An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (25 page)

              I didn’t want to leave a message on her answer machine, I didn’t trust myself in the silence; I would end up embarrassed and she would end up with an extended monologue.

              Hoping to clear my head I headed into town.

              The day was bright and the wind was cool enough to freshen me up as I walked head-on into it, down a busy midmorning high street. The Speed Dating hadn’t gone as well as I had hoped and I still cringed a little when I recalled my efforts to impress, but the fact that I had managed to win over two women cheered me up no end. I walked with my head held high, a proud smile on my face.

              In the street I smiled at everyone I passed, happy to share my good mood with the world. A permanent whistle was embedded on my pursed lips.

              I didn’t doubt that there was still a sense of sedation in my bloodstream aiding my happiness, but artificial or not, I was happy to be happy. Few others shared my mood. The majority looked back with glum, disinterested faces, as if they couldn’t be bothered to face the day with a smile, and wondered what gave me the right to do so.

              A couple of faces did return my smile, and I was overjoyed to see that one of them was Ally.

              I was peering in through the window of an electronics shop at the time, eyeing up a display of computer games. I had seen her from behind, but without recognition. Her long silky hair draped between her shoulder blades, the faint arches of which were hidden underneath a glorious white jacket. I had glanced, admired, wondered if she was pretty, and then concentrated on a poster over her shoulder.

              When she turned to look at me my eyes were already on hers. She looked a little confused at first; somewhat surprised to see me standing there staring, but eventually she smiled a curious smile and ambled out of the shop, leaving a perplexed friend to study a row of portable televisions.

              ‘Kieran, hey!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

              Her attire matched the confident woman I had met yesterday. Underneath the short, padded jacket she wore a thin, billowy white blouse, latticed all the way across the neck and between the buttons, barely a stitch out of place. Her face was lightly made-up, just enough to accentuate her natural beauty; her hair neatly aligned behind her neck, catching the glare from the sun above.

              She placed her hands gently on my shoulders, leant in close and kissed me on the right cheek, then the left; she smelled of expensive perfume and coconut shampoo.

              ‘I don’t know,’ I said with a shrug, my mood increased tenfold having seen her. ‘Just fancied a walk I guess.’

              ‘Oh, okay,’ she didn’t look too sure.

              ‘It’s a good thing I ran into you actually,’ I told her. ‘I tried phoning you earlier, you weren’t in.’

              The smile sagged partially as she peered back into the shop. ‘No, I’ve been out all morning,’ she said.

              ‘Well I know that now,’ I laughed a little, she offered an awkward smile. ‘I was just wondering if you’d like to get to know each other a little better.’

              ‘What, now?’

              She didn’t look as confident as last night, when she had been so assured in herself and her surroundings. She was wobbling gently as she stood, her eyes flicking around almost impatiently.

              ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Well, unless you want to?’

              She didn’t seem impressed. She glanced at her feet unsurely, then looked back at me, a half-smile etched onto her elegant face. ‘Tonight maybe.’

              ‘Tonight sounds great. Do you want to come to mine, or...’

              ‘A restaurant,’ she said quickly.

              ‘Okay.’

              ‘I’m sure your place is great,’ she was quick to add, a defensive tone in her words. ‘But I know this great place, great food. Vegetarian as well,’ she said, seeming to effortlessly regain her ease.

              ‘Vegetarian? You mean like salads and--’

              ‘It’s
sooo
good,’ she exclaimed.

              ‘--Bread?’

              ‘What?’

              ‘Nothing,’ I beamed. ‘Vegetarian it is.’

              She gave me the details and scurried off, back to her friend. I saw them talking, their faces close together, their words hushed. Her friend looked over at me a few times, quickly turning away when she saw me looking.

              I tried to force my happiness to return, but it was flagged by a weight of uncertainty. I didn’t know quite what to think about Ally. The run-in had been a little odd, certainly more so than last night. She still possessed the same untouchable beauty, but there was something else there.

              That night, on my date with Ally, I ordered the stuffed mushrooms for starters. Ally recommended them. I didn’t really like mushrooms but she seemed enthusiastic about the recommendation, so I didn’t object.

              They came piled high with an assortment of weeds, the spotty waiter had given them a fancy name, but they were definitely weeds. The mushroom sat underneath the foliage, it had been suffocated by garlic infused cheese which dripped over the sides like puss from a putrefied pimple. The base of the mushroom squeaked and shifted on the plate when I dug my fork into it, bleeding black oil onto the ceramic with every movement.

              ‘They look so tasty,’ Ally said. I noticed she was picking up a habit of lying.             

              I ate them with feigned gusto and was glad when my plate was clean, the contents diminished to an inky, oily pool.

              ‘Lovely,’ I told Ally afterwards.

              She was thrilled that she had chosen well. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ she said.

             
She
hadn’t ordered the stuffed mushroom. It didn’t feel right for her to make a pushy recommendation, wait for me order and then order something entirely different for herself, but I didn’t say anything; it was our first date, I could let that one slide.

              ‘You did,’ I said with a smile, taking note never to listen to her again.

              The main course was an amalgamation of vegetables chopped and boiled into a pate and served on another section of the amazon rainforest. I picked at it with my fork, hoping to weed out the bugs before I dove in.

              ‘So, how long have you been a vegetarian?’ I asked.

              ‘I’m not,’ she said simply.

              I looked at her in horror.

              She noted my reaction and laughed softly. ‘I know, I’m sorry, But it’s nice right? You like it?’

              I decided not to dignify that with a response.

              She smiled and took a sip of wine, peeking at me above the rim as the red liquid swished around below her nose. ‘I used to come here with my husband,’ she told me softly, looking down at her plate in silent contemplation.

              I had been inspecting a soppy piece of greenery, wondering if I was supposed to eat it or if it was decorative. I dropped it back onto my plate.

              ‘Husband?’

              ‘Don’t worry,’ she looked back up at me, a forced smile breaking out. ‘Not anymore, we broke up a while back.’

              ‘Oh,’ I softened. ‘That’s okay;
I don’t want to go down that road again
.’

              ‘Again?’

              ‘Never mind.’ I picked the greenery back up and decided to risk it. It went into my mouth and then popped out again, it tasted like a dead dandelion. ‘What happened with you two?’ I wondered, trying to talk the taste of deceased weeds out of my mouth.

              Ally had retreated from her confident stance, slipping into reticence and bashfulness. I watched her with intrigue, wondering what was going on inside her head.

              She took a long drink of wine. ‘He was a
bastard
, that’s all. Best not to talk about it.’

              I didn’t really want to hear about it, not if it was going to admonish the confident side of her that I admired, but I sensed she wanted to talk about it regardless of what she had said.

              ‘Are you sure? I don’t mind if you--’

              ‘He was a dick,’ she blurted out, suddenly showing me a third side of her personality, a bitter and resentful side. ‘He cheated on me you know,’ she pointed a fork at me as she spoke; a smudge of avocado dripped off the prong and fell onto the tablecloth. ‘
Three
times!’

              ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, not sure how else to react and genuinely feeling apologetic under her accusing glare.

              ‘I finished with him and he had the nerve to
stalk
me
! Can you believe it?’

              ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

              ‘He was a pitiful man. A lying, cheating--’ she shook her head. ‘--A
bastard
,’ she reiterated, letting the word fall out of her mouth like a clump of bad tasting bile.             

              ‘I see.’ I looked as thoughtful as I could. ‘I’m sorry.’

              She laughed a little and shook the anger out. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said, repositioning herself on the seat as Hyde departed and Dr Jekyll returned. ‘I was getting started then, every time I
think
about him or
talk about-
-’ she shivered. ‘Let’s just leave it.’

              We did, and I was thankful for it. Ally turned back into the cool confident sophisticate she had initially appeared to be. After the main course we talked about the Speed Dating event, she told me she had met a sleazy guy who reminded her of her husband, she said he tried to talk his way into her pants and would have probably gotten there if not for her experience with scum-of-the-earth like him. I kept quiet, I knew she was talking about Matthew; it seemed wise to pretend I didn’t know him.

              After a light, green-free dessert, I paid up and we left the restaurant. Outside Ally told me she had a wonderful time, beaming proudly as she said it. She kissed me softly and compassionately on the cheek, said a pleasant goodbye and then walked off down the street.

              She left me standing there, perhaps presuming I would walk straight ahead into a taxi, or veer off in the other direction. She didn’t realise I lived in the same direction and I didn’t want to tell her, we had already done the goodnight dance and it had gone well, in a life of awkward embarrassment it was good to have one occasion that I didn’t mess up.

              Instead I pretended to tie up my shoe in case she looked back. I waited around a minute for her to get a good distance away, and then I followed.

              I put head down as my mind pondered the night and the three sides of Ally I had encountered. Matthew had told me to be careful of divorced women, especially those above forty. “
If they’ve been married for a long time
,” he’d said once, “
they’ve had all the life and enjoyment sucked out of them, and once the divorce comes in, that all gets replaced with bitterness. They’ll act nice and polite, but only because they know how to fake it. Shag them and then try to leave them in the morning and they’ll slice open your scrotum with their high heels.”

              Matthew’s advice usually came from experience; I could only assume the same applied to those words of wisdom. His balls had taken a lot of abuse.

              I walked with a twisted smile on my face thinking about Matthew and his tendencies towards the sadomasochists of the world, that smile was still there when Ally called my name.

              I looked up to see her standing just a few feet ahead of me, a look of worrisome curiosity on her face. She was leaning against a wall that marked the perimeter to a nearby garden; in her hand she held a high-heel shoe. She had clearly stopped to pick stones or gum from the sole, but a lump stuck in my throat when I saw the malevolent footwear.

              ‘What are you doing?’ she asked with raised eyebrows.

              I stopped, hesitated. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ I said innocently, not wanting to reveal the awkwardness of the initial goodbye. ‘I didn’t know you’d gone this way.’

             
Yes, you did
. I said to myself.
You watched her; she
watched
you
watch
her.

              ‘I mean, I did,’ I clarified. ‘I just wasn’t really looking.’

             
That makes no sense.

              I tried again: ‘I
looked
, but, well, I guess I got lost.’

              She slipped the shoe back on and took a couple of steps back. ‘We had a good night Kieran,’ I detected a slight tremble in her voice. I stepped forward to reassure her, but that only forced her back a few more steps. ‘Why don’t we leave it at that for tonight?’ she spoke slowly.

              I shrugged. ‘Sounds fine.’

              She turned and hotfooted it away into the darkness. I waited for a few more minutes and then set off again, keeping an eye on the path ahead of me and walking like a disabled turtle.

              When I arrived back home I wasn’t surprised to see that the unnamed, unknown model had left a message for me on my answer machine. The red flashing light clawed at me in the darkness:

              ‘Kieran, just wanted to see how you were. You feeling any better? Ready for our date yet? I know I said I’d wait for your call, but
well,
I couldn’t wait!’

              The message was followed by a mixture of awkward laughter and repeated throat clearing. It cut off after several cringe worthy seconds.

              I didn’t want to let the woman down. I also wanted to redeem myself after screwing up a good date with Ally, a girl who now probably assumed I was stalking her.

              I phoned the unnamed girl back that night. She was as hyper and awkward as she had been on the answer machine, but after a few minutes she relaxed. I wasn’t so apprehensive about arranging a date at that point so I agreed to a dinner date the following weekend.