I sat in the dimly lit room looking at the plastic stars that had been hung haphazardly from the ceiling. The decorations were cheap and corny and the atmosphere was all wrong to meet a prince in shining armor. Was this what I was going to settle for? I started to leave when the “dating” began. A man with big plastic brown glasses sat across the café table and grinned. The glasses reminded me of what my father wore, my mom used to call them his BCG’s; birth control glasses, it was a military thing. The thought made me give a laugh out loud. The poor guy lost his grin real fast and his head drooped.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you. I. . . I just had a thought from. . . well my mother seems to be chiming in again, I’ll just tell her to shut up. I’m Sally.”
“I’m Eugene. I work for a computer company creating software. How about you?”
Eugene seemed to be uninterested now. This is why I can’t get a Prince on a white horse to save me. What am I doing here?
“I work as an accountant in a law firm. How much more boring can you get, right?”
“I don’t think so Sally, I love numbers! Do you have any hobbies? I like to travel.”
“Really? Where do you travel?”
“I spend as much time away from work and computers as I can get. I have travelled all over Europe and I love tropical destinations.” Eugene was waving his arms wildly like he was going to take off as he described one of the most beautiful scenes that I had never seen!
“Wow, I have never left this county let alone this country! I spend all my time at work.”
“What is it that makes you happy, Sally?”
I felt my cheeks get hot, I knew they were flushed. “I. . . I, I don’t know.” The words got stuck in my throat and I realized that I had no thoughts of my future or what I wanted or needed, just a fairy tale dream of love.
Eugene leaned in close with is elbows on the table and through those silly glasses I got the first real look into his deep brown eyes, as the light from the candle danced in them. My eyes traveled down to his full lips. I could feel my heart skip a beat as I saw his biceps bulging out of the T-shirt. He looked at me, really looked at me, right into my eyes! I connected with his eyes again; the feelings that were stirring were driving me crazy, I had to look away.
All Eugene said was, “humph,” and he leaned back in his chair and the distance between us seemed vast. A silly sound really. I couldn’t tell what it meant. Did he feel what I did? Was he disappointed in what he saw in my eyes? I went back to my thoughts of why I was here in the first place.
I felt uncomfortable now in the silence between us. I wasn’t sure how to sit or where to look or what to say. Dumbly I blurted out, “I like your glasses.” How stupid am I? What was I thinking? I am just going to go, I need to leave before I make a fool out of myself to everyone in this room.
Eugene pulled a card out of his jeans pocket and slid it across the table. “Call me when you know what makes you happy.”
I heard a faint ding as the rest of the room disappeared and I got tunnel vision. Eugene slowly got up from his chair and went to the next table.
“Hiya!” came from across the table. My eyes focused back in and in front of me was a little white rat. His eyes far apart, a pointed nose with two big teeth underneath and skinny like a bean pole. I could hear mama now, “Don’t judge a book by its cover!”