by Allen, Jacob
Oh, don’t worry.
Jackie’s going to be my plus one.
But for us having not even gone on a date yet—hell, for me not even having thought of what the date actually would be—that was too bold of a thought to express out loud. It was too hard to say. That didn’t mean, though, I wouldn’t say it before Sadie Hawkins. Assuming, of course, she’s not crazy and respects my private boundaries when we actually go on a date.
“You got a deal, brother,” I said.
“Good deal, dog.”
I laughed. I supposed that was acceptable.
* * *
Friday afternoon came.
I’d spent every day up until Thursday afternoon wondering how the hell I was going to make this date unique for Jackie. I didn’t want to do the movies. I didn’t want to do a walk in the park. I couldn’t do some of the fancy shit Adam probably did, though admittedly that was more conjecture than anything else.
I was also constrained by the fact that I didn’t really have money to spend, although Jackie not having a ton of money helped a little bit in that regard.
And then, right when lunch period had come around, the answer had dawned on me.
I had looped into the library, confirming some things that I thought I remembered correctly and setting into place my plans for Friday evening. Jackie had asked me if my questions were related to the following day, but what was I going to do, spoil the surprise aspect of it so early?
The only troubling part was having to drive her around in my piece of shit Honda Civic.
OK, that wasn’t the only troubling part. There was also the fact that I really had no idea if my plan for the evening would work at all. My ideas for activities would please her, but they weren’t the kinds of things I would spend my free time doing. I guessed I’d have to fake it until I made it.
But as I stood by my car, hoping to God that Jackie would just hurry the hell over so I could peel out of the school parking lot, I knew that there was nothing else I could do. If it didn’t work out, it didn’t work out.
OK, there was a hell of a lot more things I could do, especially when it came to showing her a good time.
Finally, about ten minutes after the bell had rang and well up to the point where a line was starting to form for students to get out of the parking lot, Jackie walked over. She had changed—before, she was wearing a conservative button down shirt and jeans. But now?
Now she had on a tank top under a nice jacket that revealed some of her cleavage, her jeans had tightened up a bit, and she had on heels that she most definitely had never worn to school before. With clothing like that, I swore I was under her spell. Whatever it was that she wanted me to do, I was going to do in the next few hours.
“Took long enough,” I said with a smirk as she walked up.
“What good is a date if you stay waiting?” she said.
And then she did something we hadn’t ever done before.
We hugged.
I was so big that her arms didn’t fit around me, but it felt mighty good to envelop her. Hugging her was like claiming she was my girl. My thick, burly arms protected her from all the judgments and glares she’d get for daring to be weird, and no one was going to strike at her.
“You’re very huggable,” she said with a giggle.
“Is that a word?”
“Would you prefer embraceable? That is a word, but it’s a lot more of a mouthful.”
“Ya know, I’m not really an English guy, more of an engineer type, so yeah, let’s go with huggable.”
“You’ll just make up a term for it, right?”
“Something like that,” I said with a smile.
But now came the first moment of judgment.
Her getting into my car.
It wasn’t just that I drove a car older than, I was certain, all of the students at the school. It wasn’t just that it had over 300,000 miles on it and was probably on the verge of breaking at any moment. It wasn’t just that it had a rusted exterior.
It was that not only was the presentation shit, the actual use was shit.
The interior had multiple scratches, stains, and just shit tossed everywhere from years of me not caring about it. The seats, leathery ones, were torn and had the stuffing falling out in multiple spots. The A/C did not work—which wasn’t a problem at this time of year, but it would become a huge fucking problem around April. The car’s shocks were basically non-existent, which meant that every single bump, from the pothole that caused the car to drop half an inch to the speed bumps in the parking lot, made the ride feel less like a smooth journey home and more like a blaze through the jungle.
And on top of that, I was pretty sure the car had some sort of foul stench I’d never quite been able to shake. I drove it so much that I got used to it, but whenever I went for periods longer than two or three days without driving it, I always came back to some kind of particular scent that was somewhere between a nasty fart and rotten eggs.
If she can survive this car, she can survive just about anything.
I got into the front seat and turned on the car as she slid herself into my passenger’s seat. I waited for her to comment as the car’s stereo came to life—it had been playing some Pearl Jam, which I turned down to a volume that would fall beneath our conversation. She said nothing. I waited for her to say something as I put it into reverse and she could feel the engine kick. She said nothing. I waited for her to say something when the engine coughed as I put it into drive and “gunned it” to fifteen miles per hour in the parking lot.
She said nothing.
“How are you feeling?”
She looked at me like I was asking the world’s weirdest question.
“I’m fine,” she said, confused. “Don’t tell me that this is the date.”
“No, no, of course not,” I said, laughing to hide my relief that she didn’t seem to care about the car’s condition. “What, you think this would be the date? I was just making sure you’re a good temperature and what not.”
“Oh, yes, thank you.”
She literally has no idea. Either that, or she does not care.
Wow. This is nothing short of a goddamn miracle.
Off a high of realizing that she didn’t mind the state of the car, I decided to push my luck a little bit in seeing how she felt.
“Do you trust that this date will turn out well?” I said, arching an eyebrow.
“I mean, yes, why not?” she said with a laugh. “Your Sadie Hawkins date is on the line, don’t forget.”
Damn! She’s holding it over me like this. But then again, for the way I’ve treated her in the past, she probably deserves to hold it over my head some.
“Yeah, forgive me if I’m not worried about that,” I said, putting on a bit of a front. “I put thought into this.”
“Oh, really?” she said. “How much?”
“And why would I ruin the date for you, again? Are you listening?”
I said this all with a smirk to let Jackie know I wasn’t mocking her; I really was just teasing. She didn’t have quite the reaction I had hoped for, but she wasn’t overly turned off by it. It was good enough.
I was determined, though, to not let this be just “good enough.” As much as I hated to admit it, I was a people pleaser like Jackie—I wanted to please my father, I wanted to please Adam, I wanted to please everyone except, seemingly, myself. I’d only come to that realization in planning this date, but it was an unavoidable part of me now.
“I always listen, Kevin.”
As do I. I just don’t like to show it.
I drove Jackie down a few roads; the good news was our first destination was relatively close by and required no highways. It was based off of one of her reading interests, and I had my fingers crossed that this was going to work well.
She picked up on it when she saw the first signs for it.
“Nashville Zoo?” she said, her voice perking up as I pulled around one turn.
I nodded, still playing it coo
l, which was helped by a recently-added pair of sunglasses. I’d had to go in that Thursday to remember that she was interested in animals and biology, and I’d had to see if there was anything besides a zoo, but I figured this was a great starting point.
“Interesting.”
That’s not the comment someone makes when they think “great.”
“What do you mean, interesting?”
“No, it’s fine, let’s go.”
Well, fuck.
But by this point, I’d already gotten us tickets for a day visit at a discounted rate, and I really didn’t want to push my luck by arriving past the day visit time. I parked the car, opened Jackie’s door—more out of an urgency to get through the entrance—and escorted her over.
Throughout the zoo, which I had never before visited, I saw tigers, elephants, kangaroos, and even some rhinos. I stared in majesty at the creatures, finding myself with a feeling of awe that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. So this is what money buys, I thought. This is pretty cool. This is really cool.
“Not bad, huh?” I said when I pointed out a rhino resting underneath the bright sun.
“Do you see how miserable they are?” she said.
Ah, fuck me.
“What do you mean?” I said, but I already knew where she was going to go with this. I should have known some hippy chick would hate a zoo.
“I mean, I don’t think they should be in captivity like this, it makes me uncomfortable.”
I bit my lip and didn’t say a word. If I started talking, I knew I was going to say something that was only going to piss her off even more. Better to just keep my mouth shut, not say a word, and let her go on her rant.
“All of the animals here should be roaming the plains of their natural habitat,” she said. “And instead, they’re confined to some small space, made to be exhibits for us. It’s inhumane and cruel.”
Cruel? They provide fucking medical care.
“What do you think, Kevin?”
I decided to give what I felt was an honest answer without sucking up too bad to her.
“I haven’t given it much thought,” I said. “I figured you loved animals and so seeing animals would be cool. Sorry you don’t like it.”
Jackie smiled, put a hand on my arm, and rubbed it.
“I appreciate the thought behind it,” she said.
OK, I feel a smidge better. But still.
“But,” she said, which raised my tension right back up. “You’re a smart guy. Surely, you have some thoughts on the matter? Or you can think of some thoughts, right?”
I smirked and chuckled, but I knew Jackie wasn’t going to let me off the hook. She was going to push me until I gave a real answer. It was her greatest strength and the biggest obstacle to us being anything more than neutral acquaintances.
“I think that having animals here can raise awareness, and I think we do everything that we can to make them feel at home. We try and bring in friends for them and make them not feel so socially isolated. So I think that’s good.”
I knew if I left Jackie with just a contrary opinion, though, it wasn’t going to leave a good taste in her mouth.
“But, then again, I think anything that feels contained is never going to reach its full potential.”
“Aww,” Jackie said.
“Don’t aww me,” I said with a laugh. “I’m just a fucking dumb engineer who was dumb enough to think an animal rights gal would also like a zoo. I think the right phrase you’re looking for is, ‘ya big dummy.’”
Jackie laughed quite loudly, having to even cover her mouth to try and prevent people from looking at us. It was exactly the kind of laugh that said she was into me, even with the faux paus.
I couldn’t wait to see how else I fucked it up yet somehow kept it alive.
“Anyways, unless there’s something else you want to see, let’s get the hell out of here,” I said, waving my hand. “I have plans for our next stop that I think will be better.”
“You promise?” she said with a teasing look.
“I mean, I figured we could go to a fucking slaughterhouse and watch them kill and then serve us the cow. What say you?”
The horror on Jackie’s face was so strong I almost thought she was just going to kick me out on the spot. Who could have blamed her after something that harsh and that strong?
Instead, she just play-slapped me.
“That is a bigger strike than you actually taking me here,” she said with a smile, though I knew she was serious. “At least this was an innocent mistake.”
“OK, OK, fair enough,” I said, groaning. “Come on, let me make it up before I say something else fucking stupid.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m trying things I never would have tried for the sake of impressing this girl. When the fuck did this happen?
When you realized that Jackie White wasn’t the cause of your anger, that’s when.
Let’s just hope she’s not the cause of my future anger in that case.
* * *
Jackie didn’t speak quite as much in the car ride to dinner as she had before.
Part of that, frankly, was just that Jackie didn’t speak very much in general, and we’d hung out so little before that we’d always had something to talk about. Even though I, too, was closer to introverted than not, I still could talk to people for hours on end if I hadn’t seen them in a while.
But part of that, I knew, was because the first part of the date was perhaps the biggest mistake I could have made. It would’ve been like if I had suggested to Adam we hang out at his father’s grave. There were just certain things that people didn’t do, and the idea that an animal activist would want to spend time at a zoo was laughable.
Fucking laughable.
So fucking stupid.
But at least she was still with me. At least she hadn’t run off yet.
What did that say about her? Did it say that she was forgiving, kind, and understanding? Or did it affirm asshole Kevin’s suspicions that she was spineless, weak, and easy to push over?
I wanted to say the former. And, given that she wasn’t afraid to give me grief, I had evidence for that. But still, asshole Kevin was never far away from the Kevin people saw, and he could emerge at any moment.
For now, though, I was just happy we got to the restaurant I had in mind, AVO.
From the outside, it almost looked like a brewery, which wasn’t the most inaccurate statement since it served alcohol. But the big giveaway to what it really was all of the avocado decorations on the outside, spread across like raindrops.
“Wait, are we… are we having dinner here?”
I nodded. God, I really didn’t want to think I’d fucked up a second time. I knew her dietary preferences! Had I really fucked that up somehow too?!?
“I didn’t know you were vegan!”
Wait… is she excited? Is she happy about what I’d said?
“Oh, I’m not, but I’m willing to try it,” I said. “I’ll probably go home and have some chicken or steak, but I figured if I’m out with you, I know you’re vegan, so—”
“You actually noticed that,” she said, almost in awe.
“Of course I noticed it, it looks really weird when there’s no cheese or meat in someone’s lunch box,” I said with a chuckle. “I think it would have been strike two and three at once if I hadn’t noticed it before. And even if I hadn’t, after the zoo, it would take a pretty big dick to take someone to a place like this.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said as she unbuckled her seat belt.
I would be?
Who has she dated or gone out with that tried this kind of thing?
I decided a first date, a trial date to see if I could take her to Sadie Hawkins, was not the place to ask her, so I just walked a short bit behind her into the restaurant, putting my hand on the small of her back. Jackie came closer to me, though she wasn’t yet at the touching me phase. I didn’t mind. We had plenty of time.
As long as she
didn’t run off, that was good.
“So you really aren’t vegan yourself, huh?” she said as the waiter took us to our table.
“I’m really not,” I said. “I like my chicken grilled, my steak marinated, and my ribs slabbed.”
“Oh, you’re going to be in for a delight,” she said, smiling as wide as I had ever seen her before. “It’s healthy, it’s ethical, it’s good for the environment, it’s…”
I just stared at her and tuned out her words. I know it may seem kind of fucked up, but I was never going to become vegan, or I at least wasn’t for the immediate future. But I did find a certain beauty in watching her so effusively talk about a certain topic that I knew nothing about.
Hell, watching anyone speak passionately about something interested me greatly. Maybe it was because I admired people who had achieved great success or were en route to doing so.
Maybe it was because I didn’t have a lot of that in my life normally.
In any case, the waiter came by, and I ended up ordering an avocado sandwich with beans. It was… better than I expected. I wasn’t as full as I wanted, and I really, really, really wanted some damn meat right then.
But seeing Jackie so happy, almost to the point that someone might mistake her for being an extrovert, was a lovely sight I could not forget. It was beautiful, really.
When we finished and I paid the tab—taking with it nearly all of the money that I had saved—it had fully settled into nighttime. I didn’t have the means to spend any more money on her, so my plan was to just park somewhere and walk around downtown Nashville.
That was, until Jackie forced my hand.
“What’s the plan?” she said.
“It’s a—”
“Don’t say a surprise,” she said. “You’re batting fifty percent right now. That’s good, but I want a say.”
“And ruin the fun?”
She nodded. I was a little annoyed, but if it helped me kiss her before the end of the night, then it might just have been worth it in the end.
“Alright, fine, princess, what do you want to do?”
“Princess?” Jackie said.
“Sorry. I just wanted to guide this date. I… I was going to take you downtown to walk around.”