Rich wasn't sure how he and his wife and drifted apart, but after so many years of marriage he decided it wasn't totally abnormal. He sat sipping his drink in the nearly empty bar watching the younger crowd dropping money in the juke box and dance ever closer to each other. He wasn't really a dancer himself but after a few margaritas or even a beer or two he could feel himself loosen up. Rich's friends, all married men like him, played on the under-sized pool table at the other end of the bar. None of them are really any good at the game, it was really just for fun.
Rich noticed the young blonde sitting with her friends early on. She seemed to be glancing in his direction from time to time and Rich swore he saw a smile creep across her lips as she glanced away. He knew of course it could be the margarita that was smiling at him and not really the blonde. In fact, in was more likely Margarita than the stranger laughing with her friends.
It was getting late for the local crowd and the bar had cleared out to just the few clusters of friends who hung at opposite ends of the bar like shy teenagers at the school dance. Rich had walked up the to blonde, emboldened by his friends Sam Adams and Margarita, to ask her name and if she would dance with him. Deidra wasn't interested in dancing with married men and he had returned to sit at the bar. Rich's friends were wrapping up their game and saying their good nights. Rich waved goodbye as they filed out into the street. He wanted to finish his beer and then have the bartender call a cab for him. He heard the chair to his right scrape across the floor and surprisingly found Deidra sitting next to him.
"Looks like you friends have left you alone," she seemed to show the same clouded smile Rich thought he saw most of the night.
"I'm leaving when I finish off the rest of this beer," he swirled the bottom inch of brown liquid around his glass. Rich noticed Deidra was facing him sitting sideways to the bar, her legs slightly straddled his stool. "I thought you didn't talk to married guys?"
"I said I don't dance with married guys. But it looks like your married friends are gone. You know my family and Mike's are really close", she explained, dropping the name of one of the guys who walked out moments before. "How would that look if he told his family you and I were dancing at the bar?"
"It would look like we were dancing." Of course being the small town that it is, it would look like a lot more than dancing was going on. Rich knew that. He took another sip of beer and pondered his reflection next to hers in the mirror behind the bar. He realized they were alone, with the exception of the female bartender who had wandered off to clean a table or something. It began to feel like she was much closer to him that she was, like he could feel her inside his psychic bubble. "So are you saying you want to dance now?"
"No," Deidra replied quickly, "I said I don't dance with married men."