I swear the sound echoes in my soul.
And now I’m forced to acknowledge that this date is in salvage mode. Todd is no longer a guy with some issues but maybe we’ll get to know each other over dinner; he is now someone I actively hope to never see again after tonight.
I know that everyone has flaws — I’m flaw central over here — but after a year of waitressing during college, with God as my witness, I’ll never fall for someone who snaps at the waitstaff like they’re dogs. Not that I was in danger of falling for him anyway.
Showing a strength and integrity of character I can only dream of having, the waitress comes over with a smile on her face.
“Hi there, I’m Stephanie, can I get y’all started with something tonight?” she asks, never once betraying that I’m sitting across from a monster.
I give her the most intense I’m sorry he snapped at you look I can.
Todd doesn’t even look up.
“We’d like a bottle of the two thousand twelve Deux Canard Bordeaux, along with the three-cheese gougères and the duck rilletes. That’ll be all for now,” he says.
“Thank you!” I call as she walks away. Todd looks at me like I told a mildly amusing joke.
“I can’t believe I still have to ask,” he says, settling back into his chair. “I’m a regular, they know what I’m going to want. Always the 2012 Canard Bordeaux. It’s the best wine in the house, not that their wine selection is anything to write home about.”
I take a long sip of water. I consider just standing up and leaving, but I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want everyone in Le Faisan Rouge to stare at me as I walk out.
I also am not having a good date.
So I smile, shrug, and say, “They only got five stars because the chef slept with a reviewer, but you come here all the time?”
Todd smiles. His teeth are an untrustworthy white.
“Where else am I supposed to go around here?” he asks. “You think I’m gonna go to Louisa Mae’s for meatloaf?”
“I don’t see why not. At least it’s good,” I point out.
“The only wine they have on the menu is merlot and chardonnay,” he says, like that’s some unspeakable crime. “At least here I can eat my decent steak with a very good wine.”
My heart skips a beat at that very. Did Todd just order us a hundred-dollar bottle of wine?
Maybe just this once, get down off your feminist soapbox and let him pay for the date?
This was his idea, after all.
My palms are still sweating when the waitress comes back with the already-opened wine, because I’m still trying to figure out how much I’m going to be paying for it. Fifty dollars? Seventy-five dollars?
It’s your own fault now for not saying something, I remind myself.
Or you could just let him pay for the stupid wine that he wanted in the first place.
They go through the whole sniff-swirl-taste-drink-nod thing that wine people love to do, and the waitress pours both of us a glass. I sample mine.
It tastes like wine.
“Are you ready to order?” she asks, still smiling.
“We’ll both take the filet mignon, medium rare,” Todd says, and reaches for my menu.
I pull it back and look up at the waitress myself.
“Actually, I’d like the coq au vin, please,” I tell her. This guy has already gotten me wine that’s definitely too expensive. The hell I’m paying for dumb steak I don’t want, too.
“The filet is better,” Todd says, looking at me like I’ve just said that I’ll be dining out of the dumpster.
“I’m not in a steak mood,” I say,
“You should be.”
I hand my menu back to the waitress and smile at her. Todd just shrugs.
“Your loss,” he says, which I very much doubt, and drinks some more of his fancy wine.
He then launches into a one-sided conversation about golf. I have no opinions whatsoever on golf, so I drink my overpriced wine, nod sometimes, and think about what I’m going to tell Adeline about this date, since she set me up in the first place. Todd is her cousin’s cousin’s friend or something.
Our food comes. Todd slices his filet mignon like it’s done him wrong, and I eat my chicken as politely as I can. When we’re finished, the waitress clears our plates. I thank her and he doesn’t. After she leaves, he refills my wine glass, even though I haven’t even finished my first one.
Then he leans in, smirking smugly, holding the stem of his glass between his fingers.
“So,” he says. “Your place or mine?”
I nearly choke.
“What?”
He smirks, though this one comes out more like a snarl. It’s not a good look.
“Come on. Your place or mine?”
I set my wine glass gently on the table.
I’m not having sex with him. I’d rather get into a bathtub full of wolverines, and for a long moment, I just stare at him in disbelief that any human being can think that this date was heading that way.
It’s on the tip of my tongue: I do not want to have sex with you; rather, I would prefer to get the check, split it, and amicably go our separate ways.
But at the last second that seems rude, so what I actually say is: “No, thank you.”
“You sure?” he asks. “I thought that was a pretty nice dinner.”
He spins his wine glass between his fingers, the red liquid sloshing around inside. I want to tell him about preferring the wolverines, but I control myself.
“I’d prefer to go home alone, thanks,” I say. “I need to get up early in the morning.”
It’s still too polite, too nice, because it’s been bred into me since I was old enough to say goodness gracious.
“It doesn’t have to take a long time,” he says, like this somehow makes his offer better.
I wonder how I ever felt optimistic about him. I wonder if my optimism meter is broken, or at least seriously damaged.
Todd’s face changes in a way that reminds me of a five-year-old about to have a tantrum in the toy aisle at Walmart. He snaps his fingers in the air again, and this time, I swear I flinch.
“Check,” he says as the waitress comes over, and she nods, then leaves.
He looks at me. It’s calculating look, like he’s tallying up how much money he just spent not to get laid.
The almost-tantrum look on his face intensifies.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, and heads toward the men’s room.
The moment he’s gone, I breathe a sigh of relief.
I should have ended the date the first time he snapped at the waitress. I should have told him I wasn’t interested instead of that I have to get up early tomorrow. I should have been polite but firm and just walked out of there, figure out my own way home.
I shouldn’t have let him pick me up for this date in the first place.
Todd takes his sweet time in the bathroom. I pull out my phone and text Adeline.
Me: Don’t trust your cousin’s cousin again, for the good of womankind.
She doesn’t text back, so she must be at work already. I flip through Pinterest on my phone. There are some cute pictures of hay bales decorated for a wedding. I pin one to my work account.
I wait for Todd to come back. I wait for the check. I wait and I wish that Todd had taken me for meatloaf at Louisa’s instead. I also wish that Todd was someone else entirely, someone I’d actually want a second date with.