“Just show up, have some coffee, and find an excuse to leave,” Pam said to herself, a mantra she had repeated to the rhythm of the tires, to the hum of the engine, to the knowledge that this is one move she’s not ready for and will never, actually, be ready for.

Blind dates are never a good idea, she knows this quite well, and yet Kelly is so persistent, so constant that she just wears you down until she gets what she wants. The fact that if she squinted just right, Ben Franklin’s smile looked almost like his smile and she would have considered coffee with him had a bit to do with this, but not much. Not too much.

Ryan never actually offered to set her up with some of his business school friends, but Pam needed to say something at that moment, something to make him feel the way she feels, and as soon as she said anything, Kelly jumped at it, saying she knew the perfect guy for her.

Pam ignored the feeling in her stomach as she drove to the coffee shop she agreed to meet this, whoever. Soon, though, when she got there, the feeling had spread through her veins, out to her fingers and toes, up to her head and was beating behind her eyes like a drum.

The date’s name was Eric. He would be wearing a brown jacket and jeans. Pam parks her car and walks down the block to the coffee shop in short paces, though she doesn’t want to draw it out. Half a block to go and she spots him, or someone matching his description. Tall, not as tall as Jim, but taller than her, to be sure. His hair is dark brown and cut close to the skull. He’s sitting on a bench beside a homeless person strumming on an acoustic guitar. The open case is littered with change and several bills.

The street performer hits the last chord of a song and the man who might be Eric starts clapping. She gets closer and watches him. He takes out his wallet and drops a five dollar bill into the open case.

“That was great, man, damn great,” he says. “I’d like to hear another song if you can.”

“What song?” the man on the ground asks. He’s relatively clean, but his closes are in tatters and he’s severely unshaven.

“‘Kisses Sweeter than Wine’?”

“The hell kind of a troubadour would I be if I didn’t know that song?”

“Not a damn good one, that’s for sure.”

The man with the guitar starts strumming some chords, and goes through a progression of six before he starts singing. “When I was a young man,” he starts, “and never been kissed, I got to thinking it over what I had missed.”

Pam watched and found a smile creeping over her lips as she listened. The man’s voice would never get him on American Idol, but he hit the pitch perfectly and was putting a lot into it, a sort of swagger she’d never heard in that particular song. The man who might be Eric was tapping his foot in time and nodding his head and fully enjoying the tune.

When the singer finished the last repetition of the chorus, “oh, oh, kisses sweeter than wine,” she joined in with the applause. The man who might be Eric looked up at her and there might have been a smile that passed between them. He was cute, she thought, but not as cute as-

She caught her thoughts and could tell already how this situation would end.

“You got time for one more song, buddy?” the man asked the singer.

“I always got the time. What you want to hear now?”

“You know any G. G. Allin?”

“A couple songs. Most folk don’t want to hear none of that, though.”

“If you could play some “Outlaw Scumfuc”, I’d be much obliged.” He pulled out his wallet again and dropped a ten into the guitar case.

“Boy, that’s my damn theme song.” He got a better grip on the neck and found the chord before he went at strumming. “Everybody knows that I'm a scumbag. They won't come and see me in this dive. Everyone's afraid of what might happen to them. Or if they'll even get out of there alive.”

Pam had never heard the song before, and though she didn’t have any intentions of going home to download it, vulgar as it was, the way the old man sang it, well, it was entertaining, at least. The man who might be Eric was enjoying it and even singing along with one verse.

“'Cause I like to drink whiskey by the gallon, I live on peanut butter sandwiches, I don't care. I spent some nights in jail in this old country, everybody hates me and I just don't fucking care,” he sang, an awkward harmony with the old troubadour. When the song was over, both of them were laughing and the man who might be Eric shook the old singer’s hand.

“I’ll see you around, Irv.”

“Damn well better.”

“Get somewhere warm tonight, alright.”

“I should be able to manage that.” And with that, the man who might be Eric walked over to her and confirmed her suspicions.

“Pam, right?”

“You must be Eric?”

“Correct,” he said with a sly smile.  “Shall we have that coffee,” he added, with a wave of his hand towards the coffee shop.

  “Of course.” 

Pam followed him the half a block and was surprised when he opened the door for her.  She had a cup of Earl Grey and he had a simple, black coffee.  They sat at a table near the back and were quiet for several moments.  He took a sip of the coffee before placing his hands palm down on the table and looked around the shop.  For Pam, the quiet was slowly becoming unbearable but he seemed nonplussed by it.

“So, how do you know Kelly?” she asked, the first thought she could form. 

“I was engaged to her sister some time back,” he said after a moment.  Something passed through his eyes as he said the words in a slow, calculated manner.

“Really?”  For a moment, Pam tried to touch the spot on her finger where her own engagement ring once sat.  When she realized what she was doing, she took her hands and put them around the warm cup.  Eric noticed.

“Yeah.  Guess Kelly didn’t tell you that?”

“Why didn’t you guys get married?” 

“Vera and I were in an accident.  She didn’t make it.”

“Oh, my God,” Pam whispered.  What a way to start a date.  “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright.  It was a good five years ago.”  She could tell his calm exterior was just a front, so she did what she could to steer away from the topic.

“So, what do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Really?  What do you write?”

“I’ve been a journalist for the last few years.”

“Written anything I’d have read?”

“Not under my own byline.”

“Why’s that?”

“The sort of stuff I’ve been covering, well, let’s just say there are a few folk out there who want me dead?”

“Why’s that?” Pam asked after a moment of shocked silence.

“After Vera died, I guess I had a bit of a death wish.  Survivor’s guilt, my boss called it.  I took the most dangerous assignments I could get.  Talking with coyotes down in Mexico, crossing the border with illegals, interviewing child prostitutes in Thailand, that sort of stuff.”

“And they’d want you dead?”

“Well, after I interviewed those child prostitutes, I sort of took them to the police.  After I did that, I had to leave the country rather fast to keep from getting shot.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.  I sort of did the same thing in Hungary.  Was talking to some women over there who were being kept against their will.  Had to pose as a john to get any time with them, of course, and once I found out, and had enough for a story, I got them out of the brothel and took them to the authorities.”

“That was very brave of you,” Pam mumbled.

“Yeah, but stupid, too.  Their pimps got to me before I could leave the country.”

“What happened?”

“They found me in my hotel and were about to kill me.  Had me on my knees and everything, and this guy, Bruno, was pointing a gun at me and just yelling in Hungarian.  Kind of funny, in a weird way.  He tried to shot me but his gun misfired.  Last thing I know, someone hits me on the back of the head and I wake up three days later in some hospital.  They roughed me up and stole everything I had, except my tape recorder.  I still did the story.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” he said, that sly smile that wasn’t Jim’s flashing over his lips again.  He held his thumb and index finger up with an inch between them.  “This close to getting that death wish fulfilled.”  He laughed a sad laugh and looks into the depths of his coffee.  “Good thing about my time overseas is, I can read people now.”

“You can read people?”

“Very well.”

“Can you read me?”

“Like an open book.”

“Really?”

“I believe so.  Let’s see: you’re just recently, within the last year, out of a long-term relationship.”

“How’d you know?”

“You can tell there used to be a ring on your finger.  The skin is lighter there than the rest.”  She looks down even though she doesn’t have to.  She smiles to cover the empty feeling in her chest because she knows where this is heading.  “I can also tell you don’t want to be here.”

“No, I-”

“Don’t worry about it.  Neither do I.  Has nothing to do with you, of course.  If I were in a right state of mind, I could see myself asking you out on another date.  Thing is, I’m not.  Kelly’s mighty persuasive, otherwise I’d be on the phone with my boss now trying to get another assignment.”

“Kelly does sort of wear you down.  I’d hate to know what she did to you.”

“Nothing bad, really.  And try not to be hard on the girl.”

“Why’s that?”

“The way Kelly is now, well, that’s not the real her.  She was a lot calmer when I was engaged to her sister.  Very sweet, very smart.  Loves art, so you know.  Thing is, when Vera died, Kelly was crushed.  Kelly had been looking up to her since she was a baby, and when Vera died, she just sort of buried herself in all that crap, the superficial, pop culture bullshit as a distraction.  Sometimes she comes up for air, but mostly, she’s trying to hide in that identity.”

            “I kind of know how that is,” Pam says with something like tears burning behind her eyes.

            “But, listen.  Let’s do each other a favor.”

            “What sort of favor?”

            “I’ll stop pretending this is a date if you tell me about the guy you wish was sitting across from you right now.”

            There was a moment there that she wanted to bolt, a moment where the sickness in her stomach threatened to creep up and be exposed for the world to see, but she sat there and put her hands to her face when the tears started.  Eric took one of her hands in his and all but forced her to look him in the eyes. 

            “If you can’t tell your inner-most secrets to a total stranger, who can you?” he asked and she lets out a cross between a laugh and a cough. 

He disarmed her with a joke like he used to and she relents, and tells Eric everything, from their first meeting and the way he smiled crookedly and she had to look down at her engagement ring to try and remember her fiancé’s name, to the games and jokes they would play, to the way he was always nice and supportive when no one else was, the way he seemed to want what was best for her more than what was best for him, she told him of the seemingly innocent flirtations and way it meant more to her than any of the awkward advances Roy had ever offered, of the first admission and the way she was so scared all she could do was push him away, of the second admission and their first kiss and how the world crumbled when she let him walk away and he really walked away and though he was an hour or so up the road it felt like he was across the Atlantic or on the other side of the Berlin Wall and how when it came down she knew she didn’t love Roy and she left him and started her fancy new life and that fancy new life was empty when she saw him again but he had moved on and why the fuck couldn’t she move on.

            He sat there, sipping his coffee and he listened to her rant with a patient ear she needed.  She hadn’t even told her mother all of what she told him. 

            When she finished talking, she looked down into her tea to hide from the embarrassment she knew she would find when she looked in his face.  After a moment, he spoke.  “Well, you can’t move on because you love him.”

            “Yeah.  But how could he do it and I can’t?”

            “You really think he’s moved on?  If it’s anything like you described, there is no moving on from something as big as that.”

            “He’s with her now.”  She finally met his eyes and saw an understanding there she hadn’t expected.

            “Probably because he thinks he can force himself to move on.  But here’s one thing I know for sure: guys, we’re idiots.  Look at me, for example: five years have come and gone since my one, true love died, and I know for sure, by all real in this world, that’s what she was, my one, true love.  Five years have passed, I’m back in America for what seems the first time and sitting still, sitting across from a beautiful, great woman, and I’m giving her advice about her feelings for someone else that doesn’t involve the phrase ‘jump into the sack with me’.  Babe, that’s because I’m a guy and an idiot. 

“Sure, I’m still mentally broken and shattered, but I’m also an idiot, like this guy.  And this girl, she might be nice and beautiful and smart and all that bullshit, but she’s not you, and she’ll never look like you or talk like you or laugh like you and so he’ll never be happy with her because she’s not you and don’t you get why that is? 

            “Because, sweetheart, I’m betting the two of you are meant to be one.  The way I understand this story, you two are meant for each other.  You want some more tea?”

            The sudden shift made Pam realize she believed every word that had left his lips.  She nodded and he stood from the table, picked up both of their cups and walked over to the counter.  Pam took some napkins from the dispenser that sat at their table and dried her cheeks, feeling like she was floating.  When he came back, he had an extra cup of coffee to go.  He pocketed a handful of sugar packets before sitting back down before her.

            “So, what’re you going to do?” he asked.

            “Think I might try and have a talk with him.”

            “Atta girl.  You ready to call it on this date of ours?” he asked with a smile.

            “If you are.” 

            “Just don’t tell Kelly about how I didn’t even try to get you in bed.”

            “Of course not.”  They stood and walked out of the coffee shop and she knew if she wasn’t in love with someone else, she could make a go at it with this guy here.  They walked down the block towards where they had each parked. 

            Irv was still sitting on the sidewalk, strumming on his guitar and singing an old Hank Williams song.  Eric leaned down and put the extra cup down by the open case.  Irv stopped playing and looked up at Eric was a bright smile.  Eric hands him the sugar packets and the man looks like he’s about to cry.

            “That’s about worth a song,” is all Irv can say.  “What do you want to hear?”

            “Know any Waits?”

            “Some.”

            “How about ‘Picture in a Frame’?”

            “Think I can do that.”

Pam was about to walk away, to go back to her car and work on the rest of her life when something stops her.  Perhaps it’s the way the old man sings the song, so full of conviction, or the way Eric doesn’t wipe away the tear on his face, but she knows she has to reach out to him while she can.

“Hey,” she says, breaking his concentration on the music.

“Hey.”

“You like football?”

“American or real football?”

“American,” she says with a giggle.

“It’s alright, I guess.  Why?”

“The Super Bowl’s tomorrow.  I’ve been invited to a party with a bunch of work people.  Kelly will be there, and-”

“And a certain someone who happens to hold your heart?” he interrupts.

“Yeah.”

“I guess I could make an appearance.”