The birds only sang one song, and they trilled that tune nonstop. She almost wished that the birds would pick on something other than whether she could carry on sparkling conversation. But wishing for them to warble a melody about her looks seemed like a death wish.
A girl had to be careful what she wished for.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. As she dug it out, she wondered if Everett had texted to cancel their date. Marsie’s self-confidence from work today had completely disappeared, and she wanted nothing more than to change into pajamas, curl up on her couch and binge watch something on HBO. To her surprised relief, the message was from Beck.
First date!!! :-) :-) It will be fun. Even if this
waterski guy isn’t for you, someone will be.
Marsie slipped her phone back in her purse. She was still smiling when a handsome man with wavy brown hair and a Roman nose walked up to her, his hand out in greeting.
“Marsie, I assume,” the man—Everett—said.
“Yes, hello.” The night was chill, but her date’s hand was warm, so that was a good start. And he looked like his profile picture. Another good start.
“Shall we,” he said, opening the door so that they could go inside the bar.
Raleigh Times was loud, as always. No matter how many people were in the building, the high ceiling and hard textures surrounding them meant sounds echoed. She and Everett would have to lean in to each other if they wanted to have any hope of hearing what the other person said.
A hostess took them to a small table near the window. If she were boring, he could entertain himself watching the people walk past them on the street. Or, she tried to yell over the birds in her head, if he were boring then she could watch the people walk past them.
Of course, Beck would tell her that dating wasn’t awful, and Marsie might have a great time and no one would need to stare at pedestrians because this could be the start of something amazing. Jason would tell her this was fun.
Since he was fun, it probably was. For him.
With that pep talk set to replay in the back of her head, she picked up the menu and looked for something to drink.
“You look like you came from work,” he said, scanning the food menu. “Do you want to get snacks, too? Or is this drinks only until further notice?”
Everett was attractive, and she hadn’t gotten any stayaway!!! vibes from him. He’d scored a 75 straight out of the gate in her algorithm, though she’d had to fudge the numbers a bit during their emails to bump him up to the 90 needed for her to agree to the date. So that was a strike against him. She ran through a quick calculation in her head and decided that her marginal utility from this guy was still going up.
“Snacks would be great.” What the hell. She was being open to new things. She wanted a relationship. And she was hungry.
They talked about the menu, what would be good to share and what they were each getting to drink. When the waitress came by, Everett ordered the chicken strips and lettuce wraps, then said, “I’ll have the Big Boss IPA and the lady will have the Mother Earth Lager.”
The waitress smiled at both of them, said, “Drinks will be out shortly,” and left.
“I could have ordered my own drink,” Marsie said. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more, that he’d ordered her drink or that he’d referred to her as “the lady.”
Everett’s eyes lifted in surprise. “Didn’t mean any offense. I respect women and feminism and all that good stuff, of course. But you look like the kind of woman who likes a man to take care of her.”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Really?” She had a PhD in economics and ran national studies on health care. She owned her own home, didn’t have any student loans and her car was paid for.
Of course, she reminded herself, there was no way he would know all that. So, in the interest of research and improving her algorithm, she lifted the corners of her lips and asked, “What about me says I like a man who takes care of me?”
For all the education that he had listed on his profile and as smart as his emails had seemed, to Marsie’s surprise, Everett was stupid enough to answer the question. “Your profile has a lot of exclamation marks. And the pink sweater confirms it.”
“Here’re your drinks,” the waitress said, sweeping between them and setting two glasses of beer on the table.
“Is that...” She didn’t know where to begin to question what he was saying, because all of it was ridiculous. “Is that what you really think?”
Her date took a long drink from his beer, leaving a little mustache of foam on his top lip. “I’m an old-fashioned guy.”
Marsie sipped from her own drink. Too much alcohol would only loosen her sense of propriety, and she hadn’t gotten this far in her career by letting her emotions get the better of her. Professors had waited, biting their nails, all through her grad school career, for any excuse to say she was too emotional to apply the logic and rationality needed for economics.
Too bright for the dismal science.
Those professors had never acknowledged that fear was an emotion, too.
Another bitter sip of beer down her throat and Marsie was ready for more conversation. “Tell me, what does it mean when you say you’re an ‘an old-fashioned guy’?”
Apparently, “old-fashioned” meant he would open his arms out wide and knock over his empty beer glass. He righted the glass without pausing a beat, then launched into a long explanation about men’s roles in the world and women’s roles in the world and how women wanted a man who would do all the planning and thinking for the household, while they took care of the “love.”
Marsie smiled up at the waitress as she set the food on the table and her date ordered another beer. Everett wasn’t the man for her, but she was hungry, so she might as well get dinner out of the date.
Food on the table, Marsie unwrapped her flatware and placed the napkin on her lap. Then she turned to her date. “And what about a woman like me?”
“A woman like you?” Everett asked, reaching for a chicken strip.
Marsie scooped some filling into a piece of lettuce and popped her food in her mouth. “If you remember from my profile, I have a PhD. I run large research projects for a living. Your education was one of the things that attracted me to your profile. And I assume you to mine.”
He appeared to give what she said serious thought while he finished chewing. Then he shrugged. “A woman like you is also not married, and you want to be. Independence isn’t really what you want. And your strategy hasn’t been working for you so far.”
Clearly. She picked up her napkin and wiped off her hands, then set the napkin on the table. Tonight, she would have to review where in her algorithm she could have caught “self-important asshole” and saved herself from this date. She wasn’t hungry enough for lettuce wraps to listen to a man telling her that she didn’t want independence.
And she was independent enough not to need to be here any longer. “I’ll be right back.” She didn’t wait for him to ask questions, but scooted back from the table and headed for the bathroom, purse in hand. On her way, she stopped at the bar and paid their tab.
Everett was almost finished with his second beer when she returned. Hers was half drunk. She had only a couple bites of her lettuce wraps. His chicken strips were gone. He looked up as she stood over the table.
“Everett, I won’t lie and say that I had a nice time, but I had an educational time and that’s important, too.”
“What?” He wiped mustard sauce off his lips. “Aren’t you going to finish your beer? Bad manners not to finish a beer someone else is paying for.”