Tamsin

by Abigail Strom

  I don’t wait for him to respond. I just get up, go around to his side of the table, and hold out my hand.

  He looks down at his plate for a second and then back at me. A beat goes by.

  Then he takes my hand and I pull him to his feet.

  He really does tower over me—even when I’m wearing four inch heels. But as Daniel and I leave the vegan café and step out into the cool night air, the difference doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daniel

  I should feel like a failure. I screwed up the first step of planning a date: picking a restaurant the girl will like.

  But I don’t feel like a failure. As Tamsin and I head for Jimmy’s Pub, I feel like a million bucks.

  Of course that might just be because we’re holding hands.

  Tamsin is small and slim, and she’s wearing these crazy high heels with all the stability of two chopsticks. They make her seem delicate, fragile, and feminine.

  I want to take care of her. I want to make sure she doesn’t fall down walking in those shoes. I want to carry her over puddles. I want to stand between her and an invading horde of Visigoths.

  And the fact that she just took care of me doesn’t change that. It makes this date seem like something we’re creating together, like our scenes in drama class.

  Maybe improvisation doesn’t have to be scary. Maybe it can be exciting.

  Thrilling, even.

  Jimmy’s is Saturday-night crowded, but Tamsin knows one of the waiters and he waves us to a corner booth with a RESERVED sign on it.

  “Won’t the people who are supposed to get this table be mad?” she asks as we slide onto the vinyl seats.

  “Nah,” the waiter says. “I keep this one open just in case. Tonight you guys are the just in case. Do you know what you want, or do you need menus?”

  “I know what I want,” Tamsin says, giving me a look that makes my whole body stand at attention. “What about you, Daniel?”

  “I’ll take a Reuben,” I say to the waiter, my voice sounding kind of rough.

  He looks at Tamsin.

  “Bacon cheeseburger for me,” she tells him.

  “Fries on the side?”

  “On an epic scale. Bring a giant basket and put it down between us.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “You like fries, huh?” I ask as the waiter leaves.

  “Indeed I do.”

  She’s smiling at me, and I smile back.

  I know what I want, she said.

  I probably just imagined there was a double entendre there, but it doesn’t matter. Being around Tamsin means I’m going to have sex on the brain, so I’ll have to learn to function in a constant state of…excitement? Arousal? Hunger? Need?

  Yeah. All of that.

  The atmosphere in Jimmy’s is a lot more date-like than the vegan café. Our corner booth makes it feel like we’ve got some privacy, even though there are a ton of people in here.

  There’s music playing and people talking but it’s not too loud. It all kind of blends together into background noise, making our space seem even more private, somehow.

  The lighting helps, too. It’s always pretty dark in Jimmy’s, and there’s one of those imitation candle things on the table between us. The light it gives out is warm and soft, and it makes Tamsin look like a thirties movie star.

  “I like your eye makeup,” I hear myself say. “It’s perfect for a Saturday night.”

  Okay, that’s a pretty lame compliment. But Tamsin doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Thanks,” she says. She leans forward. “That reminds me. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s about Twitter, but it’s not political. It’s just your handle—@heartofsaturdaynight?”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s the title of a Tom Waits song, and I wondered where you heard that phrase.”

  I’m not sure what she means. “I heard it from Tom Waits. I mean, it’s from that song.”

  She stares at me. “Your Twitter handle is from a Tom Waits song?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You like Tom Waits?”

  “Yeah.”

  She’s still staring at me. After a moment I say,

  “Okay, I’m confused. Do you hate Tom Waits?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “No. I love him.”

  I’m still confused. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “No, not at all. Just, um, surprising?”

  “It is? Why?”

  “I guess I wasn’t expecting us to have anything in common.”

  Ah.

  “Did you think I only listened to Christian rock or something?”

  She starts to smile. “Maybe?”

  “Christian rock is terrible.”

  “Well, I know that. But you’re the Christian, not me.”

  “Music by Christians isn’t terrible, though. Have you ever listened to Chance the Rapper? Or the Mountain Goats?”

  She’s staring at me again, her eyes big.

  “I love Chance the Rapper. I love the Mountain Goats.”

  I start to say something and then stop.

  “What?”

  “One of the ground rules tonight was no talk about religion.”

  She shakes her head. “We’re not talking about religion. We’re talking about music. And name dropping the Mountain Goats is the seduction equivalent of handing me a brandy on a snowy night and saying ‘Baby, it’s cold outside.’”

  I start to laugh. “Yeah? I had no idea. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

  I hear the words as they come out of my mouth, and realize the implication in the same second.

  Tamsin does, too. She raises her eyebrows, and a little smile plays at the corners of her blood-red lips.

  “There’s going to be a next time? But I thought this date was a once-only deal. Some kind of social experiment. A demonstration of how a real man squires a lady around town.”

  “Well, I already screwed that up, didn’t I? You had to squire me here, after all. We need at least one more date so I can redeem myself.”

  “No redemption necessary.” She rests her forearms on the table, clasps her hands together, and leans toward me. “Say Tom Waits.”

  I rest my forearms on the table, clasp my hands together, and lean toward her.

  “Tom Waits.”

  A slow smile spreads across her face.

  “I am so attracted to you right now.”

  I know she’s joking. Or at least, mostly joking. But at this moment, I’m so attracted to her that every cell in my body feels hard. Like everything in me is in sympathy with the erection that Tamsin, thank God, can’t see.

  I’ve been attracted to girls before. But there’s a difference between what I felt then and what I’m feeling now.

  The other times, it was like the hormones came first. I was a guy with needs, and I had to find a girl I liked enough to justify fooling around.

  I know what happened to me when I was twelve had something to do with that. I wanted to replace bad memories with good ones. I wanted to feel like a normal teenager. There was a space in my life for something, and I needed a girl to fill it. Any girl.

  This is the opposite. What’s surging inside me right now isn’t just testosterone. It’s a Tamsin-specific hormone bomb.

  The lust is so thick and hot and overwhelming I can’t think of a damn thing to say. All I can do is sit here, staring at her. Then, thank God, the waiter comes over with our fries.

  Maybe it’s sublimation, but I’m suddenly starving.

  “This is the biggest basket of fries I’ve ever seen,” I say, stuffing three into my mouth at once.

  “I know,” Tamsin says around her own mouthful. “And they’re the best in town, too.”

  She’s right. They’re perfectly hot, perfectly crispy, perfectly seasoned.

  I can’t get enough.

  “Tell me about your mom and your sister,” Tamsin says after
a moment. “That’s a normal date thing, right? Asking about family?”

  I finish my bite before I answer.

  “Sure, that’s dating 101. My mom and sister are both great.”

  “What are their names? And where are you from, by the way?”

  The pace of our fry consumption has slowed a little. Tamsin is leaning forward, looking like she’s really interested in hearing my answers.

  “I’m from Missouri. My mom’s name is Donna. My sister is Michelle.”

  “How old is she? Your sister.”

  “Sixteen.” I pause. “What about your family? Do you have siblings?”

  She shakes her head. “No, it’s just me and the parents from hell.”

  “You don’t get along with them?”

  “No.”

  This kind of surprises me. I’d pictured a hippie utopia San Francisco childhood for Tamsin, with super-liberal parents she calls by their first names.

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re terrible.” She puts a fry in her mouth, chews, and swallows. “You’d hate them.”

  “I would? How come?”

  “They’re like a caricature of coastal elites. Limousine liberals or whatever. They donate to all these humanitarian causes, but it’s only because they want everyone to think they’re generous. They don’t really care about anyone but themselves. They’re totally selfish. They sent me away to boarding school when I was ten. I cried for weeks and begged them to let me come home, but they wouldn’t. The truth is, they don’t really like being parents. They don’t really like me. I mean, I’m sure they think they do. But out of all the shows I was in during high school, do you know how many they came to?”

  “I’m kind of afraid the answer is zero.”

  “That is correct. Zero.”

  I feel horrible, but Tamsin doesn’t seem upset or bitter about any of this. Of course, she’s had her whole life to get used to parents who don’t want to spend time with her.

  Which I just don’t understand.

  “Your parents are idiots. Plus they’re really missing out. You’re amazing company, Tamsin.”

  She stops with a French fry halfway to her mouth and just looks at me. Her eyes are like stars.

  “Thanks,” she says after a moment.

  The waiter comes back then, setting Tamsin’s burger in front of her and my Reuben in front of me.

  God, it’s perfect. Corned beef sliced so thin you can almost see through it, stacked two inches high. Swiss cheese perfectly melted. Tangy sauerkraut and Russian dressing and rye bread toasted golden brown.

  I don’t look up until I’ve finished half my sandwich. When I do, Tamsin is eating her burger with an expression of absolute bliss on her face.

  “Good, huh?”

  She smiles at me. “Better than good.”

  We finish eating in silence, but it’s not awkward. When we’re done we sit back with almost identical sighs of contentment, which makes Tamsin giggle.

  “Can I ask you something about your parents?”

  “Sure.”

  “How did you cope? I mean, adolescence sucks at the best of times. How did you deal without having a family you could count on?”

  Tamsin doesn’t answer right away. She pushes her dinner plate to the side—there’s nothing on it now but a few sesame seeds from her bun—and takes a French fry from the basket.

  Then she says, “I don’t know if you really want to hear the answer to that question.”

  I push my plate to the side, too.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because we’re on a date. And it’s been my experience that the answer to that question tends to be a mood-killer.”

  I look at her for a moment. She’s looking at me, too, and her expression is serious enough that I know she means what she’s saying. But what could be bad enough to kill the mood between the two of us right now?

  Sex? Drugs? Grand theft auto? What?

  “It’s not a real date,” I remind her. “The stakes couldn’t be lower. Tell me.”

  She studies me a moment longer, and then she shrugs.

  “I coped with feeling abandoned by sleeping with guys. A lot of guys.”

  “Tamsin. I lived in Oscar’s dorm freshman year, remember? I know you’re not a virgin. And anyway, how would talking about sex be a mood killer on a date?”

  Tamsin nibbles on her French fry.

  “There’s not being a virgin, and then there’s being Tamsin Shay, Queen of the Sluts.”

  I stare at her.

  “Jesus. Who called you that?”

  Whoever it was, I want to kill them.

  “Basically everyone I went to high school with.” She puts the fry down, and I get the feeling she’s bracing herself for something. “Daniel. You’re a sweet guy. But tell me the truth. What would you call a girl who slept with twenty-three guys by the time she was nineteen?”

  Twenty-three guys.

  Okay, that’s a lot. But if Tamsin’s waiting for me to recoil in horror or something, she’s going to wait a long time.

  “I wouldn’t call her anything. Because I’m not an asshole.”

  Her eyes are shining again, and this time I see tears. She blinks them away and smiles a little.

  I feel shaken by her reaction. “I can’t be the first guy to tell you it doesn’t matter.”

  She shakes her head. “You’d be surprised. But don’t you want to know why I’ve slept with so many guys? Twenty-two of them were in high school, by the way.”

  “It’s none of my business, unless you want to tell me. But you kind of already did. It was because you felt abandoned by your parents.” I pause. “But there doesn’t have to be a reason. I mean…shit. Do you know what I mean?”

  She nods, and her eyes are still bright.

  “I do. And I appreciate you saying that. But the truth is, if I had a kid sister or a daughter or something, I wouldn’t want her to sleep with that many guys in high school. I’d want her to date people she really cares about and who care about her. And chances are, if you sleep with twenty-two people in high school, love isn’t taking center stage.”

  “Are you saying you have regrets?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s more complicated than that. If I went back in time, I wouldn’t make the same decisions. But even though I feel differently about some things now, I was being true to myself back then. I was reckless and rebellious and really, really teenager-y, but I did what I wanted to do. The fact that I want different things now doesn’t change that. And what I want now is shaped by what I wanted then, you know? We’re all shaped by our past.” She pauses. “Rikki said something once. She said if you like who you are now, you can’t hate anything that got you there—including your past.”

  “You’re talking about self-acceptance,” I hear myself say. “Accepting your own decisions. But what if something…” I hesitate. “What if something happened that wasn’t your own decision. What if someone hurt you when you were too young to decide things for yourself.”

  I feel my face turning red. What the hell am I doing? But I can tell Tamsin thinks I’m talking about her.

  “I’ve never been hurt like that. Guys pressured me sometimes, sure. But no one ever made me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

  I’m glad to hear it. And I’m even more glad Tamsin doesn’t know it’s myself I’m talking about.

  Because, here’s the thing. A girl might feel sorry for a guy who was molested as a kid. She might be furious at the person who did it, sad that it happened, and full of empathy or whatever.

  But she’s not going to be attracted to that guy. Because that guy is a victim, and no matter how enlightened our society thinks it is, guys aren’t supposed to be victims. Especially of sexual assault.

  The whole point of me taking Tamsin out tonight was to show her what an old-fashioned date looks like. With an old-fashioned guy.

  Old-fashioned guys are strong and confident and whole. They can take care of other people. Protect th
em.

  They never need to be protected themselves.

  But I don’t have to think about that now. Tamsin doesn’t know about my past, and she never will. We’re on a date, whether it’s real or fake or some combination of both, and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.

  I rest my forearms on the table, clasp my hands together, and lean toward her.

  “Say Tom Waits.”

  Tamsin rests her forearms on the table, clasps her hands together, and leans toward me.

  “Tom Waits.”

  I lower my voice. “I am so attracted to you right now.”

  Her lipstick must be smudge-proof, because even after her burger and fries it’s perfect.

  Her mouth curves up in a smile. “I know.”

  The waiter comes over with our check. I pull out my wallet, lay down two twenties, and slide out of the booth.

  I hold out my hand to help Tamsin up. As she gets to her feet I ask,

  “How can you walk on those heels?”

  “It’s a combination of skill and desire,” she says. “Basically, it’s a mystery. Are we going home now?”

  She sounds disappointed, which thrills me.

  “My original date plan included a stop at the ice cream place near campus.”

  “Ooh, perfect.”

  It would have been perfect. But when we get outside, it’s drizzling.

  The ice cream place has a window for service and outdoor tables. That’s not going to work.

  Damn.

  “How about a rain check on the ice cream?” I ask.

  We’re protected at the moment, standing under the big awning in front of Jimmy’s.

  Tamsin squeezes my hand. “We never did resolve the question of a second date. Does this mean there’s going to be one?”

  I want there to be. God, I want there to be.

  But then I hear a voice inside my head.

  You and Tamsin don’t belong together. Enjoy this one perfect night and leave it at that.

  Screw the voice inside my head.

  “Yeah,” I say, throwing caution to the wind. “There’s going to be a second date.”

  I unbutton my long-sleeved shirt, pull it off, and drape it over Tamsin’s shoulders. I’m wearing a T-shirt underneath, so I’m fine. But Tamsin needs more protection from the rain.