Would You Check on Those Cookies, Please?

Grief encounters of the most uncomfortable kind.

December 2022

She insisted on holding my hand. To the point where it was weird. To the point that the bartender who had previously and indiscreetly been assessing the length of her was now giving me a covertly creepy thumbs up. Everything about all of this was making me feel like I needed a shower. I withdrew and told her that I wished the best for her son and her, and to stay as strong as she could for him. To which she balked, finished her drink, and placed her head on the bar. 

I was staying in Portland for the evening, having just participated in a fundraising author event across the street from the hotel I was staying in. I had finished my dinner at the bar and was eagerly awaiting the cookies I ordered to go, so I could get the fuck out of there.

Halfway through my dinner, a noticeably attractive woman came in and sat two seats away from me. And the men at, and behind the bar noticed her arrival as well. I continued eating as she sighed and occasionally stretched. She got a few takers, but both were quickly met with cold indifference. When I refused to take the bait she finally broke the ice herself and engaged me in small talk. Which quickly turned serious when she informed me that she had a son at home battling cancer.

At first, it angered me a little. That she was at the bar drinking and wallowing while her son, still very much alive but battling cancer, was somewhere else being alive and battling cancer. Then I quickly felt like shit for judging her that way. In hindsight, I think I understand why I did, though. I know it’s selfish, but what I wouldn’t give to have Kara battling cancer but here right now. Well, that’s horrible - but you know what I mean. I said it was selfish - relax.

Shit, I would love to just be drinking and drugging myself to death - no one is relying on me right now, so why not? But who am I, of all people, to be casting aspersions from my ivory tower of grief? I have no idea what this woman has been or is currently going through, and this might be her first night out to have a few drinks and blow off steam in God knows how long.

“Would you check on those cookies, please? You don’t have to heat them up or anything.”

She was driving it hard, though, while for whatever reason also throwing not-so-subtle barbs at me and the perceived life of ease a person who gets to sign his own books must be enjoying. Frustrated, I finally threw my grief trump card down on the table not only to let her know she wasn’t the only one currently eating a shit sandwich but to also hopefully bring this whole uncomfortable incident to a merciful halt.

In hindsight, had I thought about it for 5 more seconds I would have recognized that that was a terrible idea. Because it caused her to immediately erase the space between us and officially enter my world. Grasping my hand and engaging in what the side of my head told me was some pretty intense attempted eye contact.

I’m not entirely sure what her goals were for the evening or what she was hoping to get out of our interaction. Maybe she just wanted to put her life down for a few hours and enjoy some drinks and a bite at the bar, but then the sads showed up. It could have been that she wanted to share her grief with someone, and the seemingly safe guy who didn’t hit on her was an acceptable option. She might have wanted to fuck the pain away, and I again was a serviceable target. Or all of the above or none of it. I don’t know. What I do know, is her picker was not calibrated correctly at all that night. Because straight across the board, I was not that dude.

While certainly empathetic, I wasn’t in a place to listen to another person’s drunken woe-is-me-isms. I totally get it. I have regularly been the wettest blanket in the room this last year. I don’t deny her any of it. And I wish I could have been what she needed. Or at the very least been a good sounding board, the way I want people to be for me. I just didn’t have it in me. Especially after she had assumed that my life was all cuddles and coffecake because I sign books. Unfortunately for her, at that point, I was possibly the worst fella in Portland to tell a sob story to or try to take home for the night. Everybody loses.

“Christ, are they making those cookies to order?”

The cookies finally arrived and I stood up slowly. Still facially bar-bound, I placed a warm, but clearly friendly hand on her shoulder (pat pat). I wished her the best, then continued walking towards the elevator. “Don’t look back, you can never look back” is some of the finest advice that Don Henley has ever delivered in lyrical form. And I adhered to it, lest I leave a door cracked or wiggle room for misinterpretation. Cookies were subpar.