Bad Date
I feel the warmth of the brick oven as we heave open the oak door of the restaurant and make our way over to the podium to give our names to the hostess, who says that she can seat us right away and leads us past the high-polished marble bar and past table after table of customers laughing over large dishes of pasta and drinking wine, lots of wine, and families sharing huge wheels of pizza that teeter on tin platters balanced on tall metal stands to keep them from filling the table, and when she finally stops, it’s near the end of a long green leather booth at a table just barely big enough for two, but we say it’s okay and sit down and order our wine and admire the Botticellian frescos filling the walls with fleshy women in togas surrounded by cherubs and grapes, and as the server brings our food and pours our wine, a couple sits down at the other two-person table next to us, and as I twirl the thick pasta around my fork, the couple swaps brief life histories—what they do, how they got into their careers, how long they’ve been in the area—and I realize that they are on a first date, and as the waiter asks them if they would like a menu and the man says yes and the woman says no, I realize that they are on a bad first date, and with the roar of voices running through the restaurant, I strain my ears to hear everything the couple is saying as my pasta gets cold.
© Nikki Damon 2009
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