The Blind Date

By:

Luciana Malfoy

Chapter One

            “Why do these things always have to be so nerve-wracking?” the young woman asked herself quietly as she fiddled with the worn coaster in front of her on the table.

Her jade colored eyes boring into the amber colored liquid which filled her glass to the halfway mark. The waiter had set it down several minutes ago but she had yet to take a sip of the spicy substance. She knew she should, if only to calm her nerves some, but instead she found herself fixing it with the gaze of a woman who found herself in some abhorrent situation she didn’t want to be in.

She knew she was being a tad ridiculous. It was just a blind date, after all, not some meeting with the state auditor. Still, she was a cautious person at heart and the idea of meeting someone she had never seen before at a bar on a cloudy night, just put her off somehow. Even if the matchmaker was a trusted friend who was only doing it to try and pull her out of her “dating slump” as she had called it.

Hard as she tried though, Sarah Michaels wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wanted to hop back into the dating circle. Having just come out of a five-year relationship with a man whom she had known since high school, and had been considering spending her life with, she was hesitant to make any attempts at getting to know any of the men who’d approached her since the breakup.

But her friends, bless them, had made the decision to do something about her stubbornness and try to jar her out of her feeble attempts to remain alone forever by setting her up on a blind date, that they had claimed she would not be able to resist.

“He’s absolutely perfect for you,” they had said no more than a day before.

It had occurred to her that everyone says that when they are trying to set you up with someone. So, she had scoffed at the idea and walked away from her friends, who only wanted her to be happy and to not sit at home alone anymore, watching the mundane programs on the television until she fell asleep from eventual boredom. But they had persisted, as good friends often do, and she had finally agreed to meet this “perfect” man for a drink.

So here she sat, at a corner table in the darkened room, waiting for the guy to show up. It was true, she was early but punctuality was something she held in high regard. She blew a puff of air out of her glossy pinkish lips as she tapped her index finger on the wood. He’s probably not going to show, said a not-so-quiet voice in her head. She knew the chances of that were fifty-fifty at best. He could be a stand up guy or he could be a total flake. At the moment, she didn’t really care which since she felt she was there merely out of obligation to her friends anyway. To say she was having second thoughts about being there was an understatement. The urge to leave was overwhelming yet something was propelling her to stay just the same. It was just a matter of which urge would win the battle. But she decided to give the guy a few more minutes to show up before cutting her losses and walking out the door herself. After glancing at her rather expensive wristwatch, she waited.

It was actually more than a few minutes before the door to the bar even opened to let in a new customer, as it was the middle of the week and most people were on their way home from the office to throw off their shoes, unbutton their pants and sit on the couch to relax after a hard days work. The bar was pretty empty, except for a few regulars and several guys playing a friendly game of pool near the center of the room. Sarah glanced at each of the patrons and wondered briefly about their private lives before turning back to her glass. Picking it up, she brought it to her lips and swallowed a hearty helping of the rum and winced as it slid down her throat, burning her chest as it plunged to her stomach. The fire in her belly ignited suddenly and she sat still for a moment to let it pass. It didn’t take long. It had been awhile since she had drunk any liquor, but she found that the body welcomes back the sensation just the same. Much like sex, she supposed. That was another thing she had done without in recent times.

It wasn’t that she disliked it or had any religious guilt about it. It was just that she hadn’t met any man, or woman for that matter, that had captured her interest enough for her to want to spend any intimate time with them. She supposed, in that way, she was a bit old-fashioned. She knew other girls could just fall into bed with whomever caught their eye, but she was not one of those. She had to feel something besides physical attraction to make that plunge. And the recent possible bedmates just did not cut it. They were all the same, it seemed. Beer-guzzling, sports-watching, weightlifting, macho jerks. Of course, that did not mean she hated masculine men, quite the contrary. But she had begun to wonder six months ago if their were any masculine men left who didn’t get drunk every Friday night or scream at the television set when their favorite team lost. In her course of wonderment, she decided there were only two types of men in the world: the shy, sensitive type and the brash, macho type. Wishing there was a type of man who fit somewhere in the middle with just the right amount of sensitivity and domineering presence, she debated whether she should settle for a charming poet or an arrogant football player. Neither of those did much for her and so it was that she had sworn off dating for the past six months and became a loner until her friends stepped in.

That, of course, led her to where she was at the current time. Sitting in a darkened bar waiting for Mr. Right to show up. Although she couldn’t understand why, if she wasn’t interested in drunken men, she had agreed to meet him in a bar of all places. Perhaps it was because it was something of a standard first meeting.

The first “date” should take place in a bar or club and consist of a drink or two. That way if you find yourself disliking the person immensely, you can leave and never bother with them again after a very short introduction. If you make the mistake of making a first date at a restaurant, then you are stuck there until the meal is finished. Sarah had spent a few dates that way in the past, and the memories were hellish enough for her to stick to the “first date drinks” scenario from then on.

The minutes ticked by as not another soul entered the bar, making the gloomy atmosphere all the more quiet. Sarah finished her rum and thought about ordering another when the door did open to allow entry to the man outside.