Well - Part XIV

Well, the rest of the week passed rather uneventfully. I continued to run through my mind the possibility of returning to Danbury the following weekend with the express purpose of hooking back up with Jennifer and “clearing the air” as it pertains to our fling last Saturday night.

I think it is human nature to want to avoid conflict. Therefore I really wanted to just shove the notion of needing to reconnect with Jennifer to assuage guilt feelings aside. The problem was, I couldn’t. My darn guilt feelings kept harkening back to that “morning after” and her being upset that I snuck out (even though it was just to bring back breakfast) and the cuddling we did with the bagels and coffee upon my return.

I thought she was a very nice young woman (with the emphasis on young) but that we truly didn’t have a lot in common. That internal dialog continued through the week and as we entered into Friday of that week, I hit upon the idea of a phone call. The problem there was that I didn’t even get her phone number.

Not able to dispel the notion of needing to talk with Jennifer, I decided that I would drive up to Danbury Friday night, go and see her at work and then head back to our “halfway” meeting place to see Cheryl for Saturday night. I made up my mind that I would just get a hotel rather than face the wrath of my sister. So with all of my plans firmed up I breezed through my work day and even cut out a tad early in order to beat the traffic heading north for the weekend.

The ride up was relatively uneventful and almost too soon, I was standing in the parking lot of the Blind Squirrel staring at the entranceway and wondering if this was all, truly, a good idea. Deciding that I had to see this through, I walked into the bar and glanced around but didn’t see Jennifer (or any bartender) at that point. I took a seat in the corner and decided to wait a bit.

Within five minutes, a male bartender came out from the back and briefly scanned the room. Seeing myself as a newcomer, he proceeded over and took my drink order. I asked him if Jennifer was working this evening. He said she was but she wasn’t coming on duty until 8:00 pm. Looks like I had a about an hour to kill. I resolved to drink slowly.

True to his word, Jennifer arrived in about 45 minutes, she breezed through the bar area and didn’t even see me sitting in the lounge area. She moved to the back room and apparently dispensed with her coat and purse and returned to the bar area within a few minutes. It was then I had that horrible feeling akin to calling someone on the phone without rehearsing what you were really going to say. The only saving grace in this instance is that she still hadn’t taken any notice of me. I even casually considered slipping out without confronting her at all.

When she apparently was “officially” on duty, I approached the bar and caught her eye.
“Hey Jen, how are you?”

The expression on her face seemed to indicate both surprise and embarrassment. Perhaps, she too, was feeling a little awkward about last weekend’s “hookup.”