bad date

a short story

I met up with him outside. He was wearing a button up with puffy sleeves enmeshed with plastic sparkling dics in soft mixtures of pastel pink, lavender and sky blue. I could tell he was excited by the sight of himself. His cheeks were very pink, his eyes sparkling in jest. He was smiling a devious, satisfied smile. I didn’t like it, but I hid it. I reached out to touch one adorable sleeve, curious at the texture. 

“Soft,” I said, and nodded my head. I was very aware of my proximity to his spectacle. 

“I got your text about meeting outside, so while I’ve been waiting out here, I met this girl named Natalia from Spain. She’s over there,” Heath pointed to a woman across the street, moving away with a tiny white dog following on a leash. “She liked my shirt,” he said, like it was a challenge. And then he chuckled, “But hey, you look nice, too.”

We turned to the street to look for an opening to cross to the venue. The setting sun was warming up the evening with its orange glow. The city was calm. A plastic bag tumbled past our feet. I was getting a feeling of anxiety in my stomach, and my neck started to heat up. My eyes moved rapidly up and down the ends of the street. 

“So tell me about what you did today,” I suggested. 

We stepped off the curb and onto the street. The light was incredibly soft and warm. The sparkles from Heath’s shirt were glimmering sweetly in motion on the pavement. We picked up our walk a little to avoid a bicyclist. He reached back and slid his fingers along my hand, interlocking into mine.

“Let’s see, I mostly just thought about you, played some music, made a sandwich,” he said. 

“You almost implied that you were writing a song about me,” I said, trying not to notice how my fingers were sticking to his, trying to be cool with his interest in me.

“I wouldn’t tell you that on a first date,” he caught my eye and smirked handsomely.

We stopped just short of the entrance. I let my hand fall back to my side.

“Do you really want to go to this?” I asked, feeling like I couldn’t ignore the flight my stomach was taking without me. My eyes went soft and round to try to conjure sympathy from my date.

“Yes, and you do, too. As soon as we get in there, we can get a hit off someone’s pen,” he reassured me. 

-_-

I hadn’t been to a show in the city for about a year. Heath hadn’t either, and he didn’t know many people. I wasn’t sure why he had picked this event for our date. We had been talking, well, texting back and forth, about going on a date for a month. He wore me down, but that probably goes without saying. I saw Heath as someone who was preoccupied with the reflection of himself in the world, and I try not to date that type. Yet, when we spoke seriously about something, he was unnervingly sincere. He caught on too quickly to the fact that sincerity is what gets me.

Once we stepped inside the venue, I was shocked that it wasn’t the place I remembered. There were actual lights hung from the ceiling illuminating an actual stage below in red, purple and blue. The cords and wires, the speakers and mic stands, they were all there, and seemed to be functioning properly. I wondered who was responsible for the sensible upgrades. I wondered who had gotten rich, whose aunt had died.

Heath had discreetly paid for our tickets while I was looking around. Then he was at my side again with an orange wristband matching the one that had just been placed on his wrist. 

He said, “Your hand, please,” in a silly way with a little bow. 

I found that I was more comfortable with him in the dark. He took my hand again, secured the wristband that let everyone know I was of appropriate age, and led me to the bar. It was a bit early for the show to begin, the bar was deserted. 

“So can I get you a beer, or do you want to go out for a smoke first?” He leaned down and spoke into my hair so I could hear him above the music playing through the PA. I took note of how he smelled then. And I liked how he was taking care of me. We hadn’t been in this type of context together before. I couldn’t deny that there was sensual energy between us.

I asked back, “You think we can find someone with weed?” 

“Yeah, let’s go outside.”

-_-

People I knew last year began to populate the area. I was happy that our social agreement had always been I won’t acknowledge you if you don’t acknowledge me. Since I was with Heath, I didn’t have to rely on whomever was around me from moment to moment for enough interaction to display that I belonged. That was the most stressful thing about shows for me. Heath didn’t know anything about my anxiety going to shows. I had given him the impression that I actually enjoyed them.

Absolute truth be told, in spite of myself, I was enjoying him.

We stood together in the dark listening to the music. Occasionally he would nudge my arm and smile down at me like there was a secret we were keeping from everyone else. I was on my third drink, my cheeks were warm, I was giggling at nothing. I realized a desire to be alone with him. His sparkling shirt made sense, the light bouncing off the stage exposed its soft shine. He was like an innocent character in a movie caught in the moonlight. I noticed his jaw line for the first time. Contrasting light and shadow made a masterpiece out of his face.

The third band was setting up for their set. They were made up of three girls, a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist who also did vocals.

“I know her,” I said to Heath, pointing out the guitarist. “She teaches arts and crafts at the camp I worked at. Don’t you think she’s adorable? I’ve never heard her play, though.”

“Oh I actually know her, too,” he admitted. “Yeah, I’m kind of invited to a thing at her house after this. I mean, I wasn’t sure if you’d want to go, but if you know her, it could be cool.” He sort of shrugged when he mentioned this, keeping his eyes on the stage. “I agree with you, she is adorable. Her songs are, too.”

They began their soundcheck. I was listening harder now.

-_-

She sang:

He would be to me more than he is

I want him to be everything

And he is nothing

He used to need me in his bed

In his bed

In his bed

In his bed

I want him to feel everything

In beautiful poetic form

Translated into loving me

I want it to consume him

I want the life of a silly woman

She was moody. Her eyes focused up at the ceiling, her head swayed. Each song had a catchy groove, but it was melancholic. The bassist kept her head down, her dark hair illustrating the rhythm she played. I was bobbing my head along with everyone else, a signal that we were all pleased with what we were hearing. For those moments, I felt connected. And the room was spinning.

-_-

I followed Heath to his car. He was different when the show ended. I noticed him looking past me rather than at me. He didn’t say much. I was only assuming I was still welcome, yet I began to anticipate a moment where he would look up and say, “What are you still doing here?”  Out from under the carefully pointed lighting inside, we moved through shadows until he found the car.

“So have you been to Junie’s place before? All the girls in the band are roommates,” he explained. 

“No, I haven’t been,” I said. I opened the passenger door and tried to place myself gingerly into the seat on top of remnants from several fast food drive through visits. I buckled up. He started the engine.

This is the part of the date where my imagination of how it would end came undone. I looked ahead of me at the street, at the lines chasing each other underneath the car. I wondered why I was there. I imagined what I would be doing if I hadn’t left my house tonight, and longed for it. I was retreating.

He said, “I think you were feeling a little tipsy in there, weren’t you?” like he was familiar with what I was like when I was tipsy.

“I might have been. I’m sort of wishing I still was,” I looked at him, at his ear, his neck, his hair at the back of his head that was just long enough to flip up from his collar. I watched as streaks of street light washed over his features in waves. “You’re kind of different now.”

I kept my eyes on him, and he was very still. 

“I’m afraid you’re going to hate me,” he said, low and slow.

-_-

“Hey, I wasn’t sure if you were coming. You didn’t call me back,” Junie called out from the top of the stairs leading up to the house. “Oh my gosh, hey Margaret!” There was a small crowd gathered around on the porch now watching Heath and I get out of the car. 

“Hey!” I called back. Heath wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I instantly feared the sparkly discs from his sleeve getting stuck in my hair. 

The group returned their attention to each other. The front porch was wide and dusty. Each person looked like they belonged there. One guy was strumming an acoustic guitar. A joint was going around. Junie appeared to change her mind and decide against speaking to us any further. She grabbed a friend’s hand and they both went inside the house. 

“How’s it going?” Heath asked the guitar player.

“Hey man, haven’t seen you in a while, what’s up?” he looked up and smiled this astonishingly warm smile. I smiled too, even though he wasn’t addressing me.

Heath put his hand on the doorknob and asked “Do you know if there’s anything to drink?”

“Yeah, should be in the fridge.”

I followed him through the door. There were colorful pinpoint lights dancing around the room, providing the only light inside. People were standing around drinking and laughing. I recognized the music, it was a song I had been listening to on my own for about a month. Not particularly dancey or upbeat, melodic kind of stuff. I figured it was Junie’s playlist. She and I shared an interest in the same type of music; that was the one thing I knew about her personal life before discovering tonight that she played in a band, and that band was good.

“I’ll grab a drink for you, do you want to meet me in the back? It’s just through that door,” Heath stopped to point out an exit to my left. 

I said, “Sure,” and watched him turn into the kitchen on the right, brightly lit in contrast to the rest of the house. I heard, “Well, speaking of, here he is,” from a voice in the kitchen. I pushed on the door leading out somewhat hurriedly. I didn’t want to hear what was said next. I didn’t want to know why Heath was the subject of conversation happening around me.

-_-

Outside there were lights strung up around the house, the soft romantic kind. It was empty of people. A picnic table with an ashtray and a couple crushed up cans of beer filled the space that the lights illuminated. Beyond that it was all dark. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see how much an Uber would cost to take me home and sat at the table. The door opened again. I looked up to find Heath looking at me. I was hoping to get something like assurance or certainty that he was having a good time, but his face was just as uncertain as mine.

“Hey,” I said softly. “What did you find?”

“Oh, here,” he handed me a can of craft beer. “Listen, there’s something you should know that I should have told you before tonight. Since I didn’t, everything is kind of fucked up and weird, and not playing out well. So basically, I fucked up and I’m sorry for that. Um, yeah so here’s what that’s about.” He sat down next to me and sighed after letting out all of those words one after another. He did not look at me throughout this confession, just down at his shoes. “You should have known that I was dating Junie earlier this year. It had never gotten, like, super serious or whatever, but I mean, all of the elements were there so it might as well have been. We just didn’t call it anything. While we were dating, this whole other part of my life was going on that I haven’t got to tell you about yet, because honestly I’m hurting pretty badly from it, but I was supposed to move a month ago. I was supposed to go start my life on the other side of the country, so I broke things off with her. And then it didn’t work out, obviously.” He threw out his hands, and then ran them through his hair. He sighed again. “Anyway, now she’s upset with me, since my presence here is, I guess, extra painful for her after the way that we left things. I did not anticipate her feelings very well in all of this. Like I said, my life was just starting to get somewhere, but then it all stopped.”

I winced and sucked in a cold breath. “Oh, damn,” that’s what I said. 

“And then I definitely made things worse tonight,” he finally looked at me. He was clearly distressed over this. His eyes were heavy and pleading. “We didn’t have to come here. I know I’ve already made it awkward as hell for you. We can leave whenever.”

I almost couldn’t handle how soft he had just become to me. But then I began to connect the odd way he had behaved tonight and the odd welcome we had received on the porch. I realized I had been a symbol to Junie that Heath didn’t care for her anymore. I hated him in an instant for not letting me decide whether I wanted to be part of that.

-_-

I was in the bathroom, running cool water over my hands, letting the party on the other side of the door become white noise. I felt like apologizing for being there. The personal items on the counter seemed vulnerable. I wondered which things belonged to Junie. I turned the knob to stop the faucet. A towel was hung up on a ring over the sink. I hesitated for a moment, my fingers dripping, then decided that it would be ridiculous for Junie to hate me for using her towel to dry my hands and wiped them on it. 

I felt that I was now inside the story that had been so alive and full of emotion in the songs she had performed that night. I didn’t know Junie all that well. I didn’t know Heath very well either. Tonight I had been made into something that brought each of them unique pain. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. It wasn’t my fault, but I felt totally responsible. 

When I’m dating someone and it’s new and fun, I stay reserved for a reason. It’s happened a couple of times before with a couple people I’ve gone out with: he will begin to share something emotional, and I will have to decide if it is worth the risk to care, which forces the relationship to its defining moment. Consequently, it stops being fun; it starts getting messy. Heath had opened up that dilemma for us. I had to get away from him so I could make up my mind. In Junie’s bathroom, that’s what I did.

I presented myself to the mirror and worked at changing my look of regret and confusion to something like indifference. I traced a strand of hair over the back of my ear. I set my eyebrows higher, opened my eyes wider. I blinked, sniffed, and opened the door. Heath was there leaning against the wall. I had left him outside. 

He stood up. “Hey, so do you want to leave?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.”

I followed him out the same way I had followed him in.

-_-

He put the car in park in front of my house. It had been a quiet car ride, but he was done apologizing and I was thankful for that. It was still an early night. I invited him inside. 

“I’ll let you tell me more about your life if you want to come inside.”

He laughed. “You want to hear more about exactly how fucked I am?”

“Honestly, I’m not really sure,” I was acting impulsively now. “I feel strange and tired, but I just decided I don’t want to be alone.” I looked at him. The energy I had felt around him earlier was there again. I elbowed his arm. “Pretend this is our second date, starting now.”