The date with Brock went better than expected. He picked me up (I wasn’t about to ride Putt-Putt in a dress, nevermind the helmet hair) in his Honda Civic and took me to a trendy bar in downtown Portland, with a smashing view of the Willamette River.
He was a perfect gentleman. He laughed at my jokes, paid for the food (despite my insistence), and he looked quite handsome in his grey dress shirt, a nice change from his jock outfit.
We talked about a lot of things, though I tried to keep the conversation focused on him. Only near the end did he start asking more and more about the show and ghosts. He was a believer, which was good. The last thing I wanted was to be with someone who just wanted to pick my beliefs apart. That would be akin to a Catholic going out with an atheist.
No, Brock was fine. And he was a good kisser, too, as I found out on my parents’ front stoop. He didn’t seem to want anything more and anything less. It felt good to taste someone else’s lips, to feel someone else’s feelings, especially ones so transparent.
But as I was saying goodbye to him, I had a heavy, sinking feeling in my heart.
For one, there was the fact that he liked country music. The minute he admitted his love for Rascal Flatts, I knew we would never be. And then there was the simple, sad, ugly truth that he wasn’t Dex.
I tried my hardest to ignore that feeling the entire date. I tried so hard. But at every awkward pause and every glance at the clock on the wall and every quick slurp of wine, all I could think about was that if this were Dex sitting across from me…everything would just be OK.
And that thought made me sad as hell. It’s like that first date you take in order to move on. Full of false promises and lies you tell yourself, the lies that you’ll find someone else, someone better. At some point, those lies become truths. But I needed that to happen sooner, rather than later.
So as I was saying goodbye to Brock, and my heart had no real interest in seeing him again, the logical side of my soul kicked in. I asked him if he wanted to go out again when I got back from Seattle, and he said yes. He even looked a bit surprised; maybe he was smarter than I thought and had been picking up on mixed signals from me. I knew I had been sending them.
I watched him get into his car and waved at him as he drove off. Even if I wasn’t all that excited about a second date, I knew it needed to happen. I needed to move on. I needed, more than anything, to prove Uncle Al wrong.
CHAPTER FIVE
On Monday morning I strapped my over-stuffed duffel bag (Ada’s satiny dress included) onto the back of Putt-Putt and got ready to blow the popsicle stand that I called home.
Ada was already at school and my father was off teaching at the university, so it was just my mother and me, staring at each other uneasily in the crisp, foggy morning. Traces of overnight frost still clung stubbornly to our wide lawn, making our house look like a gingerbread one rising out of white icing.
“Do you know where you’re going?” she asked, looking extra skinny under the heavy fur coat she was wearing, probably made out of Swedish wolverines or something.
“Yes mom. I Google-mapped it,” I said, my breath coming out in a frozen, hanging cloud. I flashed her my iPhone in one quick motion.
“I don’t know what that means,” she said, pulling her coat in closer. I eyed her feet. She only had her morning slippers on.
“It means I know where I’m going,” I replied patiently and gave a final tug on the bag.
I walked over to her and gave her a quick hug. Her coat smelled like a mist of dated perfume and mothballs. She had that coat for as long as I could remember and wore it almost every day when the winter air hit Portland, yet it still smelled like something out of a 1920’s German film.
She embraced me back and pulled away with a worried mother look. Sometimes I want to tell her that the more she frowns and twists her lips to the side, the more the wrinkles will come. But that would be cruel and I know she’s aware of it. My mother knows everything about preserving beauty.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, even though she hadn’t spoken.
She just smiled tightly and looked down at the shiny brown/black hairs of the coat. “I know.”
She looked up and her expression had changed. Now she was the no-nonsense mother I knew too well.
“How was your date last night?” she asked. “We had gone to sleep and you weren’t home yet.”
I almost detected a prying naughtiness in her voice, as if she was hoping I’d gotten lucky or something.
I gave her a suspicious look. “It went fine.”
“Are you going to go out with him again?”
“Maybe,” I said and turned back to my bike, ready to not only leave the popsicle stand behind but this weird, awkward conversation as well. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
She sighed and I looked back at her one last time. She looked fed up but gave me a quick wave.
“Be safe.”
I nodded, slipped on my helmet, took one last look at my Google map directions, and got on the bike. I popped one ear bud in my ear, flicked my iPod to the newest Slayer album and off I went.