“Date Night”

By Kelly Erin Gray

 

Date Night

Jamie was rolling a lone meatball around her plate when another couple was seated nearby. “What do you think?” Jack asked, pointing with the tip of his fork. “First date?”

She hated when he talked with a mouth full of food, just like she hated when he ate with his mouth open. This was the hip new place in town, catering to aging date night crowds in their late twenties, and here he was: marinara sauce blooming out the corners of his mouth and tinting the cracks in his smile in a chunky red.

“What?”

Jack laughed. “The couple, over there. Do you think it’s their first date?”

She shifted only her eyes as to not be too obvious. The girl crossed and then uncrossed her legs in a nervous dance with herself, and the guy swung his head up and down as she spoke to signal his active listening. The hanging light above them reflected off their wide eyed gaze like they were both startled animals, at once both predator and prey. They took turns looking at each other and turns pretending to look away with blushing smiles.

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, it must be.”

“They look so young,” Jack added. “What do you think their names are?”

“I don’t know.” Jamie watched more openly now, putting down her fork to hold her chin in her hand with her elbow perched up on the table.

“Think they’re a Jack and Jamie as well?”

“No,” she answered, a little too quickly. “I don’t think so.” Turning to look back at Jack, she tried to think back on their first date from so many years back. Had they looked that obvious? Were other couples watching them then, too? Jack had dropped his gaze to his plate, where he now played with his food, too. “I don’t know,” she added. “Maybe they’re a Jamie and Jaclyn.”

He snorted out a small laugh and resumed watching with her. “Do you think it’s going well?” He reached his hand out under the table to place on her knee.

“I don’t know.” She spun her wine around in her glass as she thought. “They look like they’re still excited to get to know each other. That’s a good sign, right?”

He squeezed her knee one and took back his hand. “Still?”

“You know what I mean.” She turned to look at him, and he was looking down again. “Like everything is still new and full of promise.”

As the waiter came around, Jamie asked for the check. They were boxing up the cooling remains when the applause began. When she looked up, she found the entire restaurant had joined in. Everyone was clapping in the direction of the couple, and Jamie turned to watch just as the girl was wiping her tears with one hand and presenting her other to the man.

“Guess we were wrong.”

The ring he slipped onto her finger reflected the light as well, like the flashing aura before a migraine.

 

 

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Kelly Erin Gray is a writer and English PhD candidate at Boston College where she teaches contemporary American lit. She can be found online  @kelly_erin_.