I did what I normally do when getting ready for a date. Second coat of mascara. A dab of vanilla oil along each collar bone. Lacy camisole over my favorite jeans, which are worn at the knee but touch me with confidence. Glittery earrings. Cropped jacket. And, of course, my sneakers. Some things should never be compromised, most especially not your favorite footwear.
Grabbing my bag, double-checking for keys, I head to my destination. It’s the JW Marriott in Cherry Creek, where I’m no stranger. Where the tables are tightly arranged, but relaxing nonetheless. Where the drinks are poured into glasses perfectly cut for their purpose. Long-legged martini glasses beg to dance between thumb and index. Red wine breathes heavily from wide bowls. Whiskey and rocks clink together in highballs practically infused with diamonds. The plates and dipping bowls – tapas artfully placed in geometric patterns – are no less beautiful.
It’s kinda fancy. But being Denver you can wear your sneakers without anyone batting an eye. I consider this aspect more important than perfect stemware.
The JW uses valet parking, which never fails to make me feel grown up. And the valets know just how to flirt with us girls. The kind of perfect flirting that makes you blush and smile, not curl a hand into a fist, immediately willing to throw a punch despite the consequences.
It’s the perfect place for sneakers and lace. Tapas and wine glasses. The perfect place for a date.
I stuffed my valet ticket into a pocket and sashayed through the hotel lobby. The large mirror to the right deserved a pause. I wink at my reflection. “Not bad, kid,” I whispered.
Onward to the bar, giving my hair a last minute fluff, I walked with long hip-shaking strides. The valet had just flirted with me and flirtation gives my hips a little more enthusiasm. It was early in the evening and I had my choice of tables. I slid into the corner spot, near the windows, the angle perfect for people watching, a hobby I hardly ever resist.
“Would you like a wine list?” The server asked, his dimples showcased for the twenty percent tip he knew I’d leave.
“You know better, Ricky,” I answered.
“Yeah, yeah. You only drink six-dollar bottles of wine at home. Which is a travesty, by the way.”
I shrug my shoulders with a grin. “I’m cheap.”
“But,” he said, giving me a slow wink. “Never easy. And never boring.”
Oh, before I forget to mention, the servers are excellent flirts, as well.
I blushed, as always. “So, it’ll be the usual,” I tell him.
“Dirty gin martini, comin’ right up.”
“With the blue-cheese stuffed olives.”
He feigned mock offense. “Like I’d forget?”
Away he went. I tucked a foot beneath me, opened my bag, and greeted my date. I plunked the book on the table. That night my date was Hemingway. The man who whispers to me, his imaginary breath hot against my ear, “Read between the lines, Sunny.”
Ernest and Joyce and cummings – the men of my Friday nights. I lean into their bindings and they tell me beautiful and complicated stories. Never are they late. No uncomfortable silences. No hands drifting toward inappropriate places. Just me. Them. Table. Best dates ever. And they nod approval at my martini choice.
I always leave the olives until last, tasting them more deeply with each sip. I finally reached the last drop. I shoved my book marker into page eighty-seven, licked the toothpick, and gave The Old Man and the Sea a mental kiss good-night.
A trip to the JW, though, is never complete without visiting the bathroom. Gold-rimmed sinks. Cloth hand towels asking to be smuggled out via one’s handbag. (I’ve managed, so far, to refrain from stealing them, but I don’t know if my honest nature will survive much longer.) Even the garbage bins are elegant, tall and narrow and gold. But the true piece de resistance is the lavender hand soap, pumped from bronze dispensers. If you leave their bathroom feeling unhappy, it’s your own fault.
This trip into JW’s magical bathroom, to my surprise, did reveal unhappiness.
At the long end of the marble doored stalls, a woman lay on the floor. I only saw her long legs kneeling against the tile, but it was a position which I wasn’t altogether unfamiliar with.
Okay, I’ll be blunt. Sunny has spent her share of Friday nights puking in a bar bathroom. I’m so happy not to be in my twenties anymore
.
I had to give her kudos for choosing a porcelain god with a gold handle. Just because you’re puking doesn’t mean you should disregard the ambiance of your feel-like-you’re-going-to-die location.
Sobs, breathless and broken, echoed against the bathroom’s cold fixtures. I tiptoed to her kneeling spot. The stall door was thrown open and I crouched down. “Rough night?”
Startled, she released her grip from the toilet and threw me a look of disdain. “Who are you?”
Despite the running of her mascara, the smearing of her glittery eyeshadow, and the corners of her mouth being overrun by Christmas red lip stick, she had the glow of youth. High cheekbones. Wide blue eyes. Hair spilled past her shoulders, perfectly curled mahogany tresses.
I plunked down beside her. “I’m Sunny.” Nodding to her stilettos, I asked, “Are those Stuart Weitzman’s?” (I may not wear fancy heels anymore, but – yes, I admit – I drool over Zappos sometimes. Only sometimes.)
She leaned against the wall, swiped her eyes against the back of her hand, pulled her feet protectively close to her chest. Then she hitched up her chin high enough to cause whiplash. “So?”
“So… they’re gorgeous.”
The blue eyes shone with new tears. “I know.” She resumed her balling. Louder this time.
“Um, I’m not sure gorgeous shoes are something to be upset about.”
“It really is.” She looked down at her toes. “I bought them for tonight.”
“For a date?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d be willing to bet that you’ll have another date at some point. You’ll wear them again.”
She shook her head sharply, sending curls back and forth over her shoulders. “No, I’m never dating again. Ever.”
I held back my laugh. Not because I didn’t believe her, or think she was overreacting. It’s that her words were my own words many times before. Words spoken with heat and conviction. And harder to stick with than you’d think. Whiskers and a set of fishing poles often convince me to give dating another try. At least until the fishing license expires.
“I hear ya,” I agreed enthusiastically. “That’s why I only date dead guys now.”
She pulled her legs in closer. “You look pretty normal, except for those terribly grubby sneakers, but I’m not sure that you are.”
“I’m not, but I’m harmless.”
She took a deep breath, bypassing a hiccup, more tears poised but held back. “I really liked him.”
I looked away from her wet face, stared at the tile instead of her pain. “I know.”
“How can you possibly know?”
I looked back up, directly into her river blues. “I don’t know much,” I told her. ”But I know all about Stuart Weitzman dates and puking in the bathroom afterwards.”
“Wow,” she said, laughing for the first time. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
I grinned. “Life’s simpler when you just tell it like it is.”
Standing, I grabbed one of the fluffy towels, drenching it in hot water. “And I know you’re gonna be fine. I know those Weitzman’s will dance again.”
She watched me sit back down, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because,” I said, cleaning the red lipstick from her face with the warm towel. “You’re here, puking and miserable, rather than still with some guy who doesn’t deserve you. Sounds to me like you make good decisions.”
Before I knew it, she threw herself into my chest, wrapping her arms around me. “I’m from Kansas,” she blurted, her nose against my neck. “I don’t know anyone here. And I’m so lonely. And I’m so tired. And I made a huge mistake tonight.”
I pulled her close, embraced her like a sister. Put my cheek against the top of her hair. My eyes burned. I blinked several times.
I’m from Wisconsin, and while my home is now happily in Colorado, I’ve had my own nights spent pacing with loneliness and exhaustion. Feeling like tomorrow and sleep would never come.
I kept her close, rocked her gently. Left. Right. Left.
She cried once more. Her nails dug into my back. Left. Right. Left.
At last, with a great sigh, she leaned away. “He- ,” she paused to hiccup. “He left me with the two-hundred dollar bar tab, you know, after I told him I wasn’t gonna sleep with him tonight.”
I pinched her chin. “Cheaper than a bad life choice, I’d say.”
Half of her mouth lifted. “True.”
Together we dabbed away her mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick. Her face recovered its glow as I told her about my own Bad Date stories and she smiled and laughed. Though I didn’t know her, I knew she was becoming herself once more. We inhaled the gorgeous scent of lavender soap, scraping away her make-up, and scraping away her sadness. We left the bathroom and I pulled the valet ticket from my pocket. “Here, take this.”
“What is it?” She asked, grasping it gingerly.
“It’s my valet ticket. I’ll drive you home, but you have to let the valet flirt with you first.”
The valet didn’t disappoint. She blushed deeply, smiled deeper still. I tipped him well.
I entered my apartment much later than expected. That was perfectly okay with me. The empty walls reflected the bright moonlight, so I didn’t bother with turning on the lamp. Instead, I wrapped myself in my quilt and sat cross-legged on the floor.
I remembered being lost in many bathrooms, myself. Calculated the bar tabs I’d gotten stuck with. Fancy shoes I’d worn. Loneliness I’d felt. Tears I’d cried. And every tile floor, each penny, every stiletto inch, ever painful yank of loneliness, was worth it. Worth the pain. The embarrassment. The hang-overs. Because, as a result, I can be a sister to the raven-haired girl on the bathroom floor at the JW.
Mistakes don’t just make us human. They make us human to other people, too.
I knew from an early age that I’d wind up in Colorado. My mom used to say, “Sunny, you’re going to wind up in Boulder one day, with all the other Crunchies.” Since my mom was a hippie, she said this with a note of pride. I don’t live quite as far north as Boulder, but pretty darn close.
Before I’d reached adulthood, I’d already taken it upon myself to save the world. Single-handedly, if necessary. I adopted two whales and a dolphin through the World Wildlife Foundation. I volunteered for a Humane Shelter every weekend. I went through all of our neighbor’s trash, crushing bottles to save unsuspecting birds. I recycled before it was popular (my mom wasn’t thrilled about driving to the recycling facility, located in the middle of nowhere, and it was during these trips that she did not appreciate my “crunchiness”). I hauled around canvas bags when we went grocery shopping. I volunteered to pick up garbage along the highway, despite the fact that orange is not my color (my dad was convinced this would lead to a life of crime, since this is the job description of most state prisoners). I ate granola. And, at age 5, I wore my first pair of Birkenstocks.
Today, I’m still a Granola Girl. I love doing what I can to make a difference. And it’s fun! Reusable shopping bags are so cute these days. Patagonia makes superior hiking gear made from recycled plastic bottles. Environmentally friendly items are darn fashionable. Even Birkenstocks have come a long way, adding bling to their ergonomically designed sandals.
I like reading up on the topic of world-saving, and recently came across the book The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget by Josh Dorfman. The title had me immediately! I’m both lazy AND budget-conscious. After reading Mr. Dorfman’s book, I wanted to share my favorite tips.
1. Irent2u.com - Instead of buying items that you’ll only use once, you can join this online community – called “The Online Rental Marketplace” – and rent anything you can imagine, instead. Everything from handbags, vacation homes, jewelry, boats, planes….well, you get the idea.
2. You can now recycle your Brita filters! They’re accepted at most Whole Foods stores.
3. Denim Therapy - Here you can send in your favorite pair of jeans – no matter how shabby their condition – and get them fixed like new. The company dyes thread to match your jeans EXACTLY as they are. No patch-like marks. The cost is $7/inch. The before and after pictures are pretty amazing.
4. Swapstyle.com - This is like the largest best-friend closet in the world, where you swap clothes for free! There are currently over 45,000 members.
5. Greenphone.com - Not only will this comany take your old cell phone, they PAY YOU for it. Free shipping, even. As often as we trade in our cell phones (unless you’re me, with the 4-year old Samsung), this could be a great resource.
6. Goloco.org - Here is a new (and totally cool) take on the modern carpool. You share vehicles and trips. You pay for the cost BEFORE you even get into the car, so there’s no argument about who’s gonna pay for the gas. Here’s how GoLoco describes itself:
GoLoco is a service that lets friends, neighbors, and co-workers arrange rides together. It helps match someone going somewhere with a car (commonly known as the “driver”) with someone else who wants to go somewhere (commonly known as the “passenger”). Each passenger agrees to pay the driver for their fair share of the costs of the trip.
7. Zinio.com - Love to read? Zinio provides digital formats of magazines and books - a huge selection – and sends it to any digital device. Including the iPhone.
. Think the kink’s worked out now, however.
