Bagel Bites: An Essay
Bagel Bites
“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Tay asked me. “I feel really terrible leaving you by yourself.” Her mouth was set in a frown, and her brow so deeply furrowed with concern, it could have held a toothpick aloft.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Alone or not, I get to spend one more day in Charleston. The weather is supposed to be really nice tomorrow.”
It was October of 2019. I was visiting Winston Tay (not to be confused with D.C. Tay, not to be confused with…well, me) to glimpse her shiny new coastal life in Charleston, attending PA school at MUSC, where she lived with three roommates in a small apartment. It lay directly next to campus, walkable to King Street. Having spent her whole life in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, this was her first big chapter somewhere new, and my heart burst with pride for my friend. On the tail end of a breakup, she sought and found a big leap in creating a new chapter for herself. She’d taken the day off on Friday to welcome my arrival, and we’d not wasted a single minute since: weaving through rows upon rows of pastel-colored houses on pastel blue rental bikes, people-watching at College of Charleston as its rowdy senior class celebrated its graduation weekend, shopping on King Street by day and bar hopping on King Street with her classmates by night. Tipsily, while out getting ice cream at midnight, having taken shots at a Mexican restaurant at dinner that night, I laughed ‘til tears streamed down my beet-red face when I realized I’d just paid twelve dollars for a single-scoop waffle cone (with whipped cream) at Jeni’s ice cream.
With her magnetic energy and infectious laugh, Tay was one of those friends with whom I managed to make more of them whenever we were together. Even getting caught in the rain on our walk home from a night out downtown late one night felt whimsical. Only she would choose that moment to toss back her head and laugh, as liberally as I’d ever seen her, as rain drops fell and gradually weighed down her wild auburn curls. There was no wishing for umbrellas or regrettably fretting over the work we’d put into our hair and makeup that night. That decision to toss our cares into that rainy night drew a release of something more tangible than we had words for that night. It felt like a rare, sweet, honest reaching for a childlike moment again. In our whirls of heartbreak and bills and rejection and responsibilities, with no parent to shield you, no partner to share the weight with, it was a moment to relish. And relish it we did. Tay’s energy had grown even more captivating since I’d seen her last, the same kind that continues attracting all kinds of people to her.
But now it was Sunday night, and she had to re-pack her duffel bag once again and head to her next residency rotation, somewhere in Nowheresville, South Carolina, several hours away. She would start the following morning on Monday. I, meanwhile, was not due back in D.C. until early Tuesday morning. We’d known this. And yet I saw her guilt now weighing heavily on her, an inky black cannonball tied to her feet.
I took her by the shoulders. “Tay,” I said, with mock sternness now, “I promise I’m good.” She offered a pained, unconvinced look. “I’ll have plenty of coffee shops to peruse, plenty to write about.” I grabbed my Kindle from my backpack on the floor of her bedroom. “I brought a book!”
Somewhat placated, she finally conceded, and we walked outside to her car to hug goodbye. Tossing her duffel in the trunk of her BMW, she reversed out of the parking lot and drove away, waving a bit forlornly as she left.
Waving back with one hand, I shielded my eyes with the other, squinting in the sun. I had no plans, a rarity and a joy, and thrilled at the thought of doing nothing all day. Then I had an idea. I pulled out my phone and texted Connor, a friend and PA classmate of Tay’s. Would you mind sending me Dylan’s number? I typed before tapping send. Of course! he replied back minutes later.
I typed a new text to Dylan. Wanna grab a bite to eat?
Connor and his boyfriend, Dylan, had joined us that weekend in a friend group outing of MUSC PA classmates. As the two non-PA plus ones in the group, Dylan and I found we had more than enough in common to enjoy long conversations.
Tay’s roommates, Mae and Moo, two tall and slender blondes I secretly (shamefully) had trouble telling apart, described Dylan and Connor as the two most attractive people they’d ever seen, hands down. “Dylan’s a model,” said Mae with wide eyes. “Like literally. He does it on the side.”
“It’s really not fair, how good-looking they both are,” said Moo with listless acceptance, adding matter-of-factly, “The rest of us will never stand a chance.”
Sure enough, when the pair arrived together at our first rooftop bar of the evening, time slowed and sound blurred, their entrance a slow-motion unveiling like that of two singles striding smugly onto the set of Too Hot to Handle. The drizzling rain that night seemed to part obediently as they walked, two Moseses parting the Red Sea. Both had dark hair shorn flawlessly into undercuts, chiseled jawlines, and well-fitted button-down shirts in festive prints. Tan France would have flung his hands into the air in jubilation. Together, their combined energies, ineffable, drew rapt attention with an effortless ease, all the while oblivious to it all.
Classmates united, and their chatter was soon abuzz with all sorts of medical blether–anatomy, physiology, the latest odd patients they’d seen that week–from the ER to the gynecology office. They took off like firecrackers and soon had my head spinning. I thought of my summer spent in France, straining to catch what few words I could as native francophones conversed rapidly, impossibly. the. and. bathrooms. went. I like… May I please…?
So when Dylan introduced himself as someone working not in medicine, but environmental science, I exhaled in relief. While the others compared clinical pursuits, Dylan and I spent the next few hours turning over topics spanning that of two people deliberating how to build a purposeful life: friends, dreams, careers, cities, plans, loves. It quickly became one of the highlights of my visit. Like a backseat passenger, I followed the group absent-mindedly as we moved from the first bar to the second to the third, at ease, glad for a new friend, eager to learn how he found this glittery beachside city, how he and Connor were building a life.
My phone buzzed with Dylan’s reply, suggesting we meet at a nearby tex mex spot called Fuel. So I hopped on a rental bike and rode that way. As I pedaled, I marveled at the varied miscellany that was Charleston architecture, which beckoned a wholly different time in history: Georgian, Victorian, Colonial, Federal, Greek Revival, Neoclassical. Wrought iron gates and angular gas lanterns. Spanish moss draping Southern magnolias. Azalea and rose bushes in shocks of pink, red, blue, purple. Few places I’d seen left me this impression: that certainly nowhere else on earth looked quite like this.
I arrived a few minutes early, the place quiet on a weekday lunch hour. The island-inspired restaurant had rounded corners, shaped like a vintage diner, with glass block windows in a wave pattern. And suddenly I was transported through time, five years old again, seated in a polyester booth with my mom and grandparents, my little legs swinging under the table. It looked just like a retro diner in Orlando, covered in Andy Warhol-inspired pop art of Disney characters, where my grandparents used to take us. I felt something like a bright yellow balloon swell inside my chest at the memory, familiar and warm.
I hopped off my bike, locked it, and stepped inside. When Dylan arrived, he smiled broadly and gave me a big hug.
In the daylight, Dylan was a welcome sight for sore eyes. It almost physically hurt to look at him. Between Connor and him, Dylan was the taller one–probably six foot three–and clearly kept close to his barber, his beard neatly trimmed, his haircut fresh. Had he somehow squeezed in a haircut since I’d last seen him?
We were seated outside and ordered ice cold Coronas with lime, tacos, and housemade chips and guac, the hearty meal welcome after a tequila-filled weekend. Our conversation flowed as easily as it had on Saturday night. I appreciated how well he listened, crossing my fingers that I wasn’t droning on and on about my latest wretched job. I liked that he challenged my cynical observations that were beginning to crystallize (“I don’t think all women in the workplace are bitchy,” he said, repeating my statement’s inverse.) I was swan diving into irreparable bitterness toward unkind female coworkers–the gossipping, the backstabbing, the passive aggression and snide comments were wearing me down. Here, Dylan was offering a hand, pulling me back to the surface, offering a bit of perspective. His hopefulness was a welcome antidote.
When we paid and got up to leave, I squared to face him and goodbye, finding myself saddened that our lunch was ending already. Surely he had somewhere to be, something fabulously model-y. What did models do on their days off? That was something for underlings like me to only wonder.
Instead, he suggested heading to a bar downtown for a second round of drinks. I have no other plans, and even if I did, I’d have canceled them, unregretfully. So instead of returning to my rental bike still locked at the bike rack, I hopped in his car and rode with him into town. Arriving in the French Quarter, we parked on Broad and I followed him across the street. With opaque-tinted windows, this bar stood unassumingly on an otherwise active street, flanked by palm trees and bright and welcoming shop fronts like the rest of downtown Charleston. It held an air of mystery that its neighbors lacked: McDowell & Robinson: Attorneys at Law. Falk Law Firm. Wessex Capital Investments. Seibels Law.
I glanced up at a black sign that hung above the door from a wrought iron sign post: “The Blind Tiger Pub,” a rearing tiger below the name.
When Dylan held open the door for me and I stepped inside, my eyes adjusting to the dim light, kept dark beneath an ornate square-tiled ceiling, painted glossy black. A taxidermied bust of a Bengal tiger, mid-roar, yellow-eyed, stared down at us hungrily from above the bar. Skulls dotted the shelving, punctuation marks among rows and rows of liquor. The deep cherry walls looked as though were I to rap one of them softly with my knuckle, it would open instantly to reveal a secret entryway.
We crossed the restaurant and stepped outdoors, which surely musr have been based on a rendering of Captain Jack Sparrow’s favorite tavern on a debaucherous stop at the infamous port of Tortuga–a design for Disney World that had, in the end, been scrapped. My gaze swept about, as I marveled at the brick walls with open arches, palm trees dripping with weepy Spanish moss, and bulbous, upright barrels that doubled as busing stations, surely once filled with rum, and ceremoniously emptied by a stumbly Jack Sparrow, whom I imagined scrambling over the brick wall in flight of his latest assailant. Towering patio heaters stood unused on the side; fanning myself in the sticky heat, I struggled to imagine them ever getting used. I watched happily as a small stone fountain trickled quietly, quirkily, in the corner.
And on that Monday in October, a federal holiday, we practically had the place to ourselves.
We sat on barstools at the outdoor bar, vacant. Dylan ordered a mojito. I changed my mind and did the same. Our drinks arrived and we clinked glasses, which were already sweating from the outdoor heat. As I sipped, I wondered how we must have looked together to passersby. It’s not that I think I get more attractive with age–or perhaps, maybe I do. Either way–be it causation or correlation–I’m finding that as I get older, the better acquainted I am with myself, and the more authentically and confidently I carry myself. People can sense that in one another, whether they have the language to say so or not. It’s in the moment when people choose what to feel toward someone new: admiration, envy, apathy, attraction, all mirroring how we regard ourselves. Are they a threat to what I want? Or, Will they complement what I already have?
Once shy and self-conscious as a kid, my twenties has been my era of unabashed self discovery, shedding fear for self-assuredness, conflict-aversion for boldly asking. My sense of style has slimmed to a sophisticated point, and a touch eccentric, like Babe Paley’s. I learn new ways of styling my hair or using makeup in such a way that flatters my features. I find, all the time, new layers to my own confidence, self-assuredness. I clench less often. No longer frantically rushing to acquire the latest trend promising beauty and happiness and liberation and peace, no longer believing longingly–naively–that they will, I pick and choose those that interest me.
From a distance, surely we were a handsome couple with no doubt an interesting story, were anyone to ask us, “So, what brings you to Charleston?” But up close, I imagined people regarded us with, perhaps, friendly confusion. Surely, Dylan would be better matched with a leggy blonde, a tall model like him, a vacant-eyed Barbie clone from the Phi Mu chapter at my alma mater. That or, well, Connor. Indeed, next to him I felt like a Jack Russell Terrier trotting next to a Thoroughbred. Endearing, but in a toy-like way. Aww, I imagined they thought. How generous of him.
Nevertheless, I thought of how pleasant it was, how much I missed it, spending a whole afternoon so easily with a new friend. That same ease, one of many small pleasures I’d never have thought I’d taken for granted, had been loudly absent from my life for nearly three years. My ex would have taken one look at Dylan, hackles risen, and forbidden me from spending time with him. Now, the thought is absurd, laughable. We’d broken up two years ago, and yet those reminders resurface regularly still: how small I’d felt, how pocket-sized I’d been ground down to be–small enough. Too small to ever outshine or threaten him. How had I given in so easily? To his gradual, serpentine predation, as he carefully pulled me apart like a Jenga tower. My confidence. Pull a piece. My faculties. Pull a piece. My faith in my own sanity. You’ll never make it on your own without me, he’d say. Another piece. A frog in a stovetop pot, oblivious to the rising bubbles in the warming water I was in.
Kasey Musgraves said it well:
He wants your shimmer
To make him feel bigger
Until he starts feeling insecure
Dylan’s next question shook me out of my reverie. Under the palm trees, we marveled often at the stunning city we found ourselves in, how perfectly Charleston weather behaved in October, our plans for the rest of that year, for next year.
When we finished the next round, I deliberated whether to walk or bike home, knowing with certainty that Dylan had fabulous places to be, things to do. Instead, he said, “Actually, I thought we could check out another cool bar nearby,” he said. “Do you have some time?”
We arrived on foot to the next place, Henry’s on the Market, which, aptly named, sat directly across the street from Charleston City Market. Now under a warming mid-afternoon sun, we sought refuge inside, but found seats next to an open window that overlooked the market below. Harness horses trotted dutifully back and forth, pulling tourists in sleek black carriages. Once again, our drinks came quickly. My attention wandered back and forth, taking in the old jazz bar. The boho brick tavern offered live music, where guests could enjoy the sun on the roof deck and play pool inside. Seating abounded in this open-air, two-story, mid-19th-century bar. I sipped my Cape Cod as slowly as I could, chugging my water as fast as I could, now feeling a buzz spreading oozily through me like warm liquid honey. I gushed to Dylan about the boy I’d been seeing since that spring, wondering aloud the challenges of letting someone in again for the first time, the prior relationship marred by such cruelty. How does one even think of going there again? What does that look like?
Dylan also opened up about his relationship with Connor. They’d been together about a year. They had discussed plans to move to Florida once Connor finished PA school. He then offered a bit of his story coming out to his family. I realized how little I understood what that entailed. I felt grateful for his willingness to offer me a glimpse, a tiny pearl in an outstretched hand, a gift of supplication. What a gift that is, for those of us who will never know that kind of risk, of putting every relationship you’ve ever had to the test, to receive a piece of that knowing.
We chatted for a hazy number of hours that day, and while I wished I could remember every word said, I’ll never forget how that mutual comfort felt as we strung together each new reminder that all of us are always reaching for: that the beautiful growing pains of being shiny and new, but rudderless, clueless, and twenty-six are the rights of passage we all face. Often, it’s a lonely road, but none of us are alone.
Somewhere in our tipsy chatter, scraping our stools as we got up to leave, we’d discovered that neither of us had ever tried CBD. Never. Not once. But, we were curious. The opportunity had simply never presented itself. At the time, it was making its steady rise. CBD oil. CBD tinctures. CBD hand cream. There was even CBD for dogs, droplets you put in their water bowl. Everybody seemed to be talking about it, wary of it, mystified by it. Did it make you high? If not, what did it do? How did it feel? Could you take it and still drive? Behave normally in public?
We traipsed down the stairs and ambled back into the blinding light and the dusty street like tumbleweeds. I stood and gaped as a massive, sweaty Clydesdale trotted by, pulling a carriage of tourists. We started walking back to the car.
No sooner had we begun to pass the market did we pass the storefront of a dispensary. We stared at the sign–”Good Guy Vapes, Glass, & CBD”. We looked back at each other, our expressions saying, Why not?
We stepped inside and blinked, adjusting to the dim light. This was the poshest and cleanest vape store I’d ever seen, though to be fair, I’d only been in one other one. In my early twenties I shadowed for one of those sketchy “experience marketing” roles, which were merely beards for seedy sales jobs where our “territory” consisted of a strip mall, a PNC Nutrition, and a Sally’s Beauty (whose manager chased us out, scolding us for conducting illicit business, and angered that we had apparently also reentered a business that had already asked these relentless bottomfeeders not to come back). Our last stop of the day had been a vape shop. I’d watched my “shadower” try to sell a T-Mobile business phone plan to the shop manager as I stood to the side, trying not to inhale too deeply. By the time we finally left, I had a splitting headache from all the pungent vape flavors.
But this was Charleston, and this, a classy establishment, so Dylan and strode inside, not caring. Mouths agape, we took in the vast range of vehicles for CBD: soft chews for dogs, gummy worms, gummy bears, peach rings, capsules, cartridges, hemp tinctures, vape juice, dried hemp flower, soaps. It was impossible to know where to look first.
The store attendant, sensing our uncertainty, kindly asked if she could be of assistance. We blanched, stumbling through where two newbies could dip their toes in the CBD realm. “Have you tried CBD honey?” she asked (as in, “CBD honey?” and not “CBD, honey?” because this was the South, after all). She pointed to the glass counter display, which held a collection of what looked like clear plastic Pixie Sticks, but filled with honey, and in many approachable flavors: Green Apple, Sour Orange, Sour Blue Raspberry, Pink Lemonade, Cinnamon, Grape (gross). I picked Green Apple, imagining my first chance of getting high (or getting whatever) will ironically taste and smell of the same Blow Pop flavor I chewed religiously in seventh grade. Like giggly children, we probably clinked our little honey sticks in a little cheers, tickled at the prospect of trying something new. Not just anything new–a fabulous new drug, somewhere legal, one little thing we each picked for ourselves. Grinning mischievously, we stepped back into the street with our contraband souvenirs.
As we strode on, downtown was now bustling with activity, a buzz that had steadily risen since lunch. Elsewhere in our chatter we’d stumbled on the topic of Black Mirror, which we’d both enjoyed, and watched in similar fashions. With others–obviously–and never alone—never. Never ever. Netflix had just released the fifth season earlier that summer, and neither of us had yet seen any of it. I’d hosted a few watch parties with my friends in Winston-Salem, which made the creepy and jumpy scenes a lot more fun when you giggled through them as a group (“I’m laughing because I’m NERVOUS,” cried Tucker, a former wrestler, in between deranged fits of giggles to hide his fear). It was a tiny, thrilling toeing of the line that all viewers shared: amused terror and existential dread.
“Why don’t we watch it tonight?” he said, his eyes dancing. I, warm from the booze and the embrace of the Charleston sun, with candy-looking CBD loot in my purse. “Why don’t we watch it tonight!” I chortled.
We agreed to each head home, rest, and meet that night at dinnertime to watch Black Mirror at their apartment. He dropped me off, and I showered, napped, and edited photos for my blog post detailing the weekend. When he returned to pick me up, our ideas for new plans kept aligning like train tracks. Could we stop by Harris Teeter? Because snacks. I’m feeling pizza. Wait. Do we get Bagel Bites? Omigod, who has uttered the phrase “Bagel Bites” since like 2007? But also…Bagel Bites? Um…obviously?
The day and now evening was unfolding on a level of ridiculously delightful proportions. I was tickled endlessly. I FaceTimed Allison in the car as we left the grocery store: “This is Dylan! Say hi! We hit downtown Charleston over the weekend and now we’re having a Netflix marathon on a school night.” Dylan and I looked at each other, smiles agape, as though we’d been caught in our naughty plans. “I was worried,” she later told me, thinking I might’ve met the Ted Bundy of Charleston. I laughed. She didn’t.
Dylan drove the ten-minute route from Charleston, crossing the Ashley River to James Island, outside Folly Beach, where he and Connor shared an apartment. Dylan keyed open the front door, unbagged our grocery loot, and swiftly set the oven to preheat. He then shooed me out of the kitchen and offered to make me a drink. I began surveying their decorations for Halloween–the most tasteful, in fact, that I’d ever seen.
Was it possible to decorate tastefully for Halloween? Turns out it was, and these two had cracked the code. “That’s Connor’s area,” Dylan said wryly. Little toy skeletons and framed anatomical sketches of bone diagrams rested on shelves, hung on walls. Arranged along the fireplace mantel were different bones–a solitary human hand, tiny animal skulls and skeletons–displayed in glass cloches, as though a mad scientist lived here and not two brilliant and fabulous gays making the rest of us look like the sorry next-door neighbors that either half-heartedly placed a few dusty pumpkins on our front porches and called it a day, or went maniacally overboard by covering our lawns with awful inflatable figures–ghosts, Frankensteins, mummies, and witches–and wearing sweatshirts that might say, “Happy HOLLA-Ween.” Next to these two, we were all sad amateurs, grasping at whatever intention we sought: irony, fright, style, a slapstick laugh. Grasping, but never reaching.
On a large chalkboard hung on the wall near their car key rings, featuring the Wifi password and a masterfully sketched skeleton, smirking ghoulishly, raising an eyebrow, and waggling a gloved hand. Playful bubble handwriting floated above him spelling, “Boo Betch!”
We popped our Bagel Bites in the oven and opened Netflix, deciding on the third episode with Miley Cyrus. Surely she couldn’t out-frighten us after her post-Disney era foam finger debut at the 2013 VMAs.
We started watching, pausing briefly to retrieve our piping Bagel Bites from the oven
“Wait!” Dylan cried. “Our honey sticks!” I gasped and ran over to my purse and pulled them out victoriously. I rejoined him at the kitchen island, and we snipped them open with scissors. Together we raised our tiny sticks in the air.
“To new friends,” I said, tapping mine to his. We squeezed them straight into our mouths. “Bottoms up!”
We plopped back down and watched, popping Bagel Bites into our mouths one after another like conveyor belts, and sipping seltzers, hydrating responsibly after our hours-long day drink. I tried very hard to not do the thing I do when the TV is on and continuously talk and ask questions. I had lots of questions. But, summoning all of my will power, I kept my mouth shut. When the episode ended and the credits started rolling, Dylan looked over at me. “Oh yeah, do you feel any different?”
I wrinkled my nose, confused. “Different?”
“The CBD!”
“Oh.” I’d completely forgotten we took it. I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “Honestly? Not even a little bit.”
“Me neither!” We roared, wiping our eyes and slapping our knees, wondering what on earth we’d been so scared of.
“What time’s your flight tomorrow?”
“Five thirty am,” I said with a groan. “I should book my Lyft right now.”
“No need, I can drive you,” he said with a shrug. I felt my mouth drop open.
“What? No you will not!”
He held up a hand, silencing me. “It’s no trouble! That settles it. I’ll pick you up at four.” I huffed, pretending to pout. In my mind I turned over another way to protest his offer, before giving up.
“Starbucks won’t be open that early, but I can make you coffee!”
I was stunned, then wanted to weep. I, the Grinch, felt my heart grow three sizes that day.
So Dylan then drove me home, dropped me off, and once again picked me up six hours later. A fresh coffee sat ready and warm in the cupholder. When we arrived, he hopped out and brought out my bag, placing it gently on the ground next to me. We hugged goodbye, and I felt so touched by his kindness that weekend, I walked through security and toward my gate misty-eyed.
Once Connor graduated, he and Dylan moved to Tampa and bought a house. I watch their renovation updates on Instagram, where they frequently feature their floppy new Bernedoodle, Harlow. Every now and then I’ll message him saying I saw a shelf full of CBD goodies in Whole Foods and thought of him. We exchange Christmas cards, and I sent them our wedding announcement.
I’ll not soon forget the way the kindness of a stranger–a new friend–elevates the magic of exploring a new place, nor the whimsy of meeting someone new, simply by being in the right place at the right time.