On one end of the couch Morrie sat with his girl. On the other end of the couch I sat with mine. We were pathetic and helpless, like two people drowning in quicksand together. At least half of our bottle was left, but never finished and to top it off, both girls said they were hungry as we were leaving the hotel, so we took them out for breakfast. And of course we paid for it. Over pancakes, they casually mentioned how they’d deleted our whatsapp numbers months ago, but somehow still had us saved in their memories.
In retrospect, I still can’t come up with a good reason why we let them take over the evening. At best, I blame it on the liquor, which is as good of an excuse as a dog eating my homework. But if I had to take a guess as to why we kicked out the other girls in VIP to be with our exes, I would guess it was a mutual decision amongst all parties that no one was about to have more fun than the other. We weren’t about to have any fun on their watch, and they weren’t about to have any fun on ours. Elephants unite!
The cab ride home was long. All four of us were squeezed in and as we were going up the East Side highway, the sun was rising. The night was long, made even longer by our unexpected run-ins with our exes. The first to get dropped off was mine. Morrie’s was dropped off next.
When he got back in the cab, I said to him, “If I were you, I’d call your girl tomorrow. She looks good, man.”
“Yeah well, take your own advice, my friend,” Morrie replied.
Then, for no apparent reason, out of nowhere, the cab driver, from the front of his seat said, “You guys both lost. Maybe try whatsapp next time instead of chasing ghosts.”
He had a point.
Morrie and I intended to go home differently. Separately, with new women. Instead, we were both en route to crash at my place, with no new women, just thoughts of two old ones who we knew we weren’t going to call the next day. And as we were getting out of the cab, Morrie said to me, “Remind me again why tonight was the night.”
And all I could tell him was the elephants won.