by ALEX POPPE
“We’ve always had this undeniable attraction to each other,” Vini says, his voice wispy from a lack of sleep. Outside the bedroom window, morning milks the sky, heralding my hangover.
Vini and I first met when I told him off for grabbing my butt in a bar Chris Farley made famous with his belly-flop naked beer slides. It was November 1988. I was a naïve, twenty-one-year-old business undergrad, too afraid to chase an artistic life. Vini was a twenty-three-year-old English grad student, certain that he’d become the next great American novelist. Thirty-seven years later, I’m visiting our hometown of Chicago to promote my latest book at a literary festival while Vini is a community college professor and leads a psychedelic pop/garage rock band.
“But we haven’t always known how to get along,” he concludes, uttering perhaps the truest words he’s ever spoken to me.
Silence pillows between us, and I sink into unconsummated memory. It was the last day of winter finals. Vini had invited me for dinner before his Christmas ski trip in Aspen. I arrived at his apartment; the windows slurred with snow. Rumors that Vini only dated girls who had sex on the first date had freshly polluted my ears. Standing just inside his front door, I eyed the Murphy bed tucked into the wall and hugged my thrifted men’s overcoat tight across my chest, getting ready to give the speech.
“Take your coat off. Stay awhile,” Vini joked. “I’ve got an Eduardo’s deep-dish pizza warming in the oven.”
“I’m a virgin, so if that’s going to be a problem for you, I can leave now,” I blurted, all bravado and blush.
Vini held his hands out for my coat, promising that I didn’t have to worry about drinking around him because if we ever had sex, it would happen because I initiated it, not him. The bed remained in the wall. We sat on the floor and ate sloppy, saucy pizza off sogging paper plates and talked like two people who’d never run out of things to say to each other. But when he came back from Aspen, Vini betrayed that promise. Still a virgin, I woke up to him drunkenly and clumsily, but not violently, trying to have sex with me. The next day, he didn’t remember what had happened. I had to tell him. Ashamed, Vini said I had experienced “a bottle of good Vini and a bottle of bad Vini, and now the two were mixed,” tainting me and our relationship. He couldn’t see me anymore. Heartbroken and limerent, I pined for months.
Spring came, bringing the soft breezes that slither inside clothes. We ran into each other at a house party and spent the whole night talking on the porch. In the bubble of breath and body we formed, there was acceptance and release. We rekindled in a merry-go-round of on again, off again until I graduated and left the Midwest. The last time I saw him, I told him I thought we were the right people for each other, but we weren’t ready for each other. If we ever met again, maybe we would be.
In 2019, after three decades of no contact, Vini reached out over LinkedIn. I had chucked my corporate existence for an artistic one, moved to New York City and then abroad, and hadn’t thought about him at all. He congratulated me on my recent book publication and invited me to speak to his creative writing classes when I was back in town.
Did I accept warily, fueled by an ulterior motive to write an essay about consent based on our college relationship? Did he buy both my books and gush about them on Amazon and Goodreads to soften my resolve? Did he remember my love of Like a Prayer and send a link to a portfolio of lost Madonna photos to break down my walls? Did his charm offensive work as we left the keystrokes of LinkedIn to speak over the wonder of WhatsApp? Did I scour Facebook photos to see how much of his younger self twinned beneath his current craggy façade? Did my heart sink when he said he had twin daughters and then buoy when he said he was separated? You betcha.
Vini offered to pick me up at the airport, but I declined because only celebrities look good after transatlantic flights. Like Juliet, I willed the plane to fly faster and “give me my Romeo,” fantasizing for hours about what Vini would taste like, feel like, sex like. On the flight, I limited my wine intake, refused all plane food, and calculated how much cardio I could fit in before Vini picked me up for an afternoon Cubs game the next day. Being bloated and gassy was no way to have our first date in 30 years.
I landed, and we spent hours that night talking on the phone. Listening to Vini recount stories from when we had all of life before us was like jigsawing dream shards into a complete picture. I’d forgotten how much we’d chased each other, always keeping some part of ourselves out of reach. How our relationship had been equal parts intellectual and sensual. Vini had written a letter to his mom, telling her that he was going to the senior ball with me, describing that I “was pretty, graduating summa cum laude, and any conversation with her reveals that intelligence. Unfortunately, she’s a business major.” He found that letter among her things after she died in 2018. Vini reminded me how I had longed to pursue an unprescribed life, but I was afraid to defy my father, who wanted me to live a safe, step-wise life. My eyes welled when Vini said that since that Eduardo’s pizza night, he had never felt such overwhelming longing. They welled for a different reason when he recounted how I’d gone after one of his friends to spite him. In a way, he knew me better than I knew myself and gave those lost parts back to me.
The Cubs game led to five weeks of dating, declarations of love, and his expressed aspiration to marry me once his divorce was finalized. We envisioned our shared home as a creative salon—hosting friends, discussing ideas, making art—and threw a trial run brunch before I returned to my job abroad, and we continued our relationship across time zones and continents. I returned in late December, and we planned to live together for a month to see if we were ready for each other, but betrayal struck again. Just days before Vini was kissing my hip bone up against his kitchen island, he had promised his not-yet-ex-wife and daughters he wouldn’t have another relationship until the divorce was finalized. When he finally came clean, I screamed things I couldn’t take back.
Over the last five years, I’ve tried to cut Vini out of my life, but he is persistent. He’d send screenshots of Chicago’s temperature when it’d fall below zero because he knows how much I loathe cold weather; photos of a bottle of hair texturizing surf spray I gave him, which he’d used only when his band performed; links to news articles featuring the cities where I’ve lived or do live; and links to The New Yorker essays and stories he thinks I’d like. He’d call to share life updates or drop me links to his new music. Slowly, I’m learning how to be friends with him although his opacity in truth-telling ignites my Viking anger. I marvel that our connection, which sparked decades ago, still holds across space and time unlike my four ex-betrotheds with whom I have no contact.
“I didn’t expect to end up in bed together.” A smug smile slinks across Vini’s face.
I did. I don’t point out how flirty he’s been over text messages and phone calls since I was in town on a book tour two months ago. “Isn’t that why you announced the sheets were clean?” I ask, hoping one day I’ll stop calling out his BS. My lack of trust must get tiresome. I bet part of him relishes the idea of a clean slate with someone new.
“I washed them so they’ll smell like you after you’ve gone.”
Which is sweet but doesn’t answer my question. I slug Vini with my pillow. “You snore.”
He doesn’t care.
I roll on my side and cursive myself around him. “I don’t know how more wives don’t kill their husbands for snoring.”
“Some do.”
I consider this and decide, “That’s good.”
Vini laughs. “I need to write that down. It’s funny.”
This is the part of him I like best; collaborative, playful, creative. I’m transported to a morning in 2020 right before we imploded. I was getting ready for a job interview when Vini woke up and started playing his guitar. I remember thinking, this is how I want to live, but we never took our chance to find out.
I roll on my back and stretch. “Thanks for last night. It was fun.” We had gone to see some live music and danced like two people who really liked each other. Given how much we’ve hurt each other, how we’ve experienced the good and bad bottles of each other, I’ll take like, for now. Maybe for always. This kind of like feels like love.
I trampoline on the bed, because I can, before I get up.
“What’s the rush? Stay awhile.”
“I’ve got stuff to do,” I say as I look for last night’s clothes under his bed.
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Dinner with my publicist. Then, early to bed. I’m on one of the first panels in the morning. Are you coming?”
“The band has rehearsal. We rented a studio.”
“No problem. I understand.” And I do. I don’t expect his life to accommodate mine.
“Let me see what I can do.” And Vini will. He’ll move his practice, come to my panel event at the literary festival, and take photos and videos of me to use on social media. And after he waits for me to sign books, I will lean in and try to kiss him goodbye, and he will move just out of reach because we’re still not ready for each other.
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Having worked in conflict zones such as Iraq, the West Bank, and Ukraine, Alex Poppe depicts fierce and funny women rebuilding their lives in the wake of violence. She is the award-winning author of four books of literary fiction and Breakfast Wine, a memoir-in essay about her wild ride through Iraq, recently named a first runner-up for the Eyelands Book Awards and a finalist for the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year and the American Writing Awards. Alex’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, HuffPost, and elsewhere. Find her at www.alexpoppeauthor.com.
© 2026, Alex Poppe
Halfway Down the Stairs 