Jason and I visit a t-shirt vendor outside the Easy Rider. We browse up and down rows of neatly folded t-shirts in the open air. Here or there, I pause to touch a piece of fabric or pick one up to get a closer look, but the price tag is outside of my budget, and I instantly put it back. At a very soft, higher quality, fun lime-green colored one with tribal art, I stop. If I were to get one, it’d be this, but I can’t.
Seeing Jason in line to pay, he turns and says, “You going to get it?” I say no, return it, and start walking toward him.
“Go back and get it. It’s buy two, get one free,” he shouts. “There’s no other one I want.” My heart swells at the surprise, so I pick it up. I slip it over the top of my dress. Even though I’m far from blending in here, I feel a step closer.
I’ve known what it’s like not to belong and to be actively targeted. Dealing poker at a casino with a 97% Asian population was humbling. Although I’d been dealing for years and was highly skilled, never before had I been in such a volatile environment as Wizards in Burien, WA. Whereas other dealers usually tipped their own heavily, an Asian female dealer never tipped me a dollar. But to the other Asian dealers? She’d split the pot in half, sometimes up to $50 or more (for one hand!) and pushed it their way.
The brain’s reaction to not belonging is experienced like death. As I teach clients, for 99.9% of the past 250,000 years, not being a part of the tribe meant certain death. We needed each other for survival. And although I wasn’t, in fact, “dying” in the truest sense of the word, my brain knew no different. So, even though it was sad and lonely, I am forever grateful to Trey for inviting me over that first post-shift drink.
Next up is the Knuckle Saloon. There’s a huge dance floor, a stage, and picnic table seating next to the dance floor. Jason gets a Long Island Iced Tea, and I sip at a beer, and we sit at a picnic table as the Liquid Blue Band plays much too loudly for us to talk. The bass creates an annoyingly fuzzy sound, and Jason downs two more iced teas as the songs pass.
Gone is the closeness I was starting to feel, as he screams in my ear over the music with horrid breath, as I hold my breath not to smell it.
The bassist catches my eye. His flat cap is low, and the bend of his fingers and the ease and confidence he has with the strings are more evocative than the bright, smoky lights, the half-naked dancing woman, and the electric guitarist’s extra-tall top hat.
When his eyes catch mine, and he flashes a smile I know is just for me, I’m forced to look away, feeling a blast of butterfly flutters. I take a breath, then look at him, and his gaze is unchanged, as he bobs his head, plucks, and smiles.
At a break in the music, I tell Jason I’m going to the restroom. Instead, I follow infatuation’s beckoning finger, slink past the bathrooms, out the side door, and into the alley. I guessed right, as exiting through the doors is Mr. Smooth Criminal himself with cocoa butter-rich skin and the same piercing look and smile just for me.
“Having fun?” he says, sending even more butterfly flutters.
“Kinda,” I say with a smile.
“I don’t have much time,” he says, looking at the door. Turning back, he says, “If you want, some of us are getting together at our hotel in Deadwood. Should be low-key. I can text you after the show.”
“Sure,” I say, and he pulls out his phone and punches my number in. He turns to leave and says, “I look forward to spending time with you.”
Going On 40 
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