For a stretch in the early 1990s, I spent a great deal of time at the Last Call Saloon on Elbow Street in Providence. I went for the blues music and because it had the best sound system in the state. Another advantage was that both the cover charge and the beer were cheap.
In 1996, I met “Scituate Girl” at the Last Call, someone I’ve written about before. Before her, though, in 1992, I met Maya, the first Jewish woman I ever dated.
As the band played, I noticed a woman standing a few feet in front of me. She caught me looking at her, quickly turned back toward the stage, then glanced over again a few moments later. Our eyes met briefly before she looked away. A few minutes later, it happened again.
I wanted to talk to her, but the speaker array was only a few feet away, and there was no way I was going to begin a conversation by shouting over it. I decided to wait for the band to take a break.
When they finally did, I moved quickly to her side and said "Hi". She returned the greeting, and we began talking. We were both relaxed, which I took as a good sign. Had either of us become stiff or self-conscious, the conversation probably would have died immediately.
We spent the rest of the night together, eventually moving to the back of the club where we could actually hear one another. I learned that she was a RISD graduate working as a bank teller while trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. I didn’t judge her for that; I felt much the same way myself.
As we talked, I found myself mentally cataloging everything I learned about her: RISD graduate, bank teller, sharp dresser, intellectually quick, and confident enough to abandon her friends and spend most of the evening talking with me. She easily kept pace as our conversation wandered through dozens of unrelated topics that I shot at her.
Near closing time, I asked for her number. She wrote it down immediately.
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll call you in a few days. Maybe we can go out next Saturday.”
“Next Saturday? Ohhh... I can’t.”
“Why?” I asked, already wondering whether she was backing out.
“Saturday is Tisha B’Av, and my family kinda wants me there this time.”
“What’s Tisha B’Av?”
“It’s a Jewish holiday,” she explained.
I remember thinking: She’s Jewish... and so what?
I suggested the following Saturday instead, and she agreed without hesitation.
A week later, I called her, and she sounded genuinely happy to see me again. I had been trying to think of something interesting for us to do, but before I could suggest anything, she said she wanted to go to the Wickenden Pub. I had never been there, though I’d heard it was a decent place.
She gave me her address and added, “I’ll meet you outside. I’ll flag you down when you get there.”
Meet me outside? I wondered. Maybe she didn’t want me knocking on the door or meeting her family. I pushed the thought aside. At that point, I was more excited about the date than concerned about minor red flags.
Later, I looked up her address and realized it was just off Blackstone Boulevard.
Holy shit, I thought. She lives in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Providence.
For a moment, I wondered whether I could even compete, being a “slug” from Pawtucket driving a ten-year-old Dodge 400 convertible held together mostly by optimism and a few backyard mechanic tricks.
Still, Saturday came, and I drove there anyway.
As I turned off Blackstone and headed down her street, I saw her waving at me from up ahead. I pulled over to pick her up and noticed that she was standing three houses away from the address she had given me.
The Wickenden turned out to be a great place—small, crowded, and full of neighborhood energy. Maya and I hit it off immediately. A few beers in, she asked whether I wanted to do a “half-yard” with her.
I had no idea what that meant, but she ordered two before I could object.
They arrived in enormous test-tube-shaped glasses mounted on wooden stands. Maya warned me not to tilt mine too far back or the air bubble would surge upward and dump beer all over me.
My first sip ended with several ounces splashing down the front of the best Oxford shirt I owned.
Maya burst out laughing and admitted she had seen it coming. I tried to dry myself off, but honestly, I didn’t care. We were having too much fun for the usual first-date nerves to matter.
She looked incredible. Her bangs formed a sharp line just above her brows, while the rest of her dark hair spilled over her shoulders. Between the spray-on jeans and the off-the-shoulder Christian Dior top, she didn’t just look expensive—she smelled like money. She was magnetic. I tried to keep my eyes from wandering all over her, but I couldn’t help myself.
I, however, did not smell like money. I’d done my best with a decent shirt and my newest pair of Levi’s 501s, even going so far as to douse my sneakers in Lysol so they wouldn’t reek of sweat and foot. It’s amazing what a guy will do for a date. On a normal day, my usual “caveman chic” was good enough for me.
We both got through about half the tube when she asked, “Can you do this?” She then proceeded to open-throat the rest of the beer, finishing the tube in one continuous pour. Great, I thought. Now I have to keep up. I tried it myself, but I could manage only a few oversized gulps. I was surprised she could do that; I’d only ever seen one guy back in my hometown pull it off, and that was with cans of shitty Budweiser.
At the end of the night, when we left, I realized I was completely pickled—and so was she. I managed to drive her home, and while we sat in the car outside her house we talked but the eye contact kept getting stronger and finally we both leaned into one another to kiss. Wanting to be a “good boy,” I sent her off into the house rather than pushing things too far.
Driving home, I thought, Wow, she can drink. But she’s fun, too.
I planned a second date for the next weekend and told her I’d gotten two tickets to the Comedy Connection to see some comedian I’d never heard of. It didn’t matter; neither of us had ever been there, and it sounded like fun.
This time, she didn’t tell me to pick her up outside. I arrived, walked up to her door, and knocked. A petite woman in her sixties—about 4'11", with steel-gray hair and an unmistakably Eastern European look—answered the door.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Uh, is Maya home?” I said.
She turned around and shouted through the house, “Maya, that goy is here!”
Within a few seconds, Maya came hurrying to the door and quickly ushered me back to the car.
“I’m sooo sorry... I thought she wouldn’t be home!” she said.
“Who was that?”
“My mom,” Maya replied, sounding irritated.
I didn’t ask what goy meant, but I figured her mother had already decided she disliked me.
About halfway to the Comedy Connection, Maya opened her purse, revealing roughly eight nip bottles inside. She handed me one, unscrewed another for herself, and said, “For a head start!” before tossing it back.
I hadn’t realized the tickets I’d bought were so close to the stage. By the time the headliner finally came out, Maya had already ordered three rounds of Snake Bite shots along with our usual beers. She was getting drunk.
I noticed the comedian eyeing Maya during his set, and I began to wonder where he was going with it. Eventually, he came down from the stage and walked over to our table to rib me about my very obvious salt-and-pepper hair. I got the usual “elderly” jokes, since I apparently looked like the oldest person in the room—at twenty-eight. I played along out of courtesy.
Then he turned to Maya and said, “My... you’re having a good time tonight, aren’t you?” He glanced at the empty shot glasses and beer bottles scattered across the table. Maya giggled.
He cupped her chin in his hand, tilted her face toward his, and said, “You’re wicked pretty... you know that, right?”
Maya, visibly flattered, giggled again and locked onto his eyes as he spoke.
Watching this unfold three feet in front of me, I thought, "You fucking prick. You’re hitting on my date?"
I was irritated with Maya, too, for encouraging it. Still, I knew I couldn’t lose my temper in the middle of the club, so I swallowed the anger and kept quiet.
Eventually, I drove her drunk ass home. I helped her through the door, got a second kiss, and left without attempting to stay. Her parents’ presence made that impossible anyway.
I told Barney about Maya, and he said, “You know, goy isn’t really a pejorative; it’s just a word for a non-Jew. Still, depending on how it’s said, it can absolutely sound insulting. And the way her mother said ‘that goy,’ I suspect she doesn’t like you at all.”
Then it hit me why Maya had asked me to pick her up away from the house the first time: I wasn’t supposed to meet her mother.
“Do you still like Maya?” he asked.
“Yeah... I guess. She’s cute.”
Barney continued. “Okay, think this through, Einstein. She got visibly drunk on the first date. On the second, her purse was filled with nip bottles, and she got wasted enough to flirt openly with the headliner while sitting next to you. Do you not see the problem here?”
“She’s... not worth it? Unstable? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Duhhhhhh! Did you just now figure that out?” he said.
To tell the truth, I sort of had. Barney had no problem burning me with brutal honesty and then rubbing salt into the wound afterward. He was merciless that way. In short: Wake the fuck up.
There was no third date.
Honestly, I never cared much what religion someone had been raised with. I’d dated Catholics, Protestants, hardcore atheists, Jews, and even one Taoist girl from Fall River. None of those things ever made my “deal breaker” list. What would? Alcoholism, a cocaine habit, or massive credit-card debt.
I once paraphrased that last point to a woman I met at the Celtic. I don’t even remember how the conversation drifted toward finances, but I jokingly said, “I hope you don’t have $10,000 in credit-card debt!”
The moment I said it, she shot me a deeply bitter look. Immediately, I thought: Wow. Thanks for that reaction. You just confirmed that you absolutely do have ridiculous debt.
Maya was beautiful—at least to me. I just hope she eventually got control of the drinking. Lushes tend to lose their beauty once they start falling apart.
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| Maya sorta, kinda looked like this...but not model quality like this chick. Close enuff i guess. |
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