No delayed A train or cancelled C train or suspended F train would delay their meeting. Her sweater was pink. Her cheeks, rosy. She skipped two steps as she climbed the stairs from the rerouted train. She was optimistic.
He was early. He sat at a small table in the East Village at a Chinese restaurant she had picked out. He had been there before on a date with a girl from Austin with big tits. This girl didn’t have big tits. His big hands were sweating and the waiter kept on asking if he was still doing okay and yes he was fine but also no he wasn’t and if the waiter asked one more time he thought he might just tell him everything.
She arrived through the neon-lit entrance way. She stripped her scarf and her earmuffs and checked herself out in the full-length mirrors on either side of the restaurant. A small waiter acknowledged her and led her around the corner where she met the boy.
xt on the menu was too small. The words between the two of them too brief. She talked about her week. He did the same. The waiter brought a candle for the table. The flame was electronic.
They decided on the eggplant and the popcorn chicken and the house noodles and did they have green tea? They did. The plates arrived. He showed her how to hold the chopsticks between her thumb and third finger. They twirled warm noodles. She thought about saying what she wanted to say and then didn’t.
Then she did. She talked about her sister and the boy her sister was seeing. How this boy had told her sister that he would never love her. The girl’s eyes flittered to the boy’s. She looked at the noodles. She pressed on.
His lack of communication the past ten days had made her feel rejected. That that was a product of her dad’s abandonment. That after re-examining the recent lack of texting it was clear that he had done nothing wrong, just that the length of time between the texts felt different. Slow. Deliberate.
His eyebrows shifted downwards at the sides. Her gaze and his gaze met and it would be this moment that she would think about later. The steam on the windows of the restaurant behind him. He said that she was picking up on something, true. That he was aware he was texting her less. That although, in the beginning, he was excited to date with intention, and build towards a relationship, that he no longer knew if that was what he wanted. That he wanted to be emotionally honest. That he was aware she was coming into this relationship with her own abandonment issues.
At this point, the girl in the pink sweater’s throat became tight. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, she excused herself to the bathroom. She locked the door to the small stall and cried. She peed. Then she went upstairs and smiled as she sat back down.
He said I’m sorry. He reached out his hand. I just want to be emotionally honest, he said. She put her card on the plastic tray with the bill. He told her he had already paid. Would you like to leave? He asked. Let’s please leave this place, she said.
They walked in the cold and she became a therapist. Where do you think this comes from for you? She asked. He talked about his parents. How they never touched. How he’s never seen it work. How he dated someone once that he didn’t want to. How that had gone on for a year and although that was not a long time, it was time enough for him to know he didn’t want to do that.
She was aware that he had given this a lot of thought. And that although the thought was there, there was almost no mention of her in any of his thoughts. They reached his apartment. It was freezing and he invited her in.
To bring herself to maximum pain capacity she sympathized with how he was feeling and emphasized that probably a big part of this was also that he was such an eligible bachelor and that it’s fun to date. He agreed. He doubled down. It is! It’s fun to go out and get drunk with someone. Her voice was small. We should have used a condom last time, she said. I didn’t have unprotected sex with anyone but you, he responded. Great, she said. Great.
They drank organic wine. They joked about the evening and its unfortunate turn of events. The girl in the pink sweater took off the pink sweater and revealed a sexy garment underneath that she had worn for him. They had sex. Their best sex yet. They watched a PBS documentary that the girl in the pink sweater loved. He fell asleep.
His body twitched while he slipped into dreamland. She faced the wall. She tucked a pillow under her arms. Then over her head. Then in between her legs. She turned towards him. To his face. She turned away.
In the morning he ground coffee and made two large mugs. They sat on his couch while the day stretched out in front of them. His mother’s artwork hung on the walls.
She looked at the artwork and walked out of the apartment. She thought to herself how funny, to know I will never be back here. The door opened. The cold air rushed to meet her hot tears. She zipped up her pink sweater and slipped back into the city streets.
#
