When there are no fireworks

To me, the Fourth of July is similar to New Years in that I can pretty much recall how I celebrated any given year. There's always a party, a big to-do, and stories afterward that make for lasting memories.

Some of those memories, I'd prefer to forget.

In the summer of 2001, I was 25 years old and had recently reconnected with an old friend from camp. An older, male friend, if you will. GB and I hadn't seen each other since the summer of '93, when I was 17 and he was 22. We'd always shared a mutual crush and maybe a few stolen moments in the counselor room, but because of the age difference, nothing ever really happened between us.

But sometime that spring, we got back in touch, and met for coffee in my neighborhood in New York. He was a lawyer, living in DC, and was just as ridiculously good looking as I remembered.

[You know how there are people who maybe aren't conventionally good looking but their personalities make them so, and then there are other people whose natural features can practically stop traffic? Well, GB belonged to the latter category. (Ask any of my former camp friends or my roommate who answered the door that day and declared that he was the best looking man she'd ever seen.) With chiseled features and a full head of blond hair, he had the face of frat boy and the body of a handsome, head-turning Adonis.]

Immediately, sparks started flying, the air charged between us. We chatted straight through two cups of coffee, both of us grinning and googly-eyed.

We stayed in touch throughout the spring, and I was psyched when he invited me down to DC for the Fourth of July. In fact, he not only invited me for the Fourth, which fell on a Wednesday, but also to accompany him to the Hamptons that following weekend. Perhaps sensing that might be a bit much for someone I barely knew, I agreed to come down on Wednesday the Fourth, but I would head back to the city - alone - Friday morning. I figured if things went well I could always shoot out to the Hamptons for a night, but I didn't need to commit myself to a five day weekend so soon.

Smart girl.

I took a 7 AM train which deposited me in DC around 11. Exceptionally, physiologically excited, my hands began shaking in the cab ride over to his apartment. But from the first moment I saw him, I could tell things were different. GB wasn't distant, exactly, but he hadn't been dying to see me, either. His greeting was friendly and warm, but lacking some luster. There was not one ounce of attraction in the air.

At first, I thought, okay, give it some time - maybe a few drinks will loosen him up. But, over the course of the day, as we moved from beers by the river to cocktails overlooking the city, conversation remained painful, a struggle. Watching fireworks from his friend's rooftop, I wondered where on earth our coffee-shop chemistry had gone. I could forget about the weekend going out with a bang; instead, our connection had already fizzled out, disappearing unceremoniously in the distance between us.

He (thankfully) had to work the next day, so I gave myself a guided tour of the city, relieved to be free from the weirdness that had settled over us like a heavy cloud on a hot July day.

The air stayed clear until dinner that night, when we went to a quaint cafe. We sat silently with little to talk about, and I counted the hours until I could declare my independence from this increasingly awkward affair. When the bill came, I reached and offered to pay. And to my surprise, he let me.

Now, I always offer and will gladly pay my way. But after (approximately) five million years of dating, very few guys have ever let me. That night when I reached for the bill, I good-naturedly (and, clearly, insincerely) said, "Let me get this, as a thanks for letting me stay with you." Remembering, of course, that he had invited me to stay with him. It's not like I was in town on other business and asked him for a place to crash. He's the one that asked me there!

The bill was around $60. That may not sound like a lot now, and it shouldn't have been a lot to him, then, as a 30-year-old lawyer living in a two-bedroom condo in the middle of one of the nicest parts of the city. But it was a lot to me, a 25-year-old on a beauty PR budget - especially on top of my $120 train ticket down there.

Resentfully, I paid the bill. And on July 6th, all-aboard Amtrak, I finally celebrated my freedom.