How I Met Cora We had met at a sports bar last Thursday. She wasn't into sports, but she came for the company. And the beer. I wasn't that big on sports either. Truth be told, I didn't even go for the company, only the booze. It had been a brief run in sometime between my third martini and her seventh beer. I had gone out for a smoke. I never enjoyed smoking, but it had proven to be a great conversation starter. Let's not forget the perfect excuse to leave uninteresting company. No, the only cigarette I enjoyed was the post-sex one. That was it. She had reached over, tapped me on the shoulder and with a raspy voice slurred "can I bum a fag?", only to burst into laughter, explaining that fag means gay in England and that she already had a gay friend who also happened to be her old fling, class mate and occasionally her "not so interested" sex partner. She now understood why. And she was happy for him. We had been standing side by side (me still, her swaying), for a minute or so, when suddenly she turned her head and said her name was Cora. Just out of the blue. Her name was Cora. "Jasper" She snickered. Obviously drunk. "Jasper is a fun name. I used to know this guy at work whose name was Jasper. He ended up killing himself after getting fired at work. He was alright though" She took another drag from the cigarette. "Am I the first Cora you meet?" She had a certain ring to her voice, but most of it I figured was drunken courage. "No", I said, "you're the first" She purred. She had a sip of her beer. The street lights reflected in her deep brown eyes. She has olive skin, dark, curly hair which looked somewhat untamed. I must have been a few inches taller than her, even though she was in blood red stilettos. The sound of a motorcycle caravan had only just passed when she threw the cigarette to the ground, downed the last of her beer and started heading back into the bar. Her eyes were focused on a spot between my nose and upper lip as she turned around to give me a parting look. As she turned around, a necklace became visible from inside her blouse. It was made up of small corals. "That's a beautiful necklace you have there" She stopped, looked deeply into my eyes, and smiled. "Corals for Cora"