She’s not really the Nashville type. There’s something about it, like Las Vegas, that turns her off, makes her feel sad. This place of fast living, hard drinking, and risk taking—where one goes to live out a weekend of indulgence without guilt. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” a texter’s “Ahahahahahaha” plus the winky-face emoji. What does that mean exactly? A wink and a nod—we all know code for acceptable unacceptable behavior. Put sad reality in a compartment for a blackout weekend. It’s okay here, we get it. We are all worn down by life.

But Nashville it is, on a “work conference” (more code). It’s as she has imagined: 24/7 live music, sticky floors, cowboy hats, the air comingled with smoke as stale and used as the bartenders. A strip of honky-tonk road laid out in its own rhythm: bar, bar, boot store…bar, bar, boot store…

But she’s game, she loves to have fun. The ring has been off her finger for a year now, there’s no reason she can’t do what she wants. It takes a day to settle in to the groove. She’s traveling with her new friend and co-worker. And she is relieved to find her a very fun and easy travel companion. Her friend hasn’t had a ring on in seven years, so that allowed for instant bonding, the silent understanding of a shared painful and personal journey.

Being single again hasn’t taken as long as she heard it would from others who traveled a similar path. It’s as if she’s always felt single, living the life of a married woman. She’s just over the fifty-year mark, a summit she doesn’t really fight. In some ways she has embraced the new freedom that comes with children moving into adulthood and life beginning to open windows she has long kept shut. She finds herself tiptoeing into this newly configured life, not trusting if it’s for real or just a temporary dalliance in a self-made fantasy.

Physically she feels good. Yes, there are lines around her eyes, and she pays ridiculous money every six weeks to cover the gray signs of aging atop her head. But while she acknowledges these subtle signs of eventual death, there is also a rebirth. She feels awake again. She feels sexual in a new way, an outcome of newfound freedom, a mature woman who feels very comfortable in her skin. It’s more of a mental self-confidence that has bloomed. She knows men still look at her, and she accepts that will end, but not quite yet.

She remembers, after a few hours of Nashville life, that she really doesn’t enjoy country music and laughs at herself for thinking live country music would change her mind. So she and her friend travel down a few beats of bar, bar, boot store and settle in a bar where the band is playing old-fashioned rock ’n roll. Now that’s more like it.

They settle in at a high-top, drinking Stellas and singing along, melting into the evening. She’s not actively looking for a man to hook up with but she likes to flirt. Her eyes do a quick survey…not much to take in, and she’s in the wrong age bracket. The bar is filled with twenty-year-olds and a few older couples who, she imagines, are traveling together and crossing Nashville off their bucket list. Check!

She sees a group of three men walk in scanning the scene, that quick check of opportunities. It’s a practiced art, pretending to look for a place to sit but gathering intel with one lightning-fast sweep of the room. They choose the high-top in front of hers. She, too, can do the scan. Thirty-somethings, one cute but blasted (he can hardly stand up), one heavy and happy to just sit down and drink another drink, as Billy Idol would say. The third a little short, bald, but cute and relatively sober. He’s standing in front of her, a quick smile, a look apologizing for his friends—sorry we came in and blocked your view, interrupted your jam.

The bar gets crowded and the bald one winds up in her space. They talk some small talk, but the band is loud and it’s a back-and-forth of screaming questions and leaning in to hear the answers that you can only half hear, although it’s the dance of first conversations, so even though she can’t quite hear, she hears enough. First time in Nashville? How long you here for? Where are you from? These your friends or co-workers?? Just like the bar scan, it’s a learned behavior. In a few short exchanges, she knows if she’s interested in more.

She knocks over her beer, embarrassed. He heads to the bar to pick up a round for his friends and includes two Stellas. Now she knows he’s okay—not just a Stella for her, this tipsy older woman, but one for her friend. He wins points.

He settles in the seat next to her, away from his friends but facing their high-top and able to keep watch, like the designated driver. He’s nice. Nice, soft brown eyes. They’re here from Texas, he’s known these guys since childhood. The drunk one? Get this, would she believe he’s a highly regarded neurosurgeon? No way, she laughs, enjoying the shared incredulity.

As he continues to talk, she finds herself not hearing. She’s gone inside herself, her brain moving forward. I wonder if he’d want to get a quick bite to eat, get out of this loud place and find somewhere to talk. How would that look to her new friend? What would he tell his friends? She doesn’t linger on this; thoughts are coming at her at warp speed. I wonder if he ever comes up to New York, she mused, or if she could find an excuse to go to Texas. Maybe she could show him her fast, metropolitan world and he could share his slower southern life. Wonder if he wears a cowboy hat? Does he ride a horse? She hasn’t been on a horse in years, maybe that would be a great first date. Do long-distance relationships ever work out? Maybe after a year of finding love, they would figure it out together. She couldn’t live in a condo, though, a small house with a yard for their dog. What if he wants kids? I’m done with that part of life. That’s a tricky one. He has nice hands, she wondered if they felt as soft as they looked. And she watches his mouth as he talks—I wonder what he tastes like? She instantly wants to touch this man she has just met. He’s younger by fifteen years at least, what would her children think? Oh my God, I’m a cougar, she smiles to herself. But maybe, just maybe, this has potential.

In her maturity she has come to believe you can’t go looking for love, that if you’re lucky, true love arrives like a tidal wave, crashing down on its own unpredictable schedule. And then your only choice is whether to snatch it up, with all its logistical hurdles and illogical demands. But if you are so lucky to have love find and shock you? She would never say no. She is still recovering from her own tidal wave that dragged her under water, tossed and turned her, and left her on the beach. Alone.

And then she reenters the conversation.

Are you celebrating? she asks. No, they do this every year…with their wives—a quick getaway from the kids. Wives. Kids. She feels the deflation punch her hard. Possibility disappearing as quickly as it came. He feels it too but it had to be said, and now they can talk like new friends. He has two boys, coaches them in Little League. They keep him on his toes. He owns a car dealership, work is stressful. Life is stressful. Yes, she concurs…you are in a very exhausting time of life. She remembers it well. Her? Oh, her kids are grown, one out of college, one ready to graduate, and one starting her freshman year. She can tell he is doing the math…she can’t be that old. You look great, he says.

They talk, fitting in most of the conversation between “Walk This Way” and “Landslide.” He smiles at her. It’s not the pick-up smile. She knows the difference. Where are your wives? she ventures. Oh, they’ll be here soon, they wanted to shop a bit before they depart. He’s not playing, he doesn’t even scratch at the usual hints of dissatisfaction in his marriage, doesn’t ask about her bare ring finger. But in their short conversation, she sees and hears the wear and tear of life. Resolved. Accepted. Good but not quite what was expected.

The wives come in, boot store bags in hand. She feels very uncomfortable all of a sudden. I swear, we were just talking, she feels like saying. The wives stay at the table with drunk neurosurgeon and Billy Idol. Her new friend lingers on his barstool just a minute too long. His wife is glancing to locate him. He gets up, gives his new friend a conciliatory smile—back to reality. But it was nice to spend this hour with you. Really nice.

She watches as he rejoins his group. It’s all very warm between them; she can tell they enjoy one another like old friends do. They gather their bags, do the quick self-pat-down to make sure their wallets are in place, they have all their possessions. He had told her they were going directly to the airport to catch a plane back to Texas. They make their way to the door. He’s the last to exit, and with a very quick turn of his head, he catches her eye; she tips her head and tilts her beer to him and smiles. They hold that moment and it only takes a few seconds from recognizing a connection and conceding to reality. And just like that, possibility exits the bar with him.

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After raising three children and a quirky labradoodle, Pamela Domonkos has redirected a bit of her energy and reclaimed time toward her love of writing. She is inspired to write about life’s ‘aha’ moments that define us and which tend to be revealed at unexpected times and through incidental events. Pam grew up in New Jersey, lives and works in New York and dreams about living and writing full-time on the Cape, with her family and quirky labradoodle. Her work has been recently published in Entropy Magazine.