A Ghost In Lisbon

I was at the Co-op after work looking at chicken thighs.

I was wearing a dark blue suit and a yellow tie.

A man, younger than me by a few years, looked at me, not overtly flirty, but if I were to describe how he looked at me, he cruised me.

I flushed, grabbed a pack of chicken thighs, and moved on.

A few days later, my phone rang; it was my ex, Dennis.

“Hi, Josh,” he said into the phone.

“What’s up?” I asked.

I always felt terrible about Dennis. He is such a nice man, and I broke up with him because he was such a nice man. He never brought out the passion I wanted a boyfriend to elicit from me. But I loved the guy on all other levels, from looks to humor.

“Hey, were you in the Co-op on Tuesday buying chicken?” he asked.

“I was. Why?” I asked.

“Were you wearing a blue suit?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so, why?” I asked again.

“My friend Mark saw you there,” he said. “He’s a little shorter than you. He’s a nice-looking guy with dark hair. He said you two looked at each other.”

Looked at each other, I thought. That’s funny; a single look can communicate so much.

“Yeah, I think I know who you are talking about,” I said. Of course, I knew who he was talking about.

“He wants your number. Is that okay?” he asked. There was nothing awkward about it.

“Sure,” I said as I put the top down on my black Porsche and said that I had to go. The wind noise made talking hard. Dennis said that I would do anything to get off the phone with him, and this felt awkward.

I hung up.

Over the weekend, I finished with my horses and drove into Albany to run a few errands: my dry cleaning and all the other things I don’t get to during the week.

I was wearing a tee shirt that I am sure was not clean. I had on my John Deere cap, which had faded white rings of old sweat and a deeper, wet ring of new. I was wearing cut-off chinos and muck boots when I walked out of the dry cleaners with an arm full of shirts to my pick-up truck, which was double-parked outside Plaza Cleaners.

After hanging them up on the passenger side, I closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side when I almost walked into Mark, the man with the dark hair with whom I had shared a look and who had asked for my number from Dennis.

“Hi,” I said with a smile, extending my hand.

“Hi there,” he said, caught off guard and uncomfortable.

“I’m Josh, Dennis’ friend,” I said.

“Oh, right. Right,” he said, pretending to be confused, but he was not. It was clear to me that the Josh in the suit was the man he liked, and this one before him was not at all the man he made overtures towards.

I was the prince who was kissed and turned into the frog.

With this understood, without any words having to be said, I got into my truck and headed home.

Rejected.

***

Dennis and I sit in the window seat at Bountiful Bread, a sandwich shop, and he tells me not to feel bad. He says Mark is shallow and is just into suit and tie types. My weekend persona was a “turn-off,” Dennis tells me.

“We should hang out more,” I said, wondering why we don’t. I do like Dennis.

***

It is dark and quiet in Lisbon tonight. It’s 4:30 AM; my dream of Dennis was so vivid.

But know this: no man looked at me or called Dennis for my number.

Dennis and I don’t talk anymore because he died of cancer in 2015.

But the dream was haunting and not altogether meaningless or unwelcome. Sometimes, the dead only come back to me under the cover of night and the veil of a dream.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***