I’m relieved to find when I get to
the classroom for the next lecture, the chair I brought in from the other room
is still there. I won’t have to lug it over every single time.
I sit down in the back and leave a
space for Brody’s wheelchair. I’m hoping maybe he’ll forget about our
conversation from last time. Or at least, not be angry at me anymore. He’s
clearly a nice guy and it would be good to have a friend in class for a change.
When there’s only a minute left
until the lecture, Brody still hasn’t arrived. And that’s when I wonder about
the impact of my thoughtless comment. What if he dropped the class? What if my
mean comment humiliated him so much he decided he didn’t even want to be in the
same room with me?
I breathe a sigh of relief when I
see him enter the room. He’s wearing a black Mets T-shirt under a long-sleeved
flannel shirt, and the dark color of his shirt makes the belt across his chest
less visible. I look in his direction and try to smile. He won’t even look at
me though. He backs his chair up and parks it near the front of the room.
Fine. Whatever. It’s a relief. I
didn’t want to have to copy the notes for him every damn day. I’m glad he’s
letting me off the hook.
My notes end up being awful. Every
two minutes, I find myself staring in Brody’s direction. It’s not like
everybody has to like me, but I hate the idea of somebody being angry at me,
especially a nice guy like Brody. I should never have snapped at him. I need to
apologize.
As soon as the lecture is over, I
heave out of my seat and walk up to where Brody has parked his wheelchair. He’s
fiddling with the joystick control on his chair and doesn’t acknowledge my
existence. Even when I clear my throat loudly.
“Hey,” I finally say to him.
He glances up at me briefly, then
nods, expressionless. “Hey.”
I squeeze my fists together. “Um,” I
say. “Do you want to copy my notes?”
Now I have his attention. Brody
raises his eyebrows at me. “I wouldn’t want you to have to go to the trouble. I’m
just going to ask Dr. Nichols.”
“I really don’t mind,” I say. He
frowns and I add, “Really.”
“No, I don’t want to bother you,” he
insists. “I’ll ask Dr. Nichols.”
“It’s not a bother,” I say. “I
promise.”
“Look, it’s not a big deal,” Brody
says. “I’ve asked professors for their notes before.”
“And I said it’s not a big deal for
me to copy my notes for you.”
“You don’t have to though,” he says.
I narrow my eyes at him. Honestly,
now he’s just being annoying. “Listen, how many times am I going to have to
tell you I’m okay with it before
you’re willing to use my notes?”
The corners of his lips twitch. “One
more time, I think.”
I sigh and roll my eyes. “Fine. Can
you please copy my notes, Brody?”
And then he rewards me with that
great, infectious smile. It makes me feel strangely tingly. Sheesh, he’s cute. “Okay,
since you asked so nicely,” Brody says with a wink. “Let’s go.”
I have to wait for Brody to turn his
chair one-hundred-eighty degrees so that he’s facing the door again, which
isn’t easy in this tiny classroom. After a minute, he gets into position. By
now, everyone in the class has already left, and the last person closed the
door behind them. We stand in front of the closed door for a minute, and I
finally notice Brody is looking at me expectantly.
“I’m not so great at doorknobs,” he
says “Can you open it, please?”
I’m such an idiot. How did I not recognize he couldn’t open the door?
If you don’t have much strength in your arms, doorknobs have got to be a
challenge. It seems like such a simple thing—being able to open a door. And he
can’t do it.
This time, Brody seems to know where
the copy machine is. As we make our way there, he says to me, “I like your
shirt.”
I’m wearing a black dress shirt that
minimizes my girth and follows the curve of my boobs. It’s nothing spectacular.
He’s just being nice.
“Thank you,” I say. And I feel
compelled to add, “I like yours too. Let’s go Mets!”
He winks at me. “Not a Yankees fan
then?”
I shake my head. “Never. I went to
Wellesley for college. And over in Massachusetts, you can be a Mets fan, but if
you’re a Yankees fan, they skin you alive.”
“I don’t like them either,” Brody
says. “I used to. Like, years ago. But… I don’t know. It’s like there’s this
giant robot going around clobbering everything in sight, and at first, it’s
pretty fun to watch the robot, and maybe you even cheer for the robot. But
eventually, you wish someone would defeat that goddamn robot. You know?”
I laugh. “No, that makes sense.”
We arrive at the copy machine after
only a minute. This time, I’m not winded and my thighs feel okay. I take my
time copying the two pages of notes from the class. I press the two warm sheets
of copy paper into Brody’s backpack. “Thanks,” he says.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I say.
“Sure I do,” he says.
As we face each other, he smiles at
me. I find myself smiling back. Then out of nowhere, Brody blurts out, “Do you
want to have dinner with me?”
What? I stare at
him, my heart slamming in my chest. That was absolutely the last thing I
expected him to say. “You mean like a date?”
That didn’t come out right. I watch
his cheeks turn red. “Well, no, it doesn’t have to be. We could just go as
friends if you’d like. Either way, I’d still like to have dinner with you.”
It doesn’t have to be.
Does that mean he wants it to be a
date? Does he actually want to go out with me?
So this is what it feels like. This
is the first time I’ve ever been asked out—or whatever this is. He seems so
embarrassed about the whole thing, it’s adorable. And flattering. I try to
imagine him looking at me, and thinking I’m the sort of person he’d like to go
out with or maybe even kiss. I can’t.
Maybe I misunderstood.
“So what do you say?” Brody asks me,
his smile faltering.
“Okay,” I say.
His eyes light up. “Yeah?”
“Sure,” I say.
“That is awesome.” He nods happily. “Are you free tomorrow? I know it’s
Friday, but…”
“Yes,” I agree. Maybe a little too
quickly. I don’t want to seem overeager. Oh well.
What I want to say to him is I do want this to be a date, but I can’t
quite get the words out. The thought of admitting to a guy that I’d like to go
out with him is enough to make me blush.
***
I’m excited, okay? As fun as my
little internet relationships could be sometimes, they weren’t the real thing. Not
by a long shot. I mean, those were all based on lies. Those guys didn’t like me. They just liked the girl that I was
pretending to be. They certainly weren’t attracted to me. And I never got to
kiss them or touch them or… well, anything.
But Brody likes me. He wants to go out on a date with me. Me! He wants to maybe
even… Christ, maybe he wants to kiss me…
Okay, now I’m getting myself
nervous. Especially since we didn’t even make it clear whether or not it was a
date. But he seemed like he wanted to go out with me. I mean, he asked me to
dinner. Just me. Not me and my more attractive friend.
I’m so excited about it that the
next time I take a shower, I belt out Whitney Houston at the top of my lungs,
and I don’t care who hears it.
But the next day, I am seriously anxious.
I am woefully inexperienced for a twenty-seven-year-old going out on a date. I
don’t know how to dress, and I’ve never put on makeup in my entire life. The
average high schooler knows more than I do. Hell, most middle schoolers know
more than me.
That’s why in the afternoon, I catch
Abby when she’s coming home from her step aerobics class. Her cheeks are bright
pink and she’s got her hair in a ponytail high on her head that swings back and
forth when she walks. She immediately goes to the fridge, pulls out a bottle of
water, and drains nearly the whole thing as I watch her.
You know what I don’t get? Water. I
hate drinking water. It has no flavor whatsoever. I mean, I drink it for
hydration and because it fills you up to have a lot of water before a meal, but
I don’t understand how Abby guzzles it the way she does. Like it’s delicious.
“Abby?” I finally say.
Abby lowers the water bottle and
gasps to catch her breath. She wipes her lips with the back of her hand.
“Emily!” Her face lights up like me
talking to her is the best thing that’s happened to her all day. I don’t know
how she manages to be so perky all the time. Maybe it’s the endorphins. “What’s
going on?”
I take a deep breath. “I need your
help.”
Abby pauses for a moment, then
unexpectedly throws her arms around me. She squeezes me to her chest with
astonishing strength. “Oh, Emily,” she sighs. “Of course I’ll help you! I’ve
been telling you that since you moved in. We’re going to get rid of that weight
together, I promise you.”
I grit my teeth. We haven’t even
started and I already seriously regret my decision to ask Abby to help me prepare
for my date.
“I don’t want to lose weight,” I
say, pulling away from her stifling hug.
Abby’s face falls. “You don’t?”
“No,” I say tightly.
“Oh.” Abby frowns. “Well, what do
you need help with?”
“I have…” I pick at a loose thread
on my shirt. “A date. Tonight.”
Abby’s eyes get huge like saucers. “That’s
wonderful!”
She could not possibly look more
astonished and excited if I told her I was taking a rocket to the moon tonight.
“I’m so thrilled!” She clasps her
hands together. “This is going to be so
much fun! Luckily, I don’t have any plans tonight.”
No surprise there. Between you and
me, Abby’s social life is not exactly jumping. I know when she goes on dates,
and they’re extremely rare. I’m not sure why, because she’s pretty cute. And
whenever she and I go out together, men hit on her left and right. (It’s part
of why I hate going out with her.)
“So, um…” Abby flashes a wicked
smile. “Is it anyone I know?”
“No,” I say, not wanting to go into
any details.
“What’s his name?”
I figure it’s safe to tell her. “Brody.”
She nods. “Did Camille set you up
with him?”
The assumption is insulting, but not
unreasonable. “No… I met him in my computer science class.”
“And he asked you out?” She still
sounds like she’s trying to wrap her head around it.
“Right.”
She winks at me. “Is he cute?”
“Definitely,” I say honestly.
Abby claps her hands together. “That’s
so great, Emily. Really. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I mumble. Because what the
hell else am I supposed to say to that? “Anyway, I thought maybe you could help
me figure out what to wear. And maybe I could borrow some makeup?”
“Oh my gosh, yes!” Abby exclaims. “I’m
going to give you a complete makeover! You won’t even recognize yourself!”
That’s highly unlikely. She can do
what she wants to my face and my hair, but she can’t change the most important
part of me.
_____
Remember that scene in Pretty Woman, where Julia Roberts goes
on a fashion spree and tries on a zillion different outfits, evolving from
being a skanky hooker to a gorgeous model during the course of a single song?
Well, Abby giving me a makeover for
my date is nothing like that. Nothing.
It’s definitely not any kind of fashion montage. It’s more like slight tweaking
here and there. Abby breaks out her tote bag of makeup (Abby has literally ten
million tote bags) and successfully applies a bit of smokiness to my eyes. She
chooses a shade of lipstick that isn’t too whorish. She even does my hair with
a curling iron, and for the first time in my entire life, my hair isn’t frizzy.
I still look like me, but a better version of me.
“You have such a pretty face,” Abby sighs as she examines her handiwork.
I swear to God, I don’t.
The outfit is more of a challenge. Without
even checking, we know there’s nothing in Abby’s closet that would even come close
to fitting me. Abby stares into my closet for like twenty minutes, moaning, “Why
is everything you own black?”
That’s not fair. I own plenty of
clothes that are dark brown or navy blue.
Even though it’s getting dangerously
close to when I have to leave, Abby talks me into going to the Urban Outfitters
that’s two blocks from our apartment, which is the closest clothing store. I’d
never set foot inside an Urban Outfitters before, and I quickly discover
why—nothing in this store is even remotely my size.
I’m not even kidding. The only sizes
I can see are zero through eight. They don’t even have size ten, even though
I’m pretty sure I read the average size for an American woman is twelve. Who
the hell shops at places like this? Certainly no grown woman.
Not that it would help me if they
had size twelve. I couldn’t even zip up a size twelve. I probably couldn’t even
get it over my head.
“We should go,” I say to Abby. “I
don’t think we’re going to find anything here that fits me.”
“Don’t be silly,” Abby says. “I’m
sure they must have plus sizes here. I think it’s, like, the law.”
It’s not the law, Abby. Trust me.
Abby flags down a salesgirl, who
seems like she could easily fit into any size zero pair of jeans in the store. The
girl is in her early twenties and is popping a piece of bubble gum as Abby
talks to her. When Abby explains to the girl that we’re looking for an outfit
for me to wear on a date tonight, I want to hide under a pile of size two
jeans. (Except I don’t think they have enough tiny jeans to effectively hide
me.)
“So where should we look?” Abby
asks.
The girl looks me over and
practically starts snickering. “Walmart. There’s one on Second Avenue.”
Abby blinks, shocked by the girl’s
response. I’m far less shocked. If this were actually Pretty Woman, I would leave this store, and come back a few hours
later, looking gorgeous and skinny, loaded up with bags of expensive clothing,
and say to Size Zero over here, “You work on commission, don’t you? Big
mistake!”
But this isn’t an eighties movie. So
I tug on Abby’s shirt sleeve. “Come on,” I say to her. “I don’t have time for
this.”
In the end, I wind up in a somewhat
flattering pair of boot-cut dark green dress pants and yet another black blouse
from Walmart. Abby is grudgingly satisfied. “You only slightly look like you’re
going to a funeral,” she says.
I take the bus to the restaurant
where Brody and I agreed to meet, even though I’m sure it’s going to wreck the
magic Abby did to my hair. As I sit on the bus, trying to keep my distance from
the open window, I wonder to myself if Brody is thinking about this as a date
or not. I close my eyes and try to remember his face when he asked me. He was
so embarrassed. But maybe he was embarrassed because he thought I took it as a
date and he didn’t intend it to be. Maybe he was mortified by my assumption
that it could be a date.
Maybe I just spent all this time
getting ready for nothing. Maybe he’s going to look at my outfit and think I’m
overdressed. Maybe he won’t show up at all.
And now I’ve driven myself completely
crazy.
When I arrive at the Italian
restaurant, I’m relieved to see Brody immediately. He’s sitting in his
wheelchair, right outside the door, craning his neck in the other direction to
look for me. He’s waiting for me—he’s looking
for me and is excited by the prospect of seeing me. It’s almost a little
hard to believe.
Before Brody spots me, I take a
minute to check him out. He’s wearing a nice dark blue dress shirt and brown
slacks. This is a step up from what he wears to our class—he made an effort. For
me. Then the thought strikes me that Brody probably isn’t able to dress
himself. I have no idea who dresses him, but he likely had to tell that person he
was going out and wanted to look nice tonight.
“Emily!” Brody spots me and lifts
one of his arms in greeting—he manages a slight wave. It’s not really a wave
though, since his hand only hangs limply from his wrist. A woman is walking by
with her two kids, and the kids stare at Brody so intently that one of them
walks into a mailbox.
“Hey,” I say, as I get without
earshot.
He looks up at me and smiles
winningly. He is adorable when he smiles—it gets me all aflutter. And his blue
shirt brings out the color in his eyes. “I got you something,” he says. And
that’s when I notice the small bouquet of colorful flowers on his lap. He grabs
them with his wrists and holds them out to me.
He got me flowers. He went into a flower shop and purchased them for me in an
effort to impress me. He definitely doesn’t want to hang out just as friends—he
wants this to be a date. The thought of it makes my knees weak.
“Thank you,” I say. Truthfully, I
hate flowers—I have no idea how to keep them alive. But I love these flowers so
much because he got them for me. I want to keep them alive forever to remember
this feeling. “What are they?”
Brody gives me a funny look. “They’re
flowers.”
Does he think I’m completely stupid?
“I mean,” I say, “what kind of flowers are they?”
“Oh!” He laughs nervously as he rubs
his chin with the back of his curled fingers. “I don’t know. The guy at the
flower store told me they were…” He thinks for a minute. “Carnations, maybe? To
be honest, I don’t know. I’m not a flowers expert. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I say.
“I hope you don’t mind I got them
for you,” he says. “I know we didn’t agree this is a date, but… well, I
couldn’t help myself.”
He pauses, looking at me
expectantly. I’m not entirely sure what to say. Honestly, I’m so nervous, I
can’t say much of anything. Finally, I say, “I don’t mind.”
Brody looks a little disappointed
somehow, but I’m not sure why. I told him I liked the flowers. Was he hoping
for a more effusive response? Was I supposed to make a big show of smelling
them and saying how beautiful they are? Did he want me to do an interpretive
flower dance?
“Let’s go in,” Brody says. “I
reserved us a table.”
I don’t know what arrangements Brody
made in advance, but he’s scored us a table right near the entrance that already
has one chair pulled away to make room for his wheelchair. Right now, I see
another advantage of being with Brody—we don’t have to sit in a booth. I hate
booths. Remember how I almost got stuck in that desk in the classroom? Well,
that happens in booths too sometimes. I have had to leave a restaurant because
the only places to sit were booths and I couldn’t fit.
As Brody opens the menu by using the
ball of his hand, I wonder about how he’s going to eat. It’s making me a little
nervous. He’s already asked me for help with notes and making photocopies. Is
he going to ask me to feed him? I can’t imagine he’d assume I’d do that without
asking me in advance. But then again, how could he hold a utensil with those
hands?
I try not to think about it as I
focus on my own menu. Ordering food in public always makes me edgy. You
wouldn’t think my food choices would be anyone else’s business but my own, but
that absolutely isn’t the case. If I order anything more substantial than a
glass of water and a single lettuce leaf, I’m almost guaranteed to get
commentary. Are you sure you should be
eating that?
But Brody wouldn’t say that. Not out
loud, anyway. But I don’t want him thinking it either. So I guess I’ll be
ordering one lettuce leaf.
“Is the food good here?” I ask him.
“Really good,” Brody says.
“So you’ve been here before?”
“Of course,” he says. “I wouldn’t
take you to a place I’d never been to before. Got to check it out, you know?”
I don’t entirely know what he means,
but I don’t ask. Instead, I study the menu, focusing mainly on the salad
section.
Our waitress is a pretty, young
woman who looks like she could easily fit into anything at Urban Outfitters. She
smiles skinnily at us. “Would you like anything to drink?”
“I’ll just stick with water,” Brody
says.
My face falls. I can’t order an
alcoholic drink if he doesn’t get one. Even though I desperately want one. So I
go with my staple: “I’ll have a Diet Coke.”
(The last time I went out to eat
with Abby, she went on this five-minute monologue about how Diet Coke is worse
for your weight than regular Coke. But the truth is, if somebody like me orders
a regular Coke, they’ll just assume diet and bring it to me anyway.)
“And are you ready to order?” she
asks.
Brody raises his eyebrows at me and
I nod.
The waitress takes her pad out of
her pocket. “What would you like today?”
You know what I want? The fettuccini
alfredo. Alfredo sauce, when cooked right, has this perfect creamy, cheesy
taste that makes me oh so happy. Just thinking about it makes my stomach growl.
But I can’t order that in front of Brody. Or ever, if I’m being realistic. So I
bite my tongue and say, “I’ll have the house salad, no dressing.”
“Okay.” The waitress turns her
skinniness in Brody’s direction. “And what would you like, sir?”
Brody frowns at me. “That’s all you
want? Just a salad? Without even any dressing?”
No, that’s not what I want! Can we please not talk about it? Because I have
used all of my self-restraint to order that salad, and I need this waitress to
leave the table before I change my mind.
“Yep,” I say.
“Emily.” He shakes his head. “You
should get whatever you want. Please. It’s my treat.”
Now both Brody and the waitress are
staring at me. “The salad is fine,” I croak. “Really.”
Finally, he shrugs. “I’ll have
chicken parmigiana with ziti,” he says. He flashes the waitress a crooked
smile. “Um, could you have them, like, cut up the chicken for me, please? Into
small pieces?”
“Of course, sir,” the waitress says.
Her voice has a mildly patronizing edge that grates on my nerves.
After she leaves with our menus, I’m
terrified there’s going to be an awkward silence between us, but there isn’t. I
mean, there’s a moment of silence, but it’s not awkward. Brody is grinning at
me and seems thrilled to be here. Which makes me happy too. The two of us sit
there for a good minute, grinning like idiots.
“Hey,” Brody says, breaking our
sappy silence. He seems like a talkative guy, who doesn’t leave much room for
silences. He’s not shy like I am. “So I was flipping through my Townsend Harris
yearbook last night. I thought we could compare notes.”
My smile slips. I’m not sure I want
to compare notes about high school. High school wasn’t a happy time in my life.
But I don’t have any alternative topics of conversation to offer.
“Mr. Jeffers,” he says. “Did you
have him for calculus?”
I close my eyes for a second and
picture a man with curly black hair and a creepy mustache. “Yes, I did.”
“Me too,” Brody says. “You know what
happened to him, don’t you?”
I stare at him. “What?”
He smirks. “You don’t know? Oh, man.”
“No…”
“He got canned. He was always
hitting on the female students. All the kids knew about it, but the
administration finally caught on. Did he ever hit on you?”
No. I was most definitely not the kind
of teenager who got hit on by teachers. Even teachers of the creepy mustache
variety. Doesn’t Brody realize that? “Not really,” is all I say.
“I’ll send you a link to the
article,” Brody says. I gave him my phone number yesterday, and he sent me a
text this morning to confirm the location for our date. The text was one long
sentence with zero punctuation and a couple of bizarre autocorrects. I suppose
it’s not too surprising from a guy who can’t use his fingers.
“I thought of someone in your class
that I knew,” I say. “Knew of, at
least.”
Brody raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Pete Glasser?” I didn’t know Pete
well at all. The only reason I knew him was because he was an asshole. In
elementary school and middle school, I got teased mercilessly about my weight,
but in high school, kids don’t do that anymore. If they have something negative
to say about you, they’ll usually say it behind your back.
But Pete apparently had the maturity
of a thirteen-year-old because he made several comments to me or within my
earshot during my freshman year. Nothing that made me run home sobbing, but
enough to sting. The first thing I ever heard him say when he saw the freshmen
filing out of the auditorium for our first orientation was, “Wow, what a crop
of dogs.”
That comment didn’t bother me so
much. I mean, there were plenty of hot girls in my class, so I knew he was
blowing smoke. But then when I passed him, he nudged his friend hard. “Holy
shit!” he snickered. “Look at that
one! That’s the biggest ass I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I don’t even like to think about the
fact that I was downright skinny back then compared to what I weigh right now.
“Oh, right—Pete,” Brody says,
grinning. “He was a riot.”
“Yeah.” I study Brody’s face. He’s
such a good-looking guy—if he wasn’t disabled back in high school, was he
friends with assholes like Pete Glasser? For all I know, he was the guy Pete nudged
that first day. Maybe Brody did push freshmen down the stairs.
“In our biology class,” Brody says, “Pete
took that model skeleton of the human body and started waltzing around the room
with it. He almost got suspended.”
“So you and Pete were pretty good
friends, huh?”
Brody narrows his eyes at me for a
second, then snorts and shakes his head. “Nah.”
“How come?”
He gives me a crooked grin. “Because
he was a huge asshole, that’s how come. You think I’d be friends with the
biggest douchebag in the class?”
I blush because, of course, that was
exactly what I was implying. “People change.”
“True,” Brody says thoughtfully. He
scratches his nose with the back of his wrist. “I wonder what Pete is up to
these days. He’s probably either wildly successful or in prison.”
“Didn’t you just have your ten-year
reunion?”
“Oh, right.” He shifts in his chair.
“Yeah, I don’t go. It would have been… weird.” He averts his eyes. “I wasn’t…
you know. I didn’t need a wheelchair in high school. I really didn’t want to
spend three hours explaining over and over again to every person in the class
what happened to me. I saw the photos on Instagram—that’s enough.”
I desperately want to ask him what did happen to him. He’s got a certain
comfort level with his disability that makes me sense it isn’t a recent thing. And
the scar on his neck makes me think it was an accident. That’s about all I know.
Finally, he says, “I was in a car
wreck when I was nineteen. Broke my neck.”
“Oh,” I say.
He shrugs again, and that’s the end
of it. I have about a million other questions I’d love to ask him, but I decide
to keep my mouth shut.
At that point, Brody digs into a
pouch on the side of his wheelchair and comes out with something that looks
like a thick watchband. He drops it into his lap, and I watch him as he manages
to get the loop around the last four fingers of his right hand. “Don’t mind me,”
Brody says. “Just preparing for when the food gets here.”
There’s a pocket in the band, and
Brody tries to get his fork to go into it. I guess that answers my question
about how he feeds himself. Considering I’m pretty sure all he can move is his
elbows and his wrists, he’s struggling with this. It’s a little painful to
watch, and I’m not sure what the proper etiquette is. “Do you want me to help
you?” I ask him.
“Nope, I got it,” Brody says. He
doesn’t though. Well, eventually he does. It takes him about a million tries,
but he finally gets the fork attached to the cuff, and I see his shoulders
relax. “Sorry,” he says. “I have adaptive utensils I use at home that I’ve
gotten used to. This way always takes longer.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“It’s just frustrating,” he says. “You
know, like, exactly when I’m trying to make a good impression, I do everything
much worse than usual.” He takes a shaky breath. “And now I’m even saying stupid things too.”
He looks so incredibly nervous. It’s completely adorable. If I wasn’t so
incredibly nervous myself, I would have given him a hug. I wonder how often he
goes out on dates. I’m guessing it’s not very much. He could probably give me a
run for my money. “Don’t worry about it,” I say.
“Maybe we could start over again,
huh?” he says.
“Sure,” I say.
He takes a deep breath. “You look
really nice tonight, Emily. Really, really
nice.”
Brody is looking at me in a way that
I don’t think I’ve ever been looked at before. And it makes me feel a way I’ve
never felt before: attractive. Another silence hangs between us and this one
isn’t sappy at all—it’s very serious. I get that tingling all over my body, but
especially in my underwear.
Of course, it would be that moment
when our waitress arrives with the food. Brody’s chicken parmigiana looks and
smells amazing, and my salad looks comparatively sad and bland. As promised,
Brody’s chicken has been cut up into tiny pieces. He nods and smiles up at the
waitress. “Thank you very much.”
Brody lays out a napkin on his lap
and digs into his food. I try not to watch, but it’s hard—I’m curious. He’s not
doing terribly at eating, considering everything. He spills almost nothing but
sometimes he takes two or three tries to spear a piece of chicken.
Meanwhile, my own plate of food is
pretty much torturing me. Do you want to know a secret about me? I hate salad.
So much. I feel like a rabbit when I’m eating it. I hate everything people put
in salads. I hate baby tomatoes. I hate cucumbers. There’s nothing that makes
salad more appealing aside from those creamy salad dressings that I’m not
allowed to eat.
But what can I do? Aside from the
salad, everything on this menu is at least a thousand calories. So I better try
to enjoy the salad.
I’m so anxious, I wish that I had
something to drink. I mean, something alcoholic. Alcohol would help the
situation right now. I think alcohol was invented for first dates. Why did he
just order water? What’s wrong with
him?
Even though I hate salad, I devour
every bite. I’m that hungry, and it’s
not terrible if I eat it quickly. Brody pushes his plate away when he sees I’m
finished, even though his plate is still more than half-full.
“I’m done too,” he says.
“You don’t have to rush,” I say. He barely
ate anything. He’s a man—he’s supposed to at least be able to match me.
Brody shakes his head. “Nah, I’m
good. I don’t walk and burn calories, so my appetite isn’t that big.”
The skinny waitress comes to take
away our plates and we’re left staring at each other once again. Brody clears
his throat. “So, um,” he begins, blinking his blue eyes with much too long
eyelashes. “I don’t want to push you or anything, but at this point, I’d kind
of like to know if this is a date or not. So if you could tell me, that would
be great.”
I swallow. “Oh, um…”
“Because right now, I would really,
really like to kiss you,” he murmurs. “But if this isn’t a date, I won’t try.”
All the air suddenly rushes out of
my body.
“Um,” I say. “I think… yes. It is. It’s
a date.”
Brody raises his eyebrows and a slow
smile creeps across his lips. “Yeah?”
I nod.
“Come closer,” he says.
Across the table is way too far away
for him to comfortably lean forward and kiss me, considering he has a strap
across his chest, so I scooch over to the side of the table so that I’m right
next to him. He stares at me for a second, as if doing a few mental
calculations to judge the distances. He lifts his right arm, brings his wrist
to the back of my head, and pulls my face close to his. He goes about ninety
percent of the way to my lips, then I bridge the gap.
And we’re kissing.
Oh my God, we’re kissing!
I wonder if he has any clue this is
the first time I’ve ever kissed a man on the lips. It feels so natural, so right, that I don’t even worry (too
much) if I’m doing it wrong. At first, Brody stays chastely on my lips, but
then his tongue gently laps at my upper lip—he wants to get inside. I open my
mouth to let him in, and oh my God. This is amazing! My entire body tingles as
his tongue dances against mine and his stubble grazes against my chin.
When we finally separate, I’m
literally shaking. Brody’s face is flushed. He mumbles under his breath, “It’s
been way too long.” And he turns even redder.
“It’s been a long time for me too,”
I tell him.
“I’m sure it’s been longer for me,” he says.
I’m not going to play this game with
him, because I don’t want to admit that no matter how long it’s been for him,
I’ve got him beat by a million miles. Even if he hasn’t kissed a girl since he
broke his neck, I’ve still got him beat.
“I want to kiss you again,” Brody
says, and he does. And can I just say that it’s pretty adorable that he
announces it when he wants to kiss me.
After our second kiss, I can’t help
but notice that half the restaurant is staring at us. I guess we’re a
spectacle. But I don’t even care.
As I pull away from him, my boob
knocks my knife and fork off the table. My boobs and my butt are always
knocking things down. I’m used to it. “I’ll get that,” I mumble, then I reach
for the utensils from the floor.
And then I feel something rip.
Oh my God, my pants just split. It’s
happened to me many times before, and the sensation is unmistakable. There’s
now a big hole along the bottom seam of my pants. I can feel a breeze. Stupid
cheap pants.
All the joy I felt a few moments ago
drains from my body. This is the most mortifying thing that can happen on a
first date. My shirt is nowhere near long enough to hide my pants. The second I
get up, he’s going to know what happened. Everyone in this stupid restaurant is
going to know what happened.
I wish I could disappear.
Brody is trying to make
conversation, but I can’t focus. I take a sip of my Diet Coke, trying to figure
out what to do next. Maybe I could steal a napkin and tuck it into the back of
my pants. Of course, the napkins are bright white and my pants are almost
black. It’s going to be incredibly obvious.
“Hey,” Brody is saying, “I was just
thinking… It’s still early. There’s this great coffee shop a few blocks away.
Do you want to go?”
Before my pants split, I would have
been dying of happiness at his invitation. But now it’s out of the question. “No,
thanks,” I say. “I’m just going to, you know, go home.”
“Oh.” His face falls. “Sure. You
said you came here by bus, right? I can wait with you at the bus station. Make
sure you get on all right.”
As much as it pains me, I need to
get rid of him. Now. If there’s any
chance of getting out of here without him discovering my secret, we definitely
can’t be making more plans for the evening. Although I have a feeling the
minute I stand, the gig will be up.
“No, that’s okay,” I mumble. “I’m
just going to head out. I… I’ve got a headache.”
“Oh,” he says again. And this time
he takes the hint.
Our waitress comes by with the
check. I offer what I hope is a compensatory smile. “Let me split it with you,”
I say.
“No,” he says firmly. “I’ve got it.”
“I could pay the tip.”
“I said I’ve got it.”
Brody fumbles around in the front
pocket of his shirt and comes up with a credit card. It drops onto his lap and
it takes him about five tries to get it into his hand and onto the table. He
completely misses the tray that the check is in, but our waitress manages to
figure it out.
After the waitress leaves with a
credit card, we sit there in silence again. But this time, it isn’t dopey,
happy silence. It’s awkward, miserable silence. I’m so angry at my stupid pants
right now.
Brody leans forward. “Listen,” he
says. “I’m sorry I said that thing about it being a while since… well, you
know. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I’m happy to be here with
you. And… you kiss really good. It was nice. That’s all.”
He looks miserable. He thinks he’s
blown it. And right now, I’m blowing
it. I’ve got to tell him the truth. No matter how humiliating it is.
“It’s not that,” I say. “I had a
really nice time too, and… you kiss really good too.”
He lifts his eyes. “But?”
He thinks this sentence is going to
end with “but I’m just not that into you.” He has no idea. It pains me to say
this. “I split my pants open when I bent over to get the fork and knife. So
I’m… I just want to go home.”
His eyes fly open. I caught him off
guard with that one. I wait for his face to fill with disgust. But instead, he
shifts around and starts sifting through the backpack on the back of his chair.
I have no idea what he’s doing.
“Brody?”
“Hang on.” He’s searching for
something. After a minute, he comes out with a black sweatshirt hooked on his
fingers. He shoves it across the table. “Here. You can wrap this around your
waist. For the ride home.”
“Oh.” I take the sweatshirt and
unfold it. It will probably fit around my waist, although barely. “Thank you.”
I was worried I would never see him
smile again, so I’m relieved when he flashes me one of his grins. “No problem.
I’m prepared for any kind of embarrassing emergency. I’ve experienced
everything.”
I study his face and there isn’t
even a trace of judgment there. I’ve never met anyone quite like him. “I had a
great time tonight, Brody.”
“Me too. I think we should do it
again.”
“I definitely think we should.”
I end up sticking around until he
signs the check in an illegible scribble. (Hopefully, the waitress doesn’t make
up some crazy number for the tip, because it’s not at all clear what he was
trying to write.) And then he kisses me one more time by the entrance to the
restaurant. I have to bend down and it’s a little more awkward than our other
kisses, but still really, really nice. A girl could get used to this.
To be continued....