Lauren, 38

Chapter 2 - Lauren, 38

Lauren, 38

It’s ten minutes in, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure there won’t be a second date. I’ll confess - there was a moment as she walked through the door, a split second of time no longer than the snap of a finger, when I was deeply hoping there would be.

Lauren’s cute, no doubt about it, and unlike many of the women I’ve gone out with, she’s exceedingly better looking in person than in her photos. Then she took the seat across from me and opened her mouth. 

That was about nine minutes and forty-seven seconds ago, and it hasn’t closed since. I already know more about her than I’ve known about anyone else after the first year if not more of dating. I know about her hopes and dreams, her favorite color, every place she’s ever worked, the names of her high school teachers and her junior and senior prom dates, her guilty pleasure food (popcorn dipped in peanut butter, in case you were wondering �" which does sound amazing) and we’ve already made it through the names, occupations and life stories of her immediate family, and now we’ve branched out into cousins on her family tree.

“You remind me of my Uncle Tom,” she says. “He’s one of the best carpenters in Newport. Believe me, his work is amazing…” 

I smile and nod my head, adding an occasional affirmation or “Wow. That’s so interesting.” I do my best to make eye contact and listen. It’s something Elaine used to say I was bad at, and maybe there’s some truth in it, but the more I’ve thought about us, the more I’ve come to realize that at some point things just got so bad between us that just gave up listening to her. I’ve really tried to get better - but this is unbearable...

I gaze at the clock on the wall. Three days, thirteen hours, forty-three minutes. My mind drifts back to thoughts of school �" the impending disaster that awaits me…

I suddenly crash back to this world and realize she’s still talking �" she hasn’t stopped, but I don’t have the slightest clue what she’s yammering on about. 

    “Believe me, you can’t find better sushi anywhere…”

“I’ll never forget that time I kissed Connor McNeil. Believe me…”

    “You should have seen the size of this spider… I swear, it was this big,” she gasps, flinging her hands aside to present a case for the existence of a spider that was two feet if not longer in length, “Believe me.”

    “If you don’t believe me about how much blood there was, you can ask my uncle Kevin. Believe me…”

            I’m thoroughly convinced she doesn’t have an off switch, and there’s no logical flow or sequence to her stories. If it were a written assignment, I’d take points off for poor organization. I’d leave feedback like “Consider your audience...” and I’d underline all seven hundred uses of “Believe me” and write “WORD CHOICE” in giant red letters at the top. You know what, it would look alot like this.

As if the illogical presentation isn’t bad enough, she’s talking in a poor attempt at a whisper that’s loud enough that everyone in here can hear her. She hasn’t stopped smiling with this wide-eyed, ear to ear grin and it’s starting to weird me out a little.

She’s whipped her hands over her head violently about five times in the middle of a story for dramatic effect. The waiter’s come over three times and she still hasn’t picked up the menu, and she’s doing this crazy thing where she doesn’t blink for minutes at a time, then squeezes her eyes shut for a ridiculously long time like she’s trying to make up for all the missed blinks. It’s getting harder to keep up a smile. Three days, thirteen hours, twenty-nine minutes. 

“Believe me…” 

“Believe me…”

“Believe me…” 

“Believe me…. Believe me… Believe me…” 

“Believe me…”

“Believe me…” 

    “Believe me…” 

“Do you need a few more minutes?” The waiter asks, snapping me out of a daze. I can’t help but wonder if he sees the suffering in my eyes. Please, they beg him, save me. 

“Yes, please,” she says, then looks back at me with that ridiculous smile that’s becoming increasingly infuriating, “What was I talking about?” Don’t know, don’t care �" either way, she takes off again. The words spew from her without a breath between them. I can’t do it anymore. Three days, twelve hours, eighteen minutes of freedom, and I won’t be spending another second of it here. I’m about to open my mouth �" ready to hit the eject button when her phone rings. 

“Sorry,” she hushed-screams, “I have to take this.” I shoot a feigned smile across the table. Is it wrong that I’m hoping there’s an emergency that she needs to run off and take care of? 

“HEY!” She answers, drawing the attention of almost every person in the restaurant, and likely those in the bar two doors down. As pitiful as her attempted whisper has been to this point, her phone voice is a far cry worse. “I’M ON A DATE. CAN I CALL YOU BACK?” 

I’m surprised to see her nodding her head and listening in silence. I wasn’t sure she had that in her. She’s isn’t on the phone for more than a minute when she says thank you, hangs up and sets her phone on the table. She smiles across the table at me, a wide grin, when suddenly her expression changes. Her sealed lips start to quiver. It happens in an instant, it’s like the smile melts right off her face and everything just… drops. Moisture builds in her eyes, rolls down her cheek. She lets out a single weep, a hushed little whimper that sounds like it would come from a dog - then her body freezes as if rigor mortis grips her.

Fifteen seconds maybe longer go by. She’s dead silent, looks stiff as a board. 

Is that it? Is it over? I don’t know why, and maybe this makes me a complete dick �" but I’m practically on the edge of my chair waiting to see what happens next. It’s like I have a front row seat to the cinematic blockbuster of the summer, and this is the climax and I’m dying to see what happens.

Then, as if someone sticks a helium tank in her mouth and it re-inflates her like a balloon, every inch of her face from her chin to her forehead reverses itself and in a split-second she’s smiling again. I don’t know who’s running special effects for this flick, but it’s incredible. Even the water on her cheeks and in her eyes appears to magically condensate and siphon itself back into her tear ducts. Then she continues, “Where was I? Oh yeah... believe me when I tell you, flower shops are a complete rip off. The grocery store is the best place to go.”

I have no doubt as I sit here, that I’ve just witnessed the single most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. For about fifteen seconds her face oozed pure devastation, legitimate agony like she was told the worst thing she’d ever heard, like that she has cancer, or her house burned down, or her dog died, something terrible, catastrophic, tragic - then she just kept going on like nothing happened. Now she’s silently smiling at me, her grin the widest it’s been. 

What the hell could possibly have been said to her that merited that kind of response? I scour my mind for any semblance of a logical explanation but I have absolutely no idea what to make of it. I’m dumbfounded, awe-stricken, and it takes every ounce of my being not to ask her outright what she’d been told. I need to know more than I’ve ever needed to know anything.

 I’d been just seconds away from ending the date early, but now there’s no chance in hell I can leave. I must know. 

“Everything okay?” I ask, gazing into her eyes, and trying to will my own to appear simultaneously sympathetic and curious, while begging her to divulge information. 

“Yeah, why?” Her smile stretches ear to ear before she reaches for the drink menu. “Do you want to get a bottle of - ”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. The drink menu falls from her grasp. She starts sniffling and her body trembles. Her face melts again �" liquifies as her eyes, her jaw, her lips, everything sags and droops. Her eyes become watery and her breaths turn to struggling gasps. Her eye dam bursts, and the tears start flowing down her puffy red cheeks. She stands up, stares at me with this look of pure misery and absolute suffering, let’s out a doggish whimper, then runs out the door.

Allow me to refine my previous statement. I’ve now witnessed the single most bizarre thing anyone, anywhere has ever witnessed. 

“Is everything okay, sir?” The waiter asks, his expression begging for more details. Every eye in the restaurant is on me, silently asking the same thing. And I just want to stand up and issue a blanket apology, because I wish I had more to give. 

“Yeah, sorry, everything’s fine,” I shrug. He’s about to walk away. “I’ll have the portabella steak and a bottle of house red, please.” 

Might as well. I didn’t get dressed today for nothing today.

Author's Note

For full version of text:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a3ZZsn21ffONjBP5PQcxqCW8ILRtM9EkKRhs_RUiOeo/edit

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

This is great! Really. Talk about a strange date--this should win some kind of award. My first wife had an aunt that would switch moods like someone flipped a switch. Boo-hooing one minute, happy as a lark the next. Scary! Hopefully, that portabella steak was good.

[Brian Aguiar]

Thank you!