Lady with Pink Hair

It’s 3 am and I’m getting distracted again. There are 8 tabs open on my Chrome, each a different social network. I’m looking for Bram. I have to find her, I don’t want her to disappear. 

Barely a week ago, a woman waddled into my life with so much flair; it took me an hour to realize how drunk she was. Sometimes people think I ask too many questions they can’t answer; not Bram. She swallowed them up with responses that prompted me to dig for more. 

If others on the train were listening, I wouldn’t blame them for thinking we were crazy. A lady with a voice two notches too high was bragging about Cairo, hypnotherapy, her 3 husbands, and artists who’ve painted her vivacious face. It sounded unreal and I’m starting to think so too. Bram went on and on and told me things that didn’t make sense; like taking 3 morning-after pills is as good as an abortion.* I didn’t really mind what she was saying, her words oozed with life I desperately clung to. 

As we left the station, I told her “we’ll see each other again” and she simply waved at a bar up the street. “Let’s see each other now.” So we went for a drink at a faux-bougie hotel with large glasses of wine and people in suits who were uncomfortable with her loud voice. 

“I don’t do the whole shouting across the room thing,” Bram said as her coat fell and umbrella tipped while she moved a chair to be right next to mine. You know those nights when you binge-watch a show? You go from birth to death in a swirl of 6 hours or so? That’s what the night felt like as Bram served up episode after episode of Bram. 

Would you believe that in her 30 or so years of marriage with 3 different men, she’s had sex every single day? “It’s like brushing my teeth” Bram gayly stated, and then went on to complain about her husband who bought a boat and ran off to Italy last year. He doesn’t want a divorce but doesn’t seem to want and stay with her either. 

There’s the whole matter of Bram being a hypnotherapist who only likes working with juicy stories. “I get bored if they’re not painful, you know what I mean”? I always wondered about that - do therapists enjoy listening to people they find shallow? Now I’m wondering what my therapist thinks, have I bored her? Are my traumas too shallow?

I also learned about the Elgin Marbles, she’s writing a paper on them. “My friends got tired of me talking about statues so I pitched an article and now I’m getting published.” She was thinking of switching her Ph.D. in Aramaic something - languages, I think - to a Ph.D. in psychology. Here’s where I get distracted again trying to search for “Bram” with “Aramaic” in Google - how many Bram’s have published papers on that topic and maybe she has?

I don’t know why she felt like my angel with pink hair. Was it her joy, her soul, or the fact I needed a real-life, in-person friend? I don’t want to lose her. People I’m truly comfortable with in person are so few - and Bram lives just a few blocks from me. 

I don’t know where she’s gone. My texts show delivered and I’ve sent her two emails by now. Last night I tested a spam checker - all my emails go through. Is she ignoring me, or did she never want to stay in touch to begin with? I don’t want to think this way - who cares, really, Bram was an angel for the night I needed her. I wasn’t doing so well, my head was in places and she brought my thoughts back to my dreams. Is this hope? Has the lady in pink hair reinjected hope the night I needed it and now has disappeared?

I promise I never get attached like this. Last it happened, I moved to Paris and fell in love with the love of my life. That was 4 years ago, is it time for another fall? I’m too young for her though, I’m doing too well with my boyfriend for this to be the same thing. When I’m out and traveling, I could meet people twice a day and accept them as temporary, no matter how good the connection is. What’s going on with Bram? Infatuation with pink hair?

Maybe I’m lonely, I needed a laugh and now I’ve latched on. I want more of what feels good. Maybe we’re soulmates in another life, she came for a visit to tell me about it but I asked too many questions and she never got to her goal. Or maybe she really is just a one-night, pink-haired angel, sent to give me a real-life hug at the very right time. 

It’s 12 pm now and I’m getting distracted again. What if I reverse-searched her Whatsapp profile photo, will I find Bram? 

*my gyno didn’t back up this claim