Not Enough

Personal Yummy #65

“Jenna,” he begins, slowly. (I am mixing a gin and tonic at the corner of the bar.) “Have you seen The Nutcracker yet this year?”

I look up, my hands frozen for a moment. “No, Irwin, actually, I haven’t,” I reply, as I manage to put the dark green bottle of gin back in its place on the shelf.

“Well, I was…uh…sort of thinking about maybe going to see it, and…uh…uh…”

He pauses for quite a while, apparently having a hard time getting his words out.

“Yeah, you know…since you like to dance so much and everything, I thought that maybe…that maybe…you’d like for me to take you…”

What redness in his cheeks! What expectation in his eyes! And what a grip he has on his beer bottle!

“Oh, wow, Irwin…I…well sure…I mean, I’d love to go, Irwin. That really sounds wonderful,” I reply, quickly thinking to myself that it would be fun and that there could be no harm in it, despite whatever feelings are there—or not.

“Great,” he replies, involuntarily sighing—obviously very happy and relieved, but also obviously trying to be calm, cool, and masculine, as he is always trying to be. “And don’t you worry about anything. I’ll take care of it all. The tickets. The transportation. All of it. You just bring your pretty self.”

“Okay, Irwin,” I say, laughing, placing the drink on a tray. “You got it… And I’m really looking forward to it.”

******

I open the door, and he’s already arrived, sitting at the bar. He’s wearing a black suit, a bow tie, and extra-shiny black shoes, his hair behaving more than usual. He looks particularly nice…

I’m wearing my off-white outfit that I wore to my homecoming dance my junior year in high school. I love wearing it now just as much as I loved wearing it then, with its above-the-knee, stretchy skirt and its baby-doll top with the square-cut, pearl-heavy neckline. I especially love my off-white, innocent-but-sexy lace stockings, which perfectly match the lacy, flowery print of the outfit itself. My hair is long and curled, and my feet look stylish in black suede. I feel particularly pretty…

I pause in the entranceway for a moment, take a deep breath, and then begin to walk. I pull out a stool and sit next to him—and as I do so, he just looks at me, and looks at me, and says nothing, but helps me out of my long, black coat.

There are a few customers sitting at the bar, and an elderly gentleman is eating and reading in one of the booths. And Mary Ellen has just appeared from the kitchen, apparently aware that we were going to be here. But it is quiet, peaceful, and warm, with soft jazz filling the air, and bright sunshine flowing in through the front window.

When Curt places a fancy glass mug of eggnog, rum, cinnamon, and whipped cream beside Irwin’s Iron City, some words finally arrive, and we sit there for the next hour, chatting and enjoying each other’s company and the company of our friends.

Irwin borrowed Curt’s car for the evening, which he has conveniently parked at a meter across the street, in front of the large, inviting, book-lined window of Barnes & Noble. And although the radio doesn’t work and the driver’s-side window will go only three-quarters of the way up, it is still much better, as he puts it—before he shuts my door—than his “cluttered, junky pickup, which is in no way decent for an evening out at the ballet.”

On the way downtown, we talk more, first about general stuff, like our friends at The Grill, and the regular customers, but then the conversation becomes much more intimate and serious. “Do you remember, Jenna, the night of the Christmas party?” he eventually asks, shyly glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

Of course I remember it. I had such a wonderful time that evening, feeling even more than usual like a member of an exclusive club, the sign on The Grill’s door announcing: “Closed for the evening. Private party.” Bobby and all of the employees—Curt, Nick, Mary Ellen, Shane, Adam, Jack, Bianca, Diana, Nina, Tommy, Anthony—and many of the family-like regulars—Rolanda, Marcy, Joe Fish, Firpo, Zeech, Ken, Marty, Walter—sitting and standing there, talking and laughing. Globy bartending (taking a night off from the Decade), getting anyone and everyone anything and any amount they wanted to drink, all on Bobby. Trays upon trays of food—mini egg rolls, lasagna, vegetables and dip, dumplings—covering the booths in the nonsmoking section. Nick, sentimental and serious, freed by the alcohol—almost to the point of breaking down—standing above us on the steps leading into the nonsmoking section, a drink raised in his right hand, toasting and praising Bobby, “The best boss anyone could ever have…and I really, really love him…” Me both participating in it all and observing it all, wearing my ribbed, U-necked, fuzzy gray sweater; purple, stretchy, cotton pants; black stockings; and black Naturalizer pumps; my hair uninhibited and free. Probably one of the first times, or maybe the first time, they all saw me looking that way.

“Well,” Irwin continues, “I must confess that I thought you looked beautiful that night…really feminine, you know…and I really wanted to walk up and talk to you—Curt and Nick kept egging and egging me on—but I just couldn’t get up the nerve to do it,” he admits, shaking his head.

I remember—and remember sensing—that too. I was sitting at the main bar, drinking and eating, and he was leaning against the ancillary bar, a few feet behind me, and to my right. I kept thinking and feeling all evening that he might approach me, but when the doors locked for good for the night at two a.m., all that had been said was a quick hi and nothing more.

“That’s okay, Irwin,” I respond, glancing back at him. “We’re taking care of that now.”

Our conversation continues from there, and takes an even more serious turn, focusing on the age-old conflict of leaving or staying, of exploring further or being satisfied with where you are now. How it’s so difficult, when growing up, to leave your home, family, and roots and to go away. But how it’s even more difficult not to explore—not to leave your home, family, and roots in search of making your own new life. The mistake of denying that necessity inside of you. The cruciality of breaking away—however painful—from the surroundings and people that are your comfort and support, and to test and give a chance to the ideas, hopes, and desires that would consume you if you didn’t.

I learn now, sitting beside Irwin on our way to the ballet, that he did just that. Traveled out West. Left Pittsburgh—his home—for many years. Followed the need to get away and to be on his own, going where the work in plumbing was plentiful and where he’d be paid well for it. Met new people, lived in new places, and learned new ways of life.

“Yes, it was a very big change at first. But it definitely was good for me and made it clear to me what I really wanted out of life.” He says this as he pulls into a parking garage near the theater and grabs a ticket from the automatic dispenser.

“Hey, you know what, though? Let’s definitely talk more about this later,” he says. “I think we’re getting a bit too serious. Now’s the time to be carefree and to go and enjoy the beautiful show.”

He smiles and winks at me sweetly.

******

As I expected, the performance is lovely and very inspiring, and the music and the settings put me in the perfect mood for the season. But what puts me in an even better mood is how wonderfully Irwin treats me all evening. During the show he is a perfect gentleman, nonetheless letting me know of his affection for me, his leg subtly and gently brushing against mine every now and then.

Later that evening, we sit in a secluded corner of a cozy, dimly lit, downtown tavern, pretty lights dangling above us—the perfect spot for a first date and an after-show drink.

“Yes, I was away for quite a while, but then, yes I did…I came back to Pittsburgh,” Irwin tells me, continuing our conversation from earlier. He’s drinking a Heineken, and I’m relishing a spicy Bloody Mary with olives and a fancy, tiny umbrella—and he’s talking to me, looking me straight in the eye, and making me feel so important. “So don’t worry, Jenna…you’ll figure it all out. I know that you’ve become really attached to Pittsburgh, and that it’s like a second home to you now…but if you feel that once you graduate you can’t pursue all of your dreams here, go wherever you can to make them happen… And so what if you get wherever you go and it’s not all you wanted or thought it’d be, and things don’t work out the way you planned?… You can always come back. But suppose if they do work out?… And besides, why stay here and forever wonder?”

I sit there looking at him, running my fingers through my hair, and sipping my cocktail, as everything suddenly becomes so clear. You’re exactly right, Irwin, exactly right, I tell him with my eyes. I just needed to hear someone say it.

******

After our drinks at the tavern, we decide to go to the Decade and hang out, where Curt and Globy are bartending for the night. Before we do that, however, Irwin suggests that we change into something more comfortable.

We head to his place first, a large, white, many-floor old home that he bought a few years ago in Greenfield, a crowded, hilly, welcoming area just outside of Squirrel Hill, where Nick and Cathy, and Mary Ellen and Marty, also live. When we pull into the driveway, I can’t help but notice the multiple pieces of lumber piled on top of each other and strung in the yard amid the snow—“For the deck that he was going to build a year and a half ago!” Nick later tells me, laughing mischievously—and inside, the countless hammers, tool chests, pieces of plywood, scissors, measuring tapes, boxes of nails, and stacks upon stacks of blueprints and papers, detailed with instructions, that are completely covering the counters in the kitchen and the furniture in the living room, and waiting patiently in the corners of the house. “Yeah, as you can see, I’m working on many home-improvement projects at once,” Irwin comments, chuckling, when he returns from upstairs, where he quickly changed into jeans and a flannel shirt.

We then go to the Chatham College apartment where I’m staying for the two weeks between the end of the fall semester and the beginning of the interim term, during which time the main residence halls are closed. The apartment is in Berry Hall, a beautiful, stately building that sits to the right of Woodland Road as you enter the campus from Wilkins Avenue. And the apartment is beautiful, too, and very spacious—as opposed to the postage stamp of a room I’ve been inhabiting in Fickes Hall—with high ceilings, a nonworking fireplace with a mantel, white walls, sky-blue molding and detailing, my very own bathroom and shower, a large closet, and two single beds. During the year, this apartment is used for hosting guests, whether they be event speakers, visiting professors, or prospective students and their families. But since the college was basically closing down for a short period of time and I needed a place to stay near my job, I was the lucky one to be handed the keys.

Yes—my very own apartment for two weeks. Feeling carefree and responsible. Feeling independent and grown-up. No homework to do but just a job to go to and money to make. Everything I want and love.

And now I have an older man—at least ten years older—in the apartment as well, just him and me, all alone.

“Why don’t you just watch a bit of TV, Irwin, while I go and change,” I suggest, closing the bathroom door behind me, jeans and a low-cut, button-up, striped top with ruffled edges in my arms. “I’ll just be a minute.”

******

The above excerpt is from my coming-of-age novel—The Grill on Murray Avenue: A Story of Innocence—about the inhabitants of an unassuming bar-and-grill in Squirrel Hill, a vibrant neighborhood in the east end of Pittsburgh. The story is told by Jenna, a young waitress who dreams of becoming a professional dancer.