She used to visit the bar every saturday night as the usual crowd began to shuffle out. She’d only sit in the second booth down from the shoddy platform we liked to call a stage. It was the only one left from old days. Someone once asked her why she always chose that booth, and she only shook her head.

Every saturday night she sipped at her martini and asked me to play her something miserable. Every saturday night I’d gulp down what was left of my scotch and do just that until I walked away from the piano feeling just as bad as her.

One night, I sat with her. We drank in the dim light of the empty bar and told stories and laughed a little until the loneliness of the night was forgotten. At the end of the night, when she got up to leave, I asked, “Why do you always choose this booth?”

“Because,” she said, “it’s where I sat when I first saw him, and it’s where he sat when he last saw me.”

She doesn’t come around anymore. But every saturday night I drink my scotch and play the same miserable music.