The Chances

Selected story from “Thirteen Views” (Senior Honors Thesis)

I was walking down the street when I saw you.

“Hey, you,” you said.

“What are the chances?” I said. “With 4 million men in the city?”

I was engaged, and you were seeing someone back in Chicago. We went for drinks at that little hole in the wall on the corner of 103^rd and Amsterdam. It was early afternoon, so the bar was mostly empty. We sat on frayed bar stools, and you ordered a scotch for yourself and a rum and Diet for me.

“That is what you wanted, right?” you asked, after.

And there was that moment of awkwardness that comes with knowing too much about someone that’s become a stranger. We sat in silence while the bartender fixed our drinks.

“It’s good to see you,” you said. “It’s been a long time.”

“I didn’t know you were in the city,” I said, and I realized that my voice sounded defensive, like I wouldn’t have moved to New York if I’d known – like I’d have stayed away from the whole damn city just to avoid situations like these.

The bartender brought us our drinks, and we preoccupied ourselves with sipping and swallowing.

“I’m actually about to move,” you said, when you had only ice to clink around the glass. “Two days from now. Leave it to fate to see you before I go.”

“You are clichéd,” I said. “Fraught and clichéd.”

“And you haven’t changed.”

“Neither have you, I guess.” I took a long sip and watched your thumb and forefinger working the glass.

“You know, I kind of hoped this would happen,” you said. “I mean I didn’t think it would, but I still thought it would be nice.”

“You’re not supposed to say that ‘til the third drink,” I said. “We’re still on number one.”

You laughed. “So you’ll stay for another?” and you ordered a second round.

We hadn’t talked since graduation, and I wasn’t sure why we were talking now. Maybe there are some people you can never quite detach yourself from completely. I don’t know. That’s just a theory.

We drank in silence.

“Well, are you going to tell me about her, or am I going to have to ask?” I said.

“Looks like you already have.”

“Well?”

“She’s from Chicago,” you said. “She’s Chicagoan. Or maybe she’s a Chicagoer. Which is it? I can never remember. She’s from the Windy City.”

“I gathered.”

“There’s not much more to say. What about him?”

“He’s predictable,” I said.

“Sounds boring.”

“It’s not.”

You looked down at your drink, ran your finger along the rim. It made an airy, musical sound.

“You believe in fate?” you asked.

I snorted. “You know I never have.”

“Some things change.”

“Yes, some things.”

“You haven’t,” you said. “You’re as impenetrable as ever.”

“And you’re still just as direct.”

“Am I? And I thought I was so mysterious,” and you flickered your eyebrows.

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. You could always make me laugh. “You’re no Agatha Christie if that’s what you mean.”

“Fair enough,” you said. “But all the same, I’ve been thinking a lot about college lately.”

“The good ‘ole days,” I said with mock significance.

“They weren’t all good,” you said. “Actually, lately I’ve been thinking mostly about the bad ones.”

“Lots of exams,” I said.

“Lots of what could have been.”

“Now, that’s a dangerous road.”

“I know,” and your eyes widened, and I realized you weren’t joking anymore. I wasn’t quite sure where the joke had stopped and the truth had begun.

“I mean, haven’t you – ever?”

“Haven’t I ever what?”

“Haven’t you ever considered what would have happened if things had been different?”

“Well, sure.”

You smiled. “See what I mean?”

“But I mean, I’m not brooding over it or anything,” I added quickly. “It’s just a passing, fleeting thought I’ve had maybe once every two or three years.”

“So it’s recurring?”

“It’s sporadic,” I said, adjusting my seat at the bar.

“But you’ve had the thought?”

“Well, yeah.”

You looked relieved. “Good, at least I know I’m not going crazy.”

“No, you’re not,” I said. “Or maybe we both are.”

“I’m okay with that.”

We laughed.

“So what have you considered?” you asked.

“You mean about these hypothetical versions of ourselves?” I said.

“Yeah, what do you think happened to them?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “But a happy ending, certainly.”

“Well, of course,” you said. “You’d have to be practically suicidal to imagine anything less than hypothetical happiness.”

I sipped my drink slowly, thinking. “I guess whenever I’ve imagined it, I’ve thought of us living in Queens.”

You laughed. “Queens? Why Queens?”

“Well, we’d have been too poor to live in Manhattan,” I said. “But Brooklyn is too stereotyped, so we could have never gone there. That’s where everybody else poor would have gone who wanted to stay in the city. Like Abby and Jay Lewis.”

“I haven’t thought of them in years,” you said. “They got married right out of college, didn’t they?”

I nodded.

“But wait,” you said. “Why would we be poor?”

“You got a degree in philosophy,” I said. “We’d hardly be wealthy as newlyweds.”

“I went back,” you said. “I’m in corporate finance.”

“Huh,” and I couldn’t imagine you in corporate finance. Didn’t really want to, either.

“But newlyweds, huh? So we got married?” you asked.

“Well, sure, hypothetically speaking. I mean I’m not opposed to the convention,” and I flashed my engagement ring.

“Hypothetical marriage,” he nodded. “I can deal with that. What about children?”

“One.”

“Just one?”

“Well really any number is fine except two-and-a-half.”

“Yes, I agree. That wouldn’t be us,” you said. “We’d have never been a couple to have two-and-a-half kids.”

“Never,” I agreed.

“And the weekends?”

“Hmmm…. Maybe a country house in Connecticut,” I said.

“To get away from the city,” you said.

“Yeah, fresh air and lots of space to run around.”

“Maybe a few horses, too.”

“That would be nice.”

We finished our drinks.

“I like that version of ourselves,” you said.

“Yeah.”

We both smiled. We looked at each other too long and both glanced down at the same time.

“So Chicago, huh?” I asked.

“That’s the plan.”

“The ‘plan?’ That’s a scary word.”

“No more hypotheticals, you know?”

And I nodded. “The real thing,” I said.

You got the bill.

I protested.

“I’d have always picked up the bill,” you said.

“You always did,” I said.

You walked me to the train stop.

“We should do this again sometime,” you said.

And I agreed.

But, of course, we both knew we wouldn’t.

I think we always knew second meetings can only happen once, but that’s just a theory.

I watched you down the road, then turned and headed down the stairs to get where I was going.