I spent forty-five minutes deciding what to wear, longer than I had spent on anything else all week. It was not really anxiety about the outfit — I had settled on it in about twenty minutes, a dark green dress I had bought two years ago, simple, the kind that looks like effort without looking deliberate. The remaining twenty-five minutes were for something else. Standing in front of the closet, I was not really looking at the clothes; I was just circling round and round inside my own head.
I told my sister a version of it, not all of it. She knew I was going to have dinner with someone, older, someone I had met online. She did not ask much — I could not tell whether she trusted my judgment or simply did not want to know the details. Either way, I was grateful. I left half an hour early and took the long way. The restaurant was in a part of town I did not usually go to, new, in a building so clean it looked expensive at a glance. I sat for fifteen minutes in a café two streets over, cradling a cup of tea I did not really want to drink, watching the door, so that I could walk in neither early nor late but exactly on time.
He was already there. Older than I had imagined — or exactly the age I had imagined, except that the number only truly landed once I saw him in person. He stood up. When he said my name, the ending lifted like a question, as if he were confirming he had not mistaken me for someone else, even though we had exchanged photos long before. That small, human trace of uncertainty was, oddly, what let me relax.
I ordered what he recommended, and for the first twenty minutes I listened more than I spoke — that is how I get when I am nervous. He did not seem to notice, or to mind. His questions were all real questions. He was easy to be around, which was the most surprising part. I had braced for it to feel like an interview, an audition, something with a higher voltage running through it. But most of the time it was simply a meal — a very good meal, with someone whose attention was full enough that you could feel it. When it came time to pay, I watched him handle it — the ease of someone who has done it too many times to have to think about it. I noticed a feeling I had not anticipated, something close to relaxation. Not because of the money, but because of that composure.