Grace

Short story submitted to and passed the first round of NYC Midnight’s Short Story Challenge 2024. My parameters were —

Genre: Romance

Subject: A change of plans

Object: A darts player

In a restaurant astronomically high in both budget and station, on the top floor of a high-rise, I sat alone at a table by the window overlooking the city. My fingers slick with the condensation of my martini glass, I counted all the reasons I hated being here. A few drops fell as I took another icy, stinging sip, dappling the fine red tablecloth.

I had waited ten minutes before ordering; an appropriate window before quenching thirst and entertaining annoyance. Especially in a place where the staff check in every agonizing minute. The waiter finally got the hint to leave me be when I ordered a double martini with extra olives. Now, the damned little green eyeballs rolled to stare at me each time I tipped the glass. Head sloshing, tongue stinging, I watched the votive candle flicker between the two place settings. I heaved a great sigh, commanding the flame to dance mad for me.

Twenty more minutes went by. Clearly, this was license to get up and leave. But, as I stood, my sneakers squeaked against the marble floors. I was shocked to stillness as I remembered where I was, shadowed faces at the different round tables turned to look at me.

The waiter approached me, asked if anything was wrong.

I shook my head “no” and asked him for a glass of wine and a dish of marinated olives to go with it. I popped more olives in my mouth and took eager swallows of the red, alternating indulgences with factory-line efficiency. I rubbed the olive oil between my fingertips with hedonistic pleasure as I watched the red-and-white veins of traffic surge through the city. Raindrops began to splat against the window. My mood and the weather soured together.

I was an hour into this evening that had redefined the concept of a “blind date” when I felt a buzz under my right thigh, where I had surreptitiously tucked my phone. I had enough decorum to not have my five-year-old, grease-trap of a mobile device on such a nice table.

I understood social graces, damn it, even if no one else tonight did.

The light of my phone blanched my scowling face as I read the message from my ‘friend,’ the one who got me into this mess —

“Hey. I’m so sorry. A mix-up about the location. She’s at…” I read through the message and learned my date was at place across town. I realized she was still waiting. “Shoulda given you her number. She wondered if you stood her up. Haha.”

Across town, a woman waited and wondered, while I whimsically wasted.

“Great,” I replied, prodding the phone screen furiously, my oiled fingers adding a unique sheen to the phone screen. I tucked my phone under my thigh, again, and brooded. Who waits that long for a blind date? Hasn’t she got friends to complain to? Things to do?

My thigh rattled again. “Here’s her number. Can’t be the messenger for you. I have plans.”

I darkened my phone screen with a vengeful clench. Text her? Now?

I looked out into the city streets and saw the storm had worsened. I jumped in my seat as lightning flashed in the clouds — a blinding blue retort. My phone alighted back to life with a message from a new number.

“Hey, this is Aleta. Still down to meet up. Want me to come to you?” I stared and watched a bubble of ellipses conjure a new message. “I’d love to see you.” I paused and chewed my wine-stained lip.

“I think we’re a bit far from each other,” I texted.

“Yeah, but I’m happy to meet in the middle,” she replied. Persistent, this one. Like a fly, a buzzing fly. “They told me where you are. Fancy place, right?”

“Haha. Yes.”

“That your kind of place?” she asked. I thought of the marble, the tablecloth, the $20 glass of wine. The shadows.

“No.”

“How about America’s favorite diner chain?” A picture accompanied her message: a photo of the diner’s bold, neon sign, the color of ketchup and imitation butter. I grinned.

“Wow.”

“So this is where I am rn,” she said. “I say we meet in the middle. I know a place.” Aleta sent directions to a bar that it would take about twenty minutes to get to.

“Okay,” I said. “See you soon.” Soon, in my mind, told Aleta that it would take time for me to finish the olives, use the restroom, wait for the check, wait for the check to process, and decide between different ride share apps. I found a ride, paid the way-too-high, rainy-day, weekend price and scoffed. I texted my friend one last time for good measure:

She’d better be worth it.

I walked out of that too-fancy place, the shriek of my sneakers against the floor dulled by the thundering in my heart.

I approached the bar after an hour in the rideshare, the traffic and rain having swept us up in a chaotic tango the entire way. I shared this tempestuous dance with two whispering college girls whose heads lolled like dolls over their phones the entire time. The experience of this hour invited my annoyance back and I grappled it firmly within my crossed arms. The driver pulled up to a nondescript door under a ratty awning next to which a bouncer stood. As I got out, the two girls leaned over to judge my chosen harbor. I watched the their noses crinkle over pursed lips — kisses of reproachful farewell — as I shut the door.

Muck splattered my sneakers as I took long strides from the car and took shelter from the rain under the old awning that whipped like a sail above. The bouncer greeted me with a noncommittal nod and did not ID me — a hit my ego was in no state to take squarely on the chin.

“Hi,” I said. “I don’t even know if my date’s going to be here.”

“Huh.” He grunted with an impressive disinterest, which was much more an act of grace than I could know in that moment. I felt a buzz — shoo, fly — in my pocket.

“Hope you’re doing alright with the rain. I’m at the dartboard in the back corner.”

I sighed — who plays darts? — and pressed through the door and its hinges heralded by passage with a whine and whistle.

Blue light flooded the crowded bar like moonbeam. The music, an ethereal grunge, had a pleasant droning quality that spurred a few customers to easy sways. The bar was a white roundabout counter in the center of the space, with open floor and standing tables positioned like buoys throughout. Distractions like pool and shuffleboard crowded in the corners, determined to be here though the space did not really allow for it. It was in one of these cramped corners I saw Aleta aiming a dart at a pale round of a faded dartboard. I knew her from my friend-of-a-friend’s description but she still struck me, stuck me. It was like seeing one of those famous paintings you hear about in person for the first time, and you realize description or second-hand shot from the internet cannot do the art proper justice.

Aleta had a short pompadour of dark hair and recently shaved sides. I saw beads of sweat glittering between the dusky meadow of dark stubble, bestowing her a shining crown. Her arms were bared by a tight tank top, round with fat and muscle; arms to wrap around you in the cold, to hold you in the night. Covering almost the entirety of her right upper arm was a tattoo of the Virgin Mary, the aspect that appeared at Guadalupe — her feet ferried by cloud and angel, cloaked in her shawl of stars. The shawl radiated azure in the mimic-moonlight and suddenly I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Aleta flung a dart, the tattoo blurring and breaking my fixation. The dart went wide, spectacularly so, clattering against the wall and skidding across the floor. It flitted toward the crowd, toward the door, toward me. Her gaze followed it and she caught me staring. She smiled, her full lips parting to reveal broad, perfect teeth. Her eyes gleamed, astral, as she lifted a hand to wave.

She knew me, I realized with terror. As she turned her attention away to flag down a passing waiter, I stepped backward and felt the cool touch of the door at my back It would be so fast, so easy to dissolve into the rainy night and pretend I had never been at threshold at all.

But then her starlight eyes landed back on me and my feet moved toward her. I wove through the crowd, passing faces and bodies and clothes of all kinds — the whole gamut of our amorphous alphabet present in this on bar, as if summoned by a spell.

“Al… Aleta?” I asked as I reached her.

“Yeah,” she said in a voice low and silken; angelic. “How’d you know my nickname?”

“Huh?”

“You called me Al, at first. That’s what my friends call me.” She smiled again. “It’s like you already know me.” All the air in my lungs congregated in my chest, coaxing my heart to burst.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Speaking of… were our friends trying to set us up? Or not?” she asked with an amused furrow of her brow, her hands tucked into the pockets of her baggy jeans. She held her hand out to me at an indecisive angle — shake or no? I took it and squeezed it, hoping to god — or Mary, since she’s present — I did not still feel like olives.

“I know, right?” I said. “Assholes.” The insult stung the air between us. Al merely shrugged. I tried to loosen my own shoulders, which had crawled up to my ears as if to hide behind them. “Thanks for waiting. It took a while, didn’t it?” I took a while, didn’t I?

“That’s okay. I didn’t have other plans.”

“That’s good,” I said. “No backup dates?”

“No,” she said, her brow wrinkling in amusement, again. “You?” I shook my head and felt a wave of relief as a bartender came up to us.

“What can I get you?” she asked. She smiled politely at me, and then her eyes stayed on Al. A warmth in their traded smiles told me more than I wanted to know. I ordered another martini and Al got a shot with a wedge of lime.

“It’s my first drink, by the way,” said Al. The bartender slipped into the crowd, slipping Aleta’s generous tip into her pocket. “I won’t get messy on you.”

“Yeah, same,” I lied like a snake, stifling a slur; a hiss. I nodded toward the bartender, whose image became granular amid the crowd. “You know her?”

“Old friend. She was giving me shit for waiting so long, actually. And I’m glad I did.” The bartender dissolved completely out of sight.

“Me too.”

Our drinks came and I, still reeling, nursed mine. I was thankful to be sitting down, as my head and heart and stomach were twirling their own trajectories, all wanting different things. We sat in small chairs with an even smaller table between us; a cramped little constellation near the dartboard. Aleta took her shot and bit down delicately on the wedge of lime. I looked away as her lips pressed over the flesh to catch the juice.

“Um,” I said, wetting my own lips with a flick of my tongue. “I love your tattoo.”

“Oh.” She gave a quick glance down — a supplication — to Our Lady. “Are you Catholic?”

“N-no. I just think it’s pretty,” I said, feeling like a child; a kid pointing at stained glass window and asking if it can be in her room.

“Yeah, she’s alright. Not as pretty as you, though.”

“Thanks.” I adjusted my blouse, a flowing, draping thing that covered the round of my stomach over my tight jeans. I flushed as I suddenly hoped they weren’t too tight to take off in a rush.

“That was cheesy, huh?” asked Al, sheepish. Then, her gentle stare suddenly hardened to flint. “Hope it’s not weird for you.”

“To be complimented?”

“The tattoo.” She moved her hand as if to touch it, brush it away, but stopped herself. She crossed her arms, tucking the hand away as if it had almost sinned. “She’s about the only thing I hold onto from that time in my life. From faith, I mean. Of course it’d be the woman, right?” She laughed at herself, and I noticed a deep dimple form in one cheek.

“Of course,” I said, smiling with her. “The women are why we always hold on.” By the glint her eye, I knew she liked the sound of that. I wanted to lean forward and tag her with a kiss; claim her before anyone else could tonight — audaciously attractive bartender or otherwise. We continued talking, trading the requisite questions of first meetings, as our eyes traveled over each other’s bodies.

where are you from,

how many siblings did you have, did you fight

what do you do for work,

what do you do when you’re not working,

The interview died with the drinks. Aleta’s leg began to bounce, agitating the space between us. I worried the movement would harry her; carry her out and away from me. A spasm of fear jolted me, and I leaned forward to hold her bouncing knee.

“I’m really happy to be here,” I said, and meant it.

“I didn’t think I was doing well.”

“No, you’re — ” I began, but the word perfect died on my lips as they spread into a fool’s grin. “Do you… want to get out of here?” As my head had grown light with the fear of her departure, the question slipped out from teeth in a low sigh and the droning music smothering it like a blanket.

“Sorry?” Al took my hand and leaned closer, a ripple of concern in her black velvet eyes. The brown sugar liquor on her breath mixed with a spritz of sandalwood. I allowed myself to be swathed in the warmth of her hand, her eyes, her near body.

“I said, do you want to play?” I tilted my head to the dartboard. “I saw you earlier.”

“I haven’t played in years, it was just the only open spot in here,” she admitted. She looked down and I realized she wasn’t talking about darts, but that other game that I had also spectacularly failed at time and time again. She looked up, meeting my gaze with that radiant beam of a smile. “But I can try.”

“It’s been a while for me, too,” I said. I placed my other hand atop hers and drew my thumb softly over her skin. “We can re-learn together.”