I was sitting in the cafe by the window, working on an academic article for the Journal of Ancient History, when I saw them.
It was a man and a woman, both young, though not too young–not college-aged, or immediately post-grad. The man could have been a few years older, or that may just have been the way he was dressed; buttoned up, as they used to say, to his chin, with a coat over it. Not a “formal” suit coat, but similar. More casual. He was not wearing a tie. She, on the other hand, was dressed in something more like what a college student might wear for a first date. Tight pants, a low-cut blouse with straps, both in bright colors. Nice shoes, but not high-heeled.
They came in together, but slightly awkwardly, as if they had only just met outside the restaurant. He did not hold the door, but he looked for a moment as if he might. After a brief hesitation, he led the way to a table by the window. It was a good table–the best in the house for a view of the park outside, as I knew well, but not one I ever took. The glare from the sun as you get towards the late afternoon makes it too hard for me to see the screen of my laptop.
Despite leading the way to the table, the man waited for the woman to sit down first. She had already pulled out her phone and was scanning the QR code on the table for the menu. After a moment, he did the same. The next few minutes were spent in silence, and I returned to a difficult passage about Late Imperial rituals of power. I’m not sure how long afterwards (I always lose track of time when writing) it was when the woman finally spoke.
“Have you been here before?”
The man must have shook his head, but I didn’t see it. “So why did you tell me to meet you here?” the woman asked, a new note in her voice.
I looked over to see the man shrug. He was thin–too thin, I thought, and a little uncomfortable in his own body. He raised one hand in a meaningless gesture. “Well, it’s near where you said you worked. I was going to be driving out here all this way anyway, so I didn’t want you to have to go far.” His voice was oddly flat, and he didn’t meet her eyes.
Her voice now held an unmistakable undercurrent of tension; it might have been anger or some other suppressed emotion. “And you didn’t think to ask me where I’d like to go? You know I live just around the corner.” She had blonde hair and those odd little bangs. She was wearing flesh-colored lipgloss.
He looked down at his phone, scrolling through the menu again. “Well…” he ventured. “You told me to pick the place. Since you said I’d be driving farther. I thought…”
“Well,” she said, “obviously I assumed you’d pick a place you’d been to before. Or at least because the food was something you liked.”
He didn’t respond; he was looking down at his phone still.
She looked vaguely in my direction; I turned back to my laptop. “Picking an interesting or exotic restaurant would have shown personality. Or picking a safer restaurant you’d been to before would have shown that you cared about me having a nice time. Or you could have responded by asking me to pick a restaurant since you knew I knew the area better and wanted to show you valued my preferences. And because of the dietary restrictions I listed on my profile.” Her voice now was not angry, but unfocused, like someone reading off a Powerpoint slide. I glanced back at her face; she was looking right at me. I turned quickly back again to my laptop screen, and tried hard to focus on Ambrose of Milan’s meeting with Magnus Maximus rather than the one in front of me. It was difficult.
The man sighed. “The Monte Cristo Sandwich looks good.” I glanced over to see him looking around vaguely for the waiter, one hand raised awkwardly again.
