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“Where are you taking me, anyway?” I asked as Bret headed north then hung a left at the first cross street.
“You’ll like it,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.
I didn’t push for details. I was content flowing along, watching the action around me, breathing in the smell of car exhaust, fryer grease, and ancient crumbling brick. That was the city, that mix of dirty and crowded and exciting. Somehow it was better, for all its flaws. Philly wasn’t a perfect city, with lots of broken architecture, lots of unsafe neighborhoods, and lots of trash on the sidewalks—but it had character, and it was still the kind of place people could afford to live. Even if the bougie neighborhoods gentrified at an alarming rate, there were still pockets of artists, blue-collar workers, families, and an assortment of other regular people mixed in all over the place.
Bret seemed happy as he strolled ahead. I hustled to keep up. Even when we were kids, he was a fast walker, zooming through the halls of our high school wearing his backpack and staring straight ahead like he couldn’t be bothered with paying attention to his surroundings. He gazed forward now, at the buildings ahead, at the stop signs and the cars rolling along, and seemed utterly unaware of the life that was happening on either side of him.
I’d always liked that about him, for some reason. Maybe it was because I was constantly so engaged with everything I saw, it was nice to have him seem like he floated above it all. One of us was impossibly grounded—and the other continued to drift.
“Here we go,” he said, approaching a building at the corner of the next street over. There was no sign out front, and the door was massive and wooden, with a black wrought iron handle.
“You’re sure this is right?” I asked, frowning as he walked up the short steps.
“Absolutely,” he said, “come on, trust me.”
I sighed, and even though I really didn’t, I still followed him inside.
The front waiting room was cramped, dark, and decked out in wood. Everything had that modern, trendy neo-industrial look to it: exposed brick, pipes up along the ceiling that were probably for decoration, and black and white photos of the city from the early 1900s. A pretty hostess took our name, and when Bret asked to sit outside, she turned and led us through the bar.
It was crowded, the tables packed. The bar was long and drenched in old drink rings and lacquer. Bottles shone, backlit on the wall. The hostess walked past more tables, through a door, and into a courtyard with a wide canopy overhead and white lights strung through the mesh. It looked like a fairytale. There were large, communal tables, and a couple of waitresses walked around taking orders. Another smaller bar was set up in the corner near the brick wall that ringed the whole area, and a couple of older gentlemen with big guts drank massive beers from huge glasses.
Bret took a seat at the far end of the nearest table and I sat across from him. He ordered beers for both of us as soon as the waitress came by then leaned across the table toward me. “What do you think?” he asked.
I grinned at him. “Honestly, when you invited me out, I thought you’d take me somewhere nice. Not some random beer garden.”
He laughed and pretended to be insulted. “This place is nice, you know.”
“I’m kidding. You know I’m relieved. I don’t do well at fancy places.”
He nodded a little, thanked the waitress when she placed down our drinks, and took a sip. “I figured you’d like this. Lots of people to watch.”
He was right about that. Our table was host to a couple different parties, one group of young professionals talking quietly, and another group of guys drinking aggressively.
“I’m surprised you remember that about me,” I admitted as the waitress handed us food menus and walked off.
“I remember a lot about you,” he said, tilting his head and giving me that vague, handsome smile of his. I blushed, sipped my beer to mask my discomfort, and dove into the task of what I was going to get for dinner.
Bret filled the silence by mostly walking about work. We ordered, drank our beers, and discussed how we’d decorate the office. “I was thinking lots of pictures of cats hanging from branches,” he said, gesturing with his hands like he was clinging on to something in the air. “You know, like, hang in there!”
“Nice one,” I said, shaking my head. “We could always go the classic black and white photography route.”
“True,” he said, shrugging. “That’s always fine, but I feel like office art is like music in a supermarket.”
“Window dressing,” I said. “Sort of there to be there, but mean to be invisible.”
