BTS: 2ND DATE TWO WAYS
Real talk with future Peter and Eli: Was it Casa Orinda or Beatles Night?
REAL LIFE FUTURE US DISCUSSING THE STORY OF SADIE:
ME: I’ve got our meeting down. That’s etched in my mind with indelible ink. Bookstore. I’m whooped. Christmas and New Year’s pass. You call. We grab beers and shoot pool with Sam, talk all night. But what happens after that?
All I can remember is our first kiss. Did that happen on our second date?
PETER: I don’t know. But I can tell you we had sex on it.
ME: What?? What do you mean? That’s hard to believe.
PETER: I don’t remember our first kiss or the sex. I just remember you saying right after, “woah I cannot believe we had sex on our second date.”
ME: Ha! Sounds accurate.
PETER: You asked me if I always moved that fast.
ME: I did? Do you? I mean did you?
PETER: I don’t know. I didn’t really date back then. But I guess having sex on the second interaction was kind of normal.
ME: [Silently cringing on the phone.] Interesting. Hmm. So I only remember the kiss, you only remember my reaction, and neither of us remembers the sex?
PETER: I’m sure it was good.
ME: Riiight. [Awkward pause.]
I mean we obviously had to have our first kiss before having sex, so I guess I’ll put them on the same night. But what did we do beforehand?
PETER: I don’t know but we must’ve done something. No way I’d just drive over to your house and have sex off the bat. Probably dinner? Drinks? Casa Orinda?
ME: Yeah, who knows. I’ll try that.
SECOND DATE, TAKE ONE:
After that first night talking til 4 am, I was a goner.
If falling for someone is a journey, this is the part where I’m barreling down a mountain highway at midnight, blizzard be damned. Wild and reckless, engine at full tilt, headlights forming a hypnotic tunnel of snowflakes twisting in the light. And all I want to do is plow into that sparkling diamond dust. Everything peripheral becomes unimportant, blackened out.
All that matters is you and me.
Phone-wise, we had two options: you could call me from your mother’s home phone and I could answer on the cordless handheld in my dad’s rental, or you could make your way through the maze of my bank job phone menu; “Press 2 for customer service”.
I couldn’t very easily call you because you weren’t allowed to accept calls at work, and I wasn’t eager to call your home phone after your mom answered, sounding like I was a mongoose poaching her chick from the nest. For the first weeks, this puts you in control of how often we’d hear or see each other, and it was pedal to the metal pace because we weren’t the types to play anything cool.
At work, I’d click the answer button to pass the call into my headset, expecting the warbly voice of an octogenarian who feels betrayed by the audacity of a quarterly management fee. And instead it’d be your unmistakable voice - deep, calm, something slightly nasal about it. All you’d have to say was “hey” and my whole body would be buzzing, heart flip-flopping. We’d share a few stolen moments of whispered chitchat - I relishing your voice from the confines of my cubicle, filling my lungs with you before descending back into the murky ocean of disgruntled retirees.
Riding the train to work, I’m underwater literally and mentally, love-drunk and daydreamy. Sitting in my cubicle, I stare out the windows at wet skyscrapers glowing under the overcast sky and bide my time till the next fix.
On the customer service phone at my gray formica desk, we make plans for Friday. It’ll be our second chance to hang out in person.
You: “Hey”
Me: “Hey”
You: Wanna hang out Friday?
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