shorts? How can I not stare at Darcy’s hooters at a place called Hooters?
You could respect your date and look into her eyes, Dan. Uh-duh. And is this guy white or what? He’s staring at “tan legs.” This must be one of those interracial books I’ve heard about. I read on:
“You remind me of my mother, Dan,” Beth says, her eyes following Darcy instead of looking at me, a plateful of shiny clean chicken bones in front of her and five empty bottles of Sam Adams guarding her side of the table.
Back to reality. “Hmm?”
“I said, you remind me of my mother.”
I hope my one class in psychology will come in handy here. “I remind you of your mother?”
Beth nods, sighing in Darcy’s direction.
“Um, is that a compliment?”
Beth glances my way. “No, Dan. I hate my mother.” Her eyes grab on to Darcy again, her tongue flicking over her lower lip. Damn, she’s sexy when she does that. “I’ve hated my mother since the day I was born.”
Where’s this coming from? “So what exactly did you mean by that?”
She guzzles more beer. “You’re pretty smart. You figure it out.”
Beth is gay, Dan. She and Darcy are going to hook up and leave you hanging at Hooters. So predictable.
“Figure out what?”
Beth rolls her eyes and takes another sip, tossing her napkin on the table. “I’ll be back.”
I watch Beth head for the bathroom and glance over at the semicircular booth across from us. Two black women sit on either side of a black man who either had to have played some football or had to have done a tour or two in the service. Lucky guy. He’s got two women, one on either side of him, yet he’s able to be hard staring at every implant in the restaurant. One of the black women, who has light brown eyes almost like a cat’s eyes, catches me staring, so I quickly return to picking at the label of my Sam Adams.
Yep, this is an interracial book. I’m somewhat intrigued. “Cat’s eyes,” huh? They’re probably contacts.
I have no idea why I’m here. I’m sitting alone at a table on my fifth date with Beth, and I’m still not sure why I’m with her at all. Nancy, a woman I teach with at Monterey Elementary, said we’d be “perfect” together. “She’s so outdoorsy and spunky,” Nancy had said. “And she is so into hiking like you are, Dan.”
Hiking. Right. On two of our previous dinner dates, all she did was hike to the bathroom or talk our servers to death. On our other two dates, we sat in front of her TV watching college football on ESPN, the dramatic fall colors of the Blue Ridge Parkway screaming to be hiked through. And at the end of each evening, she rushed from my car or rushed me out the door of her condo without even saying good-bye. I have yet to find out if her tongue flicking feels as good as it looks.
“Because she’s gay, Dan,” I say. “Now hook up with the sister, and let’s get on with this thing.”
Beth returns. “You figure it out yet?”
I sigh. “Well, I know you don’t like your mother.”
“I hate my mother. There’s a difference.”
“Okay. Um, so if you hate your mother, and I remind you of her, you must hate me.” I smile and wait for Beth to contradict me.
She doesn’t.
“I, uh, I hope I’m wrong.”
“You’re not.” She gulps the rest of her sixth Sam Adams.
Huh? “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you hate me?”
She nods. “With a passion.”
I sit back. “Then why have you been going out with me?”
“Just to see.”
“To see what?”
“To see if you interested me.” She shrugs. “And you don’t. Sorry.”
This is messed up! “Then why’d you agree to go out with me tonight?”
“For the hot wings,” she says, with a soft laugh. “And the view.” She raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t that why you come here, too?”
Wait a minute. Something weird is happening here. “This is the first time I’ve ever been here, Beth.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, it’s true.” I’d be too embarrassed to eat here by myself, and Hooters is not the place to take a lady if you want to keep her respect.
Three cheers for Dan! Not. Wait a minute. This means, then, that Dan doesn’t think Beth is a lady…or something like that. I’m getting to be as confused as Dan is.
Unless she likes good hot wings, I guess, or…she really likes the view.
Beth waves at yet another server. “I come here all the time.”
“You come here…all the time.” Oh…shit. I can handle this. “You’re, um, you’re bisexual?” Please say yes! This is every man’s fantasy, and I am definitely a man in need of a fantasy to come true at this time in my—
“Hell no, Dan. I’m not even bi-curious.” Oh. I guess that’s good. It would be so hard for me to take if she were dumping me for a—
“I’m a lesbian, Dan. I thought Nancy told you.” Spunky. Outdoorsy. Into hiking. Beth, who looks like an L.L.Bean model with her short, dark hair; high New Hampshire cheekbones; jeans; Timberlands; and blue and black flannel shirt, is a lesbian?
Gee. What a nice stereotype to see again in a novel. This had better grab me in the next few pages, or I’m going to slam this one.
I run a checklist through my mind. Beth likes sports. Check that—Beth loves sports. She can quote stats, scores, and sports scandals better than any guy I know. She plays on a softball team and everything, and she even played field hockey in college. Lesbians wielding sticks? Wait, they’re curved sticks. Nothing phallic there. And so what if she wears flannel shirts; I mean, I know it’s a stereotype and all, but I wear flannel shirts. And no one can drink more beer, belch louder, or—
Geez, she’s more of a guy than I am. About the only thing she hasn’t done is light some farts, though I did see a lighter in her bathroom.
Dan sounds like a fraternity boy. I hated the frat boys at Purdue. All their secret this and that was just cover for their insecurities.
And not a single one of them ever asked me out.
And she did ask if I had a cute sister. How’d that conversation go? “You have a sister?” Beth had said. I had said, “Yes.” Beth had smiled and said, “Is she cute?” Hmm. I should have connected the dots with those two questions.
“Uh-duh,” I say.
“No, uh, Beth, Nancy didn’t tell me that you were a, an, um—”
“A dyke.”
So glad she said it instead of me. Oh, sure, I was thinking the word, but I would never say it. To a woman, anyway. There were a few in the service with me, but every one of them could have kicked my ass. Come to think of it, even the nonlesbian women in the Marines could have kicked my ass.
Dan’s wimpy. Or at least he says he is. I bet he can handle himself. Or, rather, I hope he can handle himself. The sister on the cover looks rugged.
And as for Nancy, the bitch, we’re going to have a long talk. Nancy is still trying to get me back for that one-night stand two years ago. I mean, other than teaching fourth-graders in the same building together, we have absolutely