the boys at the bar

it's rome, it's this girl.

My beautiful, beautiful friends.

It’s an overcast Sunday in October. And guess where we are? No, not in our small, sleepy, seaside town. But, we’re back in our little Roma for the weekend. I’m slowly sipping my cappuccino, and I can’t remember the last time I drank an espresso out of one of our tiny espresso cups. Summer seems like a lifetime ago.

3 Nonnos sit side by side gossiping on a bench across from me, dressed in polos and vests. Groups of young men have their helmets and vapes sprawled out across the wooden tables, besides cartons of cigarettes and empty cups. It’s the vans, the tattoos, the earrings, and the all black. It’s a real Sunday morning in Roma.

I have been gone for 5 weeks in total. Which, in reality, doesn’t seem like a long time. It’s been a bit over a month. And truth be told, I haven’t accomplished much in those 5 weeks. I mean, I’ve barely even written to you. I lay on the beach every chance I get. I let the sun sink into my skin, and then I run right into the waves of that sparkling, sparkling sea.

-

This past Friday afternoon, I tap my favourite girl at the bakery with the bodycon dress on the shoulder. 

We both scream and hug like we have been separated for years, and our other friend comes out from behind the counter to join us.

“Your hair, you did something…different. But a good different.” she tells me as she examines my face.

“I think it’s my tan.” The tan. That’s the real 5-week accomplishment. 

She loops her arm through mine. We go on a tour of the display case with the proscuitto sandwiches.

“Ok. So what did you miss the most?” Our friend with the bodycon dress asks me.

-

I’ve realized something. About home, about travel, about experiences.

A year ago, I went back to Toronto for the month of November. I met up with someone from my past (surprise, surprise). And I told him that I was going to Australia.

“But you were just in Italy. What are you running from?”

I stared at him for a while before answering. I stared at the 4 green plants in his apartment. I stared at the one brick accent wall. I stared at the silver fridge. Bare, empty, no magnets. How the clock on the stove read “1:48 AM”.

“I hate that question.” I tell him. “It should be: what are you running to.”

And what are we running to?

We’re running towards the new day, and the new routines. The new people who you start calling your own. Your new community.

Living in different places, in different cities, in different countries. Being far, far, far away from old relationships and unhealthy patterns. Running from old stories and old narratives. A new space allows for a new breath. A new perspective. 

We’re changing, we’re constantly changing, and constantly evolving. The world, the setting, the characters. There’s so many of us. There’s so many places. There are so many different lives to be lived.

“You know what always makes me happy? No matter where I am?” Me and my sister are FaceTiming.

My cappuccinos at an outdoor café. My dirty martinis. Those feel like home to me, those are little pieces happiness that I can really have anywhere.

“And maybe someone, somewhere will make an even better dirty martini.”

“Ugh. That I have yet to find, unfortunately.”

-

“Ah. Look who it is.” The Man at the Front Door smiles as I walk towards him.

“My friend.” I breathe out a sigh of relief. Those connections, those friendships, that familiarity.

I’m annoyed that my black linen dress wrinkles easy, and I’m annoyed that the all the boys at the bar have seen it already. But I’m wearing white heels. And of course, we’re -

“Tanned. Or is it the lighting?” He looks me up and down and we start to laugh. 

“Tanned! I’ve been by the sea, remember?”

“I remember. You’re not bored yet?”

“No. I like hanging out with the Nonni at the beach. I like watching how they play cards at the bar all day -”

“And how they start with a drink at 10 am. It’s a great life.”

“Exactly. It’s quiet, there’s no drama. But you need to fill me in on the past month.” I do my usual: a quick scan of who’s working, then lean up against that white brick wall, my back towards the eyes at the bar.

It would have been cardinal sin to be here for the weekend, and a cardinal sin not to visit.

“Well, your boyfriend’s over there.” He nods over to the left. A few feet away from us is Past Newsletters, sporting his usual furrowed brow. Head buried into his phone, cigarette in hand.

I roll my eyes. 

“I think we’re fighting. Actually, I think we might have skipped the fighting part and went straight back to the hate again.” 

He starts to laugh. “Ok I think you’re the one who needs to fill me in. What happened now?”

“I just…I just told him the truth. That I think he’s a joke and that I think it’s pathetic that he invites girls from IG to the bar, all while being employed by…”

He knows that I know.

“Well, that’s his modus operandi. And it’s very manipulative. But it’s interesting, The girls that come, they immediately disappear once they realize that he’s not going to give them what they want. But you…you stayed. You never disappeared.”

It’s the first time that the Man at the Front has acknowledged that he knows something happened between me and Past Newsletters. I’ve played it off as if we were old friends. But the Man at the Front is perceptive, and there has been a lot of drama, and a lot of power struggles between two people who are just “old friends.”

I was never going to let him have that power over me. To have his life and his decisions that he made, dictate where I could go or who I could talk to on my Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night.

A note from my therapist:

“I want you to do what makes you happy. Your solo date nights, getting dressed up, having your dirty martinis, and forming these relationships on your own. Emily, it’s given you so much confidence. You have so much fun. And I actually encourage you going back, because it forces him to be confronted about something. About how he feels. You not going back, just allows him to keep running from…”

Running from, not running to.

I don’t tell the Man at the Front about Peter Pan, and I don’t tell him about the Other One (a fun wine date + a fun one night) either. But they were all really an added bonus.

“I never noticed that tattoo.”

“Which one?”

The Man at the Front nods to my collarbone.

“Oh. Lover.”

“You know what’s funny? You come here often, we talk a lot, we’ve hung out. I tell you a lot of things. But I don’t really know anything about you.”

“What do you want to know?” I ask him.

“Anything. Tell me about your writing.”

We are both leaned up against that white brick wall. He lights a cigarette and passes it to me.

“You know I’ve always had this idea in my head that I couldn’t make a living off of my writing, off of my art. I think people like to drill that into you: that it’s hard to pitch. You can’t write full-time, you can’t be creative full-time, etc. But I want to get rid of that idea, that belief.”

“Well, you’re a marketer. And a writer. So you know how to market your creativity. And you know who the only person stopping you is?”

I already know what he’s going to say.

Oh, the boys at the bar. Sometimes, they all really have my back in the strangest of ways. 

“You.”

I smile. “Well. Part of the creative process is this: the living.” I motion to the cigarette, the wall, the bar. Running to. “But you know what I could really go for right now?”

“What?”

“A shot of vodka for the road.”

“Well, with those eyes, I’m sure you could rectify that situation with your boyfriend inside.”

I laugh. “I’m not sure this time is rectifiable.”

“A lot people don’t like hearing the truth.”

“I like talking to you.”

“I like talking to you, too.”

-

In the Uber ride home, I start to get emotional. Red wine, PMS, the solar eclipse, the new moon. I list off all the logical reasons why I am fighting off a few tears.

“What do you do for work?” The driver looks at me in his rear view mirror. 

“I’m a writer.”

“Brava. What do you write about?”

“Love, mostly.”

“I picked up a publisher from the airport the other day. From…Harper Collins. Do you know them?”

“Oh, wow. I do.”

“So, love. With the Italian men?” He smiles.

I start to laugh. “They’ve all been really great for the content.”

It’s silent for a while. But sometimes you just need to open up to a complete stranger.

“You know the bar you picked me up from?”

“Yes. It’s always a popular one.”

“One of the guys that works there. We used to have this…thing. Last spring. It was only twice. I didn’t want it to be this big deal, or big thing…I wanted to be friends. But every time I see him, he looks at me as though I made his life a living hell.” 

“Well, if it wasn’t really a big thing, then it still wouldn’t be this big thing. Does that make sense?

I look out the window. We’re home already. 

-

When she gets out, she taps on his window and asks, “Have you ever been in love?" 

He answers with a grin, as the car speeds away: "Absofuckinglutely." 

The final shot shows Carrie standing solo on the misty street. It is an ambivalent image-some might see the lonely side of urban life, or the spectre of romantic rejection, but Parker saw in it "all these possibilities." She told me, "It's New York. It's this girl.”