“Oh no. What happened?”
“I was wearing a new floor-length skirt that I really loved, but had no practice walking in. I stepped off a curb at a high speed, stepped on the front hem of the skirt, stumbled another step forward, pulled the whole thing around my knees, and face-planted in a four-inch-deep ice-cold mud puddle. I was drenched from my chin to my shins. It wasnotmy finest moment.”
“Oh my God.” Keith looked genuinely horrified. “Were you hurt?”
“A few bruises and a serious blow to my pride. Worst of all, my date didn’t even ask if I was okay, he just burst out laughing. I’m sure it looked like pure slapstick, but it was scary, you know? When something that unexpected happens, even if you’re not really hurt, it throws you for a loop.”
Keith, incredulous, said, “What a jackass. I’m sorry you went through that. If you want to point him out to me, I’ll trip him into a puddle in the name of honorable vengeance.”
“Aw!” Stacy laughed. “That’s nice. Most guys would say they’d punch him in the nose for me or something. No, it was back in Ohio. I left town immediately, obviously. No one could face their neighbors again after a fall like that.”
“Oh, the truth comes out now, I see. You didn’t leave because you were looking for a way to avoid marrying somebody from high school—oh, no, wait, was this the guy from high school?”
Stacy touched a finger to the tip of her nose and Keith winced even more sympathetically. “Who can blame you. One bone-meltingly mortifying incident like that and I’d be a runner, too. I’m glad you weren’t hurt too badly, though. That could have been bad.”
“See, you’ve checked in about how I was twice already, over something that happened five years ago in another state when you weren’t there. I don’t get how he could have just laughed at me. Complete jerk.” They walked into the restaurant’s parking lot, and the inviting scent of garlic and butter rolled toward them as the door opened and chattering people emerged. “That smellscrazygood. Are we doing appetizers?”
“Appetizers, salads, main course and dessert,” Keith said with conviction. “Possibly twice.”
“They have huge portions here,” Stacy said dubiously. “I’ll be impressed if you can eat all of one, never mind more than one.”
“Please prepare to be impressed.” He held the door for her, and she sighed happily at the warm, delicious-smelling air inside the restaurant. They were seated within a few minutes despite having shown up almost an hour early for their reservation, and Stacy made a decisive claim on mozzarella sticks as her appetizer while Keith ordered a caprese salad with avocado.
“Oh, you’re one of those millennials,” Stacy said. “Ruining the economy with avocado toast. Is it good?”
"The economy?"
"No, avocado toast, you dork!"
Keith grinned. "I deserved that dork."
"Yes, you did! So is it good? Or, is avocado good? I don’t think I’ve ever had it.”
“You don't eat guacamole?” Keith asked, stunned.
“Come on, would you say eating ketchup is the same as having a tomato?”
“An excellent argument. I like them, yes. They have a kind of low-key green flavor to me. You can try some of mine.”
“I may even share a mozza stick in return.” The appetizers arrived surprisingly quickly, and they did share, although Stacy accidentally made a face at the avocado. “It’s a little slimy.”
“See, people say that, but I don’t think so. Or, no, I guess it just doesn’t bother me.”
Stacy waved a mozzarella stick at him. “You can have your mozzarella cold with tomato and slime, and I’ll stick with mine being hot and melty with ranch dressing. You were telling me about working in advertising.”
“I was? Let me just say this, don’t believe anything any commercial ever tells you about anything, ever. That’s what I’ve learned, working in advertising. What worldly wisdom have you picked up from hairdressing?”
“Oh, gosh, um. Aside from ‘trust your hairdresser when she says that cut willnotlook good on you?’ People want a connection,” Stacy said a little more softly, more seriously. “They want to talk and feel seen and to be treated well for a little while. And if they’re bitches to you, you don’t have to bend over backward to make them happy, because if they talk crap about you and clients stop coming to see you, you didn’t want those people as clients anyway.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Pretty much that, I think. But it’s tiring. It’s why I don’t like this season. The happy people are great, but the stressed out ones can tear your whole day down.”
Keith had stopped eating and was watching her as if she’d said something wonderful and profound. Stacy ducked here head, suddenly embarrassed. “That was a lot, wasn’t it? I’m not sure it was as useful as ‘don’t believe advertising.’”
“No, I think it was good,” Keith said gently. Somehow, despite the two-foot-tall reindeer antlers he still wore, he looked completely sincere, and she felt herself believing him. “Different life lessons from different jobs, that’s all. I’ll try to remember yours.” A little more humorously, he said, “Mine’s easier to remember. Everybody knows you probably shouldn’t believe advertising anyway. Okay. Should I flag the waiter so we can order dinner?”
Keith tossed his head vigorously, the way he would need to in order to move the weight of hair he was used to, as he turned to look for their waiter. Without the weight of all that hair, his head moved a lot faster and harder than he was accustomed to. Stacy had seen people with newly short hair do that hundreds of times.
She had not once,ever, seen someone do that while wearing a gigantic antler headband.
The headband didn’t just fall off. Itlaunched. Itflew.
