:: GROCERY LOVE ::

grocery store

Beginnings are not always a romance and a romance is not always true love and everything in between is just groceries picked up along the way. I stare at the jarred olives, cornichons, pepperoncinis and all things otherwise cured. We exchange smiles as I reach for a slender jar of kalamata 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 and licks the thickly sweet juice from the tip before ripping off a hunk of freshly baked sourdough bread.

In reality, we exchange numbers in the parking lot.

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

When I arrive, he is reading the LA Weekly at a table close to the front door. He glances up as I sit down. “Hey Darlin’. You look real nice this evening.” His toothy smile forgives his intense stare.

I ask him about his accent and guess Alabama. He is from Tennessee. I never trust my first instincts. He is quick to tell me he’s an actor and a screenwriter working on an optioned-screenplay about the life of Jack Daniels.  A boy from Tennessee, he explains with smiling eyes, understands the south from the heart. He explains to me that his will only sign a film deal if he is contracted to play the leading role. Actors have a reason for everything.

The conversation is prattlely and inconsequential, but we both loosen up after a few drinks. The awkward politeness of a first date disappears, our bodies slip closer on the red-vinyl banquet, hands inadvertently gliding over a thigh, onto a shoulder and our gaze lingers just a little bit longer. I find him familiar, the sort of repetitive male archetype in my life, the impossible relationship type, and the almost healed scab that hurts-good to pick at.

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 leave for 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 plastic surgery horror story. She will get her sought after fame but not the kind of celebrity that she had expected. Two dudes in matching basketball jerseys sit on stools and check out chicks that they will never speak to. Instead they will go home together and rub one out sitting of matching barcaloungers while 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 to mask her quiet hope to find true love in yet another predictable one-night stand with a red headed man with a southern accent that she met at the grocery store.

Tennessee orders us a round of tequila shots for the road. We cheers and clink shot 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 and I lean into his tall frame as the words be safe keep repeating in my mind. I am pathetic. I should be packing.

On the drove 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 am on of the world and charming and invincible and full of hope, tingling all over with small sparks of possibility and too much booze. I succumb to a bittersweet farewell to LA: the endless summers, the waves, the traffic, ghosts, friends, collapsed dreams, and failed relationships.  I will miss the beach most of all. All the while the words, “be safe,” repeat over and over again in my mind. I have only one more night here and I spend it on a fortune, a chance at one last Los Angeles romance.

And then 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 follow my dreams to move to Napa, live in wine country, and finish the great American novel. It’s all tossed out the car window along with the words be safe because there is a glimmer of hope that maybe this time, maybe this guy, maybe…he’s the one. Maybe it’s true love found at a grocery store in front of pickles.

We push aside the boxes towering around us and managed to find some space on the couch. He struggles to unhook my bra; I fumble to unzip his jeans. Our lips make many false starts and missteps before we find each other’s rhythm and style.
Tennessee pulls me towards him in sharp, concise movements and as I hold him tight inside, I repeat the words yes, yes, yes out loud and he is quick to join me.  Suddenly, I am flooded by the ridiculous thought that maybe not all actors are bad people.

We both begin to pick up our clothes off the floor. I offer him water. He asks if he can use the bathroom.  While we circle around one another to reassemble back into clothed people, Tennessee confesses that I am part of a New Year’s resolution to meet more women. Quickly reduced to a resolution, 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.

On the morning of my move to Napa, California I’m packing the car with everything I couldn’t send and Tennessee stops by my apartment to give me a gift. He hands me Ray Bradbury’s The Art of Writing with the inscription, 5-11-06 Katrina, here is wishing you the best with your newest adventure. May this book help the words come. All my best. 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.