Published Articles

MANGO MARGARITAS
by Karen Ackland

On vacation she imagines that she is the kind of person who enjoys going to bars and ordering fun drinks. The fact that this has never been true, that drinking makes her sleepy or even sullen, is not important. Usually when she goes to a restaurant she orders a glass of Merlot or, when the weather is warm and the food spicy, a beer, but on vacation she starts to think she might like a drink that includes a paper umbrella. This urge usually follows reading the listings in the guidebook, "famous for their mango margaritas" or "2 for 1 drinks appeal to a young crowd." She reads these descriptions out loud to her husband, picturing the two of them handsomely tanned and laughing, leaning toward each other as a conga line snakes in the background.

"You would hate that," he says and continues reading his book. She feels like a child modeling dress-up outfits in front of the TV, trying to get her father's attention during a football game.

Years ago she arranged to spend the weekend in Chicago with a man she was dating. The man had grown up in Chicago and she assumed he would know the local restaurants, perhaps a neighborhood dive or a Greek taverna outside the Loop. On the day they planned to meet, the man sent a bouquet of roses to her hotel room. An hour later he arrived with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She had not expected these traditional gestures of romance and, although she wanted to be charmed, the roses seemed to consume more than their share of the room's oxygen and demand an acknowledgement she was not prepared to give.

As they left the hotel and walked in the direction of the river, she was pleased with the novelty of wearing a winter coat and spending the weekend in an urban environment. The man tried to point out the city's landmarks, but he had moved away from Chicago ten years earlier and the skyline had changed. It seemed that every time he gestured toward a building, a new building blocked the view. Deflated, he restricted his explanations to the superiority of the city's street numbering system and the irregularities of Upper and Lower Wacker.

She didn't say anything when they walked into Planet Hollywood. Or when they were shown to a table in the noisy restaurant and the bus boy brought water. But then - she is not particularly proud of this part - she started to cry. She couldn't believe she was about to spend the weekend with a man who thought she would like Planet Hollywood.

The man got their coats, and they left. Outside they walked around the Dubuffet sculpture on West Randolph and the Picasso in front of the Civic Center. They didn't talk. She told herself that she should be responsible and end the relationship. He was a good man, but she didn't think they had much in common. Eventually they found an Italian restaurant that was still open and went inside to get out of the cold. They sat side by side in the back booth, moving apart only when the waitress brought the penne all' arrabbiata.

These days her husband is often preoccupied, and she wonders if he even listened to the plans she made for their vacation, although she told him several times. She suggests again the bar that serves mango margaritas, but instead he chooses a small ethnic restaurant where he orders a large beer and two glasses. As she follows him to the table, she tells herself that she is more fun than he is. But even as she grumbles, she realizes that often she doesn't know what she really wants - like the time in Chicago when she almost walked away thinking they did not belong together.

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