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Stolen Stars and Online Dating

Jennifer Leigh Kiefer

    I can’t remember his name. That’s how bad the date was. Her name was Lisa, and she was the best part of a date she wasn’t even on.
    We met her at a busy bar during Octoberfest, where she convinced us to crash a party in the basement with her. I grew up a rule follower, but the date was lacking excitement. Someone tried to stop us, but Lisa just started talking nonsense at him until he let us through.
    “Look at these decorations!” Lisa tried to take a string of cheap golden stars off the pillar they were wrapped around and failed. They had absolutely no value and I wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with them, but she seemed drawn to everything that shone. I wonder if she knew how much she glittered herself. I knew nothing about her and yet I wanted to be her friend. I felt like I was her friend.
    “I have to go to the bathroom.” Lisa disappeared into the tiny New York bathroom, and I never saw her again.
    My date went to get another drink. I still had most of my pumpkin beer. It sounded festive when I ordered it, but now it tasted as dull as my date and seemed just as endless.
    A magician was showing some girls a magic trick, I watched along with them until my date returned. We met the birthday girl and danced and talked some more. I did try. I listened to story after story that might have impressed someone who wasn’t also in the theatre industry, but they had the opposite effect on me. I knew that each lacked originality. If I had wanted to share them, I had far more interesting stories I could have shared, but he didn’t even ask. For as much as he talked about being an actor, I was doing a better job at playing the interested date.
    My date finished his second drink then decided we had crashed for long enough and went to find the bathroom before we left. I handed the rest of my beer to a server then went to wait by the stairs. The not-quite-glittery gold stars had begun falling off their pillar. I channeled Lisa’s confidence again and ripped a small section of stars down, stashing them in my pocket before my date returned. A reminder that stars are hidden among even the bleakest of skies... and the bleakest of dates.
    Lisa was probably more drunk than confident, and the stars were cheaper than my date, but they hang alongside my mirror even so. They don’t go with anything in my room; I’ve always preferred silver to gold. But sometimes I like the gold. It says my silver personality is not made from steel bars.

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