First Date

“Just be yourself,” her co-workers suggested.

Yeah but if you guys knew my real self you’d take off running, she thought, nodding intently.

She broke up with Samir 3 days before. Her long term boyfriend. The one she wanted to marry. The one she cheated on while they were on a “break”. That’s a tale for another day. The point is they were broken up and she wanted to look like she was moving on.

Then she remembered Keane. She met him at her mother’s office on the day of a tiny earthquake. Not enough to cause any damage but strong enough for every bible thumper in a 10 mile radius to call for the end of days. She didn’t want to admit the day left her emotional but she walked the 10 blocks to her mother’s office because when the Earth shakes you want your mother- no matter how annoyed you were in the car this morning.

Sitting in the waiting area, waiting for her mother to finish typing emails and putting files away, she looks up from her phone and sees Keane. He’s cute. Not as tall as Samir, not as light skinned and surely not as broad-shouldered. But cute nonetheless. Large brown eyes. Friendly. She locked eyes with him and their hearts fluttered in sync. But she was still with Samir and not going through the ordeal of cheating on him so she politely said hello to Keane and waited for her mother to finish the day’s work.

“Keane was cute,” she says on the way home.

“I could tell he likes you,” Mom says. The woman never misses a beat.

That was July.

It is now late November or early December but the point is Claudia broke up with Samir three days ago and was not going to give him the satisfaction of staying home and crying. Even if she bawled on the Q train she would not cry on the couch, where they’d kissed, where she’d lay on top of him after eating gyros while they watched reruns. No way.

Claudia sized herself up in the mirror. The break-up and stress of her residency rendered her 145 pounds. At 5 foot 7 (and a half) inches she was svelte. Twenty-five, her oval face and doe eyes always made her look much younger, but makeup accented the seductive smirk she’d practiced. Or she hoped it did.

Grateful to her mother for giving Keane her number, and to Keane for asking for a date, Claudia raided her closet. She didn’t have date clothes. She didn’t even have cute underwear. She hadn’t needed it. She and Samir lost their virginity to one another and dated for six years. Neither had subtle seductive prowess; whenever she wanted to have sex she either announced it or simply got undressed. She’d never had to play games before. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to win.

Keeping in mind that she was going out on a date after Thanksgiving but before Christmas, and not being fond of the cold weather, Claudia was conflicted on how to look beautiful but not freeze. She settled on a gray ribbed sweater dress that clung to her frame. Slimmer, she still had her mother’s hips. Shaped like an hourglass, Claudia had no sense of time that night. By the time she put on her tights and slipped on her gray suede booties she realized she was running late to meet Keane.

I’m running late. So sorry! She texts.

It’s cool I’m not there yet either haha. He replies.

After breathing a sigh of relief at his congenial reply, she hurried to put on her coat and gloves. While forgoing a hat (for the sake of her ‘fro) and reaching for her purple leather purse, Claudia tells her mother how nervous she is because she’s going to be out with someone who is not Samir for the first time in years.

“Oh, just be yourself,” said Mom, while kissing Claudia on the cheek.

It’s like this woman doesn’t know me, she thinks as she dashes to the train station.

35 minutes and several bouts of nerves later, Claudia arrives at Dooley’s, the bar she agreed to meet Keane. It was filled to the brim with the now-typical downtown Brooklyn set: underdressed White gentrifiers and overdressed Black patrons out on a Saturday night. Scanning the crowd, she was pleased that her grey dress, purple tights and grey booties were cute, quirky, and suitable for the vibe of the bar.

A minute after walking into the bar, Claudia realizes that she doesn’t remember what Keane looks like. She met him in July on the day of the over-sensationalized earthquake and thought he was cute, but it’s damn near December and she hasn’t seen him since.

Hey she texts, I’m here.

Cool! I’m by the bar :)

Realizing she can’t let him know that she doesn’t remember precisely what he looks like, she tries to remember something, anything about him. She tries to remember his large happy eyes and smile, but can’t. She goes with the only detail she can remember: he’s Black.

Remembering that he is Black and by the bar, she musters the confidence of a forlorn fool and strides up to the first Black man she sees at the bar.

“Sorry I’m late,” she purrs while giving maybe-Keane a peck on the cheek. “I’m glad we could see each other again.”

“I hope so too, miss,” he says. “But you’re not here to see me.”

“You’re not Keane.”

“No, but I could be.”

Claudia turns to her right to see the bartender laughing at her. Just what she needs: a witness.

Her head was spinning. Out for the first time in years with a new guy she shit the bed by kissing the wrong one. What if she’s in the wrong bar? What if she can’t find him?

She noticed a waving hand in the crowd, and the crowd seemed to disappear. It’s Keane. He’s wearing a striped blue and white button down shirt, pressed denim jeans and the most expensive watch he owned. She would learn in time that his ensemble is the “Basic Straight Guy Uniform” because they don’t seem to be able to put anything else together. He picked a table near the window, so that he might catch Claudia walking into the bar. A platter of buffalo wings were set before him with a bucket of Sam Adams. His cheerful eyes shone gently in the dim lighting at Dooley’s. She remembered what she had found so endearing; his calm demeanor took her nerves from a 10 to a 9.75.

“Hi,” she said sheepishly, easing out of her outerwear and placing it on the back of the high stool. “I thought you were at the bar.”

“Nope! These seats were open so I took advantage. I saw you walk right past me but I figured you’d turn around so I just kept waving.”

Claudia thanked him, picked up a wing as Keane opened a beer for her. She wasn’t fond of beer but it was mild and did not have the overwhelming bitterness of hops. They talked for a while about current events, the holidays, jobs, hobbies and movies. Pleasant conversation between amiable strangers. The line at the Greene Ballroom was too long, so they decided to skip the free concert they had hoped to attend. Eager to continue their evening, Claudia and Keane took shelter in another bar, a few more beers and more conversation.

The evening had run its course when Keane walked Claudia to the train station. He waited on the platform with her until the Q train arrived.

“Maybe next time we meet up I’ll have those flashlights like the dudes at the airport,” he jokes, mimicking an air traffic controller.

“Yeah and next time I won’t kiss a random dude at the bar,” she says with an embarrassed giggle.

“Wait, what?!”

In the last few minutes of their first date, Claudia explains her awkward ordeal to Keane, whose expression ranges from bewildered to bemused to flat out guffawing on the train platform.

She gets on the train, and walks home from her stop. Mom is still up with her black and green reading glasses in front of their desktop PC, reading an article about Haiti. She stirs when she hears Claudia at the door and smiles.

“How was the date?” Mom asks.

“It was cool,” Claudia says nonchalantly. “Even though I kissed the wrong man.”

“WHAT?!”

Slipping off her shoes, Claudia sprawls out on the sienna colored leather couch and recounts the evening. Mom goes from stricken to mortified to laughing so hard that tears are pooling behind her reading classes, and she can’t catch her breath. When the laughter dies down, Mom looks at Claudia and just starts roaring all over again.

Claudia and Keane would exchange pleasantries for a few weeks afterward but nothing would come of it. Every now and then, one would like the other's picture on social media, or say hello in passing. The point was to make it through her first date with a stranger after Samir, and she succeeded- in her way.

I’m bound to kiss the right guy one of these days, she thought drifting off to sleep.