| Blind Date | ||
| First published in The Hartford Courant | Select another essay | |
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I am not good at date preparations. I am curling my hair into less frizzy curls, trying to make it look not like curly hair on a curly haired woman but the soft ringlets created by women who have straight hair. I think of myself at 6. At 6 I am cutting the hair off of my newest doll; at 6, this is my favorite playtime activity. My mother hides her scissors but does a bad job finding secret places because she wants to find them herself. I am never fooled for long. When I find the scissors I proceed to snip away curl after glossy curl of perfect blond hair. There are no dark-haired dolls. The dolls are so new they still smell that special new-doll smell, straight from the box, but no sooner have I thanked the naive giver for them and hugged them then I go hunting for the shears. Soon after my mother will find an eerie little pile of hair near the television set or on the bathroom floor, like there is a small mass murderer in the family. I am trying to remember stuff from girl magazines. I am hearty. I am Putting Him At Ease By Making Him Feel At Home, just as the advice columns advise. I can do no better because I feel sick right now. He says nothing, smiling a very small smile like a half moon on its side. In my family we smile showing teeth unless it is a smile to make somebody feel bad. Only then are there little smiles. "OK, why don't you sit down?" Is he so quiet because I keep talking or can't he speak for other reasons? Wildly, a part of my mind thinks that perhaps these reasons are medical. I still smile. Finally, my date says "Hello. My name is Ben." He offers his hand for me to shake even though we are sitting down next to one another on the big flowered sofa. He speaks softly, calmly, like a priest. This is a one-off deal, a nice evening that won't go anywhere. Well go to a movie, have ice cream, talk about school and books and I'll come home and he won't call and I'll eat salads for a week, having decided to lose 20 pounds, and then everything will be back to normal. The idea takes a second, maybe less, to think. I feel like everybody on the block is watching us, and they might well be. "Do you see the good-looking guy she's with?" I seem to hear Bernadette with the straight blonde hair who lives across the street say. "How'd she get such a good-looking guy?" She would assume it was a blind date, she would know. She'd never need to be set up for a Saturday night, with her red nails and her ankle bracelet, but she's got a dark future ahead of her, everybody knows that. Everybody knows shell end up getting married young. She has that look about her. I have been taught not to envy her. I try to square my shoulders and give my bust a lift I try to look pert, and to pretend that I have dates like this all the time. I'm thinking of Bernadette and my bust so much I miss the first part of what Ben says as he stops in front of a battered Chevy Nova. What do I sound like to him? I hear my own voice like when the phone echoes back when you call long distance. "They put up parking meters in front of this restaurant a month ago, but I guess they didn't realize who owned it. We all wondered what would happen, we knew there would be trouble. The owner liked when his boys could park right outside, plus the customers, of course." I know where we're going, and he seems to be taking a longer route than I would take but I think of women in novels and keep my mouth shut. At least I make no mention of directions, just keep on with my story. "but the city put up like six meters, right in front" I continue, watching the streets slide by, "and the next day all the meters were sawed off just clean sawed away, only the little poles left. Nobody said anything. Three days later there were new meters, and the traffic cops in those brown cars came by and checked every once and a while." Whether or not he's actually listening, I have to keep talking. It's like I'm possessed. "But the I morning after, again, every one of those meters was sawed off. The city didn't bother putting new ones up after that, you can bet. Instead they came and took the poles down and covered the holes in the sidewalk with cement Like they wanted to apologize or something." I am breathless by this point, and am afraid, suddenly, that I might have made myself and my community seem inhospitable, or foreign. He says nothing for a moment. I feel I should have known. I am suddenly very fat and wearing too much lipstick. My feet are killing me and I am perspiring down the back of my dress, my bare arms beginning to stick to the vinyl of the seat. We are at the movie theater, neon just visible in the sunset shadows. We are seeing a single feature, which is lucky. I am anxious to redeem myself through intelligent conversation, which I am sure I can make once we are over dinner. An usher dressed in green with gold brocade shows us to seats neat the front and we follow him as if he is Peter Pan. His flash light waves ahead of him like Tinkerbell. He leans over in the sticky darkness and asks whether the seats are all right. I am unreasonably pleased to be asked this question and assure him that they are fine and he settles back, stretching out long legs. I wish that I could touch him in some casual way, but don't dare. The place smells of popcorn, feet and dust, but it is cool from the air conditioning and I am happy, happier than I have been in months. Walking into a dark theater, smelling these smells, I am still struck by a surprising happiness. I have no idea what happened to Ben. | ||