I am seated about fifteen minutes before my reservation, and I check and recheck my messages with Arthur to ensure I told him the correct place and time. I did. This restaurant looks like it’s trying to be a granny’s eclectic living room, but it’s all a little too rehearsed. Dark green with bronze accents, artfully peeling wall paint (on a paint job not six months old),chinoiseriesilk screens disguising the entrance to the kitchen, bric-a-brac from a variety of different cultures. It’s all a bit at odds with the neon nightclub lighting and low hum of trance music in the background.
I decline a drink other than water because ‘I’m waiting for someone.’ I get to spend a bit of time cleaning up the tablebecause I’m incapable of basic tasks like pouring water from a bottle into one of those tiny shallow glasses that’s got the volume of approximately two sips. Eleven minutes.
He’s in front of me as I’m handing off a wad of napkins to an unenthused waiter.
‘I thought I’d be here first,’ he says, smiling.
He sits. We order a bottle of wine. The waiter recommends a chardonnay that will pair nicely with the Feed Me menu, if that’s something we’re interested in. We are. No, we don’t have any dietary requirements. We clink our glasses together and each take a long sip.
‘So,’ he says carefully, stroking the stem of his wine glass, looking at his fingers and not at me. ‘What’s the occasion? What are we plotting this time?’
‘No plot,’ I reply, staring determinedly at his face—Iwillbe catching his eye when he finally looks up. Every reel I watched today indicated that eye contact is crucial to flirting. I just need him to work with me. ‘I just wanted to hang out.’
He looks up, and the grin there looks like sunshine. He exhales like he was really nervous about my answer.
Thankfully the first course comes out quickly to give us something to talk about. Oh, is that lemongrass? I think it is. So fresh. I completely forget how to use chopsticks and definitely do something with them that is considered impolite in many cultures in order to get the wonton in my mouth. Arthur laughs at me, offering zero support.
He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. (Comforting to know it’s not just me.) They rake through his hair. They rest on the edges of the table. They rearrange thingsso we can fit the growing number of plates around us. They mess with the condensation on his glass. Finally, they rest in his lap.
‘This is so weird. We’ve hung out so much, but now I feel like I don’t know what to do.’
Deep breath. You can do it. ‘Maybe because when we hung out before it wasn’t a date.’
He looks at me. I look back. Squint slightly as if it makes the eye contact more powerful.
‘Is this a date?’ he asks.
‘I mean, I asked you out on a date…’ Backtrack. Backtrack.
‘It really wasn’t clear from the message.’
‘I was hoping you’d pick up the vibe.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be a date. It can just be two friendly former chaperones who happen to have kissed having a friendly dinner.’
‘No!’ he almost shouts. The lady next to me (these tables really are close enough that she and her husband must be able to hear every single word of this painful exchange) turns to glare sternly at Arthur. He apologises softly, then turns back to me and places a hand over mine where it rests on the table. ‘I wanted it to be a date.’ He pauses, turning my hand over and squeezing it for emphasis. ‘I want it to be one.’
I can hear the lady next to me muttering something about inappropriate public behaviour, and I assume this time she’s talking about me, because I am definitely looking at Arthur like I want to leap across the table and tear all his clothes off.
It’s easier after that.
Funny how admitting that you both want to be on the date you’re already on can loosen you up.
Within twenty minutes, Rhonda (our table neighbour) and her husband have asked to be moved to another table because of our laughter. They’re not pleased when told the only seats available are up at the bar. Apparently John has a bad hip. I don’t think the online review will be favourable.
We’ve moved to the little cocktail bar next door, and we’re on our second bottle of wine, a nice pinot noir although I lost the ability to tell the difference two glasses ago. We’ve also ordered some fries to soak up the first bottle. I lament how I’m going to have a parking ticket because I was too stingy to pay the machine until it expires at midnight, and I’ll have to come get my car in the morning.
Arthur calls me a luddite, signs up for the payment app, adds my car and covers it for the night. I thank him.
We’re sitting next to each other on a little couch in the corner now. I think this bartender wanted us out of the way. Somehow, after an embarrassingly short amount of time, the conversation turns to sex. Maybe every conversation after two bottles of wine turns to sex, or maybe it’s because we’re on a date instead of watching one, or maybe it’s because I wish his hands were raking through my hair instead of his own. It’s unclear, but the scenario is not unlike the one that led to our attempt at a kiss, so I’m not super angry about the turn of events.
‘I’m not that excited by sex, actually,’ I say, leaning so far back against the booth that I’m basically horizontal. My hand flops in between us, emphasising the point. I stare at it, at thegap between my floppy palm and where his hand rests a few centimetres away.
‘I don’t really know how to respond to that without prying into your sexuality or whatever, so I am just going to nod sagely and wait to see if you happen to open up.’ Arthur commences the nodding, like a drunk bobblehead.
‘I appreciate that. But it’s not that deep. I just don’t think sex is that good. I feel like people oversell it or something.’
