I stood outside the restaurant for about four minutes. Four minutes does not sound like much, but you have to understand, I first walked past it three intersections down, then circled back, and then stood at the door, staring at a phone screen that had nothing on it at all. The place was more upscale than I had expected. That was exactly the problem.
The whole way there I kept telling myself it was only a meal, just two people eating something in a city full of restaurants. I said that maybe six times in the taxi. It did not help much, but at least it gave me something to do. When he set the place he was very specific — not “somewhere downtown,” not “you pick,” but the name of the restaurant, the intersection, seven-thirty. That kind of specificity made me feel there was something to it. I could not say what. I still cannot.
So I was standing outside, and for one clear instant, my feet were already ready to walk the other way. My mind handed me a long list of reasons: traffic tonight, I think I am coming down with something, I forgot to feed my roommate’s cat — except I did not have a roommate. I knew what that list was really about. What actually stopped me was something pretty embarrassing: I had told a friend I was coming. If I went home now, she would ask me tomorrow how it went, and I would have to admit I never even walked in — and then I would have to explain it to her, and then to myself. So I went in.
He was already sitting at the table. When I walked over, he stood up. When was the last time someone stood up for me? He looked older than his photos, or maybe the photos were accurate and I just had not looked closely before. There was a stillness about him, and I could not tell whether it was confidence or something practiced. We ordered. He asked me things, I answered, and then he actually listened to my answers — which sounds like a very low bar, but you would be surprised how many people cannot clear it. Halfway through the meal I realized I had stopped mapping out my escape routes. I do not know when that happened.