My shirt’s top button—not counting the choky one on the collar itself—is undone, but I still feel suffocated. My car’s engine is running calmly and evenly, but I constantly feel like I’m riding the gas too hard, with too many anxious jerks. My AC is on full blast. Love can bring about nasty heat waves.

This isn’t love. This is first-date antsy-ness. It’s the first first date I’ve had in a while, and it’s important because this girl may be one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I’ve got to make a good first impression.

My real first impression was as the guy at the record shop. She snagged a Deerhoof CD I’d wanted—the last copy in stock—and I let her have it on the condition that I buy her dinner some night. I took it as a complement that she didn’t just hand back the CD.

“I’m Holly,” she said.

“Jed.” And she had written down her number underneath the name Holly Q.

“This better be an awesome CD,” she said, eyes narrowed, and she laughed.

I’m checking myself in the mirror as often as I check the road.

“You,” I hear someone say, and for a second I think it’s the car talking. One of those crazy subconscious moments that catch you off guard. But I’m just hearing the radio, flitting in and out of static and talk show channels like a conversation you listen to idly as you fall alseep. I hit the dial and the voices leave me alone with my car and my thoughts.

I’m wondering what she’ll think of me. Of what I look like, I mean. Namely, what I’m wearing. Will I look like a douche? I don’t think I look like a douche, I think as I consult the mirror again. I wish I had someone other than the mirror to consult.

How do I smell? I wonder also. At a red light, I consult the headrest. None of my cologne has rubbed off, I think, but I can’t be totally sure. I conclude that it doesn’t seem as if I have too much cologne, I just may have the right amount, but considering my luck I probably don’t have enough. I’m sweating but when I consult the interior thermometer it tells me I shouldn’t be.

Another car tells me with a terse honk that I should go. I comply and roughly communicate it to my own car that I want it to drive. It answers in the only way it can.

That’s the problem with communication; you can’t get any real responses unless you know exactly which buttons to push, because certain answers are just trained. I guess mechanics can easily get answers, but they’re well acquainted with who they’re dealing with. Me? I know how to accelerate, slow, stop and work the air conditioner. And the radio, to some extent. Another communication breakdown there. Little labels or something would make pushing buttons a lot easier, or an instruction manual in decent English.

No such luck. Women are even worse.

What will she be like? A blank slate? Will I be able to tell exactly what to say and when, right off the bat? Will we have a communication breakthrough? Will she slap my face in response to my baseness, my ogling at her radiance, before I can even get a word out? Knowing how unlikely a communication breakthrough is, I think I’d be pretty lucky to land somewhere in between best- and worst-case-scenario.

And God, I wish I could do something to set my mind at ease.

In spite of myself, I start consulting the car again. My reflection still gives the same, nervous look back and the mirror itself says nothing. At the next red light, I check the headrest again. Am I wearing enough deodorant?

In the middle of twisting around to sniff the leather, I catch myself and take a deep breath. “Relax,” I say out loud. I pretend it’s the car vocalizing, giving me a pep-talk like only a true friend would. “You’re worrying too much. You look fine.”

But do I? Do I smell fine? Is my voice going to crack once I get up to her door?

The car says I look fine. I wonder if it’s just saying that. Because if I were the car, and the car were me, I’d tell the car it looked fine even if I knew it didn’t because if I know me, I know that if the car were me it would just ignore me, the car, and keep wading through what was bound to be a slowly disappointing night, ending, no doubt, with my date realizing that I was a total waste of time.

I listen to the gears in the hood whine and shift. It’s an automatic. That’s about as much insight as I have into my car’s insides. The rest is a mystery. I’m afraid to go probing around in there, I might break something. The gears in my head tick. Something’s definitely broken in there. In my head I picture a little red car, sloshing upright on its flattening rear tires—a humanoid car—up to a pretty girl’s door, holding flowers in its round, rubbery hand. Its eyes brighten when she answers.

I wish him luck. If the little red car is anything like me, it’s going to need some luck to survive the evening.

Mine is not a little red car. It’s what lots of people would consider ugly—that gold brown color that contrasts with everything else that came from the ‘80s, that decade being one of the brightest, most peacock-ish decades to date, what with all its green cut-off sweaters and shiny music videos. My car would look more at home, perhaps, in a nerd-rock video about a dorky kid who can’t get laid. Like the kid they would surely cast for this hypothetical video, my car looks dorky beyond a doubt, but there’s something cute about him as well. About it, I mean. It’s dependable, modest, never flashy and therefore never tacky. I’d be afraid to let it go out of its element. It’s not a racecar. But it’s not a piece of crap made of seats, wheels and a steering column, either. It’s got character. The back speakers buzz a little. If you turn them up loud enough, the passenger side front door rattles in harmony. The air conditioner sputters occasionally, but you can tell it makes an effort. The accelerator, while perhaps not exactly powerful, is nonetheless precise, careful, and smooth. Not smooth in the way you think of the guy at the club, who pulls smoothly up to the velvety red ground, smoothly flicks the ticket away from the valet, smoothly peruses the crowd, strides through the door, smiles—no, my accelerator is smooth in the way you think of a decently ironed shirt, the kind that’s not stuffy or buttoned up too high or choked with a tie, but that lets the air circulate, lets the wearer breathe, lets you assume he’s neither a snob nor a slob. He puts effort into looking smooth.

Now I’m starting to wonder if it’s not more effort than it’s worth, trying to look smooth. I feel as if, at any moment, my sweat will break out all at once, like a nervous pitcher of water on a precarious tray. And when that happens, it won’t matter how many minutes I spent ironing my shirt, because there’s no way I would show up at the door looking like I just came from a water park, and smelling worse.

My eyes dart around instinctively at the cars around me. You have a hard time actually focusing on the road, actually thinking about it, consciously, because after a while it becomes instinct. I’m a fine driver. But I often resent that I don’t actually think about what I’m doing behind the wheel, where I spend so much of my time. Often, after coming back from a mental tangent while I’m on the road, I’ll feel a twinge of guilt for taking for granted that the road is there. I stop at another light, look at the sign. It has some long ‘M’ name which I vaguely recognize, and I realize that I’ve missed a right turn. After the light changes (and I’m safely through the intersection) I change into the left lane and look for a place to do a U-turn. My hands and feet do it for me.

“Chill, man, chiiiillll,” says the car, winding around a tight U-turn that almost clips the sidewalk. My hands and feet find their way through the small residential streets, and after a few turns (I’m also quite good with directions, when I remember to be) I’m in front of her apartment building. It’s tall and a bit more expensive-looking than anything I can afford. Trees and bricks hide the resident parking. I park on the street and stride to the gate, wondering which window is hers.

I grab my jacket from the backseat, slam the back door a bit too hard. It’s grey, and it makes me look lean and perhaps even spiffy. I look at myself once more in the mirror, knowing there’s nothing I can do now if look terrible.

I don’t look terrible, and I try to pretend not to pretend to hear my car reassure me.

My lungs expand and take in a great whirlpool of air, and I feel it tumble like laundry inside me. My feet carry me to the intercom at the gate of the building. Through my mind shoot thoughts of my car surreptitiously cocking its head to make sure I’m out of earshot and muttering, Pssshh. Guy looks like such a douche. I look at the intercom, see the name Holly Quan, and ring her bell. It’s a red button in a long vertical line of red buttons with impeccable red paint jobs. After a moment there’s a buzzy voice in the receiver.

“Jed?”

I press the black button next to Holly’s red one.

“Yep. Hullo.”

I immediately wish I’d said hello. It would have sounded more intelligent.

“Hi!” she sounds cheery and excited to hear my voice. “You can come up if you like, or I can be down in thirty seconds.”

“If I could come up and get a glass of water, that would be fantastic. Bit hot…”

It’s not remarkably warm at all, but it feels that way to me. I wonder vaguely how wet my socks are.

“That’s fine. Do you want ice?”

“That would be great.”

“’Kay! See ya.”

I hear the gate unlock and stroll awkwardly inside. I feel like someone is watching me through a very expensive camera, a board of directors, perhaps, liable to declare me unfit to tread the expensive high-rise condo floors of their building because of my primitive gait.

The elevator is smooth. Smooth in the way you think of the guy at the club. I feel rough and unshaven, even though I checked and triple checked for rogue hairs. I check again in the glossy elevator door, careful not to breathe on it.

The elevator doors slide open with barely a sound. I hear smooth music playing at one end of the hallway. But that’s not the way I want to go.

Number 704. Near the other end. I try to feel breezy. I try to waltz down the hallway. I’m lucky not to trip. I knock on the door, looking down at my shirt as I do. Still no sweat stains. I’m okay. I’m okay.

Holly opens the door, smoothly. Smooth in the way you think of peanut butter when you haven’t tasted it for a while. The taste lingers, because it’s hard to get out of your mouth, and you bask in it, savoring the simple joy that is peanut butter.

Holly opening her door is like that. She opens it slowly, carefully—not warily, but with a presence about it. She’s definitely there, in the moment, and I’m there with her, and it’s like we’re trying peanut butter for the second time, and getting used to the awkwardness of it. And it keeps dawning and dawning on me how much I’m liking this, liking her and her smile and the newness of it all. And then….

Then I try to talk. You learn through experience what happens when you try to talk through a mouthful of peanut butter.

“I…uh…it’s um.”

“Sure, sure,” she smiles, and motions me in.

“Thanks,” I stammer. Should I take off my jacket? I don’t know how to ask.

“Let me. Um. Take your jacket,” she offers.

“Thanks,” I intone warmly, but really I’m saying thankyouthankyouthankyou! as she hangs it on the wall.

“You can have a seat in the living room, if you like. Anywhere’s fine.” I follow the direction she nods in, through a small dark-wooded arch. I start to sit in a cushy, new-looking armchair. “Except that one!”

“Yuahhh…!” I sort of half-scream, my butt launching up as if escaping from the very jaws of hell. I feel my lips twist into a droopy grimace of surprise and terror. Then I hear laughter. It’s Holly, of course. She’s gripping the doorway for support.

“I hope you didn’t get that on camera. Please tell me this isn’t going to be on TV.”

“Oh, I wish!” she squeaks through hearty mouthfuls of giggles. “Then I’d have the goods on you. If you have any sense of humor at all, then I’m sure you would have loved to see your face!”

“I certainly felt goofy enough,” I shrug earnestly.

She sighs. It’s the kind of sigh that says, Well, that was a bit of fun, wasn’t it? But unfortunately the night must continue, and we must talk about new things. “I’m a bundle of nerves too,” she says. “But I just had to. Sorry. I’m really sorry,” and she smiled sympathetically, the way you smile at a kitten you’ve just fooled with a laser pointer.

“No, no, it was good.” I chuckle. “It was funny.” I flop down into the armchair. “Whoops. Didn’t mean to flop like that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t like that chair very much. It’s not very comfortable.”

I wiggle a little. She’s right.

“It’s not broken in yet. It’ll get comfortable. Not as…awkward…”

And there’s a look, and we give it to each other at the same moment, and we both know what I’m talking about.

She looks at the floor. Or down at her dress. It’s a pretty dress, with a streaky blue pattern, like so many translucent clouds. Then she looks up again. “Your water’s there,” and she points to a tall, icy glass that looks absolutely delicious.

“Oh, awesome. I’m really dehydrated.” It is absolutely delicious. Vapor has condensed on the outside of it, the way it does whenever there’s a cold drink waiting right there for you, and just holding it in my hand is refreshing. “Thanks. Really.”

“It’s nothing. You just have to buy me dinner now.”

“Fair trade. Oh, speaking of which. Why don’t you bring that Deerhoof CD? If you don’t mind.”

She turns from the doorway, making her way into what I presumed was her bedroom at the other side of the foyer. “Yeah,” she says. “I like it a lot. Thanks for letting me get it, by the way.”

“Hey, it was you who found it first. I got their seconds too late.”

“Well,” she replies, “I never would have asked you to dinner, so I’m glad you did.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks?”

“You’re welcome. Shall we?”

“Mm,” I gulp down the last of the water, place the glass on the coaster, twist out of the chair and out the door, into what might just turn out to be a pretty good evening.