He winked at her. “That’ll work. Now go and have nice time.”
She stood outside Solemo’s, a bijou Italian place she had eaten at once or twice before. The decor was understated, and the menu not too overpriced, so all in all, she thought Malcolm had done a good job of choosing it. That was a check mark for him.
When she gave her name to the greeter, the young woman led her around to the table and Malcolm leaped to his feet to pull out the chair for her. Hmm, so far so good. Another checkmark. He knew how to choose a good location, and he had manners, too. Perhaps this was going to be better than she thought.
“A white wine for the lady.” Malcolm snapped his fingers at a waitress as she passed by, and Harriet’s smile wavered. The grinding noise that indicated wrong answers in Family Feud sounded in her head, and two large X’s were added to Malcolm’s tally.
If there were two things she couldn’t bear, it was someone ordering for her, and people who liked to summon the wait staff so rudely. A few years ago, she had worked at Olive Garden while she was in college, and her experience there made her absolutely loathe the finger snap brigade. The culprits were usually impatient men who were quick to criticize everything, and often left the most miserly tips.
Harriet tried to push the guy’s two negative traits out of her head for the time being. “Um, make that red, please. A Malbec, if you have it.”
It was then that she noticed Malcolm was almost through a glass of wine and was already eating an appetizer. What the actual…?
She surreptitiously glanced at her watch. She was only five minutes late! And that was because she’d had trouble finding a parking space and had to run from two streets away.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”
Malcolm blushed and pushed his plate to the side. “Um, sorry. Please excuse me. Honestly, I thought you wouldn’t show. Um, Tashia didn’t seem that positive about the arrangements when she called me.”
Harriet immediately felt sorry for the guy. He seemed almost as nervous as she, so she decided to cut him some slack and didn’t allocate him another X. “Please, don’t apologize. Tashia kind of sprung this on me a couple of hours ago, too, and I wasn’t even sure you’d be here when I turned up.” She picked up the menu and tried to put the irritability she felt back in its box.
But before Harriet had even looked at what was on offer, Malcolm did that finger snapping thing again. When the waitress turned around and glowered at him, he pointed to his starter. “Bring another one of these, would you?”
Harriet put down the menu and stifled an incredulous sigh. The calamari he was eating did look good, but she would have liked to see what else was available. Besides, for all he knew, she might hate squid!
The waitress came back with her wine and placed it on the table. Harriet quickly took a big gulp of it to fortify her.
“You should drink white with fish.” Malcolm went back to his appetizer and became absorbed in demolishing the rest of his plate, rather than conversing with her.
Harriet fumed. Who was this guy? A food critic? She waited until the last morsel vanished, and as he placed his cutlery on his plate, she decided one of them needed to say something to move this date along. “I’ve never been on a blind date before, have you?” She laughed nervously, and hoped the opener might put them both at ease.
“No.” He folded his hands in his lap and glanced around the restaurant.
When no further conversation came, Harriet tried again. “So, how do you know Tashia?”
“We met at a fundraiser a couple of years ago. Honestly, I couldn’t believe my luck when she lured me into the bathroom, and we had sex.”
Harriet didn’t know where to look. She hadn’t expected quite that much information, but then again, it sounded like something Tashia might do. Her friend was very spontaneous, and as far as men were concerned, she was not lacking in confidence. “Oh, right. Um, you dated then?”
“No. I mean, I was into it, of course. She’s your friend, so you know how attractive she is. Truth be told, I still have dreams about those breasts!”
He picked his teeth with the nail on his pinky finger and Harriet just stared at him.
“I asked her out, of course. I mean, what red-blooded male wouldn’t want more of that?”
The waitress set Harriet’s calamari down in front of her and with her cheeks heating and her temper bubbling, she thanked the woman and began to pick at her appetizer.
“No offense.” Malcolm leaned forward, plonking his big elbows on the table.
The X’s against Malcolm were flying around so fast and furious, Harriet couldn’t keep up with the tally. “What?”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice your figure isn’t as well-endowed as Tashia’s, and I didn’t want you to think I was, um, being, um…” His voice trailed off as he paled at the expression that had appeared on her face.
Before she could formulate a reply, he cleared his throat and, obviously not content that he had already put both feet in his mouth, he decided to cement his fate. ”The nearest I got to a second date with Tashia was a quick grope in the taxi on the way to the movies afterwards. But halfway through the film, she got up to go the bathroom and never came back.”
I wonder why. Maybe she couldn’t bear listening to you talk about some other woman? Harriet squashed the urge to say that out loud.
“Shame, really. She was just my type. Love me a nice, round ass and a big pair of tits.”
Harriet put down her fork, and picked up her wine glass.
