After a grueling 45-minute turned four-hour flight, I stepped off the plane in Los Angeles to the sound of my personal cell phone ringing.
“Hello?”
“We’re going fishing tonight.”
It was Zoë. I was happy to hear from her but not happy to hear about her proposed plan for the evening.
I groaned. “No, I’m not going fishing.”
“Yes, you are,” she confirmed matter-of-factly. “I need to meet some men. The pickings have been slim lately.”
Fishing was Zoë’s invention. Certainly not mine. We often frequented a bar called “F”. It was unclear what the F stood for, but each one of my friends had their own theory. John was convinced it stood for “Fag”, Zoë could have sworn it stood for “Fuck”, I insisted it was “Freak” (referring to the usual Friday night crowd) and Sophie, more realistically, liked it call it, “Fred’s” because that was supposedly the owner’s name. And I must admit, if I were named Fred, I’d probably stick to the first letter of my name too. Naming a bar, “Fred” didn’t lend it much chance at becoming the new “it” place in West L.A.
F had an upper level that over looked the entire bar. Zoë came up with a game where we would stand on the upper level and survey all the eligible men in the bar. Upon finding one who looked “intriguing” we would descend and attack. She later named the game “fishing” for the obvious image of us “casting” our hooks down into the sea of men, and hoping for a good catch. But despite the clever title of the game, she still insisted that the F in the bar’s name stood for “Fuck”, because according to Zoë, that was what happened if the fishing trip was successful. “Plus,” Zoë would say, “it’s the perfect view point to see who’s going bald.” Clearly, I only went along to keep her company and of course, as a wing-man to help her properly bait her “non-baldies” hook.
I never found any reward in the whole fishing experience. I had long ago given up on the hope of ever catching a fish worthy of not being thrown right back into the water.
“I don’t know if I’m even in the mood to go to F tonight,” I argued back. “I just got off the longest flight of my life!”
“I thought you were coming back from Las Vegas.”
“I was. I’ll explain later,” I said exiting the terminal doors and scanning the curb for the valet sign.
“That’s right. Over drinks and scouting for cute boys.”
“Couldn’t I just come over to your place for a bottle of wine or something?” I pleaded.
Unamused, she replied, “I’ll pick you up at 9.”
I sighed loudly and shut my phone. Looks like I was going to have to sit through another evening of watching Zoë judge men like they were grades of meat…or rather…fish.
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