Friday passed slowly. Dana worked, sold her sex toys, and went home. She ate dinner and went to bed early. Saturday she worked as well, though she always closed the store early on the weekends. Most of her customers shopped during the week when the people they knew were at work. They should have been working too, but they stole in on lunch breaks or after dentist appointments, their mouths filled with sticky gauze, their speech slurred.
After work on Saturday, Dana rushed home and got ready. She showered and then dressed, though it took her almost an hour to settle on the perfect outfit: a small black dress with black high heels. She put on makeup, which she rarely did, and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt simultaneously bold and embarrassed. Bold because she looked like an absolute knockout and she knew it, and embarrassed because she knew she was doing it because she wanted Greg to want to fuck her.
She wouldn’t let him. That wasn’t the kind of girl she was, but she wanted him to want to.
He picked her up five minutes past eight. She had sent him her address the day before. She lived in a small apartment, and as she made her way to the parking lot, she felt ashamed. Surely he was used to penthouses when he was in the city, and now that he had returned to his hometown, an hour and a half outside of New York, she was confident he would build a mansion somewhere.
Apple Tree was the name of the town, and it was quaint, almost like a town people would live in on a TV show. Rolling green hills gave way to farm land—a far cry from the loud, smog-filled city to the south. There was a main street, and it was here where Dana lived, in a small row of apartments. Her shop was just outside town, on a lonely, dusty road that otherwise led out to a dairy farm.
Greg was driving a bright red convertible, which matched Dana’s lipstick. He had gotten out of the car and moved around to open the passenger door.
“You look amazing,” the rich man said.
“Thank you,” Dana said. “You too,” she added, and it was the truth. He was dressed in a black blazer with a crisp white button-up underneath it, the top two buttons undone, his bronze chest showing a small amount of curly chest hair. His pants were jeans, but not the sort you would buy at the local Walmart. They had cost more than her whole wardrobe; she had no doubt about that.
After she lowered herself into the driver’s seat, he came around and climbed in behind the wheel.
“You hungry?” he asked, and she nodded.
He took her over a few towns, to a sleepy little place called River’s Crossing. It had a reputation for being a bit more upscale than Apple Tree, and as such, Dana had never had much reason to go there, except for a couple of times with her girlfriends as they looked in the shops.
There was a small Italian restaurant there called Emilio’s, and the parking lot was full when Greg pulled in. The sky was black, and he had stopped to raise the roof on the convertible, as the air was growing quite chilly, despite the fact that it was summer. Though in a dress as short as the one Dana was wearing, any night would be chilly.
They went inside, and Dana thought they would have to wait. There was a line almost to the door, but as soon as the hostess saw Greg, she came forward and showed them to a small private room off the main dining area. It only had four tables, each small and intimate with two chairs.
The food was better than any Dana had ever had, and the conversation was just as good. They did the normal first date stuff, working through the conversation they were supposed to. Where did you go to school, what movies do you like, that sort of thing. Surprisingly, Greg had dropped out of high school, moving when he was seventeen to Los Angeles, and his favorite film was Goodfellas. He learned that Dana had gone to a local high school and then a college thirty minutes to the East, and her favorite film was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
“I would love it if you came home with me,” Greg said, and Dana was shocked by how upfront he was. She opened her mouth after she smiled, and she was prepared to tell him no.
“God yes,” she said instead, shocking herself.
“Great,” Greg said. He stood and left enough money to cover the bill and a hefty tip, and then they hurried out to his car.