by Lynn Costa
Finally I figured enough time had passed – plus the water was beginning to cool off a bit, I guess I had used up a fair amount of the apartment’s hot water – and I exited the shower stall, wrapped a towel around my body and another around my hair, and began the next part of the ritual. Over the next hour I blow-dried my hair; used my curling iron to get it looking just right; and then started carefully putting on my makeup. By 6:15 I was all set and went into the small walk-in closet in the bedroom to retrieve what I had already selected for my wardrobe tonight: a white, loosely knitted top with long sleeves and a bandeau underneath, along with the most expensive pair of jeans that I owned. I had decided to wear my strappy silver Steve Madden heels... the same heels I had worn that first group dinner night in Miami when I had hooked up with Josh Chamberlain, but so what? And I had already picked out my jewelry for the night: a Kate Spade statement necklace and coordinating studs, so that part was easy.
Fifteen minutes later, after resisting the urge – twice – to switch to a totally different top and jeans combination, I sat back down to put on some finishing touches of makeup and another five minutes later I was finally all set. However, now I had a problem: it was now 6:40 and I was a mile away from Vivant... a good 20-minute walk if I weren’t wearing heels. So to make it there by 7:00 I would have to walk as quickly as I could in heels that definitely weren’t meant for walking that way, and I would almost certainly get sweaty trying to make it there on time.
I grabbed my keys, stopped at the hallway mirror to take one last checking-myself-out look, and hurried down the hall to the elevator. When I got to the lobby and headed outside the fates were shining on me. A cab was sitting right there with two of the older people who lived in my building exiting, the man just then reaching in through the open passenger side window to hand the cab driver the fare.
“Wait!” I hollered, rushing over to the cab before someone else on the street could get there ahead of me.
“Sorry, lady, got a pickup over on Rodeo,” came back the congenial but firm rebuttal of the cab driver as I was sliding past the older woman through the still-open back right side door.
“Oh please!” I begged. “I’m headed right in that direction and I’m going to be late for a first date with this guy...” I just about told this cab driver my whole life story in like fifteen seconds, and when I finally took a breath the cabbie shrugged and said,
“Okay, okay, get in.”
Traffic through this part of L.A. was already pretty heavy as the going-out crowd began... well, going out on this beautiful Saturday evening. I was beginning to wonder if I might have actually gotten there faster – heels and sweatiness notwithstanding – if I had walked, but with about five minutes to spare the cab pulled up in front of Vivant. I handed the cab driver a twenty for an $11 fare and thanked him again for not being a total dick (well, I didn’t quite use those words!) by refusing my fare back at my apartment. The guy seemed grateful for the extra-generous tip; he looked to be about sixty and from his accent while he talked almost non-stop during the ride there, he sounded like he was originally from New York or somewhere back east. From a couple of the things he said about his family it sounded like he had led a tough life, so I figured an extra $5 or so on top of a normal tip would be welcome, which it certainly seemed to be.
I smiled at the restaurant’s valet who shuffled over from the car stand to open the restaurant door for me and I was only inside Vivant for about two seconds when a Canali-clad guy of about thirty with spiky moussed hair walked from behind the maître d’ stand, straight up to me and said:
“Would you be Miss Barnes?”
I immediately thought that Zack had canceled on me and had called the restaurant to have them let me know, but even as that thought was coming to my head I remembered that we had exchanged cell phone contact info Thursday night at Cerise. Maybe he had accidentally erased mine?
“I am,” I finally was able to say, preparing myself for the worst.
The man nodded.
“Please follow me and I will take you to Mister Buchanan’s table,” he said and I could feel the surge of relief wash over me; that same feeling I used to get in college when I would go online to check out a score on a test or assignment that I was all but certain I had bombed but surprise of surprises, had actually gotten an A on: Glory, Hallelujah! That was exactly how I felt... for about three seconds until a wave of tremendous anxiety hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. Here I was, only seconds away from officially starting my first date with a really attractive new guy I had met only two days earlier but who had consumed my thoughts (and fantasies) ever since.
And here I was, only seconds away from officially cheating on my boyfriend Dustin for the first time.
I forced away both sides of that anxiety as I followed the guy into the dining room and across the center, towards a table near the back... where I could see Zack seated, eyeing me as I walked towards him. Once I got within a few steps of the table, Zack stood – what a gentleman, I thought to myself! – and I half-expected him to give me a kiss in greeting. But instead he nodded, smiled warmly at me, and waited – without any physical contact whatsoever, though – for the maître d’ to pull out a chair for me and for me to be seated.
“Hello there, Lindsey,” were the first words from Zack’s mouth. He was wearing an untucked fuchsia shirt and jeans. Later on when he got up to use the restroom I noticed that he was wearing a pair of black horsebit loafers that looked to be Gucci.
I liked that he specifically used my name in his greeting, so I reciprocated.
“Hi Zack,” I said, smiling.
“Have you been waiting long?” I added, knowing that I had arrived with a few minutes to spare but he had already been seated.
“No,” he shook his head. “About ten minutes maybe. I thought about waiting in the bar but it’s packed in there” – he nodded in the direction of the large opening separating the main bar area from this part of the dining room, and I could see that people were two- and three-deep in there waiting for drinks – “and I figured by the time I could actually get a drink it would be time to sit down, so I figured I would just grab our table early.”
I just smiled again, thinking of something to say – “okay” or “uh-huh” or “that’s good” – but each of those trite utterances seemed to be nothing more than space-fillers; you know, some sort of mandatory acknowledgment that you had heard something that another person had said – so instead I opted to stick with only the smile in response.
“How was your trip to Seattle?” I asked as soon as I sat down, figuring why not get the real conversation – the real date - underway.
“It was good,” he nodded. He gave me an abbreviated description of the reason for his trip. Since it had to do with MetroGen and I was consulting there as well, I think he was somewhat more forthcoming in the details than he might have been otherwise given that some of what he was telling me seemed rather proprietary. So as he was talking I was connecting the dots between what he was describing about his work and the project I was working on, and – I couldn’t help it – the professional side of my brain came to life in the back of my mind, thinking about what the details Zack was describing might mean to how I would approach a couple of meetings on Monday morning.
But Monday morning was an eon away; I wanted to focus on the here and now. The waiter arrived at our table just as Zack was wrapping up the tale of his Seattle trip – complete with the obligatory description that accompanies almost everyone’s trip up there of either a) how much it rained, or b) how it was surprisingly sunny the whole time. (In Zack’s case it was the latter.) The waiter greeted us and asked about our preference for bottled or ice water and then about drinks or wine. Zack ordered Pellegrino and then asked me if Chardonnay was okay; after I replied that it was, he ordered a bottle of a boutique Sonoma Chardonnay I had never heard of, but which he assured me was one of his favorites.
Before departing for the Pellegrino and wine the waiter asked if we
would like to hear the specials. They all sounded delicious, and I was wondering if Zack would be one of those guys who would preemptively try to take charge on a dinner date. You know the type: the guy who will suggest that the girl order something in particular with that “suggestion” being all but an outright command; something of a control play. Josh Chamberlain was a little bit like that when we went out in Miami, which was funny because we only went to three or four restaurants, just him and me, during those weeks and he had never been to any of them before or even knew anything about them. I remember at the time thinking it was odd that Josh would say something like “you really should try their swordfish” or “they’re known for their beet and goat cheese salad” to me; in fact the last time or two he did that my unspoken reaction was something along the lines of “WTF, Josh???”
Since Zack didn’t seem interested in playing that role, I decided to ask him.
“You’ve been here before, right?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, I’d say about ten times now since they opened. How about you?”
I shook my head.
“First time. I’ve been meaning to try it with Kensington and Courtney; you know, the two girls who were with me at Cerise on Thursday, right?”
Zack nodded again.
“Haven’t made it here though because I’ve been traveling so much, at least until I started at MetroGen and got back in town. Anyway, what’s good?”
Zack gave me a quick rundown on his own favorites from the regular menu – each one of them fish, which is how I discovered that he didn’t eat beef – and then told me which of the specials the waiter had mentioned he had tried before and liked. I figured that I wasn’t going to go wrong with anything that I ordered, though a couple of the best-sounding dishes were heavy on the garlic or onions and I was thinking about what my breath would be like after dinner, right? So I settled on the panko-crusted halibut special, wondering what Zack would order.
The rest of the next hour or so was a bit of a blur as we engaged in typical first-date chatter as we ordered. Zack wound up ordering the blackened redfish from the regular menu, which he proclaimed as good as any he had ever enjoyed in New Orleans. We had our Chardonnay poured (Zack toasted to “new beginnings” as he gazed penetratingly at me), and ate our wonderful meals. I asked him about the spelling of his name (“Zack” rather than “Zach” – I had noticed that from his cell phone contact info that he had texted me on Thursday), and he said that his parents had steered him down that path when he had started going by “Zack” more than “Zachary” in grade school. No particular reason, he told me; that’s just the way it turned out.
The only uncomfortable moments came when I asked Zack where he had grown up and he replied with “Joliet, about 40 miles outside of Chicago.” We got into a short discussion of growing up in the Chicago area, all the while my mind percolating little reminders every thirty seconds or so that Dustin was in Chicago right now. As if reading my mind, after about five minutes of Chicago-oriented discussion Zack’s eyes took on a mischievous, probing look as he said:
“I guess I could give you some suggestions of good places to eat to pass on to your boyfriend...”
I was pissed with him for bluntly bringing up Dustin that way. I suppose all was fair here, though. We had laid our cards on the table Thursday night and both had agreed that Dustin notwithstanding, we both wanted to go out on this date and see where things went. I guess it wasn’t fair of me to expect him to not say a single word about Dustin the entire time. After all, I’m sure Zack was wondering just what in the world was going through my head at the moment, now that we were actually here at dinner together. I guess I should have given him credit for at least tip-toeing into the subject of “my boyfriend” rather than simply pretending that I wasn’t in a relationship. But instantly I could feel my eyes narrow and my lips tighten... not exactly a girl’s best look on a first date, right?
Anyway, I was able to keep my cool and clear the pique from my face and respond with a somewhat whimsical “um, not sure that’s such a good idea...”
Zack chuckled at my response.
“Yeah,” he said as he looked down at his glass of near-empty glass of Chardonnay in his left hand and then after a couple of seconds back at me.
“Sorry about that. You know, bringing up your boyfriend like that. That probably wasn’t fair. This is new territory for me, you know? I’ve gone out with a couple of women before who had boyfriends, but I didn’t know that at the time; didn’t find out till later. But this is the first time I’ve gone out with someone who told me up front that she was in a relationship but still wanted to go out.”
He looked down at his wine glass again, and then back at me once more.
“Anyway, my apologies.” He smiled warmly at me.
“Besides,” he continued, “I’d rather talk about you. I’m having a great time.”
I couldn’t help myself. I returned his smile.
“Me too.”
* * *
We both passed on dessert but opted for after-dinner drinks as neither one of us was in a hurry to end the evening... or at least this part of the evening. Zack ordered port as our conversation proceeded into our respective college years. From our talk at Cerise I knew he had gone to UCLA, and he knew I had gone to ASU. We talked about classes, friends, epic parties... pretty much anything we could think of. Then the conversation shifted to our high school years.
“So what was the most outrageous thing you did back in high school?” I asked him. That question had usually resulted in a lengthy story or two from guys on first dates back in college, and I was in no hurry for the evening to end. My friend Kallie had told me about this particular question during our freshman year, and it always worked wonders.
In response to my question I saw a smirk immediately come to Zack’s face but then he seemed to will it away.
“Come on, I saw that look,” I said, a grin coming to my own face as I spoke.
He actually looked away from me for a couple seconds, smiling again but eyes downcast towards the table, sort of like a shy little boy would. This was definitely a different side of him than his brash best-there-is marketing consultant persona, but it wasn’t a turnoff. If he had been doing this on purpose – which I knew he wasn’t, but if he had been – it was working because now I really wanted to know what he was thinking.
“Tell me!” I demanded... nicely, but I was definitely letting him know that he wasn’t getting off the hook.
“Okay,” he shrugged, looking back at me with a big grin. “You asked.”
The tone of Zack’s “you asked!” made me all of a sudden think that his story must have had something to do with a girl – specifically something sexual – and that’s why he was reluctant to say anything. For a moment it was my turn to radiate a sense of uncomfortable embarrassment, wishing that I hadn’t asked him that question and then insisted on an answer, but there was no turning back. Fortunately, though, as he began telling me his story I realized I had jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“Back in my senior year I was the sports editor of our high school paper,” he began but then as our waiter reappeared, he paused to order us each another glass of port. I wondered when the Chardonnay and port were going to hit me but so far I wasn’t feeling even the least bit buzzed.
“Anyway,” Zack continued after our waiter had slipped away, “we used to publish twice each week, on Monday afternoon and on Friday morning. In the fall, during football season, we would include football scores from the previous weekend in our Monday afternoon edition. You know, not just our high school and other high schools around Chicago from Friday, but college and professional as well. Usually we would also pick one college or pro game and I would do a short write-up about that game underneath the headline, before we would print all the other scores.”
He paused for a minute to let out a short laugh – this must be some story he was going to tell me, or at least it was in his mind – and then continued.
“So this one Monday morning I went to Mister Tolleson, the junior year English teacher who was also the advisor to the newspaper. I gave him this list of scores and told him that I thought it would be great to make that issue’s game story about South Carolina versus Southern Cal and call it ‘The Battle of the USCs.’ Mister Tolleson said that he liked that idea, so right away I show him the mocked-up headline I had already printed up on the laser printer. It said “Trojans Roll Over ‘Cocks 35-7 in Battle of USCs.”
He looked at me to make sure I got the joke, which I only half did, so he explained:
“The University of South Carolina? They’re called the Gamecocks and people call them the ‘Cocks for short?”
Suddenly I got it: Trojans...’Cocks... rolling over... Trojans rolling over cocks...
I felt myself instantly blush.
“He let you print that headline?” I asked Zack, trying to will the crimson of embarrassment out of my cheeks.
“Well,” he shrugged, “Mister Tolleson was only about 24 or 25 at the time, just a couple years out of college. In fact, it seems strange calling him ‘Mister Tolleson’ since I’m actually a couple years older now than he was at the time. Anyway...”
He shook his head, as if he had to will himself to get the story back on track.
“I remember he looked at me like he was trying not to burst out laughing, and he just took the sheet of paper with the headline from my hands and started walking around the classroom we used for the newspaper, staring at the paper, like he’s doing some serious deep thinking. Then he came back to where I was, handed me the paper, and said ‘Print it!’ – just like that. He was a cool guy and he must have figured that hey, it wasn’t our doing that those were the team names, so why not?”
Just as the waiter returned with our new glasses of port, I said:
“That’s pretty funny you were able to get away with that. Did everybody in your school turn you into a freedom-of-the-press hero or something like that?”