KatieAtlas

Before I knew it, I was kissing Stanley.

It was not a passionate, tongue-tied, obscene kiss, though that was what I wanted. But you just don’t kiss like that when you are standing in the middle of some crowded room and men with white gloves stare at you, you who is smiling and laughing and making peace fingers as you lend your mouth to a stranger. It’s just not acceptable to kiss that way in such a situation. Though, in my mind, it was the most passionate, greatest, most life altering kiss I ever had. Other girls had told me kissing Stanley would be one of the luckiest things I’d ever experience, though I was skeptic. I was a fleeting, chaotic moment. I didn’t have the time to stick around, I had to go. I wanted to sit with him for another hour, but I walked away. I took one last glance from the doorway. His shine lit up the room.

That was the last time I saw Stanley in person.

Little did I know, in fact, it was a life altering kiss. I would never be the same person again.

That night, a man poured a beer on my head at Mulligan’s. It was not like he spilled on me in passing, or he tripped over a barstool and beer flew everywhere, or that he even thought I was someone else. Some drunk idiot poured a beer over my head. I was furious.

‘WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR!?’ I shouted in a blonde rage, as he pointed at me and laughed between hiccups.

My white t-shirt turned a shade of dirty yellow as beer seeped into the cotton threads.

The idiot stood there and continued to laugh. His red flannel shirt did nothing to hide his grotesque beer belly — I guessed it was rather hairy underneath — and his entire body pulsated as he cackled. The whole bar watched him, his laugh echoing off the wood paneling of the walls. The music seemed to have stopped.

Two guys in polos and chino shorts walked over, picked the idiot up by his arm pits, and without a word, carried him to the front door. It seemed like a rather unlikely scene — two guys I’d never seen before hoisting the village drunk (or who I assumed to be the village drunk) out of the dive. The music returned and I didn’t give it another thought.

Someone handed me a wad of brown papertowels from the bathroom. They were the same water-resistant kind I had used all my life in school. I attempted to push the beer off me, but I was still sticky and rather wet.

Laura passed me a pint glass. “You need this,” she said, grimacing. “So much for good luck.”

The bartender took one look at me and poured me a double of bourbon. “Sorry about that,” he said.

I silently sat at my bar stool, gazing in the mirror at the strangers behind me. The beer dripped down my back to the waist of my jeans. The yeasty smell of hops was potent. My head buzzed with the sensory overkill. I suppose my jack and cokes didn’t help either.

Without a word, I stood up, grabbed my red leather clutch and struggled through the crowd toward the door. I could hear Laura calling my name, but I didn’t bother to call back to her. She knew where I would be.

A tall man stopped me in my tracks. Him and his buddies were clustered in a circle, like a flock of teenage girls.

“Excuse me, but will you get the fuck out of my way?” I said, as I stood, wringing more beer out of my t-shirt.

He turned around.

“Well that isn’t a very lady-like way to talk,” he said with a subtle southern twang. His buddies snickered. I said nothing, just stood, mouth agape, staring. He was very tall. And he was one of the guys who had escorted the idiot outside.

“Do you want a ride home?” he asked.

“Yes, please.” He was quite possibly the most attractive man I had seen in Littleton in all my life.

He took my hand and pulled me with him through the hoards of people, out the door, and into the fluorescent lights of the parking lot.

Turns out, getting a beer poured on my head was one of the luckiest things that has ever happened to me. This guy’s name was Mark Tynan. He drove some kind of convertible Cadillac from the 60s. Without even asking, he went to the nearest McDonald’s drive through and bought me a hot fudge sundae. He told me about himself– like how he was fascinated by New England lighthouses and the history of sailboats, and how he watched reruns of childhood cartoons when he couldn’t fall asleep at night, and how he one time saw a hawk devour a pigeon while walking home from the gym.

By the time he dropped me off at home, I was completely won over. Apparently he liked me too, because he asked for my number and if we could meet up the next night for dinner.

He took me to a French restaurant, right on the water, where we ate duck confit and foie gras. I tried foods I didn’t even know existed, and every bite was delicious. Mark confessed he was an avid Bruins fan. I asked him when Bobby Orr’s birthday was; he came up with the right answer, and I knew right then and there that he was the man for me.

Six months later we were engaged.

I never told Mark about the day I kissed Stanley. I never told Mark about the years that I had lusted after Stanley. I didn’t want Mark to get any ideas about me being obsessed or anything. (I did think about that kiss often.)

Yet one morning, at breakfast, Mark smiled at me and said “I am so glad I went to Littleton that day.”

“Why were you even in town that day, anyway?” I asked, smiling back. I poured coffee into his red mug.

“I went to see the Stanley Cup,” he replied. “I was lucky– I got to kiss the Stanley Cup that day.”