“Of course.”
I watch them walk away, Maddy holding tightly on to the back of Bee’s elbow to steer her in the right direction. Breathe, I tell myself, aware that I’m not making a great impression. The opposite, in fact. Boonsri brings our food over just as Maddy and Bee come back.
“Can I have a spoon for her please?” Maddy asks.
“Spoon?”
“Yes.”
“No fork?”
“No.”
“Just spoon.”
“Yes.”
“Ok. I get spoon.”
“Does she always repeat everything you say?” Maddy asks me, sliding back into her chair. She pushes Bee’s rice onto the opposite side of the table. “It needs to cool down before she can eat it,” she explains, when she sees my questioning look.
“I can’t say I’ve noticed.”
“Maybe it’s just me then.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you come here often? And have your ‘usual’?”
“Yes ok, that was me trying to show off.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Clearly.”
“Why would you want to show off to me anyway?”
I shrug my shoulders, unsure whether to say something clever or just go for honesty. “I don’t know. I just thought that’s what you do, on dates. Or non-dates, as you pointed out this is.”
She chews thoughtfully on a piece of broccoli while she watches me. “Why did you ask me out?”
There’s no way I’m going to tell her it’s because she reminded me a little of my ex, or that she has a piece of broccoli stuck between her two front teeth for that matter. I take a mouthful of my own curry to buy myself some time. “Why not?” I say when I’ve finished chewing. “You seem like a nice person.”
“Until tonight we’d barely exchanged five words. How can you tell if someone is nice from that brief an impression?”
“I don’t know. You just can.”
She thinks about what I’ve said while she polishes off her curry. I’m impressed with how quickly she eats. I become aware that my tongue is starting to tingle. Suddenly Bee stands up and starts singing Mary Had a Little Lamb at the top of her voice. Maddy busies herself calming her down, and while she’s distracted I take the opportunity to drink both my own water and hers. Shit. Shit shit shit. My mouth is burning.
“Everything ok here?” Boonsri has appeared beside the table seemingly from nowhere.
“Mm,” I mumble, because I’m worried that if I open my mouth I might breathe actual fire.
“Everything is fine thanks.” Maddy answers. She has got Bee sitting again and has started to feed her the rice. She catches sight of me and stops spooning to give me a funny look.
“What?” I ask, thinking maybe I have a piece of broccoli caught in my own teeth.
“Are you ok? You’re sweating an awful lot.”
“Am I?” I wipe my forehead with my napkin and it comes away drenched.
“Sir?” Boonsri says.
“Mm?”
“You ok Sir?”
I clear my throat. “Just grand. Although, could we have some more water, please. For the table.”
“Have mine, oh. That’s weird.” Maddy picks up her glass and realises it’s empty.
“Food too hot? You want I take away?”
“What? No,” I wave my hand airily. “The food is-,” I cough a few times, “- absolutely delicious.”
It seems to take an eternity for her to come back with a fresh jug of water, during which I smile through my agony and try hard not to combust in my seat. I gulp three glasses of water, none of which seem to make a bit of difference.
“Why don’t you just admit it?” Maddy asks, clearly amused.
“Hmm?” I swallow. Is it just my imagination or is my throat closing up? “Sorry?”
“You can’t handle the heat. There’s no shame in admitting it.”
“Heat? Oh you mean this?” I gesture at my bowl. Now that I look closely I can actually see the chilli seeds floating on the top. Like a thousand small eyes, they mock me. “Is it spicy? I barely noticed.”
“Really? You’re going to keep up the pretence?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I spoon up another mouthful of curry, carefully trying to dodge as many seeds as I can. It’s like trying to take a dump on a public toilet without touching the seat. I close my eyes and open my mouth. The spoon hovers. I open one eye to see if she’s still watching. She is.
“Waiting for something?” She asks.
“No.”
I eat the curry.
Fuck.
I spit the curry back out.
My mouth, already inflamed, reacts like I’ve just prodded and angry wasp nest, and a thousand stings stab at every corner of my tongue.
I forgo the glass and gulp straight from the jug.
Maddy laughs.
“I’m – glad – I – amuse – you.” I manage to splutter.
“I thought you had an iron constitution?”
“I thought I did!”
“Everything ok here?” Boonsri has appeared again.
Maddy is laughing too hard to answer her. Boonsri fetches me a glass of milk which goes some way to putting out the fire in my mouth but sets me off on a coughing fit.
“No Thai hot next time,” she says. “You silly boy. No listen to Boonsri.”
“Sorry,” I say through tears while she bashes me on the back.
“The stunk he smells pee you!”
We all look at Bee who is grinning.
“She means skunk,” Maddy says, as if that explains everything.
Maddy
“So?”
“What.”
“How was it?”
“How was what?”
“Duh, the date.”
“None of your business.”
Kyle pouts. “Fine, don’t tell me then.” He flounces off out the back, hoping reverse psychology will work. He’s back thirty seconds later.
“Please please please tell me,” he pleads, kneeling at my feet and wrapping his arms around my legs.
“Get off.”
“Not until you give me all the juicy details. Come on, I have no life of my own so let me live vicariously through you, please?” I look at his pathetic face and cave.
“Ugh. Fine.”
He climbs to his feet and claps his hands together. “So?”
“So what?”
“How was it?”
“It was -.” I shrug. “It was fine.”
“Just fine?”
“What do you want me to say? I went. We ate. It was fine.”
“I want you to tell me you felt the earth move. I want you to tell me that you fell madly in love with him and he carried you off into the sunset and shagged you senseless over a bottle of bubbly wine back at his place.”
“You read too many Mills and Boons.”
“I know, blame my grandmother.”
“Anyway, I had Bee with me, remember?”
“Oh yeah. So no carrying off then?”
“No.”
“And no shagging?”
“Definitely not.”
“Well that sucks. Still, I suppose there’s always next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“Why not?”
I shrug. “I’m just not interested in anything. I have enough going on.”
He snorts. “If you ask me it’s sad. Here you are in the prime of your life, probably as good looking as you’re ever going to be, and look at you. Single.”
“You’re single too,” I point out. “I don’t see you dashing off home to someone every night.”
“Yeah but there’s a difference.”
“What?”
“I don’t choose to be single, but you do. You’re single because you just can’t be bothered.”
He’s wrong, but I don’t bother explaining it to him. Unless someone has someone else who is so dependent on them for everything like my
sister is on me, they can’t understand. They might think they do, but they don’t.
Albert
Three days.
Three whole days and something like sixteen hours. That’s how long it’s been since I last thought about Kate. Apart from when I realised I hadn’t thought about her and tried to calculate how long it had been. But that doesn’t count.
My date with Maddy may not have gone as well as one would generally hope a first date would, but I learned at least two things from it.
The first; that I can’t handle chilli as well as I thought I could. (And that I shouldn’t try and show off on first dates.)
And the second is that Maddy, even though she may have spent the first half of our ‘date’ a little on the bad-tempered side and clearly resentful about being there, underneath it all is actually quite a nice girl.
When the usual staffroom morning tea banter kicked up about the weekend and ‘What We’d Got Up To’, it was nice not to be the pathetic one who’d sat at home by himself watching old terminator films on rerun like usual. With his parents in the next room.
“Did you shag her?” Matt wanted to know.
“None of your business.”
“That’s a no then.”
“A gentleman never kisses and tells.”
“Still a big fat no.”
“Fuck off.”
After our ‘non date’, I’d stood awkwardly on the pavement while Maddy buckled Bee into her car, trying desperately to recall anything the boys might have mentioned about acceptable sexual advances on a first date. I didn’t want to move so fast I ended up with a slap and a police caution, but on the other hand I didn’t want to offend her by not trying anything, whereby she might think I wasn’t interested. To kiss or not? Shake hands and move in for a hug? What the hell was protocol?
In the end I spent so long dithering she was already around her side of the car by the time I’d decided I would just go for the shake and see where it led.
“Goodnight,” she said over the roof of the car.
“Goodnight.”
“Thanks for dinner.”
“You’re welcome.”
Bee banged on her window loudly, causing me to jump.
“You are a pig!” She shouted.
“Lion King,” said Maddy.
“Do you know all her cartoons off by heart?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s all she watches. Day in day out.”
“I can think of worse things I suppose.”
“You didn’t have to pay for her dinner too, you know.”
“I don’t think a bowl of rice will break the bank.”
She smiled.
“I hope it wasn’t too unbearable in the end, going out with me.”
“Let’s just say it wasn’t as horrible as I expected it to be.”
I nodded, smiling. “I’ll take that.”
“Goodnight Al-bear.”
“Goodnight Madonna.”
It was only after her car lights had disappeared around the corner that I realised we hadn’t made plans to see each other again. Was there like a cooling off period that I was supposed to observe between the date and a follow up phone call to request another date? I couldn’t ask Connor. He made a point of never calling a girl, preferring to let them do all the chasing. This actually meant he sat at home watching terminator reruns and texting me most Friday nights.
I wait in my room until dad has left for work the next morning then seek out mum for advice.
“Oh hello love,” she says when I open the laundry door. She is sitting on a foldable camp chair watching The Ellen Show on a small TV that is perched on top of the washing machine. A coffee machine is plugged in on the laundry bench and brewing; the smell rich in the confined space.
“Hey mum, I was hoping you could help me with something.”
“Of course, hang on a sec.” She gets up and turns the volume on the TV down. Opening a cupboard she takes out a cup and pours herself a coffee. “Would you like one?”
“No, thanks.”
She sits down again. “Fire away.”
“How long should a guy wait after a date before he calls a girl to ask her out again.”
She takes a sip of coffee and muses upon my question. “Wait,” she says. “This is missing something.” She gets up and opens another cupboard to reveal a bottle of Baileys. Unscrewing the lid, she tips a bit into her mug.
“What?” she asks defensively when she sees my concerned face. “Your grandfather was one eighth Irish, didn’t you know? It’s medicinal. It’s like taking a daily multivitamin over there.” She sits back down. “Ok, so back to your question. I’ve heard that you should wait a day or two before you call, so as not to appear too keen. But who are we talking about here? Are you ‘the guy’?”
“Maybe.”
“Then don’t wait. Don’t. Call her now, have a date, fall in love, get married and escape from this house. There’s no hope for me but you can still get out. Run. RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“I’m joking of course darling, haha. Ignore me, it’s the Bailey’s talking.” She takes another gulp of coffee and mumbles something under her breath. “No look, seriously. If you want to go out with her again just call her. I don’t see the point in waiting around. You might wait too long and she’ll lose interest.”
“Do you really think that might happen?” I ask, alarmed.
“It’s possible. But how should I know? I married the first man who asked. Which obviously I’m grateful for because otherwise I wouldn’t have you,” she adds quickly. “Look, is she nice? Do you like her?”
“Yes and yes.”
“Then call her. Now if you don’t mind Ellen’s about to interview Tom Hanks. I like him, very talented man.”
“Ok. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Turn it back up on your way out please.”
I ignore my mother’s advice, and the fact she seems to be slowly moving into the laundry, and I wait a couple of days so as not to appear overly desperate before I call Maddy. It rings five times then goes to voicemail. I panic and hang up, because in all the fantasies I have had about how this conversation might go, I haven’t allowed for that. Then I realise she’ll see she has missed a call from me and might think it’s weird that I haven’t left a message, so I call back, this time with a bright and breezy, slightly comedic message rehearsed and ready.
She answers. “Hello?”
“Oh shit, you’re there.” I nearly drop the phone.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry for swearing, I wasn’t expecting you to answer.”
“It’s what people generally do when you ring them.”
“Yes I know, I just mean because you didn’t answer the first time, so I wasn’t expecting you to answer this time.”
“I can hang up if you like.”
“No don’t, I just meant…look, any chance we can start again?”
“Oh fine, go on then.”
“Hi.” I say brightly.
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“I’m good thanks. Yourself?”
“Also good thanks. In fact, I’m wonderful. Everything’s good. Life is, well, life is -.”
“Good?”
“Well yeah. Um, so I was wondering.”
She says nothing but I hear her breathing softly so I know she’s still there, waiting.
“Would you maybe like to, if you’re not too busy I mean, and didn’t have a horrible time the other night, would you maybe like to go out again?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“Are you going to eat spicy food and sweat all over the table all night again?”
“Oh haha, no, no way. Christ, that was awful. You should have seen me on the toilet the next day.”
Silence. My words catch up to my ears.
“No actually,” I say, cringing. “No yo
u shouldn’t. I don’t know why I said that.”
“It’s conjured up a rather disgusting mental image.”
I try and imagine what she’s imagining and wish like anything an asteroid would fall out of the sky and strike my house right then so I could be put out of my misery.
“Any chance we could start this conversation again?”
“There’s no point. Look, Al-bert, I’m flattered. And I think you’re a really nice guy.”
I sense a ‘but’ coming. “I think you’re nice too.”
“I’m just not interested in a relationship right now. It’s not personal.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“For the record, who said anything about a relationship? I was only talking about dinner.”
“I know, but –”
“Dinner. A meal.”
“Yes but –”
“Between friends.”
“Friends? We barely know each other.”
“And that’s not going to change is it? Unless you come out with me again.”
“Like I said –”
“Come on,” I wheedle. “A meal. Just one. You have to eat don’t you?”
She’s weakening I can tell. I give it one more push.
“Please?”
She sighs. “You’re not going to give up are you?”
“It’s not in my nature.”
“Fine. Just one meal though.”
“I knew you couldn’t resist me.”
“Don’t push it.”
Maddy
“Where are you taking me?” I have to speak loudly to be heard over the music blaring from the car stereo.
Albert takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at me and shake his head, his smile teasing.
“You’re not very good with surprises, are you?”
“Yes I am,” I say, although I’m really not.
“Like I said five times already, you’ll have to wait and see.”
I pretend to sulk.
“It’ll be worth it, I promise.”
“It had better be.”
“You’re cute when you sulk, you know that?”
“Shut up.” I smile out the side window so he can’t see.
It’s going to be a beautiful day. The sky is clear of clouds and stretches cornflower blue in every direction. I have no idea what the temperature is but the haze coming off the road tells me it’s already up there and it’s only just gone eight. We have the windows down and a cool breeze weaves through the car, teasing my hair and causing goosebumps to spring up on my arms. I haven’t felt this relaxed in a long time. I rest my head back against the seat and close my eyes, enjoying the feeling of having no responsibility for the day. In a rare event, both mum and I had the same day off work, so she’s taking Bee out for a walk in the wheelchair and to do the grocery shopping, and I have the whole day to myself. Well, myself and Albert. It’s been a month since our now notorious ‘non-date’ and despite everything I said about not wanting a relationship, I think it’s just possible I’m in the first buds of one.
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