by Mark Rosenblatt © 2003, 2004

I carefully trudged through the falling snow in Park Slope, trusting my footing no more than I trusted the federal government to provide health care to all U.S. citizens in my lifetime.  On this day, speed didn’t matter.  I had a destination in mind, but as was the case more often than I’d like to admit, I was on my own, with no one waiting to meet me.  The snow was a nice touch, but it didn’t make much of a dent in the urban landscape.  As soon as the flakes made contact with the large stone slabs of Brooklyn pavement, white turned to gray.

It wasn’t the cold that drove me into the bar on Sixth Avenue, not particularly.  Cold was fine that day, but to tell you the truth, I’ve never been one to wander around in the snow.  I guess it was a combination of things.  The NFL playoffs had begun, and the Giants were playing the 49ers, and I wanted to watch the game.  The bar I was headed to is located in a wonderful residential Brooklyn neighborhood.  It’s a great place, not too big, not too small, and there’s a large, classic, amber-neon martini glass in the window of the bar, with a blinking green olive in the bottom of the glass.  There’s a pair of large-screen TVs inside, and the dark, warm interior was an invitation I simply couldn’t refuse.  I’ve spent a lot of summer evenings here at the bar, watching Yankees games and sipping top-notch tap beer.

I walked in and watched the room turn fuzzy, as if I was looking at the bar through frosted glass.  Actually, it was my glasses fogging up, the inevitable result of moving from Brooklyn outside to Brooklyn inside.  I took a seat at the bar, choosing the empty stool that completed a neat seating arrangement already in play.  Occupied seat, empty seat, occupied seat, empty seat, and so on.  On it went, the whole length of the old mahogany bar, up to the end, where three youngish women sat next to each other, wrapping the far end of the bar with a curved brushstroke of femininity.  Everyone else at the bar?  Guys.

My bar stool, an elderly piece of woodwork with legs held together by industrial wire, wobbled when I sat down.  I bent over to wedge a folded coaster under one leg, feeling slightly foolish with what I guessed would be an exercise in futility.  I no sooner squared myself on the seat than the coaster skittered out from under the offending leg.

A little kid seated at a nearby table saw my ordeal, and hopped over to retrieve the coaster.  I looked at him and wondered why my parents never took me to places like this.  My whole life could’ve been different!  I thanked the young man, and asked him whether he was here with his folks.  He looked about seven or eight, with a wiry body that begged to be sliding giddily across a barroom floor instead of fidgeting restlessly at a table with his parents.  He stared at me for a moment, pointed to a nearby table, and then ran back to his seat.  Several other tables were occupied with an assortment of locals.  Those who had company – some young parents with small children, some couples, some alternative lifestyle buds – chose the cheerful, red-checkered tabletops.  Those who came alone chose the mutually honored, yet unspoken anonymity of the bar.

I surveyed the patrons at the bar.  The first thing I noticed was that at 51, I was the oldest at the bar.  No problem here.  The rest of the male patrons were somewhere between 30 and 45 years of age, although age is difficult to determine in a bar where soft, low lighting is designed to favor those who have run too few laps around high-school tracks since… well, since high school.  No domineering romance-novel lords-of-the-castle here.  All of the guys were drinking top-notch foreign beers.  So I ordered a Dewar’s.

The bartender blended in discreetly with the overall atmosphere.  In fact, he wore a green mechanic’s jumpsuit over a plaid flannel shirt.  He had short brown hair, was clean-shaven, and was smiling.  His features were nondescript and non-threatening.  He moved gracefully from the cash register, grabbed some ice cubes, poured my scotch, and then plucked the $20 bill I’d left on the bar.

When he brought my change, I slid a dollar bill toward him and tucked the rest in my jeans pocket.  This earned me a quick, friendly smile and a “thanks.”

“Pretty quiet for a big football Sunday, isn’t it?” I asked.  The snow falling outside didn’t seem heavy enough to keep the usual bar patronage away from a Sunday in Park Slope with drinks.  “In fact, there’s enough room for everyone to leave one seat open on each side.”

The bartender leaned over the bar and brought me into his confidence. “Yeah,” he said, “everyone’s here with their imaginary girlfriends.”

Pretty funny, I thought.  Even so, his remark hurt.  I smiled back at him, then reflexively glanced down to my drink, and then spent a moment or two studying the tiled floor.  I wondered whether the tiles were arranged piece-by-piece, or whether they were laid in one-square-foot sections.

But the bartender was serious.  “I’ve worked here for a long time, and I’ve seen things that I never thought I’d ever see.  This alternate-seat seating arrangement?  It’s a regular occurrence here, and I can tell you this — it’s not about physical proximity.  The seating arrangement, at least at this bar,” he then paused, “is about relationships.”

I nodded in agreement, even though I began to think that maybe, just maybe, stopping at this particular bar to catch the Giants wasn’t such a bright idea.  Now I’ve got a bartender coming on to me.  Great!

Then the bartender leaned over to me and continued.  “See the guy down at the end sitting one seat away from that group of women?”  I looked to my right and saw a dark-haired man in his early forties, concentrating on a Schwab investment spot running on TV.  “That guy’s girlfriend lives in Schenectady.  They used to come in as a couple all the time, but she had to move upstate to take care of her mom.”

The guy sitting closest to me flipped a late model cell phone closed, shoved it in his shirt pocket, got up and headed over to the men’s room.  “That’s Carlos, a regular,” the bartender said.  “Carlos talks about his girlfriend all the time, but I don’t think she exists.”

“Why?” I asked, “and by the way, what’s your name?”

“Oh yeah, I’m Rick.  Carlos keeps calling his girlfriend on his cell phone, but I’m pretty sure he’s holding a one-way conversation.  I’ve heard the same conversations out of Carlos every time he’s here.”

“What about the rest of the people here?” I asked.

“See the guy with the goatee, holding the book and eating a salad?  He’s Greg.  His girlfriend lives in Boston.  She’s an M.D.  He tells me he drives up there every other weekend, or so he says.  I’ve never seen her.  I’ve been here six years, so I was here when Greg first walked in two years ago.”

A buckshot burst of laughter distracted Rick.  He looked over at the three female accoutrements at the end of the bar, two of which were waggling empty glasses at Rick.  The third woman, the prettiest of the bunch, was walking with careful deliberation to the ladies room, each step of her stacked heels snapping smartly on the black-and-white baker’s tile.  Rick smiled, shook his head from side to side, and said, “Be right back.”  Then he trotted over to the remaining two women and refilled their drinks.

“Hey, Rick,” I called out. “Bring me a glass of ice water when you get a chance, OK?”  Rick wagged his finger in the air as he walked away from me, acknowledging my request.

 I took a sip of scotch, and then glanced down the bar.  Goatee saw me looking his way and glanced up to the TV.  His salad plate still sat in front of him, the few remaining pieces of lettuce flattening themselves under the weight of what looked like creamy Roquefort dressing.  I hate Roquefort, creamy or otherwise.

The other bar customers didn’t notice me looking their way.  They all bore the practiced gaze of New York tunnel vision, with a hip Brooklyn twist, of course.  No looking left or right, just staring straight ahead at a non-threatening, inanimate object.  For most, it was the television.  For a few, it was a vague, unfocused stare at their reflections in the mirror behind the liquor bottles racked in order known only to bartenders.  My guess is that in thirty years, if the force of gravity remains constant, and unless these guys don’t increase their calcium intake and get some exercise, they’d all be leaning over the bar.

I noticed that Carlos was making his way back to the seat one seat away from mine.  He gave me a fleeting smile as he passed, exposing large white teeth behind a bushy salt and pepper mustache.

Rick arrived with my ice water just as Carlos was sitting down.  “Hey, Carlos,” Rick said, “this is… uhhh.…”

“Mike,” I said.  “Hey, Carlos. Thanks for the water, Rick.  You here to see the Giants pound the 49ers?”

“Hope so.  I’ve got a hundred on the Giants,” said Carlos.  I smiled.  “Took a beating on the Jets this year.”  Carlos went on without any encouragement.  “And the Yankees.  Jeez, what the hell happened to them this year?  They cost me a shitload.”

I sort of half-listened to Carlos while he talked about point spreads and underdogs, and how he expected today’s game to play out, until I heard him say, “And I just wish my girlfriend was here to watch the game with me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Rick, looking my way.

“And where is your girlfriend?” I asked.

“Awwwwwwwww, she hates football, she hates bars, she hates me gambling, she hates me drinking… and I’m beginning to think that she hates me, too!”  Carlos almost fell off his stool laughing, and then almost fell again when he grabbed onto the bar.

“No,” I said, “where is she… really?”  Carlos pretended not to hear my question, and instead focused on the TV.  Rick rolled his eyes for my benefit, then returned to his bartender’s mambo, working his way down the bar, cleaning ashtrays, refilling pint glasses, scooping up rumpled napkins, and discarding the occasional promotional coaster.  “This is gonna be some Sunday,” I thought to myself.

I took another sip of my Dewar’s.  I looked up at the TV.  Early on in the game, the Giants and 49ers were tied.  As I glanced at my fellow bar-mates, I took stock of the syntactic relationship among patrons.  It occurred to me that what we had here on this particular Sunday was a run-on sentence of men, punctuated by a question mark of women at the end of the bar.  And that got me thinking.  Was Rick the bartender playing with me, the senior representative of the I’ve-got-nothing-to-do club at the bar?  Was he kidding about all these guys having imaginary girlfriends?  And what’s the big deal?  Why imaginary girlfriends?  Who are these guys kidding?

“They’re not kidding anyone,” said a woman’s voice.  I turned to my left, where the voice came from, but no one was there.  The voice sounded familiar.

“Hey… putz… up here!”  The playful, husky voice was one I knew.  I turned to my left again, only this time I looked up.

“Daria,” I said, “what’re you doing here in Park Slope?”  Daria was hovering close to the ceiling with a glass of white wine in one hand and a pair of snowshoes in the other.  Daria lives in Lake Walensa, in northern Wisconsin.  I stared, gape-mouthed, as she floated in the breeze of a ceiling fan.  Her hair fanned out like fluid, molten, precious metal, shimmering in the heat produced by a mid-20th century radiator.  At the moment, she could’ve been a model in a hair-conditioning commercial.  A middle-aged model, but a model nevertheless.

“Don’t draw attention to yourself, honey… watch the game on TV, and I’ll sit down next to you.  Here… take my wine, and I’ll be there in a second.”

Daria gave me her wine glass, and then neatly executed a triple somersault and slid between the bar and the wooden stool next to me.  She leaned her snowshoes up against the bar.  She looked great.

Daria was always graceful.  I first met Daria at a bar a couple of years ago when I was visiting friends in Chicago.  I was sitting at a busy downtown bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention, with no success. “Yo, bartender!” I yelled.  Nothing.  “Some service down this way, my good man!”  Still nothing.  Then I stood up, leaned across the bar and yelled, “Hey… what’s a guy got to do to get some service around here?” 

This one got the bartender’s attention.  He gave me a snarly glare and went back to pouring other people’s drinks.  The woman sitting next to me looked my way, put down her drink and then stood, perched delicately on the footrail, and turned toward the bartender.  “Hey, good-looking,” she called to him in a voice located somewhere between a coo and warm syrup.  The bartender immediately turned and smiled at her.

“What can I do for you?” he asked her.  “I believe this gentleman needs a beverage,” she said with a nod in my direction.  The bartender lumbered over our way.

“What can I get you?”  Something between personal offense and “asshole” dripped from the bartender’s voice as he turned his attention to me.  I made a mental note to myself: you’re in Chicago, moron — not Brooklyn.  I proceeded to order a drink for myself, and then thanked the woman next to me.  She leveled her gaze at me, powder blue eyes sparking and flashing like metal scraping rapidly over concrete.

“Are you from New York, by any chance?” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “Why?”

“Well,” she said, “you’re rude, you’re loud, and you’re obnoxious!”

Still standing, I leaned into this woman, and when I approached nose-to-nose and eye-to-eye proximity, I responded, “And what’s worse… I’m Jewish!”

Then I smiled.

Fortunately, this woman… Daria… was sharp, and knew I was kidding.  She smiled too.  She knew a good line when she heard one, and she had evidently heard a lot of good lines.  We talked a lot that night.  I’ve always been attracted to talkers, and especially talkers who appreciate the rhythm and the give-and-take of good conversation.  We hopped around from general to specific, from personal to universal, from Brooklyn to Wisconsin, and from all to nothing.  We arranged to meet the following day, and spent a good deal of time floating around Chicago.  Over the next couple of years, we traveled back and forth between Lake Walensa and Brooklyn, and became friends and lovers.

There’s been so much written about long-distance relationships that I won’t bore you with the details.  Daria was perfect… for me.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t perfect for Daria.  So after a couple of years and too many trips back and forth, the 1163 Mapquest miles between Wisconsin and Brooklyn simply did us in.  But I still loved her, and was afraid that I’d never find anyone else like Daria.  I was somewhat troubled by Daria’s unwillingness to move to New York and take a shot at living together, but once you’re at my age, you better not let “what ifs” become the center of your existence.  While Socrates, according to Plato, may have argued that the unexamined life is not worth living, I would argue instead that the over-examined life’ll drive you nuts!  Stay in the here and now, discuss your doubts with friends and loved ones, but whatever you do, leave the existential void to those who are able to look into the great abyss without getting woozy.

And this flying thing wasn’t new to me, either, but it took me a long time to get used to it.  Again.  Some twenty years earlier, when I was married, and when my older daughter, Kathryn was an infant, I was first introduced to my very own fly girl. 

Both my ex- and I were very proud of Kathryn, our first child.  As first-time parents, we duly noted each achievement and incorporated it into our very own family history.  Some of these achievements were routine: the first time Kathryn turned over in bed; the first time Kathryn called me “Papa” (that was a biggie); the first time Kathryn fell asleep in the bicycle seat attached to my ten-speed.  Some of the achievements were both remarkable and unique: Kathryn memorized Dante Alighieri’s classic “The Inferno” when she was 9 weeks old.  At thirteen weeks, Kathryn was already diapering herself.  But one achievement stands out above the rest. 

Before I relate to you this achievement, please remember that while research into child development has concluded that many early experiences drift into the great “collective unconscious” of childhood (and my daughter’s experiences are no exception), I have found that parents remain the true repository of childhood memories.  Parents retain the early achievements of their children; the kids retain their later successes.

Kathryn had gorgeous, wispy blonde hair for the first few months of her life.  Neither her mother nor I had blonde hair.  Nor did any member of either of our families going back many generations.  In fact, given the condition of some of our family members, we were quite relieved that Kathryn had hair only on her head.  As concerned parents, Kathryn’s mother and I went from doctor to doctor in an attempt to get answers to Kathryn’s wispy tonsorial predicament.  How and why did Kathryn’s hair defy genetic predictability?

Each doctor we visited assured us that in time, Kathryn’s hair would darken and grow.  This assurance however, provided my then-wife and me little solace. 

Unfortunately, our parental focus on Karthryn’s hair color “blinded” us to another unusual developmental signal.  At about five months of age, Kathryn’s mother and I noticed that our young daughter was able to levitate.  Needless to say, we were beside ourselves with concern, but who could we tell?  Who would believe us?

At first, Kathryn was only able to “float” approximately six inches above the ground.  While Kate floated, we came to suspect that Kathryn’s special ability had something to do with the color of her hair.  As you might imagine, we, as parents, were reluctant to discuss this issue with our family pediatrician.  These were heady, pre-Internet days, when research meant going to a library and reading, so gaining access to the existing medical literature on levitation was no romp in the park.  Who knew what research existed on the relationship between hair color and this rather unusual skill?  Besides, what doctor would believe us?  What medical specialty does this talent fall under?  Kathryn, on the other hand, and at this tender age, thought that her special ability was perfectly normal.

As time passed, Kathryn was soon able to levitate several feet above sea level.  By six months of age, and still with no sign of darkening hair color, Kathryn was flying.  I can recall picnic trips to the country where with lots of open space, Kathryn was able to fly freely and I might add, with a degree of competence that foreshadowed her later success in athletics, music, and the academic world.  Kathryn developed a particular affinity for banking, a dangerous flying maneuver that created for her mother and me no small amount of consternation.  We pictured a future for our daughter in aviation.

As more time passed however, Kathryn began to fly less and less.  At approximately eleven months of age, another remarkable development took place.  As most doctors had assured us, Kathryn’s hair began to darken in color.  Kathryn’s mother and I noted an inverse relationship between the darkening of Kathryn’s hair growth and the frequency of her flying.  By the time of Kathryn’s first birthday, our young daughter had a full head of hair that resembled its present-day color, but was no longer able to fly.  Our family picnics became less and less frequent.

Kathryn may not recall this experimental period of her early childhood, as the collection of her later developmental memories took precedence over this remarkable early achievement.  Throughout her adolescence, I have occasionally reminded Kathryn about this experience, and she of course, chalked up my stories to good-natured “parental kidding.”  But I am certain that somewhere, deep down in the collective memories of childhood, Kathryn can, and often does remember her “flying” days.  I’m simply not ready to ask her.  Yet.

My journey back into time ended as Daria kissed me on the cheek. “Now what were you thinking about?  And I didn’t know you were a Giants fan,” she said.  “And what’s with this bar?  I don’t ever remember going here with you.  How’s the wine here?  This one’s just my traveler.”  She reclaimed the wine glass I still held for her.

She was wriggling into a comfortable perch on her bar stool, crossing her slim legs and twisting one ankle behind the leg of the stool to anchor herself, when I decided to ask her.

“Daria,” I said, “take a look down the bar.  What do you see?”

Daria turned to her right, scanned the bar, and then looked around the restaurant area.  “What do you mean, ‘What do I see?’  I see people.  Do you mean the young women at the end of the bar?  Someone here you know?  Someone I should know?  Be specific, honey.”

“OK.  Specific.  Who’s seated next to you?” I asked.

Daria looked once again. “A middle-aged Hispanic guy.  Why?”

“And next to him?”

“A redhead… God, she’s got gorgeous hair!  I’m jealous.”

“Jealous of whom?”

“The woman sitting next to the Hispanic guy!  Who did you think I meant, Mount Baldy down the bar with the goatee?”

“Daria,” I said, “there’s no one sitting next to that guy.  His name’s Carlos, and he’s here alone.”

“Well, if he’s alone, then who’s the woman sitting next to him, Mr. Smartypants?”  Daria was wearing a familiar smug little grin that she trotted out when she knew she was right: a dainty chin angled downward, and a pair of eyes tilted upward.  Coy perfection?  You bet.  But what may drive some men to anger drives others to feelings of mush.  God, I loved that look, even though I knew it was an affectation.  An effective affectation, at that.

“Okay… Okay… take another look down the bar.  Do you see the empty seats between each of the guys… all the way up to the three women?”

Then Daria smiled at me… that great smile that I had never given up hope would be directed my way for the rest of my life.  “Honey, first get me another glass of wine.  You do seem a bit agitated today.  Everything OK?  You had your eyesight checked lately?  ‘Cause there’s not a single empty stool at this bar.”

“Hey, Rick,” I called out.  “Get me a glass of Chardonnay.”

Rick came over and looked at me. “No more scotch?”

Without thinking, and with too many years of greeting-behavior engrained in me, I turned to Daria, then turned back to Rick and said, “Rick, I’d like to introduce you to Daria… my uhmmmmmmmm… imaginary girlfriend.  The wine’s for her.  I’ll take another scotch.”

Fluid Rick didn’t skip a beat and just said, “Hi, Daria.  The name’s Rick.  Chardonnay it is.  An excellent choice.”  Rick literally bounced down to the section of the bar where the wines were located.

Before I could say, “Rick… you actually see Daria?”  Daria put her hand on my leg and said, “I’ve been thinking about you.”

I smiled.  I always liked to hear that Daria was thinking about me.  Just thinking about Daria thinking about me made my day.  “And I’ve been thinking about you,” I told her.  She smiled too.

“No, seriously,” I said.  “Why did we stop seeing each other?  Was it me, or was it you?”

Daria was levitating about a foot off her bar stool.  After Daria’s smile, nothing made me feel better than watching her levitate.  And Daria’s aerial act was no affectation.  I didn’t understand it, but I knew it was real.  I made a mental note to call my daughter, Kathryn, and ask her what she remembered about flying.  She’s an adult now.

“It was you, silly,” she said, “and it was me, too.  I can’t fly here in New York, you know.  Sure, I can get off the ground, do a few tricks, impress your friends, but it’s not like being in Lake Walensa.  And you can’t even fly!”

Here we go again, I thought.  I’ve gone over this argument with Daria in my mind so many times that I knew it by heart.  “Daria, listen to me.  Some people can fly, most people can’t.  And of those people who can fly, it’s always women.  It’s as simple as that!”

“Yeah?” said Daria, pointing down the bar.  “Take a look at Carlos’ girlfriend.  She’s not doing so bad.”

I looked over to my right and noticed that while Carlos was once again on his cell phone, his girlfriend had floated up to the top of the room, and was scratching her back against the pressed tin ceiling while doing a modified breast stroke.  She let out a relieved “aaaahhhhhhhhh” while her red hair hung in curly streamers from her freckled face.

I looked around the room and now saw goatee’s girlfriend, with a stethoscope dangling from her neck, examining some X-rays.  And I saw two more women I hadn’t noticed earlier, gesturing to each other while talking to their boyfriends.

Then Rick walked over.  He looked me over, and knew something was up.  “How you doing?” he asked.

“Rick,” I said, “look around the bar.  Tell me what you see.”

Rick looked up, scanned the room, and then looked me in the eyes.  “I see a room full of people – not a bad crowd — eating, drinking, and watching the Giants game.”

“Thought so,” I said.

“… and a few women floating around the room… and a doctor?  Hey… I bet that’s goatee’s girlfriend!” Rick added.  “She’s actually here!”  Then Rick turned to me.    “What should I be seeing?”

“Do you mean to tell me that women fly around this bar all the time?”  I wanted answers, and I wanted answers now.

“I think you need another drink, Mike.  And how ’bout you, Daria?  Another?”

“Sure, Rick. This wine’s not bad.”

“Comin’ right up,” said Rick.  As Rick walked off, I noticed that goatee’s girlfriend was floating over to our airspace.

“Hi there, you two.  I’m Dr. Allen.  Dr. Susan Allen.  What are we watching?  Football or soccer?  I hate sports, but I do adore this place.  So perfectly Old Neighborhood Brooklyn, don’t you think?  Do you mind if I sit with you two?”

“Hey, Doc!” yelled Rick over my head.  “Can I freshen that?”

Dr. Allen nodded.  Daria introduced us.  I smiled.  Goatee was reading his book.  Carlos was watching the game.  A day-glo orange frisbee passed by me.   Three women I hadn’t noticed before were flying around the bar trying to catch the frisbee using only their teeth.

Rick brought us more drinks.  I asked Rick to hang with us for a while.

“So, Doc,” I said, “you’re a woman of science.  Would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on here?”  Daria put her hand on my forearm.

Doc Allen began.  “The only thing going on here is what you see.  I’m a doctor, but I’m also an imaginary girlfriend.  My boyfriend, Greg, works in Manhattan, but my practice is in Massachusetts.  We can’t be together, but Greg still loves me.  He’s so sweet.  And I love him.  If we lived in the same place at the same time, we’d probably still be together.  And right now, we are together.  More important, are you getting enough greens in your diet?  You do look a little pale.”  Doc Allen smiled.

While I started to detail my weekly diet of greens for Doctor Allen’s consideration, she interrupted me.  “Haven’t you ever been torn between someone special and reality?  Take Sandy, for instance, hovering just above Carlos… God, you’re right, Daria… she’s got great hair… take Sandy, for example.  Sandy loves Carlos, but Carlos gambles.  Her ex- gambled.  Sandy’s afraid to repeat her past.  And of course, Carlos can’t fly.” 

While I considered Sandy, Doc Allen turned quickly to her right, and deftly caught a frisbee between her teeth.  She removed the frisbee from her mouth, gracefully stuck a fingernail between her two front teeth, and produced a fleck of orange plastic.  With a flick of her wrist, the good doctor tossed the frisbee back to the other flying women.  Then she turned back to me.  “Now take your situation.  Daria’s afraid to get in your rowboat.”

“What rowboat?” I said.  “I don’t have a rowboat!”

Doc Allen looked at me in such a way that I immediately understood that she was using figurative language, and I had foolishly taken her words at face value.  She continued.  “You want someone to get in your rowboat and row with you, don’t you?”

“Well,” I said, “I’d prefer that they row with me, but I’d be satisfied if they were merely in the boat and willing to row.”

Dr. Allen gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, not unkindly, “A willingness to row won’t get you to the shore.”

The analogy neatly completed, I took another sip of my scotch, which inadvertently served to place an exclamation point at the end of Dr. Allen’s argument.  I thought about what she said.

While I was thinking, Daria had floated upwards and was gliding in smooth figure-eights over our heads.  It unnerved me.  Now she was just showing off.

“Forget about rowing, Doc.  And as far as flying goes, I can’t fly here, I can’t fly in Wisconsin… I can’t fly anywhere.  Maybe you haven’t noticed, Doctor Allen, and this would be very strange if you haven’t, but only women can fly.  Ever seen any guys flying?  Never!  Even the Flying Karamazovs don’t fly.”

Daria swooped down, performing a neat dive from a pike position with a 3.7 level of difficulty off the ceiling.  “You want me in a rowboat?  I was hoping for something more along the lines of a 52-foot cruiser.  But if I had to be in a rowboat, I wouldn’t want anyone else with me but you.”

Rick chimed in. “You know, Mike, you’re kinda lucky.  Most guys can’t even see their imaginary girlfriends.  Even fewer know they can fly.”  An attractive young woman, also wearing a green mechanic’s jumpsuit, stood behind Rick with her hand on his shoulder.

A frisbee bounced off my back.  The coaster kid ran over, picked up the frisbee, and held it up so that one of the three flying women could swoop down and grab it.  The kid’s eyes followed the women upward, and the smile on his face would’ve done any smiling Buddha proud.  When he ran back to his parents’ table, Rick continued.  “And I’m guessing that Daria here really cares for you, rowboat or no.  And Doctor Allen cares for Greg.  And Sandy… ” Rick looked around the room for Sandy, who was dropping kernels of popcorn on Carlos’ head, “now that I know Carlos wasn’t bullshitting me, I think she really loves Carlos.”  Rick then put his hand on his girlfriend’s hand.  Rick’s girlfriend was two feet off the ground.

“Great!” I said. “I love Daria, Daria loves me, Sandy loves Carlos, Doctor Allen loves Greg… everybody loves everybody!  So why does every guy in this goddamn bar have an imaginary girlfriend?”

Daria put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me to her.  “If I knew the answer to that question, honey, I’d be here in person with you.  And you’d be flying!”

Doc Allen drifted off.  I mean literally drifted off.  Rick was called down to the far end of the bar.  The three women wanted refills.  I looked around for Greg, but I couldn’t find him.  Carlos was looking at a menu.  Sandy was floating behind Carlos.  Then I heard singing.  The three young women at the end of the bar were doing three-part harmony to the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.”

“See those three?”  I asked Daria.  Why don’t those women fly?  Why are they here?  And why aren’t they imaginary?”

They’re not fueled,” Daria said, as if that made all the sense in the world.

“Fueled?”  “Fueled,” I thought.  Why can’t women make sense when you need them to make sense?  There’s a real thin line between frustrating and enigmatic, and by the way, what’s so special about being enigmatic?

“Fueled, honey.  Women need fuel to fly.  You need air to breathe, we need fuel to fly.  It comes from combustion.  Those three simply haven’t found their fuel yet.” 

Daria looked down at her hands, folded quietly in her lap.  She wasn’t flying, not even levitating so much as an inch off the bar stool.  Fuel made even less sense than flying.

I looked Daria in the eyes. “It’s the flying,” I said, “right?”

“Listen, hon,” she said, “it’s not about the flying, it’s not about the rowboat, and it’s not about fuel.  It’s not about anything, really.  It’s like that book, ‘Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus.’  You just see reality differently than I do.  Than most women do.  It’s easy for you to know what you want.  It’s not so easy for me.  Or Sandy.” 

Sandy was now tenderly plucking kernels of popcorn from Carlos’ hair.  “Or Doctor Allen, or anyone else,” Daria continued.

Fortunately, I knew when to drop a conversation, and this one I dropped.  For the rest of the afternoon, Daria and I talked and talked and talked, catching up on our kids, our lives, and our futures.  We left after the Giants blew a big lead, and found ourselves back out in the snow.  I kissed Daria, and asked her, “Is this the way it’s gonna be?” 

Daria didn’t want to hear that question.  So I asked the question again.  “Is this the way it’s gonna be?”

Daria put her hand on my cheek. “I don’t know,” she said.

I was searching for words to use when I noticed that I was eye-level with Daria, who was now hovering two feet off the slushy sidewalk.  I had to grab onto a lamppost to keep from floating away.  Daria was headed back to Lake Walensa.  She snapped on her snowshoes in mid-air, took a final sip of wine, tossed me her glass, and waved.

I yelled out, “I don’t know either, anymore,” and let go of the lamppost.

I slowly dropped down into a small puddle of slush.  I balanced Daria’s glass on top of a nearby mailbox.  Then I turned, and started to take small, careful steps down the sidewalk, with an idea to head back home.  I could go back into the bar, but I had enough of flying women for one day.  I could find out if the Giants won later.  Just then, I saw Doc Allen floating by.

“Where you headed?” Doc Allen asked.  She looked me over, and with the practiced response of a medical professional, and said, “You know, Mike, you don’t look too good.  Are you alright?”

I thought for a moment whether I should bring up the Daria thing with Doc Allen.  I sort of wanted to speak to her, to get her opinion on this whole thing.  But I had a feeling that her opinion would be the same as Daria’s, and the last thing in the world I wanted to hear right now was another voice telling me what I already knew.  “I don’t know, I’m probably heading home,” I told her.  “I guess I’m OK.”

“Well then,” Doc Allen said, “please take care of yourself, and please remember to get more greens into your diet.  Maybe I’ll see you next time when I’m in town to see Greg.”

 “I know,” I responded, “Broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts.”  Doc Allen smiled, and popped the bell of her stethoscope into the vest pocket of her lab coat.  “Hey doc,” I yelled, as Doc Allen began to head back to Massachusetts, “I know something else, too!”

“What’s that?” she yelled back to me.

“I can’t fly.”