Here's the Check (Short Story)

It has been fifteen minutes after arriving where he said our date would be, and I am sitting alone waiting for a man I have been set up by one of my friends. I need to be honest with you, I did not want to go on this date because I had a bad feeling this would not end well—I did not know the guy for heaven’s sake! All I was told is that he is a lawyer who works full-time and rarely goes out unless it is with the woman he will love except I have my doubts about that. But I did it so my friend can stop nagging me about “putting myself out there” several times.

Anyways, if anything goes wrong, I have one of my best guy friend’s cell phone numbers as my emergency contact which I blatantly said “I will call several times if one, my date does not go well or two, he drugged me.” Hopefully, it will not be the latter since I just started my dream job as a blog writer for Empowerment for the Faithful. So, as I am waiting at my table eating bread dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, I constantly check my emails for any news about my first post I published for the company. It is excruciating to wait. Like why is it that time seems to slow down when you are waiting for something… or someone? They say time quickly passes but it feels the opposite in this situation where everything is in slow-mo.

An hour has passed and still no sign of the guy I am supposed to be a blind date with, did I get stood up? The waiter comes to my table, “Ma’am, it has been an hour and you have not ordered yet. I cannot let you stay if you are not going to order anything.” He is right, I have only been eating bread for the past hour, “okay, I’ll order an appetizer for now. The calamari please.” As the waiter walked away, I checked my phone to see if my blind date sent me anything—nothing yet. My stomach is starting to get butterflies when plans start to change, I take a deep breath telling myself “I’ll be fine.” Then, I hear a group of people arrive by the table near me talking about sports, while I was scrolling through my phone I silently eavesdrop and one guy exclaims, “Dude! He almost kicked it into the goalie, but the referee said it was a ‘foul’.” I hear another voice answer him, “Every time… what was the foul?” I get a text from an unknown number, and I opened it says, “Running late.” Thanks for letting me know after an hour into the time you say we will meet… The guy in the next table replies, “He tripped another player from the other team. A lot of fans didn’t see that.” I am not a sports person but hearing their conversation has gotten me to search ‘what are the fouls in soccer’. A lot of the major ones are physical, and it seems soccer is the most straightforward sport I can probably comprehend better than any other ones. I noticed a guy who was sitting with them used to work with me, we never really talked as he always came and went to check-up on how I was doing with my job.

I promised myself I would not be in a relationship since my career is starting off and I need to stay laser focus, it was not the right time for me. I just started working as a personal assistant for a CEO, owner of a car company, and to request this time to leave early was a tall order especially when my CEO needed my help almost twenty-four/seven. Luckily, my boss has not reached out for me yet. Also, I am not sure if I believe in love ever since my ex cheated on me and my best friend’s boyfriend, now ex also cheated on her I gave up hope on love. What is love? Is there such a thing as authentic love in this day-in-age?

The waiter comes up to my table, “Are you done with that?” He refers to my almost-finished calamari appetizer sitting in the middle of my table, “I’m done.” Since Brent is late, I decided to order my entrée. I am not going to starve myself for some guy I do not know, especially him failing to tell me he will “run late”. I ended up ordering a plate of wild mushroom ravioli. One of my favorite dishes to eat while growing up was cooking pasta when I came home from school. So, every time I am in a stressful/frustrating situation eating something I like helps ease my negative emotions, but we all know that is common for everyone. One person grabs a bucket of ice cream to eat their emotions away. That would be me.

My entrée heads my way as I smell the aroma of alfredo sauce covered on top of my mushroom ravioli. My mouth begins to water which I did not realize how hungry I was until it was set down in front of me. I am never really into blind dates, as a Christian woman I am used to meeting someone and getting to know them, then over time if I think he is the right person to date I would go out with them. But one of my girlfriends from work told me to give this man a chance since he is a good friend of hers, and I thought I should not cut someone off without first meeting them and boundaries never hurt anyone.

As soon as I asked for the check after eating my entrée, I saw what I believed was my “date” who was “running late” walking towards my table while talking on the phone. He comes to my table and whispers if I’m my girlfriend’s friend he is supposed to meet. Then, when I was about to answer he went back to his phone putting out his index finger to “hold on for a minute” which I have for the past hour and a half now. When the waiter came back to my table I whispered to him, “can I get the check?” He looked over to my so-called date, and gave me the knowing look why, “Yeah, I’ll bring it right over.” Brent started to call out to the waiter, but he left, “What is this? Did you want something to eat?” He asked this while still holding his phone to ear and answering into the phone, “Not talking to you. Just do what you need to do, I’ll call you back.” He shut his phone off. Bravo…

Then, Brent flips through the menu asking me, “what did you want to eat? It’s on me.” The waiter was just in time with the check while I answered his question, “I already ate... because our date started at 7’o clock....” I checked my watch, “it is now 8:30pm. And… it is also disrespectful to keep a lady waiting, and then arrive here talking on the phone because of work, is it?” He rolled his eyes at me and sighed, “I already texted you I would be late, didn’t I?”

I let out a laugh, the audacity of this man is incredible, “Fifteen minutes late, you texted you would be fifteen minutes. So, if you want a date. Here’s the check. Good night, Bert.” He looked pissed, “It’s Brent.” I walked away with my head held high as I heard him whisper “bitch” out loud. I’ve been called worse and the fact he was calling me names proved to me he was not mature enough to handle an issue like a man.