Second First Impressions: A Novel

The waiter interrupts to present us with pale, unappetizing salads. The plates are dotted with enough dressing to coat one taste bud, plus garnish flowers I’ve seen growing on roadsides. My stomach makes a noise like a disappointed Melanie.

“Is this a tomato?” Teddy’s holding up something on his fork, begging for a subject change. “Is it a see-through beet? A dead onion?”

“It’s the ghost of a tomato,” I decide, and we scrape around our plates for something edible. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful about a free lunch, but so far, the buttered roll is the standout.”

He asks me now, “Your parents still together?” I nod in reply. “What do they do for a living?”

I guess I’m going to have to cross this bridge now. It’s an unsexy bridge, which makes people think it’s a shortcut to understanding why I’m like this. “You are having lunch with the Reverend’s Daughter.” I take another wincing sip of wine.

“Don’t drink it,” Teddy says.

“Not even one second after learning I am a reverend’s daughter, you’ve decided I’m too sheltered to drink wine?” I open my mouth and gulp it all. I breathe out wine fumes and feel like I swallowed a lit match.

“No, I was saying don’t drink it because you clearly don’t like it. You don’t have to do everything Renata says. She’s less than five feet tall. What’s she gonna do to you?” Teddy sips from his water glass. He’s a chauffeur, after all. “Do you still go to church?”

“If I’m visiting home, I’ll go to avoid a fight. But I don’t have a church I go to here. My dad is disappointed in me.” It’s quite frankly amazing how I’ve managed to KonMari those feelings into a matchbox. I’ve lost faith in the church, and my dad has lost faith in me. Which came first? I hold up my glass to a waiter. “I need another glass, please.”

Before I can answer, Renata’s voice cuts through the room, making patrons around us wince. “What are you two little lovebirds talking about?”

Teddy lets me field this one. I can’t even stage-whisper, because her hearing isn’t good enough. “Daddy issues?”

“Carry on,” she says waving her knife airily. And because Teddy’s eyes are bright with amusement when I turn back around, the stares from the diners around us don’t affect me in the way I thought they would. Who cares.

The wine has curled up inside me, warm and snug. I should probably try to soak it up. I point at the bread rolls and Teddy begins to butter another one for me. “You just do them better than me,” I explain and he doesn’t think it’s strange. “I’m hungry and somehow already drunk?” The waiter gives me my second glass with perfect timing.

Teddy assesses me. “You’ve only had two bread rolls and the ghost of a tomato. Can I ask what’s for mains?”

“Spatchcock,” is the waiter’s listless reply. “But soup is coming.”

“We’re too hungry for mini chickens. Could we change our order? Let’s go for the steak. That okay, Ruthie?” The waiter is very irritated and walks off. Teddy is pretty pleased with himself. “I’ll be in trouble for that later.”

“Thank goodness the Parlonis are paying. I’m broke.” I could use that money Teddy owes me, but I don’t care about it anymore. He’s a day out at the carnival and I’m happy with the price I paid.

“I haven’t forgotten.” He digs around in his back pocket. There’s the unmistakable sound of Velcro ripping, and a nearby woman looks over at his lower body in alarm. “Oh please no,” he groans, patting his hip. “Not now, not here.”

I try to see under the tablecloth. “What’s happened?”

He’s puzzled. “You’re kidding, right? Didn’t you see the ‘Hot Stuff’ name tag? This is a stripper’s costume. It’s all held together with Velcro.”

“I’ve taken it to the dry cleaner so many times. What must they think of me?” As I pour the second glass of wine into myself, the looks I’ve gotten now make sense.

“That you know some pretty hot guys.” The look he gives me is devilish as he carefully fishes out his wallet with only a small amount of ripping noise this time. “My next Good Samaritan came through. This really nice lady found it at the Laundromat. It’s always ladies. Dudes are garbage.” He opens it and a cartoon moth flies out. He scrounges out battered notes. “Twenty dollars. Thank you.”

Our debt is cleared. I find I don’t like having this link between us erased. His wallet is a squashed leather medieval relic, run over by horse and cart a thousand times. I want to open it and read every single card and receipt. I want to sleep with it under my pillow. Oh no, this isn’t good.

He asks in an easy conversational way, “Who was the last person you dated?”

“My boyfriend’s name was Adam. Yeah, I know, I went pretty literal with what kind of guy I thought my dad would approve of.” The waiter takes away my uneaten salad. “We dated, or I guess you could call it dating, from sixteen to … the morning after prom night.”

“That sounds like an interesting story right there.” Again, we are interrupted. A small bowl of pink soup is presented to each of us. I touch the side of the bowl; it’s cold. Teddy asks, “Excuse me, what is this?”

“Lithuanian cold beet soup.” The waiter manages to say this with a straight face. Teddy wisely keeps the agony out of his expression. His employers are always watching.

“May as well try it.” He spoons some into his mouth and looks up at the ceiling, eyes narrowed in thought. What comes next: yum, yuck? Why do I care? I need to take Jerry Prescott’s advice before it’s too late. I’m not sure what too late will look like, but it won’t be a good thing for me.

I should focus more on my own experiences, not just wait on tenterhooks for his. I try some of the thick soup. “Like sweet crayons?”

“Tastes like a tub of beetroot dip got left out on a patio then it rained,” Teddy replies. He’s eating it anyway.

“Nailed it.” I grin into my bowl.

“I love it when you smile. It makes me get a little flipper here.” Teddy bumps a fist on his solar plexus. “So do you want to tell me what happened with Adam? Did he break your heart? Do I need to hunt him down?” He reminds me of Melanie.

The wine makes me confess. “Prom night went badly. I was his moment of bad judgment. He went to my dad for counseling in the morning. It was pretty bad.” My voice breaks. I felt sick looking at my father’s closed office door, knowing what they were talking about.

“He shouldn’t have done that. Going to your father? That’s a violation of your privacy.”

“I don’t know about violation— ”

“They thought your feelings and experience and privacy were worth less than his. It makes me really angry. What did I just tell you? People take too much from you.”

“I never thought of it that way.” I finish my wine. “So that was my last … encounter. Working at Providence, it’s been a chore on my to-do list that I’ve never gotten around to. Find a boyfriend. Until Melanie showed up.”

Wine reeaally works. I’m day-drunk and sitting opposite a guy I have an ill-advised crush on. I’m probably as transparent as glass right now. “I have to give Melanie an answer this afternoon about— ”

“The Sasaki Method,” he finishes for me. “She’s asked me to convince you to do it. But I don’t want you to. It’s a jungle out there.” He makes a face. “And I will tell you again, dudes are garbage.”

“You’re a dude.”

He repeats, “Garbage.”

“If I don’t want to be alone in a retirement villa from the ages of twenty-five to ninety-five, I need to do something. I want you to be completely honest. If this was a real date, how would I be doing?” That sounded so neutral and platonic. I amaze myself.

“You’re being yourself, and that’s all you need to be.” When he sees that vague answer doesn’t satisfy me, he thinks on it more. “You’re a good listener, you’re funny, you’re smart and honest … any guy would be lucky to be sitting where I am.” His eyeline moves over my face like a sketching pencil. “You’re completely beautiful.”

I don’t let myself feel the full impact of those words, because he said them so easily. He’s always got a compliment preloaded, that’s all that was. “That’s really kind of you.” For a boy who’s rather self-obsessed, he’s been doing the majority of the listening, not me. When we make eye contact again, I get a zip in my stomach.

He asks, “Anyone on your radar?”

“Literally no one.” It’s a bald-faced lie, but I see him wilt like I’ve delivered very bad news. What an annoying question. Of course Teddy is on my radar, in the same way that you might track the progress of a hurricane heading toward your part of the coast. Just take a moment to appreciate the special electricity that runs through him, turning everything about him bright.

I may as well get a crush on a hurricane. I’d be covered by insurance.

“No one at all on your radar.” He’s giving me one more chance to get the answer right. What does he want from me? To admit that I love the citrus yellow chips in his hazel eyes— and how they only show when the light hits them just right?

“My radar is broken.”

He’s not happy with that. He expects everyone to be in love with him. “We’ll tune it up. What’s your end goal? Mel has shown me her dream bridesmaid’s dress.”

“Lilac, I know.” What I really want can’t be said out loud. I want to sit on my couch with Heaven Sent on in the background, making out with a guy who employs just the right amount of give and take. “I can’t tell you what my end goal is. You once told me you’re easily traumatized.” It feels good to say something so bold. It inks out his pupils.

“Traumatize me.” He reaches out a hand and lays it flat on the tablecloth. It’s a request. Touch it. Give. “I want you to.”

Is this one of those moments I’ll look back on later and wonder what would have happened if I’d had the courage to just slide my own hand into his, in the middle of a fancy restaurant on a weekday? If I had, would those fingers curl and tighten on mine?

Give, give, give.

“I wanna find a nice normal guy and kiss him on my couch,” I say to see how he reacts. Not well. A frown forms, the hand is pulled back, and I never get to know if I had that kind of skin courage. I smile to cover my nerves. “What? That was pretty tame.”

He frowns. “There really aren’t that many guys dating online that’d be happy to stop at that.”

“Who said I wanted to stop?”

I look up as two plates are set down in front of us. Steak and potatoes sure beats a can of soup. Being forced out of my shell can end up being something more nourishing than I’m used to. And Teddy just stares at me. If he suspects I have a teeny-tiny ill-advised crush, I think he’ll start to look at me with gentle pity. “I’m doing it.”

“Doing what?”

Overly bright and confident, I take my phone out. “Let’s do the thing I can’t take back, once I agree.” I begin to text her and read aloud. “The Sasaki Method? I’m in.”

Teddy says, “Are you really sure? Mel is not a quitter. You’re going to find someone.”

“I want some semblance of a work-life balance, and if I don’t take this chance, nothing changes for me.” I stare into his eyes and decide that he’s my straightforward neighbor friend, and that is okay. I hit send.

On my phone there’s some reply-dots, and the screen explodes into emojis. They’re coming thick and fast, diamonds and hearts, rings and champagne bottles. Ridiculous GIFs of dancing babies and swinging gibbons. Joy is cascading down my screen. All at once, I’m so touched I could cry. She cares enough to be excited about helping me?

Lunchtime wine is a beautiful thing.

I’m sitting here in a fancy restaurant, with a kind, handsome man, and he’ll help me too? I reach over and have enough courage to sink my fingers between his and squeeze, releasing before he can react. “I mean, what have I got to lose?”

“I didn’t order you steak,” Renata screeches across the room. Now we’re at risk of losing our lives.