CHAPTER 15
“Y ou look good,” Bridgette said.
“I do? I should dress up. I don’t really dress up, though.
I have three modes: work mode, casual mode when there are jeans and T-shirts involved – sweaters, too, if it’s cold – and a super dressy mode when I’m going to a wedding or something, but I just rent suits for those. I don’t really have an in-between.”
“When are you most comfortable?”
“When I’m in work mode, honestly. Probably because it’s the mode I’m in most often. But Elisa has already seen me in work mode – in only work mode, really – and this is our first date.”
“Myra, you look nice,” Monica offered. “Do you want the shirt tucked in, though?”
“How did you know?” she asked, looking down at the white button-up shirt she had chosen to wear.
“You keep pulling on it,” Monica noted.
Monica and Bridgette had been free after work, and they wanted to hang out, so when Bridgette had texted Myra to see if she was free for drinks or something, Myra had explained that she had first-date plans with her new neighbor.
Bridgette had then offered their getting-ready services, and while Myra hadn’t been sure what that had entailed exactly because she had never had friends help her get ready for a date before, she had taken them up on their offer.
They’d arrived twenty minutes ago and were currently sitting on her sofa, giving her their opinions while Myra tried out clothes and walked out in front of them.
“I’m a classic butch, I guess. I like my shirts tucked in and my boots functional.” She laughed a little awkwardly.
“Tuck the shirt in. Let’s see,” Bridgette replied.
Myra tucked in the shirt, grateful that she had what she called mildly full breasts, which was her way of saying they were full but not overly so and fit just fine into her preferred sports bra, and looked up.
“That looks good. I’d leave it on that tight tuck,” Bridgette said. “Don’t, like, pull it out a little or anything. You’ve got that whole flat stomach thing to pull off the look.”
“Thanks?” she asked more than said. “It’s from work. I don’t exercise.”
“You exercise because of your work. You get credit for that,” Bridgette suggested. “I can’t do what you do. How many heavy things do you lift in a day? Hell, how many steps do you take? If I’m in the office, I hardly stand up.”
“Usually, at least a few heavy things a day when I’m at a site. And it depends on the day, but sometimes, it’s around thirty or forty-thousand steps, according to my phone.”
“You literally walk miles a day, when I complain about having to go get coffee across the street,” Bridgette noted. “Should I be working out, babe? We have a wedding–”
“Nope,” Monica interrupted her and shook her head. “We’re not doing this again. You have your suit.”
“They can take it in. I want to look good on our wedding day. God, I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who would care about that, but I am, it turns out.”
“Bridge?”
“Yeah?”
“Babe, you’re gorgeous. I don’t need you to lose weight, and I especially don’t want you to do that just for one day.”
“But there will be pictures, and we’ll hang some in the house.”
“And I want them to look like you , not someone who’s lost weight just for the pictures, and people ask me who’s in the photo on the wall.”
“Fine. Fine,” Bridgette replied and turned to Myra. “She hasn’t seen my outfit yet. We decided to do that thing where we don’t see each other dressed up until the day of, and the photographer catches us in that first glimpse. Mel and Kyle went another way. They picked out their outfits together. ”
“I know. I was there when they did,” Myra said.
“I was only there for Mel’s. You saw Kyle’s?”
“Kyle went with a suit,” Myra shared. “And yeah, she asked me to go with her. I wore a suit to my wedding, so I’m familiar. She got an all-white one. It’s going to go great with Melinda’s dress. Mel was there, too, and let’s just say she really, really liked the suit Kyle picked out.”
“She did that eye sex thing?” Bridgette asked of her best friend.
“For at least an hour before I finally left them alone in the store,” Myra said as she laughed. “Are these pants okay?”
“They’re great,” Monica replied.
“They’re my nicest jeans, but I still wear them a lot, so they look a little worn at the hem.”
“They look fine,” Bridgette told her. “But if you’re worried about dating again, and someone you really like and not someone Melinda pushed you into going out with, you can always go shopping and pick out some date clothes so that you have a fourth mode.
Date mode could have some slacks for the fancy dinners and some different boots that wouldn’t have scuffs on them. ”
“Shit. I have scuffs?” Myra asked, looking down at her brown boots.
“No, I was just messing with you.” Bridgette chuckled. “If you want someone to go shopping with you, though, I can recommend Monica. She has amazing style.”
“Or, Asher,” Monica added.
“Yeah, Ash has good style, too,” Bridgette agreed.
“Not that we’re suggesting you change anything about yourself,” Monica said. “It’s important that you are you with her. That’s how you’ll know if Elisa is the one for you, right?”
“The only other dates I’ve been on weren’t real.”
“What do you mean by that?” Monica asked.
“They were, like, practice dates. I knew they weren’t going anywhere from the start.
With one woman, I thought there could be something, but it didn’t work out after a few dates.
She wasn’t interested in a committed relationship at the time.
She was a lot younger than me, which isn’t a problem, but she used the term ethical non-monogamy , and I’d never heard of it before.
I had to look it up. I want one person.”
“And Elisa might be that person?” Monica asked.
“We’ve spent a few days together – hours, really – so I have no idea.”
“Same with us, though. I mean, she didn’t like me in the beginning because she thought I was trying to steal her parents’ company, but it didn’t take long for us to figure it out,” Monica said as she nodded toward Bridgette. “It happens fast sometimes.”
“And slow other times, like Asher and Linden. I mean, ten years of friendship and then, boom – they’re together,” Bridgette added.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just know that I like her,” Myra said.
“Well, you better get over there and pick her up, then,” Monica replied. “We’ll get out of your hair. I want to take this one out to dinner anyway.” She stood and held out her hand for Bridgette to take. “You pick the place. I’m buying.”
“Seafood,” Bridgette said. “But the cheap kind at a dive that’s better than those fancy places you like.”
“I’m sorry; you ate at one of those fancy places just the other night and told me how amazing the food was,” Monica retorted.
“Dive food is still better.”
“Then, you’re driving,” Monica replied. “And when you can’t find a parking space because they don’t have valet, you can drop me off at the door and walk from three blocks away.”
Bridgette just laughed and stood, taking Monica’s hand.
“Have a good time, Myra,” she said.
After they left, Myra took one final look at herself in the mirror, grabbed her keys, wallet, and phone, and locked up behind her.
Then, she stared at the truck in her driveway and wished, not for the first time, that she had a more date-appropriate car because the truck was a work truck, had the logo all over it, and was hard to park when she wasn’t on a job site and even sometimes when she was.
It also wasn’t the cleanest car in the world, but she had failed to straighten up the interior when she’d gotten home, and now, she was out of time.
“Hi,” she said with a smile when Elisa opened her door. “Shit. I should’ve brought flowers.”
Elisa smiled back, but it didn’t meet her eyes.
“I don’t need flowers,” she replied.
Myra took her in then and noticed that Elisa was wearing makeup, which was uncommon for her based on the few times they had interacted.
It was a little heavy around her eyes, and although it didn’t look bad, Myra liked her without any makeup.
Elisa was already so beautiful; she didn’t need anything else to make her that way.
She was wearing a dark-green sundress and black flats with gold buckles, and her hair was down, framing her face. Still, something was off.
“Everything okay?” she checked, worried that Elisa had been rethinking their date.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Why?”
“No reason,” she said, not wanting to insult her date by asking about her makeup before they’d even left the house. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes,” Elisa replied, forcing that smile again.
Myra tried not to read anything into this as they walked to the truck in her driveway, but it was hard.
Elisa wasn’t leaning into her or trying to be close at all.
In fact, she was at least five steps away from her until Myra opened the passenger-side door for her.
Remembering only then that she had her metal clipboard and some invoices on Elisa’s seat, Myra got around to her side of the car and climbed in quickly.
“Sorry. I should’ve cleaned this out.” She shuffled the paperwork into the clipboard haphazardly before tossing it into what amounted to half a back seat in her trusty pickup.
“And I have an old cup of coffee in here, too. Sorry.” She laughed a little, totally embarrassed.
“It’s from this morning, at least, so that’s not too bad. ”
“Why does it smell like cigars in here?” Elisa asked.
“It does?” Myra asked back. “Oh. The guys sometimes smoke them when we finish big jobs. The cheap kind. They do it by the trucks usually, but no one smokes in here.”
“Oh,” Elisa said.
“Sorry. Is it bad? I don’t really notice anymore.”
“It’s fine.”
There was that forced smile again.
“Want to take your car instead? I should’ve cleaned this today, but I had a client call just when I was leaving the office. It took longer than I thought, and I forgot.”
“Myra, it’s fine,” Elisa said. “It’s just a car. I really don’t care about cars. Let’s just go wherever we’re going.”
“Okay,” she replied. “I thought we could maybe go grab something to eat by the water. There are these food trucks that line up, and their crab cakes are really good.”
“Food trucks?”
“Do you not like food trucks?” she asked, trying to read Elisa’s confusing expression. “We can go somewhere else.”
“No, it’s fine. I just… I’ve not been to a food truck before. We didn’t have them where I used to live. Small town. And I haven’t checked any out here since I moved.”
“It sounds bad, food coming out of a truck, but there are some really good ones, and you get to sit at picnic tables and walk around outside instead of sitting in a stuffy restaurant.” Myra’s eyes went wide.
“But if you want to go to a restaurant, I can do that, too. I didn’t make a reservation, but I can call ahead, at least.”
“Myra, it’s okay. Let’s go. I just haven’t been to one before. I’ll follow your lead. Tell me what to order, and I’ll give it a try.”
Elisa seemed a little more like herself now, which made Myra feel like maybe she’d just been nervous before and was slowly turning back into the woman Myra recognized, so she started the truck and reversed out of the driveway.
Not long after that, she pulled into a parking lot, and they walked to the line of six food trucks.
One was something with bacon mixed in or on everything.
Another was the best burger truck in town, according to the green-painted signage on the truck.
There was also a dessert truck with cupcakes, cookies, and homemade ice cream.
The fourth one was some Asian fusion truck.
The fifth was the crab cake and Old Bay fries that Myra loved, and the final truck was Italian.
They had an actual pizza oven that attached to the truck, and they drove it around and made some pretty decent pizza with it.
Myra told Elisa to pick whichever line she wanted, but Elisa followed her to the crab cake truck, where they waited silently in the line.
Myra ordered for them when they got to the main window, and after they got their food from the other window, they walked to one of the empty picnic tables and sat down with both of them facing the water.
“So,” Myra began. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” Elisa replied. “Yours?”
“Uh… Fine. I had a client who wants us to do this big job for him. We’ve worked with him before, and he’s got another house he wants us to take on. It’ll be good for us.”
“Yeah? Good,” Elisa said.
That was how their conversation had gone for much of the night, with Elisa giving her one-word responses, looking like she had been forcing herself to participate.
At one point, when a few people had walked past them, Elisa had shifted a little on the picnic table as if she hadn’t wanted to be seen next to Myra to not be perceived like they’d been on a date.
Myra had no idea what to do here. The other night, Elisa had been clear that she was ready for a date, but her demeanor on their actual date had shown no sign of that, so Myra had not even attempted to touch her, not even to take Elisa’s hand as they walked or to rub her back or something.
Their dinner finished, Myra wasn’t sure she wanted to walk around anymore like she had originally planned, so without words, she stood, picked up their trash, dropped it into the nearby can, and Elisa followed her back to the truck just as silently.
Having paid for parking, they left the lot and joined traffic.
During the entire drive back, Elisa asked her nothing about where they were going, and she didn’t say a word when Myra pulled them into her driveway and turned off the truck.
Somehow, this had been possibly the worst date of her adult life, and Myra had no idea why.
When Elisa said nothing to help the matter and just got out of the truck, Myra followed her and watched as Elisa opened her house door.
“So…” she let out. “I guess I’ll just go home.”
“Okay,” Elisa replied and turned back to her.
“I don’t really…” Myra stopped herself.
“Good night, Myra,” Elisa stated.
She then leaned forward, kissed Myra on her left cheek, and moved inside her house, closing the door behind her. Just like that, Myra was left standing there on her porch, wondering what in the hell had just happened.