Fred flagged over a waiter and gave him our drink order. Then he folded his hands on the table and said, “I’m so glad we’re doing this tonight.”
I forced a smile. “Me, too.” Matt would be back in Indy soon, the holidays would be over, and I’d be here, starting my own post-divorce life for real. Fred was a nice man, who could potentially be part of it, if I stopped letting my boss’s existence get in the way. At the very least, we could end up being friends. “It’s nice to talk to someone who gets what it’s like to be divorced.”
He waved that off. “Let’s not dwell on all that tonight. It’s hard enough being alone right now during the holidays. Tell me about you.” He rested his chin on his fist. “I want to know all about Dani. What makes her tick.”
I attempted to pull my face into something resembling a friendly smile, as the waiter returned with a bottle of wine. Fred kept his eyes focused unsettlingly on me as the waiter poured our drinks. I kept thinking I had something caught in my teeth. He’d worn his long hair in a low pony tonight. I’d never dated a guy with a ponytail, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Not that this was a “date.”
I should’ve told Matt explicitly it wasn’t a date. I should’ve been honest with him about where I was going tonight and that Fred and I were just two divorced people getting a meal together. The guilt kept eating at me.
After the waiter left, I sipped my wine, attempting to gather up some courage. “I want to be honest with you.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Uh-oh.”
“It’s not bad…” I hesitated a moment, trying to find the right words. “I’m just not sure I’m in a heart-eyes, strawberry, tongue type place yet?”
He blinked. “What?”
I downed the rest of my wine. “My daughter,” I said. “She saw your text with all the emojis and was like, ‘He wants to bang you.’ Her words.”
“All the emojis?” He appeared to be looking back in time, running through his past actions. I knew that face. I’d made it plenty of times in my day. “Are you talking about…I think I was trying to illustrate how excited I was to break my diet and try La Fillet’s famous fruit tart.” He laughed. “Did I accidentally sext you?”
“I think you did!” All the tension released from my body, and the two of us laughed for a moment.
“Honestly,” he said. “Getting ready for this dinner was enough pressure.” He touched the lapels on his plaid suit coat with leather patches on the elbows. “Can we leave any strawberries and tongues off the table tonight?”
“Deal.” Relieved and suddenly much more comfortable to be dining with my new friend Fred, who had no sexual expectations, I grabbed a slice of garlic bread and took a bite. “You have to try this,” I said, passing him the plate. “It’s amazing.”
Fred looked at the basket of bread like it was a warty, disgusting toad. “I can’t,” he said.
I took a bite, and the garlicky butter melted against my tongue. “What, are you watching your carbs or something?”
“I’m a pegan.”
“A…a pagan?” What did that have to do with not eating scrumptious, savory bread?
“No, a pegan. P-e-g-a-n. A paleo-vegan.” He took a sip of his wine.
A paleo-what now? “How does that even work? Don’t people who follow paleo diets eat mostly meat?”
“Yes.” His face brightened, and I recognized the excitement of a zealot about to expound on his beliefs. “Paleo diets focus a lot on meat. And obviously, vegans don’t eat anything that comes from an animal. Peganism is a happy medium. We eat mostly plants but some meat. Like as a garnish.”
Meat…as a garnish. I pictured a slice of ham rolled into a rosette shape and placed lovingly on the corner of a plate. “Interesting…”
“I started eating this way after my wife left.” He shrugged. “A friend got me into it, and I saw it as a good challenge. It was one of my new things to try. This one stuck.”
“Fred,” I said, “good thing strawberries and tongues are off the menu, because I’m not sure I could be with someone who never ate bread.” As punctuation, I gnawed off a corner of the slice in my hand.
He chuckled. “Well, now you’re not thinking straight. That would just mean more bread for you.”
I laughed, too, and feeling a kinship with this other divorced person trying to find his way in the world, I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. A bell behind me dinged and I, on instinct, looked over at the front door to the restaurant. Jane had just come in with a couple friends. I grinned and waved to her, but her eyes were on my hand, which was still holding Fred’s.
I snatched my fingers back, but it was too late. She was already on her phone.
…
Matt
December 18th, two days before deadline
I had to get out of the house tonight. After working all day, I’d planned on curling up on the couch by myself with some movies and a giant bowl of popcorn, but my surroundings kept calling Dani to mind—the decorations she’d put up, the freshly baked pecan pie on the counter, the smell of her spicy perfume lingering in the air. Everything around me reminded me that she was out with someone else tonight. A “friend.”
She’d offered to cancel, and I’d done the courteous thing and told her not to. She had a right to her own life, and it was not my place to ask her to hunker down in this sad rental house with me instead of going out on the town with whoever this friend was.
I texted Jane. “What are you up to?” Maybe she’d come over and watch a movie with me.
“Going out with friends in a bit. Want to come? lol”
“lol,” I wrote back. “Have fun.” I stood and stretched. I could go running, at least. Maybe I’d catch Linda out in her yard and she’d shove a few cookies in my hands.
I tied my running shoes, zipped up my jacket, and headed up the driveway to the main road. I left my phone at home on purpose to stay present in the moment. Instead of distracting myself with a podcast or music or, worst of all, social media, I focused on my surroundings. The snow from a week ago had melted and the air had warmed again to almost fifty degrees, continuing the weather-based whiplash we were all feeling this December. A deer hovered behind a bare tree.
As I jogged past, I snuck an attempting-to-be-casual glance at Dani’s parents’ house. The lights burned bright inside, and they’d decorated the bushes outside with Christmas bulbs of all colors. Their inflatable Elvis in a Santa hat jiggled his hips in the wind. I couldn’t help smiling.