R stands in front of the mirror in her short magenta dress made of taffeta with taut little white roses around the neckline. She’s sure it will be perfect for her date with G this evening.
R’s friend Q from Widget Wonders has set the two of them up on a blind date with much promise, hope, and hullaballoo. Q has been on R’s case for weeks to get out more, since R has become somewhat of a hermit after her breakup with Harold.
R and G plan on meeting at Mudbutters at 7:30 p.m., so she heads out in her crappy Ford Escort at 6:45 with full-on face paint and a Hello Kitty tote bag full of popcorn in case the food is sub-par.
She arrives at the restaurant at 7:10 and has a good twenty minutes to kill. She doesn’t
want to get a table since she’s afraid G won’t know where to find her, so she waits in the
vestibule.
She sees a wooden bench with an ugly painting of a creepy clown behind it, looking kind of like John Wayne Gacy.
R crosses her legs and wiggles her foot in time to the ambient electronic dance music piped in through the speaker system. The hostess stares right through R in her taffeta dress.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for someone,” R volunteers.
“That’s OK,” the hostess replies without making eye contact.
R sits back down and eats some popcorn from her purse. She is hungry and bored and
wonders when G is going to show up.
“Miss, I’ll have to ask you to stop that,” the hostess scolds, noticing R for the first time.
“No outside food.”
R sighs and swallows her last kernel as she watches the diners come and go, imagining
what they would order and what they would do after leaving the restaurant, attempting to entertain herself vicariously. A cocky middle-aged man enters the restaurant next.
He looks to be in his mid-forties and is wearing dad jeans and a Van Halen t-shirt. Maybe it’s G, she thinks, though Q has given her the impression that G is a lot younger. The man has curly blond hair, a round face, and looks like a cherub. He smiles and sits down next to R.
“Are you G?” she asks sheepishly.
“No, I’m Michael, but it’s nice to meet you,” he chuckles. “I guess you’re waiting for G.”
“Yes I—”
“Kat! It’s great to see you!”
A tiny woman in cutoff shorts who looks like she is barely old enough to drink runs up to
Michael and kisses him enthusiastically as if she is mining his mouth for gold fillings.
The hostess shows them to their table as R lingers on the bench, defeated.
It’s already 7:45. Where is G? Maybe he can’t make it. Maybe he has to work late, has a flat tire, or just isn’t hungry. Who knows? R indulges in some fantasy mind reading, a talent often brought out by her relentless anxiety.
R gets out her phone in its pink Hello Kitty case and calls Q. Maybe she knows
something. The phone rings five times and R hears Q’s voice.
“You’ve reached Q. Please leave a message,” she teases in her best Lois Griffin.
R hangs up.
Another man walks in just as she ends her call. He’s wearing a boring brown business
suit and makes his way over to R. Oh, this is G. He looks like a geek. His thin brown hair is slicked back from his rat face. He’s tall and skinny, with a big head like a Q-tip.
“Hi, I’m Larry,” he says. He sounds suave and as slick as his hair, despite his rat face, Q-
tip head, and cheap suit. “You must be Noelle.” He reeks of Drakaar Noir, R’s favorite cologne.
Surprising herself, R says, “Why, yes. Pleased to meet you.”
She lunges forward to get up from the bench and hears a humiliating ripping sound. She
realizes that upon getting up, she has torn the hem of her dress on the edge of the bench.
The bottom of her dress is frayed, with a big string dangling between her legs from the back of the hem.
An older woman in an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform with a folded white hat and white
stockings saunters through the door.
“Larry? Hi, I’m Noelle.”
“Oh, hello, Noelle!” He exclaims and forgets that R is in the room.
R sits back down. The lights in the restaurant are dim, so she looks at her Timex and
presses the little button that makes it glow in the dark. Eight o’clock. It becomes exponentially more likely with every five minutes that G won’t show.
R’s phone rings to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon” played on a glockenspiel. It is Q.
“Hello?”
“Hi, R. I just wanted to tell you that—”
R’s phone goes dead.
She walks out of the restaurant, thinks about the characters she has met tonight, ponders why G wasn’t one of them, and wonders what Q was going to tell her.
Despite the evening’s events, R is still hungry. She returns to Mudbutters and slinks up to the hostess.
“Table for one, please.”
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