Subject: Butter Knife

This was an oddity in my dating life. The guy, Kevin, was from somewhere out of town. East Coast, if I remember correctly. Virginia, maybe? Anyway, he was here for a conference, and it was late Spring. The weather was quite lovely. Temperatures weren’t too hot yet, so you could walk around outdoors and feel comfortable. Picnic weather, for sure.

We met through a mutual friend who set us up on a blind date. I’m unusual, in that I don’t actually mind blind dates. Expectations are so low, and aside from when you meet someone who has an unequal sense of interest, it can be pretty fun. A blind date is like any first date-- in public, arrive in separate cars (and after Henry, leave in separate cars!)

So, we meet at a restaurant for lunch. Normally, a blind date doesn’t merit a lunch, but like I said-- a mutual friend, plus Kevin was here for a conference. He had to eat, and didn’t have a lot of time between conference sessions.

We met at a little Cubano restaurant not far from the conference center. The staff there is very friendly, and I am a personal fan of their fried plantains.

We were talking about something-- family, maybe? He started shifting in his seat.

“So, do you have any siblings?”

“I do-- two sisters. Mary lives in Washington. Husband, a daughter-- my niece Elspeth.” Shift shift. “And Joanne, who lives in Virginia, about four blocks from my mom.”

“Ah, so she’s close by then?” A little bit of worry that he might mean “my mom and me.”

“Not really-- they’re on the other side of the state from where I live.” Shift shift.

“Oh, cool.” I’m starting to wonder if he needs to use the restroom. The waiter comes by and refills our water glasses. I watch Kevin like a hawk-- does he seem more uncomfortable by the pouring water?

Nope. Seems fine. I can almost smell the plantains now and my mouth starts watering. I take a sip of my water. He shifts in his seat.

“What about you? Any family here in Chicago?”

“Oh, just my aunt,” I say. “Sophie’s in her seventies, and starting to get a little touched in the head….” I start describing my wonderful aunt and her antics, and as I do so, he seems to be engaged and listening, distracted enough that….

He picks up his butter knife and reaches behind his back, mindlessly scratching his back with the knife.

I’m mid-sentence when this happens. “--and right there, in the middle of Macy’s, she starts having a loud discussion about women’s clothing sizes and why she used to be a size 10 and now they want to put her in an 8--” I’m making eye contact with Kevin, because I just can’t look away. Breaking eye contact means acknowledging what’s going on-- he’s scratching his back with his butter knife!

Thankfully, his itch satisfied, he sets his knife back down and the crisis passes.

And then the bread arrives. The Cubans make this wonderful, buttery bread that I adore…. and as soon as it arrived, he picked up his knife and cut himself a slice.

I sat, disappointed, watching him eat bread and talk about his job for the next few minutes, wondering how to get out of this one.

“You sure you don’t want any bread?”

“Uh, no,” I say, staring at the bread like I’m a starving African child. “I’m saving room for the plantains…..”

Plantains arrive, and I’m so excited, until he reaches across the table with the butter knife to slice himself a little taste from my plate.

David, I’m so ashamed of my behavior then. And yet… I think any jury in the world would acquit me. It’s not even like I broke the skin of his hand with my fork. It was really a reactive action-- I was barely even thinking as my hand darted out and poked him… oh, fine, stabbed him, with my fork!

He stopped and stared at me for a long moment. Finally, he said “Well, that was rude!”

I was utterly speechless. I wanted to just go, but… my plantains! Finally, I got the nerve to flag down the waiter, get a to-go box and the check.

“Why don’t you just let me get this?” I asked, with that sugar-sweetness I learned in Georgia. It’s this tone-- if you’ve never lived in the South, David, you might not know it, but it’s the same tone that turns “bless your heart” into “go fuck yourself.”

We continued to eat-- well, he ate, I glared-- in silence for a few more minutes until the waiter came back. I paid the tab, grabbed my to-go plantains, and never looked back.

I ate the plantains in the car on the way back to the office.

Obviously, there was no second date.

Next Chapter: Interlude