Like a virgin, Jesse Dresdich will walk into the girl’s restroom. The door’s handle will feel smoother, cleaner even; the bathroom floor will lightly reflect her black heels and glistening, newly shaved legs, the same way art imitates nature, she thought. Once inside, she will finally be able to enjoy the meticulous scents of vanilla and spiced apple as they dance on the skeleton-thin hairs of her nostrils. I should shave these again, she thought to herself, as her hunky right hand steadily grasped the crystal goblet of French Malbec accompanying her too-al dente pasta. She took two large gulps like a snake swallowing an ostrich egg.
“So, you enjoying your dinner?” she asked. This was her first date. “I Urban Spoon-ed this place. Four stars.”
“The ambience is exquisite.” He adjusted his glasses, and inside the stems she caught a vibrant red glow. The arms of the glasses looked like a skeletal x-ray of ribs brushed wildly with crimson, yet within the lines. She didn’t like how he would manage to turn one question into a thirty-minute interview, but she really admired his appearance — plus, the tattoos. When she saw him enter the restaurant — she had been waiting nervously for about thirty minutes — she noticed he was tall and lanky and while he walked, he ran both hands through his wavy, long, black, greasy hair. I will sleep with him if he asks me too, she thought to herself. He had said — what were the words? — “well, hi” or “well, hello” as he sat down. He looked like he had a valet ticket in his breast pocket, or it could be a condom. That’s definitely a bulge, she thought to herself.
“So, your profile said you work in a record store?” She posed it as a question, but she thought she should have said it more open-ended.
“Actually, I lied. I own a record store. Have you seen the movie High Fidelity? That’s my life.” There was an intoxicating gravity in his manner and speech, and a majesty in his movements, like the way he brought his fork with the perfectly balanced amount of food to his mouth between speech. The three times he did it, a jaunty yet kind of manly whimper rustled the nerves in her throat, and she remembered her mother taught her it was impolite to stare. He could be thirty-three or fifty-three — it didn’t matter.
Maybe I should make him work for it. Yes, the third date, that’s it, she thought. Jesse adjusted her breasts in an instant. I love my new babies, she thought to herself. About a year ago, it was late autumn and the leaves had turned a darker shade of purple when her best friend helped her choose the size. For her, the breast size was a lifestyle choice and showed how altruistic a woman could be for her man. I’m definitely not a runner, she thought to herself inside the plastic surgeon’s room. Either way, I am definitely sleeping with him, she thought to herself inside the restaurant.
I will excuse myself in a little bit — she contemplated. She could not help but notice a gleam reflecting off his fork as it poked his steak au poivre. She wanted to abruptly check herself for any blemishes in the prongs, even if they were just fragments of her self. It did not take much convincing to love how he dipped his sliced asparagus in the cognac sauce.
He had chosen a French restaurant. Ristorante, he called it, over the phone, sounding like one of those rustic, iconic home-shopping network tycoons.
“In downtown, there’s this, what can I say, spectacular patch of boutiques, late night coffee houses and creameries. We’ll go, we’ll eat; there’s this French Ristorante called le Maison de Rendezvous. 8:30?” There was an industrial tone to his voice. The more she listened to him, the more she felt like a girl.
“Can we make it 9:00?” She fancied herself an enabler of sorts, but also kind of a rebel rouser. The best, first conversations are light-hearted, sarcastic, and so-so energetic, she thought to herself. You will not take this too seriously, she said to herself aloud in front of the mirror before her taxi arrived. She loved primping ever since she could remember. As a child, Jesse would put on her mother’s clothes, make-up, and jewelry privately in her bedroom. Her mother would sneak in and snap a gallimaufry of Polaroids with Jesse in various “cute” poses. The photos would fall to the floor dotting the hyper-color t-shirts and nylon shorts scattered throughout her room. When she was fourteen, her mother died of cancer, something she survived with for seven years.
“You know, you look beautiful tonight,” he said amidst another bite. Jesse shuddered. She wondered what this man would look like in lady’s clothes. She liked to look at his fingers with subtlety — but don’t look at them too obsessively, she reminded herself. She pictured Lady Madonna polished on his fingernails and rouge lipstick marks like relics on his slightly faded blue Dockers. His members-only jacket started to unravel in her mind, and the buttons of his shirt were popping off from the beating of her own heart. Ristorante, she said to herself under her breath and giggled.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone eat pasta that way? With a spoon? And you’re separating the red and yellow cherry tomatoes,” he said.
“I have to. They’re mad at each other,” she lied. It’s healthy to lie in this situation, but never too much in the beginning, she thought to herself.
She noticed a classical version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” subtly dripping out of the speakers like a bra strap. How risqué, she thought to herself. Jesse remembered seeing the video for the first time when she was 14 and wanting to kiss a saint and do naughty things in a church. She hated the fact that her father insisted she attend church every Sunday in clothes she hated to wear. If it was left up to her, she would put on purple fishnet stockings and frayed Capri pants, something colorful and outlandish for a blouse and, of course, black eye shadow. Her father always had the same outfit lain on her bed each Sunday morning — a brown leather belt, khaki pants, a navy-blue collared shirt, usually Polo, and black hush puppies. The underwear, he said, was always her choice, as long as people could not see it. And no make-up, he always exclaimed.
“The tomatoes are piecing together a treaty.”
She glanced to her right and in the dim darkness of a candle she noticed a couple in its forties. The man was pulling away the woman’s hand from behind his ear and reaching in his back pocket at the same time. I hope that’s doesn’t become me, she thought to herself. “Happily married” man and wife will drive their luxurious Lexus to their beautiful 5-bedroom home, pay the copybook cheerleader/babysitter, and kiss their three children — ages 4, 6, and 11 — goodnight. The two youngest ones will ask for a bedtime story and the husband will stay behind to reveal far-off lands where fairies teleport through microwaves from house to house to protect children from the sock-stealing ogres. The wife will carry on a fake smile from the doorway.
In her opinion, she only had her father’s eyes, and that was enough. But she had her mother’s hair, a vibrant and rebellious red. She remembered, a few years later, when she was still freckled, one night she awoke frightened. She turned on the lamplight beside her bed and, glancing wide-eyed at the swept wooden floor, she saw a deluge of off-brown ants swarming one of her socks she had earlier masturbated in.
She wanted to go home with him.
“By the way, I used to be a man,” she said.
“By the way, I’m married,” he responded, and excused himself
