Chapter 2 #2
Being in close quarters with Desmond wasn’t good for me. My cheeks felt flushed, my pulse was racing, and I was feeling heady. As though I were the one who had had shots of tequila instead of Harvey.
He tilted his head as he looked at me and read between the lines. “You don’t have my number anymore, do you?”
I bit my lip.
He grinned and pulled his phone out. He tapped it a few times, and my phone rang right away.
Desmond grinned.
“Now, you do,” he said while I swung one leg out of the car and got out.
He still has my number.
“Thank you, Desmond,” I said with some difficulty. “Thank you for tonight.”
“Anytime, Ava,” he responded before I shut the door, and the car drove away.
When I stepped out of the car, waving a goodbye to Desmond, I waited until his car was out of sight before I began walking over to the soup kitchen that was five blocks away.
The lights in Mrs. Wilson’s unit, the one below mine, were out, which meant she was already at her shift in the soup kitchen.
While walking, I called Gabriela, who was my rock.
“How did it go?” Gabriela asked, her voice cheery and bright, even while I could hear her son playing in the background.
“It was terrible,” I said flatly. “It ranks as my second-worst date ever.”
“Uh-oh,” she said, her voice solemn. The background noise of her kid faded, and I heard a door click before she found a quieter part of the house to speak from. “I’m so sorry, Ava,” she sighed. “Are you back home?”
Beep, beep.
I stared at my phone before I realized that Freya, the friend who had insisted I go on this date, was doing a video call with Gabriela, Lily, and me.
“Freya presumably wants a debrief. Are you up for it?” Gabriela asked, her voice far away as she, too, presumably stared at the conference call request on her phone.
I drew in a deep breath and continued walking. “Best to get it over with.”
In true Freya fashion, when I answered her call, she got words in, even before I could part my lips.
“Fifty-five minutes! Five minutes more than I predicted,” she said indignantly, not directly into the phone. There was some chatter and some grumbling, no doubt from the religious, well-behaved Lily.
“Can you speak up?” I asked. “I can’t hear you. And, Freya, that’s the last time I let you help me pick a date off the dating app. The man was miserable! This date ranks in the top two of my worst dates ever.”
“Sorry, Ava. I just got richer by twenty dollars.” She giggled just as Lily’s voice came over the phone.
“Couldn’t you have kicked him out sooner? I’m out twenty dollars,” Lily grumbled. “I’ve sinned, Ava! Sinned by betting! But I should have at least won if I was going to commit a crime.”
I took a second to process that. “Did you and Freya have a bet that I’d give up before fifty minutes?”
She sounded guilty. “Yes, well, going by your history, it seemed to make sense to bet this way. Freya was the only one who had faith that it would last longer than fifty minutes. I was going to pay for a special manicure with that twenty dollars.”
It would’ve ended in less than fifty minutes if I’d only had the courage to stand up for myself, I thought, unhappy.
“Listen …” I didn’t know how to begin. “Sorry. What can I say? I’m bad luck.”
“Hey, just so I know,” Freya asked over the phone, “what’s the other worst date you’ve had?”
The other worst date was the one where the high school Desmond had broken up with me. Until then, he’d been the biggest cheerleader in my life. I’d never known and faced real heartbreak like that again.
I shook my head. “I’m not emotionally equipped to relive my other worst date tonight, Freya. Though …”
I held that train of thought, and the three of them fell silent.
“What is it?” Gabriela asked, suddenly alert.
I hesitated. “I did see the man responsible for my number one worst date.”
Gabriela gasped while the other two scratched their heads in confusion.
“What do you mean?” Lily asked while Gabriela’s mouth formed a big O as comprehension drew on her.
“No. Way,” she whispered, clamping her hand over her mouth.
“Yes,” I said, my mouth dry.
Freya looked at our faces on the screen, a frown on her forehead. “Can someone please explain to me what’s going on?”
“You saw Desmond?” Gabriela asked, eyes wide.
I nodded.
“Is it too late? Am I too sleepy? Why does the name Desmond not ring any bells?” Lily asked.
Gabriela gave me a knowing look over the phone before admitting to the other two, “Because Ava hasn’t let the man’s name cross her lips in years.”
“Wait,” Lily continued. “So, this Desmond is someone special? Someone from your past? And he hijacked your date?”
“Kind of …” I said.
“Oh man, I did not allocate enough time for this debrief,” Freya groaned. “I need an hour at least. And drinks.”
“Tomorrow,” I promised as I stopped on the stairs to the front door of an old Victorian building with the words The Bowery Mission on it.
“Tomorrow evening, we’ll discuss everything. Oh, and listen, can you promise me you’ll not go after me to start dating again?”
There was another squeal of laughter, and I could see Lily rubbing her hands gleefully. “I need my twenty dollars back!” she said.
“What was that?”
Gabi’s voice came on the line. She sounded defeated. “Lily bet you’d say that.”
I needed new friends.
When I hung up from the call, I scrolled back to Desmond’s number. I saved his name in my phone, ten years after deleting it. Meeting him had been smoother than I imagined.
I noticed a final text from him.
Desmond: You still like gnocchi after all.
I texted him back with a guilty smile on my face.
Ava: It was delicious. At least the one bite of it I ate. I’m glad you were there tonight.
Desmond: It was good seeing you again. Let’s stay in touch.
Putting my phone away, I pushed through the front doors and was met with the familiar sights of steel tables, the aroma of food. Mrs. Wilson was behind the counter, where she was ladling out chili to a slow-moving line of people.
I walked to the kitchen, where there was a pile of dishes waiting to be cleaned. My regular evening began now, I realized, amused by Desmond’s last text message.
I’d never meet him again.