Tonight is my first first-date in eleven years. Not sure I know how.
My clothes, shoes, and purses are all very last decade. I’ve been reading only old books: Russian literature, plays.
I have no discernable personality. Is that harsh? I don’t think so. My prescription makes me incapable of harsh, even to myself. I’ve been worn down smooth, plus a shave extra—less steadying than reversal.
Pick you up at 7:30, the date texts me. Then, I drive a Camry. I wonder if he intends to honk from the curb. Really, I should get ready. But reading relaxes me. I open Best Russian Short Stories.
Two For One Kumquats! Even if you Don’t Like ‘Em, that’s a Sweet Deal!
It’s an advertisement Cyril drew on a grocery bag scrap that I use as a bookmark. The orange citrus discs are voluptuous, but Cyril didn’t sell the product hard enough. A loss leader must be desirable—indisputably—and he introduced doubt.
I’ve been weaning off the pills. First, I sliced; now I’m crushing. My primary-care prescribed them when I was sad after Cyril was born. When I was sadder ten months later, she upped the dosage. Again when we hit preschool. “No big deal,” she said. “If you feel better on them, choice made.” Looking back, I was sad because Cyril’s father only wanted to party. We were married nine years, eight as parents, and he never felt accountable. His life was a grin.
Cyril is nine now and tow-headed, the same halo of blond as my ex-husband, who’s 49 like me, but always looks ten years younger. My ex-friend, Cyril’s step-in mother, is 42 and looks as freshly plucked as the day I met her at the East Somerville puppet show when Cyril was five. (Her first husband cheated with a friend of hers. So she lacks originality as well as solidarity.) I turn 50 this year. I’m not getting any younger.
I put down Best Russian Short Stories and pull out a black sweater and dark jeans from my closet. Where are we going? I’ve no idea. This wouldn’t be the right outfit for, say, the opera. Yet my brother, who set us up, assures me by text: This guy is not taking you to the opera. Of course, then I imagine myself in a Moscow theatre with a lap dog and tiny binoculars.
There’s this story by Maxim Gorky about an uneducated woman who asks a neighbor to transcribe letters for her to a distant boyfriend. It turns out she’s composing them for herself. She simply wants to receive love letters. The transcriber finds her pathetic and that’s the end of the story: The more a human creature has tasted of bitter things, the more it hungers after the sweet things of life. It’s melancholy. But I think she’s my hero. She asked for something.
At work, I hear about it if someone gets the wrong grass of beef or cage of egg, slivered almonds instead of chopped, or maltitol- versus monk-fruit-sweetened cocoa. I envy people’s conviction. As manager of our in-store shoppers, my job includes fielding any mistakes. Shopping is brutal. My BA in Linguistics did not prepare me for such a level of detail.
It’s likely I’ve tapered my dosage too quickly, because I have minor tics and tinnitus. My skin feels prickly. But Cyril is away for an overnight with his father and the step-in. I can tic all I want. And I can have a glass of wine for a change. Hell, my date’s driving: I can have two.
And I do.
Cut to the chase: the man is not unhandsome. He’s gray, not blond, which I appreciate. His teeth are only slightly crooked and his cheekbones high. While he talks about his cooling and refrigeration company, I imagine him as a mime. He has a face that begs for white pancake and black eyeliner, maybe a fake tear. I could watch him all day like that. But I’m unusual; I really do find a good mime to be full of pathos. Think Leonid Yengibarov—there’s autumn inside.
At the medium-fancy restaurant, we sit face to face over watercress salad. He has twelve-year-old twins with his first wife, no children with the second. He met my brother at PechaKucha night at the chamber of commerce; his own presentation was on ice sculpture, a passion.
The first glass of wine, I listen. I enjoy the not-at-work/not-at-home ambiance, the server’s serving me, and the piped-in jazz. Midway through the second glass though, it’s hard to stop talking. All those things I could never talk about, I talk about.
I tell him about my marriage. How I saw it all coming: “You’re such a comedian,” then-friend said, touching then-husband’s shoulder. “You have something in your hair,” then-husband said, touching then-friend’s face. I tell my date how I wanted to crack their skulls together and see them see stars. How just before the divorce was final I’d said, “I’d be willing to forgive you if you were sorry.” I even admit, as I finish my glass, that I’m off my antidepressant. I disclose the kind of things one would tell a therapist if one had one (one doesn’t). Also, I may have mentioned that his face has a certain quality—that of a mime.
He’s very kind. He still orders dessert. At the end of our date, he says he’ll call and kisses me briefly on the lips. In the moonlight, the chasms below his cheekbones suggest a place to hide. I go inside my empty house. I like my empty house. I don’t have to be anybody here—not mother, wife, date. There’s this phrase in Chekhov, ordinary, unhappy woman, that I always thought might be me. But I’m not ordinary in my sadness. I know from reading the Russians that profound loneliness and alienation is a prerequisite for ever finding undying love. And tonight, surely not for the last time, I’m setting the stage.
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Stacey Resnikoff holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington Writing Seminars and a BA from Bard College. She has been published by The Drum audio literary magazine as a flash fiction winner, Hippocampus, USA Today, and elsewhere. At home in Massachusetts, she's at work on both a short story collection and a novel. Find her on Twitter x 2: @staceyresnikoff and @staceysaid. And on Instagram: @staceysaw.
Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric from Pexels