OK, so if Maxx is Maxx, and Sisly is Julie, then I guess that makes me Sarah. Damn. I'd like to think I have my shit together a tad better than that.
Anyway, it goes like this (as if you care): I was working the night audit shift at the hotel and in walks this broken and beaten girl, Sisly. She had recently been hired to work for the same company, and the next day was to be her first. Trouble was, her boyfriend had gotten slap-happy and left her stranded in Oakland.
She was gorgeous, even in that state. We smoked a few cigarettes, shot the shit, and I gave her a key to a vacant room so she could shower and catch a couple or three hours sleep. I had developed quite a crush, but given the circumstances I kept it to myself. For six fucking months.
What?! I'm shy.
So, six months pass and word gets out that my birthday is approaching. Now, I don't celebrate birthdays. After 21, there isn't much occasion for notice until AARP starts filling your mailbox. Anyway, as it turned out, she had had a crush on me and, sneaky girl that she is, she invited herself over under the pretext of a celebration.
At this point, my plans to move to the desert had been well established. Insofar as I could hope for, this was to be a sort of simple lustful, all-that-could-have-been indiscretion. Certainly, we'd have fun and realize that we never would have connected in any meaningful way anyway.
Trouble was, every single Goddamn thing about Sisly is amazing. I couldn't help but fall madly in love. And as far as I could tell, she reciprocated my feelings fully. For the month and a half I had left in Berkeley, we barely left each other's side. It was one of the most magical, romantic, and silly periods of my life.
It was overwhelmingly sad to leave as planned, but what could I do? I asked her to come with, realizing fully how unrealistic (and selfish) the offer was. And strangely, she accepted, becoming quite excited about a change of scenery.
Life was dreamy. Perhaps too dreamy.
At first we spoke several times a day by telephone, as my monthly statements will attest. We figured an arrival date of late April and began to loosely work out the details. But April came and went. The launch date was pushed back further and further, and eventually, communication between us fell to a trickle. For a few months now, she hasn't returned my calls.
I have finally come to terms with the fact that we may never see each other again, though somehow I maintain the tiniest shred of hope. If nothing else, she is impulsive and I may open the door one day to find her big brown eyes staring back at me.