Rebound Therapy

Chapter 2

It's Friday night, and I just got out of the shower.  Amy is dragging me to a wine bar.  Neither one of us is into clubbing, so we're trying a wine bar.  I'm trying to decide what to wear.  I want to be comfortable, but I know Amy will make me change if she doesn't like my clothes.  She'd say I'm not trying hard enough.  I don't really want to try hard enough, but she's not giving me much choice. 

Who goes to a wine bar, anyway? I think as I survey my closet.  I pull out a knee length black pencil skirt and a burgundy fitted t-shirt.  I figure I'll wear a scarf and my tall black boots.  It's not the jeans and comfy t-shirt I'd really prefer, but it should make Amy think I'm trying.

She shows up about twenty minutes later, letting herself in to my apartment with a courtesy knock as she opens the door. 

"Seriously?" she says when she sees me.

"What?"

Amy brushes past me into my bedroom and starts going through my closet.  She pulls out a green shirt with a deep V neck.  "You need to show some cleavage, at least," she informs me.  "So lose the scarf."

I roll my eyes as I take the shirt out of her hand.  "Fine.  Whatever.  Shoo if you want me to change."

She grins and leaves the room.

Amy drives.  She doesn't trust me to take us to the right place, she says.  She thinks I'll try to take us to a comfy restaurant instead of a wine bar.  She's probably right.  A wine bar?  I mean, c'mon.  I'm not really the wine bar type.

"It's for your own good," Amy says as we walk into the place.

The wine bar is decorated in warm, dark colors.  There's a mahogany bar, with high stools covered in chocolate colored leather.  There are also groupings of couches and overstuffed chairs covered in plush upholstery around low tables throughout the room all in warm earth tones, accentuated by dim light fixtures over each grouping.  Soft jazz is playing in the background.  

We walk up to the bar and each order a glass of wine.  I look around as the bartender—is he called a bartender in a wine bar?—pours our wine. 

I take my glass of wine and start to head toward one of the comfy looking chairs.  If I have to be in a wine bar of all places, I'm going to be comfortable while I do it.  As I'm sitting down, Amy sidles up to me and perches on the left arm of my chair.

"What are you doing?" she asks out of the side of her mouth while scoping out the room.

"Sitting down.  Maybe you should try it?"

"Why are you sitting in the corner over here?"

"It's a free chair and it looked comfortable."

"I thought we'd sit at the bar.  I was talking to the bartender and I turned around and you were gone."

"I don't want to sit at the bar.  I want to sit in this nice comfy chair."  I stroke the plush upholstery fondly.

"But no one can see us over here.  The point is that we're here to meet people.  We can't meet people if there are no people to meet."

I shrug and take a sip of wine.

"Jenna," Amy says in an exasperated tone, "you're not even trying."

"I'm here," I say.  "I came to the wine bar with you.  I'm drinking wine.  If someone wants to talk to me they can.  I'm talking to you, after all.  I'm not hiding.  Or I wouldn't be if you weren't blocking me from the room.  You're welcome to stay there, though.  I don't mind at all."

Amy jumps up as if she realizes she's been sitting on a tack.  She moves to the chair to my right and sits down with a sigh.  I hide my grin behind my wine glass as I take another sip while she rolls her eyes.  She can be so dramatic sometimes.  It's one of the things I love about her.