(I’m behind on my cuteness reporting—this date was two
weeks ago.)
(Right now, The Shy One is getting ready for a spouses' trip wherein it’s likely he’ll/they'll hook up with a friend. In my head, (I know almost
nothing about her) she is the perfect unicorn and will definitely negate any future
need for me. He has taken great care to assure me that that won’t be the case, (the
negating, I mean) and the assurance means a lot, but still. It’s a vulnerable
moment to be paragraphing about him, or maybe the perfect moment. They haven’t
invented that turn-me-into-a-compersion-robot-for-the-weekend technology yet,
so I’m doing my best to love myself through the complicated-but-mostly-just-rooting-for-him
fraughtness.)
Now for the fancy date story! Although, as we’ve
established, I see myself as Upstairs in the Downton sense, I’ve never
seen myself as someone who could be taken on a fancy date. Sweetie-Now-BFF and
I have treated ourselves from time to time, but being taken out someplace by a
man? That’s movies, not me. So when The Shy One picked a fancy steakhouse
downtown to celebrate my birthday, I was completely dazzled and pretty intimidated.
I had weeks to prepare/make myself nervous. I spent a
good chunk of time scrolling through purple dresses online and I found the perfect
one: long, gauzy, royal purple, with a thick satin ribbon at the empire waist. The
shop had it labeled “mother of the bride” but to me, it was a princess dress.
It came right away and fit perfectly, just like a shipping fairy tale.
Then, on a solo mini-vacation in an artsy mountain
town, I found just the right baubly necklace at a flea market for three
dollars! And a pretty beaded mauve purse at a vintage shop that looked like the
inside of the B-52s collective mind. I hadn’t bought a specific purse for a
specific reason since my wedding nineteen (!) years ago. It was like Artsy
Mountain Town was playing the role of fairy godmother.
Purse-buying aside, I tried (unsuccessfully) not to
get too carried away about this date. I was a little overwhelmed and
self-conscious, had even a little trouble feeling worthy. This is a thing I run
into a lot these beautiful, romantic days—how is this happening to actual me?!
A year ago, I couldn’t even get The Coach to come fuck me in person!
When the Friday night of the date arrived, I felt so
gorgeous that I texted my closest neighbors to see if they could come take my
picture. I ran into them out front and posed for the camera while I waited for
my Lyft.
I never went to the prom (My date, the prettiest
hippie girl in any given mosh pit, got scared to go because we’d been targeted a
bully lacrosse player girl a few times. I had the perrrrrfect dress picked out for
that night too though, fresh from the Thrifty Shopper. It was pink polyester
with long floaty, translucent sleeves that had sparkly buttons at the cuffs. Someone
had sewn it by hand, and there was a same-pink-fabric triangle sewn in at the
neckline. A little on the nose. I wore that dress A LOT in my late teens/ early
20s. You may or may not remember that disco had a Nineties revival.) but this 2022
birthday moment was a little taste of what prom might have felt like.
When the car pulled up in front of the restaurant, I
saw The Shy One and said to the Lyft driver “Right here. Oh my goodness, look
at him.”
He was wearing a light blue dress shirt and, in his
pocket, had perfectly matched blue shades. He looked as nervous as I felt, and
we went inside.
As she led us to our table, the hostess asked, “Do you
have any plans after this?” and I could not find it in me to be a normal person
in that moment and just say “No, not really!” and deflect the question. But we DID
have plans afterwards, and all I could picture was my new royal purple set of
ropes.
“…Sort of?” I said, giggling and trying to stifle a
huge smile.
“Do I want to know? She asked, leading us up the
formal staircase to our booth on the mezzanine.
“Probably not!” I giggled some more.
