:: GROCERY LOVE ::

grocery store

Beginnings are not always a romance and a romance is not always true love. Everything in between consists of groceries picked up along the way. I stare at a jar of kalamata olives with cornichons, pepperoncinis, and all things otherwise cured. Then, lingering in my peripheral vision, a guy passes. I look over at a leggy guy with an infectious grin and we exchange smiles.

As reach for the slender jar of olives, I imagine the two of us naked sitting across from one another on the floor of my empty apartment. We feed one another from bowls overflowing with garlic stuffed olives, chunks of fresh feta cheese, and roasted red peppers soaked in extra virgin olive oil. He wipes a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar from the corner of my mouth. With the backside of his index finger he licks the thickly sweet juice from his fingertip. In reality, we exchange numbers in the parking lot and he invites me out for a drink.

We meet at the Arsenal – a dive bar turned hipster haunt on the Westside of Los Angeles. It’s dark and boothy.

When I arrive, he’s reading the LA Weekly at a table close to the front door. A blue-eyed gaze meets mine with a narrow intensity. “Hey Darlin’. You look really nice tonight.” His toothy grin softens the earnest stare.

I ask him about his accent having guessed Alabama. He is from Tennessee. I never trust my first instincts. He is quick to tell me he’s an actor and a screenwriter and working on an optioned-screenplay about the life of Jack Daniels.  A boy from Tennessee, he explains with smiling eyes, understands the south from his heart. “And I’ll only sign a deal if I’m playing the lead role.” Actors have a reason for everything, he explains.

Our conversation is prattlely and inconsequential but we both loosen up after a few drinks. The awkward politeness of a first date melts away as we warm-up from the tequila. We slip closer towards one another on the red-vinyl banquet and we touch in familiar ways, a hand inadvertently gliding over a thigh or a hand rests upon shoulder to emphasize a point of conversation. After our second round of drinks our gaze lingers longer and details such as the length of a neck, the curve of a hip, and the width of a chest are measured out. I think we would fit nicely together.

I find him familiar; the sort of repetitive archetype in my life, the never-quite-enough relationship type, and the almost healed scab that hurts too good to not to pick at type. The kind of relationship I learned from Father, Mother and Brother. We all do the best we can with the tools we have. My twenty-something years in Los Angeles were spent seeking something and someone to belong to but I had failed. In my mind, a move to Napa was a chance at starting over, a chance at finding an edge to lean into. A move to Napa was a search for love, for family, and for belonging. The final sign that I was meant to move to Napa was finding Josephine’s paperwork. My great, great grandmother Jospehine was committed for acute mania at the Napa State Institution in 1905. Like the grapevines I had deep roots in Napa albeit insane ones.

The bar is filling out with the weekday crowd looking to score some booze and a story to give to their co-workers the next morning. I’m moving to Napa to live and work in wine country in exactly three days and my view of Los Angeles is already turning into a dream full of symbols. Tattooed bartender with a secret screenplay that one day, in the near future, will get him out of the bar business for good. Bleach blond waitress saving up her nightly tips for the breast augmentation that will result in a famous plastic surgery disfigurement garnering her lots of attention but not the kind she really wanted. Two dudes in matching basketball jerseys sit on stools and check out chicks they will never speak to; instead, they will go home together and rub one out while sitting on matching barcaloungers watching porn on their recently acquired flat sceen. A twenty-something girl rests her head on the shoulder of an aspiring actor; she wears too much lip-gloss and laughs too loud at his jokes stolen from talk shows and told in a thick southern accent. She will go home with the actor, a red headed man in designer jeans and a muscle tee and they will sleep together once but they will never see each other again.

Tennessee orders us another round of tequila for the road. We cheers and clink glasses and he says, “another one for the road,” with an ironic laugh.

Tennessee and I leave the bar and I give him directions back to my place warning him of the boxes. We enjoy a long hug outside the bar and I lean into his tall frame as the words be safe keep repeating in my mind. I am pathetic. I should be packing and not thinking that meeting Tennessee was a sign that I should be staying in LA. I don’t need one more romance for the road but I take it anyway.

On the drive home I roll down the car windows to soak in the salty sweet Santa Monica beach breeze. I drive slowly to savor the moment. I succumb to a bittersweet farewell to LA: the endless summers, the waves, the traffic, the ghosts of ex-boyfriends and ex-friends and all of my collapsed dreams and failed relationships crash before me like the ocean waves.

The phrase that always gets me into trouble interrupts my thoughts. Maybe he’s the one. Who cares if I am moving in a day and who cares about my own personal goals and who cares about my plans to move to Napa and live in a winecountry dream swimming in barrels of wine, growing grapes, and falling in love living happily ever-after in the country. It’s all tossed out the car window because there is a glimmer of hope that maybe this time, maybe this guy, maybe…he’s the one. Maybe it’s possible to find true love at a grocery store in front of pickles.

We push aside a tower of boxes and manage to find some space on the couch. Clumsy to get each other naked but earnest with desire, he struggles to unhook my bra and I fumble to unzip his jeans. Tennessee pulls me towards him in sharp, concise movements and I hold him tight inside of me repeating the words yes, yes, yes out loud. HHe is quick to join me and at the precise moment when I have an orgasm I am flooded by the ridiculous notion that maybe not all actors are bad people.

We pick up our clothes from the floor and get dressed talking softly in post-coital tones. I offer him water. He asks if he can use the bathroom. We circle around one another to reassemble back into clothed people and Tennessee confesses that I am part of a New Year’s resolution to meet more women. I am quickly reduced to a resolution, so I resolve to keep my eyes looking forward.

I walk Tennessee to the door. He asks for one more kiss. “Another one for the road,” he says with an ironic smile and in that moment, the words, the one, simply fade away. We exchange addresses with the promise to begin an old-fashioned correspondence of letter writing. We both know it’s a lie. This is not my beginning.