For a moment, I wondered how she would feel if I was honest about my extra sense. Would she understand? Would she be scared? Would she run from me? Before I had a chance to picture the worst-case scenario, the front door opened.
Sporty waved on his way out. He was looking way too enthusiastic when he ambled down the stairs and headed to his car. I could completely understand why he would look like that after an afternoon with Claire. It bothered me, both that I could empathize and that I envied him for that deluded grin on his face. How I would look if I could just go in there and be myself, treat Claire the way I felt was suitable—like the precious diamond that had carved her name into my stone-heart. When I looked back a month, it did seem like my heart hadn’t been more than that, a lump of rock, sitting between my ribs without purpose. Now, it beat for her.
Antonio nudged my leg with his nose and brought me back to the moment. It was time. I was surprised he had held up so well, so patiently.
“You’ll get an extra piece of meat tonight,” I promised him, as we slowly made our way to the entrance.
I glanced in through the closed doors and caught the librarian’s eye. He lifted one hand and gestured for me to come inside.
“She’ll be back in a second,” he said as we walked up to the counter.
“Thank you.” Antonio sat down beside me and leaned against my leg.
The white-haired man gave me a stern look. “I really hope you deserve her,” he said out of the blue and a wave of protectiveness hit me.
Taken aback, I straightened as I would have done in an oral exam in school. The man was actually worried about Claire. He was worried I wasn’t good enough for her. For a second, I considered how best to reply, but then the sound of light footsteps distracted both of us. I looked up and was yet again surprised that she was actually real.
“There she is,” Mr. Baker said as if nothing had just happened. “I don’t need you for closing up here, Claire. Hurry along, dear.”
“Thank you, Mr. Baker.” Claire rushed behind the counter to grab her bag before she joined us on the other side. “Shall we go, then?”
There was nothing I wanted more than to leave this library and the alert eyes of the librarian, but Antonio had his own plans. He headed straight to Claire and panted happily as she knelt down and stroked his head. It was as if they had always known each other—very unusual. Antonio usually was cautious with strangers. I watched them for a minute before I called the dog back. “Antonio, come here.” But he ignored me.
“Antonio, that’s your name?” Claire asked rhetorically and there was a hint of embarrassment streaking the air. What was she embarrassed about? It drove me crazy that I couldn’t just ask her. “Shall we go back to Adam, Antonio?”
Claire got to her feet and Antonio followed her as she led the way outside.
“I think he likes you.” I had to grin at how odd our conversation was starting. Even if Antonio was my dog, I would have rather said that I liked her, but it was too early for that, wasn’t it? So, I pointed at the dog and watched her eyebrows rise before she turned her head to the side and I couldn’t read her face anymore. I could, however, read her emotions. She was happy, excited, full of anticipation, and a bit of worry. Automatically, I started worrying, too.
“Well, I’m a nice person, so why shouldn’t he?” she answered smoothly, completely suppressing all the feelings which had just hit me. “So where do you want to go?”
“How about dinner?” Dinner was always a good idea for a first date. Did she see it as a date? Now my own worries were slowly taking over.
“Why not.”
I waited for a short moment, hoping there would be more coming, anything which would indicate she liked the idea of having dinner with me, but nothing.
“Where would you like to go?” I tried. If she told me, it would indicate something about her preferences, what type of restaurants she liked, what type of food…
“Somewhere they take me with the clothes I'm wearing, or if you plan something special, I have to stop by my house and change quickly.”
Her response surprised me again. I thought I had felt her excitement and anticipation, but her words sounded as if she didn’t care if we went out at all. Was I misinterpreting something? Was it just wishful thinking that there must be something between us? Just because I’d had an emotional vision of her didn’t at all mean she would actually feel anything for me.
“Yes, let’s do that. Let’s get you changed, and then I’ll take you some place of my choosing, agreed?” I played along, nodding at her suggestion, and ignoring the voice at the back of my mind which warned me not to expect anything. I should be grateful for every second with her, who knew when she would turn me down.
“Okay.”
She fell silent after this short conversation, leaving it up to my imagination if I had just talked her into something or if it was what she wanted. The question almost burst out several times, and each time I held it back, keeping my lips sealed by pure willpower. Claire’s emotional climate seemed calm for now, neutral. There was a small hint of nervousness there in the way her breath was faster than normal, as if she was under pressure.
As I focused on her so intensely, it was a miracle she didn’t run then and there. Antonio broke away from my leg and trotted off after a bird we had stirred from the bushes beside the street.
“Antonio, don’t run too far away,” I called him back before I turned to watch Claire’s face. “He’s so fast, I have to take care he doesn’t run into a car one day.” Instantly, her face went blank and she stopped in her tracks. Her mildly accelerated breathing turned so shallow I was worried she might not get enough oxygen. There was panic written in her emotions. What had I said or done to make her react this way?
“Are you alright?” No response. I watched her as she seemed to be caught in a particularly unwelcome memory. Her unresponsiveness made me edgy. What was I missing?
For lack of a better way to handle the situation, I grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “Claire?”
Her eyelids fluttered and her eyes focused on me. The relief I felt was nothing compared to the excitement that built in my stomach as her gaze met mine. She looked at me as if I was her anchor, pulling her out of whatever painful place she had been a second ago. It was the most wonderful feeling I’d had in months.
She smiled at me—not the lighthearted smile I hoped to get from her one day, but more a mask, hiding her sadness behind a socially-approved facial expression. “Everything’s fine. Let’s hurry. I’m starving already.”
Did I believe her? She still looked as if she had just been pulled out of a turbulent ocean—and her emotions mirrored the look in her eyes. It was good enough for me to trust she knew how to handle herself. I didn’t want to impose on her and force her to spill her secrets right then. We’d have all evening for that, and if things went well, we’d have all the time in the world. “Okay.”
Immediate gratitude washed over me from her direction as I accepted her need for privacy. And again, I felt like I had done something right. So, I remained silent for the rest of the walk, with Antonio trotting beside me again. I enjoyed her presence, so close that everything she felt enveloped me. The panic and sorrow faded as we progressed toward her house, until, when we reached the front door, there was a bit of the initial anticipation and excitement back in the air between us.
“You can come in if you like, I’ll be quick,” she diverted my attention from her emotions to her voice.
Tempting offer. For some reason, I was worried though, that if I crossed the threshold now, our first date wouldn’t run as planned. I wanted to take her out to dinner, talk, learn about her. Begin to understand that pattern from my emotional vision, each and every thin line it had carved into my heart. If I followed her inside now, how did I know I would be able to hold back all the thoughts I had been dying to share? I could ruin it all, just by saying one single wrong word. She needed to trust me first, before I could even begin to think about te
lling her the truth.
“I think I should stay outside with Antonio.” I watched Antonio curl up on the front porch, grateful to have him as an excuse. I didn’t want her to get the wrong impression—any wrong impression.
“I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Before I could say anything, she disappeared behind the front door. Not even a minute later, a gray cat hopped onto the porch and stopped dead as it spotted Antonio, who jumped to his feet and barked. The cat hissed and spat and instead of running, it smacked Antonio’s nose with its paw before it retreated into the corner of the porch.
Antonio yelped and sought refuge behind my legs where he curled up and continued to shake. I patted his back, consoling him and at the same time wondering if the cat was trained in martial arts, that’s how precisely it had hit Antonio’s nose.
“It’s okay,” I told the dog and let him hide until the cat was out of sight.
I jumped up when Claire returned just a minute later in an outfit even my brother would approve of. The purple blouse let me get a good glimpse of her figure and I liked what I saw. I sucked in a breath, ready to tell her how beautiful she looked but then remembered I had to take it slow. Antonio’s encounter with Ninja-cat was the perfect way of driving my own focus away from Claire’s curves. I glanced down at the dog.
“What happened to him?”
“He met your cat.” I pointed toward where the cat had vanished and where its hissing was still audible. Claire followed my gaze and something between disapproval and amusement crossed her face as she called the feline. “Nigel!”
She scooped him up. “I’ll feed him quickly—I’ll be back in a second.” With those words, she disappeared through the door holding the spitting furball safely in her hands.
Antonio crawled out from behind me when the danger was at bay. He was such a baby. The cat wasn’t even a quarter of his size. He confirmed my take on the situation when he shrank back into my legs as Claire reappeared with a smile decorating her features.
“It’s okay, the cat’s inside.” She knelt down and took a close look at the cut on Antonio’s nose, almost as if she couldn’t believe it. “Was that—”
“Yeah, the cat,” I answered before she could finish her thought.
“What happened?”
I pondered for a second how to retell the happenings. I definitely didn’t want her to feel guilty about the cat-attack. Antonio was fine. A little shaken maybe.
“I think Nigel didn’t like how Antonio and I were sitting in his way. Antonio barked at him once and Nigel hit him with his paw—Ninja-cat.” I involuntarily had to laugh. The way his paw had struck the dog’s nose had truly been like a scene from a martial arts film.
Claire’s grin widened as I continued to chuckle but quickly turned into a pair of pursed lips and eyes full of concern.
“Is he hurt very bad?”
“No, he’ll be fine. It’s just that small cut. It’s not even bleeding anymore.”
“Come here, Antonio,” Claire called and the dog left the safety behind my legs to nudge her hand with his injured nose. He really liked that girl. I was surprised. He normally was shy.
I waited for a minute, enjoying how natural she was with the dog, and grateful to have this moment to observe and get to know her a tiny little bit.
When my impatience got the better of me I put on a smile and held out my hand for her and bowed. “My Lady.” It was wonderful to see her reaction to this unexpected approach. She felt between awkward and pleased to be treated like a lady.
She didn’t take my hand but simply walked to my side, and I let her take the lead down the stairs until I had to take control of navigation in order to make it to the place of my choosing. I was thinking the small Argentinian steakhouse in the city center. It was small enough to have some privacy and had a nice ambiance, and my family went there every so often—and had probably spent a small fortune over the years.
“Where are we going?” Her voice had a hint of excitement, now that the dog-cat-crisis had been solved.
For a brief second, I considered telling her, but then I decided her reaction would be more authentic if I kept it a secret until we actually arrived, and it would tell me more about her.
“Surprise.” I had to grin. It was an amazing feeling, being allowed to surprise Claire.
I felt her eyes on my face. I focused on walking so I wouldn’t be tempted to share every tiny little thing that was going on inside of me. I didn’t even know if she would want to know. The emotions which were hitting me from the side were definitely positive ones. I didn’t feel the urge to say anything. Silence was comfortable with Claire, and there were Antonio’s quiet footfalls behind us, giving the scene a sense of familiarity.
We were almost there when I looked up at her again, ready for any reaction as I led the way into a side street. Her face brightened as I gestured at the steakhouse and headed for the door, so I would be able to hold it for her and she rewarded me with a soft curl of her lips. Another thing I had done right tonight. Was it just me, or was it easier than I’d thought it would be? Don’t jump to conclusions. The evening had barely started and, in reality, the difficult part lay ahead.
As Claire passed me in the doorway, her sudden change of emotion caught me off guard. For a moment, it was as if there was a tiny wave of longing mixing into the general background noise. She stopped briefly and then rushed inside, evading my gaze. Was she embarrassed?
A waiter led us to one of the dark wooden tables in the corner which my family normally used. I remembered his name was Kyle. He’d been working there for over five years.
“Are you okay with this one?” he asked, not addressing the fact that he knew my face, my favorite dish or the fact that my family practically swam in money, and I couldn’t be more grateful to the man. If Claire knew, who knew if it would alter the picture she was making of me.
“It’s perfect, thank you.” I stood for a second, wondering what would be appropriate for the situation. Should I pull out her chair for her and help her sit down? Would it offend her? While I was still making up my mind, she sat down. I led Antonio to his usual corner and told him to lay down before I returned to Claire and her secrets.
As I sat down, her eyes studied the carved patterns on the edges of the tables, that gave me a couple of seconds to appreciate the way her fair hair looked in the candlelight. I was tempted to reach out a finger and touch it.
Again I had to thank Kyle for helping me out as he interrupted my train of thoughts by asking for our drink orders.
“I’ll have a soda, and for the lady…” I waited for her to look up at me, but she didn’t. Instead, she gave the waiter a polite smile.
“Apple juice.”
After that she focused on the menu, flipping back and forth through the small number of pages at a speed that wouldn’t allow anyone to read its contents. I opened my own menu just to make her feel more relaxed. I knew the dishes by heart and that gave me time to study her while she was busy making up her mind. Her emotions kept going from nervous to anticipation to worry. It was a sequence that would have made my head spin if I hadn’t been able to see her features relaxed behind her menu as she chose what to eat.
Kyle claimed my attention as he placed my soda and Claire’s juice on the table.
“What can I bring you to eat?” he wanted to know—even though he could guess my answer.
“I’ll take a tenderloin steak, medium, and a salad,” Claire shot out as if she had practiced that sentence for the past few minutes. I couldn’t have been more surprised. It was the exact same thing I had been about to order. I noticed Kyle raise an eyebrow as he turned to me.
He had never seen me with a date here. That was because I didn’t date. Except for that mistake with Maureen, my track record with women was that of a sixteen-year-old. A couple of kisses at parties, but nothing serious, no real girlfriends. It was obvious the waiter noticed how nervous I myself was.
“The same for me, please, and some water fo
r the dog, please,” I managed to say and quickly hid my face by checking on Antonio who was opening one eye at the mention of his species.
I only relaxed when Kyle disappeared and I could finally start my date with Claire. We had our drinks, food was ordered, she wouldn’t go anywhere anytime soon. When she finally looked at me, somewhat fascinated, I found the courage to open the topic of getting to know her.
“Tell me something about you, Claire Gabriel,” I asked without any further detours.
There was a moment of silence and I held my breath from the tension of whether or not she was going to say something.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” The word was out so fast I couldn’t take it back, no matter how much I tried to suck the flow of air back between my lips. “—I’d like to know what you like,” I corrected.
“What I like…” she looked at the ceiling as if reading the answer there. “Well, I like a lot of things.”
The way our conversation was starting off made me smile. “Could you be a bit more precise, please?” If I didn’t already feel like I knew her, I would think she didn’t want to talk to me. But having her engraved into my heart made me certain, there was more to her reluctance to answer my question than that.
“Yes, I could.” She winked at me. Was she trying to be funny? She was playing with my already disintegrating nerves.
“Will you please be a bit more precise?” I begged before frustration could get the best of me.
Her eyes went serious. “I like music.” A real answer, but still not the detail I’d been hoping for.
“What kind of music do you like?”
She rolled her eyes. Had I said something wrong?
“I like jazz and classical music, and house music…and, and, and.” She stopped as if considering to continue the list but then asked a question in return. “And what do you like?”
A question. She was actually interested in learning about me, too.
“No specific type of music,” I answered, purposefully as vague as she had been, just to play along with her game. Because that was what it was, I was certain of it now. The way her eyes had flashed when I had asked her to be more specific, and the way she’d felt just a second ago, anticipation and excitement for my answer.
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