On the Rocks(64)

“What happened to those flowers?” he asked.

“I beat them against a lamppost on the way home. Anyway . . .”

Bobby interrupted me. “Wait.” He laughed. “Are you seriously telling me that a date that started with dinner at the Black Pearl and roses went so badly that you had to destroy them on the three-block walk home? I give up. You might actually be beyond repair.”

“Oh please. They’re f*cking purple. His pants were pink, and his flowers were purple. I should’ve known something was off.”

“So the guy has bad taste in flowers, and apparently in pants, but I’m still not seeing the big problem here. Unless he was gay. Was he?” Bobby asked.

“No, and I was fine with his penchant for pastels. I really was. Everything was going great, and then the check came.”

“Oh God. Tell me he made you split the bill,” Bobby asked, placing his beer on the table as he waited for my answer.

“No. Worse,” I said, slowly, delaying telling him the story for as long as possible.

“Did he ask you to leave the tip? That’s not the worst thing in the world. I know a lot of guys who do that, and a lot of girls who like to do it. Some empowerment bullshit or something.”

“Worse,” I replied.

“He made you pay for the entire dinner? That’s unacceptable. There’s absolutely no excuse for that.”

“Worse.”

“I can’t really think of anything worse than a guy making a girl pay for dinner on the first date, unless of course he went to the bathroom when the check came and climbed out the window. He didn’t climb out the window, Abby, did he?”

“You have no idea. The bill came, and his entire demeanor changed. It was like someone flipped a switch and turned him into a crazy person. He basically snarled at me!”

“Did you order a ten-pound lobster or something? Maybe I should’ve pointed out that most girls don’t really eat much on first dates. I’m not sure why. Someone must have told them that guys think it’s hot if they think their date has an eating disorder or something.”

“Hardly. He looked at the bill and started yelling. He said he was going to have to take out a second mortgage on his apartment to pay for it. Now, at first I thought he was kidding, and I actually thought it was funny because that meant that he owns his apartment and being invested in real estate is not a bad thing.”

“That’s what you thought about? The fact that he owned his own apartment?” Bobby shook his head.

“That was my way of trying to find the silver lining.”

“There’s no silver lining to a man yelling at a woman he doesn’t know over a dinner bill.”

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

“This is great. I wish I had popcorn.” He laughed as he crossed his arms over his chest and threw his feet up on the table.

“He complained that I picked out a bottle of wine that was way too expensive, and that I had some nerve to assume he wanted to spend that much on a girl he didn’t even know.”

“What? How much was the bottle?”

“Forty dollars!” I finally collapsed in a chair. Reliving the embarrassment made me want a beer from the cooler.

“Oh, come on. This guy is an architect and he was complaining about a forty-dollar bottle of wine in a restaurant? What kind of wine can you even get for less than that during high season at the Black Pearl? Something that comes in a box?”

“I have no idea what the hell he expected me to order, or why he didn’t just order it himself if he was going to be such a price whore. That’s not even the worst of it. Then he signed the check, crumpled up the receipt, and threw it into the candle on the middle of the table.”

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, his face contorting from trying to stifle his laughter.

“Bobby, he lit the check on fire. I had to throw my water on it to put it out.”

“You’re lying,” Bobby said as he burst into hysterics, finding humor in my misery like the good friend he’d become.

“Like I could make this up.”

“What a dick move. You should have hit him with the flowers instead of hitting the lamppost.”

“I couldn’t because before I knew what was happening, he just up and left. He left me sitting at the table trying to put out the embers. All of the waiters were staring at me. It was completely mortifying. I swear to God this doesn’t happen to anyone except me.”

“Oh relax. It absolutely does,” he said. “I bet you a million women across the country had bad dates this week. It’s not your fault he’s a cheap *.”

“I have endured my fair share of ridiculous in the dating world, Bobby. Don’t I deserve to have a few nights here and there go smoothly? What is wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. And I’d like to point out that I didn’t go anywhere near the restaurant, as promised, and instead have been sitting on your porch drinking your beer for the last two hours, of no help to you at all. If you had let me come chaperone your date, I’d have thrown him through the window the second he torched your check. See, my offer to come with you doesn’t seem so silly now, does it?”

“This isn’t funny!” I squealed, even though I realized it sort of was.