28⎜The Date

I stared in the mirror, and quirked my head to the side. Damn, I was one attractive dude. Like, everything about my body was totally symmetrical in every way imaginable, and my jawline really looked good with the light tan my skin had embraced over the past few months. My biceps were bulging to perfection, and even my hair was looking amazing. It wasn’t a surprise, as I had always looked this good, but currently, I was starting to doubt my flawless exterior.

           Right now, it didn’t matter that my button-down complimented my eyes superbly. It didn’t matter that my Nantucket red chinos were epic beyond comparison. It didn’t matter that my boat shoes were the comfiest footwear that I owned. My outfit and everything else on my outside was currently irrelevant, for it was the stuff on the inside that was going to count. In this particular instance, looking good (well, “good” amplified by a trillion) didn’t matter.

           Taking one last glance at my reflection, I finally let out a sigh, and settled for an adequate version of perfection. I shouldn’t have been as nervous as I was. For once, though, my attractiveness wasn’t going to get me through this one. It wasn’t even that I was dreading it, per se, but rather anticipating the worst. I wanted everything to go right, and that wouldn’t be achieved just because I had nice calves. My intellect was what would be put to test. Everyone could see that I was practically a living Adonis—but what I would be facing in a mere ten minutes was what lay behind all that. For once, my mind was the only thing that would be scrutinized (only slightly tainted by my beauty and vanity).

           “Yo, Wilson! If I wanted to live with a girl, I’d move in with Noa. Stop checking yourself out in the mirror, loser!” Seth called from his desk, where he had been perched all afternoon. He had some sort of paper due tomorrow, and had procrastinated to the very last second, so was finally facing reality and writing it now. “You look like fine!”

           “Yeah, but what if ‘fine’ isn’t good enough?” I exhaled a stream of air, aware of how shallow I was being.

           “Your version of ‘fine’ is the rest of the world’s version of ‘super model.’ Chill the heck out,” commanded my roommate with his typical nonchalance. He was talking to me while simultaneously tapping away at his favorite electronic device, so I knew that the conversation we were having was only a halfhearted one on his end. Seth was great at multitasking, but when his fingers touched a keyboard, everything else he attempted to do was officially half-assed. “Don’t you have a date or something?”

           Right. The date. That was pretty much the reason behind all my built up anxiety. I was going with Ari Remon (aka the most amazing girl I had ever had the pleasure of meeting) on a date. Our first date. As “us.” I didn’t want anything to go wrong, because I felt so right when I was with Ari. Neither my past nor my last name mattered when I was around her, and I could be myself. I didn’t have to put up a front and act like the person everyone thought I was. For once, I could be just Eric.

           We had decided to meet on one of the main quads that was equidistance from both of our dorm rooms. After setting a time, we were all set. We hadn’t picked where we would be going or what we would be doing, but that didn’t matter. As long as we were together, even spontaneity could work out. Our lack of a solid plan bothered me a bit, for I secretly longed for structure, but if Ari was okay with it, then I would be, too.

           “Uh, yeah, I do,” I finally answered Seth, glancing up at the clock to see what time it was and how much time I had left. 11:53. We had decided to meet at noon. I had precisely seven minutes to leave my dormitory, get to the quad, and find Ari. Fun. I threw on the first sweater I could find (it was a cable knit quarter-zip thing in a nice navy color—Vineyard Vines, obviously). After making sure that I had cash and my phone on me, I sprinted over to the door, and bid Seth with a hurried, “See ya, dude!”

           I didn’t hear what he said back (if anything) due to my hastened pace upon seeing the time. My feet hit the carpet of the hallway, and I began to jog through the familiar route that I had taken so many times before. When I reached the exit after having passed the stairs and lounge area, I slowed down slightly, as to not collide with the many people who were leaving and entering the building. I managed to somehow get out, even with the traffic of people, and when I did, I changed my pace to a sprint.

           Long seconds dragged by as I ran in the direction of the patch of grass that had been set as our meeting place. The campus was big, and I wasn’t really a “runner.” Sure, I had a fantastic physic, but when I was working out, it was just to tone my muscles, rather than use them. I didn’t have football in my life anymore, so there was no need for me to exert all my energy on running in circles when it wouldn’t benefit me. Regardless, compared to just about anyone else, my running was just fine. Adequate, even. I would make it there in time, with maybe a few seconds to spare.

           When I finally reached the quad with my lungs only partially burning, I immediately began to search for that familiar head of dark curls. It was the weekend, and despite it almost being winter, it was still sixty degrees. The air wasn’t as warm as it had been upon my arrival a few months back, but it was still warmer than what I was used to back in New York. No one was tanning outside today, but why would they? It was an overcast day that was gray and drab.

           “Eric Wilson!” I heard my naming being called in an almost cheery tone.

           I snapped my head back in the direction of the rainy voice, and smiled when I saw her. “Ari Pomegranate!”

           Like always, she looked beautiful. Her hair was sprawled over her shoulders, instead of up in a concealing ponytail, as it normally was, and even from where I was standing, I could tell that she hadn’t put on any makeup. Ari wasn’t the type to cover her face in products—it was partially due to laziness, some fundamental belief, and her just being Ari. She wore a cream sweater that probably belonged to Kay (it seemed too preppy to live amidst Ari Remon’s clothes), and a gray skirt that came down just below her mid thigh. Her exposed skin stopped at her knees, for she also had on tall black rain boots. It wasn’t raining outside.

           “You look beautiful,” I complimented her, meaning every word of it.

           “Thanks,” she said as we reached each other, “I would say the same for you, but that kind of goes without saying.”

           “I do look pretty beautiful, don’t I?” I mused with a smirk that I knew was too cocky for my face. “But then again, I always look this way.”

           “It’s amazing how you can go from sweet to narcissistic in about a millisecond,” she commented with that honest sarcasm of hers.

           “Thanks,” I grinned, “I’m a pretty amazing guy.”

           “Especially when you acknowledge how amazing you think you are.”

           “But everyone else thinks I’m amazing, too.”

           “If that’s what you choose to believe, then so be it.”

           “It’s not a belief, it’s a well-known fact.”

           “Well, obviously! When you open up the thesaurus, under ‘amazing’ the synonym is ‘Eric Wilson.’” She was mocking me. I didn’t care.

           “Actually, it’s under ‘amazingly beautiful,’” I corrected her, “or alternatively, ‘amazing and beautiful’…just like you, Ari Pomegranate.” She smiled. It wasn’t a real-full-fledged-she-was-on-her-boat-with-only-the-ocean-as-company smile, but it was close. She looked so good when she smiled. It was as if her happiness (even if fleeting) was contagious, for I then also began to smile. Actually, scratch that. Ari’s happiness wasn’t what was contagious—it was Ari. Ari was infectious.

           After deliberating upon of what exactly our “date” would consist, we agreed that since it was around the appropriate time, obtaining some amount of food currently made the most sense. We would find a place, and then figure it out from there. Neither of us had cars, thus walking was our best and only option. With the gray clouds looming overhead, we began to walk—but not before I did a very cutesy thing and grabbed hold of Ari’s hand. Our fingers were entangled, and fit perfectly together. It was as if the space between my fingers was meant for her fingers, and vise versa. 

           Without a single word spoken between us, we strolled along on the dull Stanford campus. The silence wasn’t a bad thing, though—rather the opposite. It was a calming silence that felt right, as did everything with Ari Remon. We didn’t need to talk, for the comfort that was felt in just being with each other filled the void that some chose to fill with meaningless conversation.

           Whenever I was with Mackenzie, she would ramble on and on about the most pointless things in the entire universe, for she was under the misperception that I actually cared who wore the same shirt as her to school or which girls in our school weren’t actually naturally blondes and which ones were. She was always talking, and I was always numbly listening. With Liz, it was the opposite. I would talk, and she would listen. She didn’t really open up like one expected a girlfriend to, and was too guarded. Mackenzie told me too many secrets, and Liz didn’t tell me enough. But I shouldn’t have been comparing the three. Ari wasn’t even my girlfriend. Also, she wasn’t even close to being comparable to either Mackenzie or Liz. She was better. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much better.

           With Ari, it was a balance. We shared the floor equally when it came to dialogue, though both preferred listening. Ari possessed a unique outlook on the art of speech, that being that she never wasted her words, carefully selecting each and every one to mean precisely what she wanted them to. I wasn’t as shrewd when I spoke, but didn’t speak all that much. In high school, I wasn’t a listener, but over the summer, I learned how to be. I didn’t want to talk about what happened—to my family, to my friends, to my therapist, to a support group—so learned how to listen. Ari was a really good listener. It was one of the things that I admired most about her. That, and, uh, her legs. I really admired those.

           Between the two of us—two listeners (one a novice, the other an expert)—words were scarce, but coveted. We valued the few words that did get used, though preferred the listening even more. There was a mutual understanding between us that hadn’t needed to be verbalized that verbalization wasn’t always required. Taking the time to listen to the other’s breath, or the way the other’s footsteps sounded on the brick pathway was so much more intimate and real than talking.

           Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of walking, we came to our destination. It was a cliché place to go on a first date, but I was a cliché kind of guy, so it was fine. We had veered off the Stanford campus, but not by much. The location was within walking distance from the institution from which we were receiving pristine educations, though was preferably more accessible by car.

           It was a tall building, and by the entrance had an array of tall windows, though it didn’t exceed a single floor. The sign was lit up, and it didn’t seem that sketchy. Other college students were walking in and out, and then there was Ari and I. We stood before the structure, merely staring up at its vastness and contemplating what our next move would be. Ari began to walk, urging me on towards the door. We went inside.

           Upon going in, it was exactly as expected: there was a cheesy black rug with a confetti pattern gracing the floor, a few steps, a concessions area, and a ticket booth with a very bored-looking guy standing behind it. He was wearing a uniform of a red and black collared shirt with a nametag, and his eyes were red. On his face was at least three days worth of scruff, and he just seemed aloof—as if he was disinterested in even the most interesting of things that appeared in life. I could’ve been him.

           Ari casually strolled up to the guy, surpassing the nonexistent line fended off by a velvet rope maze. She was still holding my hand, and I was still holding hers. For this, though, we let go. Her head tilted up at all the options that appeared on an electronic screen, and I did the same. It didn’t really matter what we chose. As long as we were together, everything would be fine.

           “That one,” Ari said with a brimming smirk that she couldn’t contain. I blinked. And blinked again. And then I blinked one more time, just to make sure that I was reading the same title to which she was pointing.

           “Firstly, hasn’t that been out since, like, the summer?” I questioned, not wanting to immediately reject the absurd idea. For all I knew, maybe Ari was being serious. Maybe she had brain damage and I was just finding out about it now.

           “Yes.”

           “Uh, and you know I’m a guy, right?”

           “Yes.”

           “And do you really want me to waste thirty dollars on that?”

           “Yes.”

           “Is it really in 3D?”

           “Yes.”

           “Are you actually going to make me go through this?”

           “Yes.”

           “Do you even like them?”

           “Eh.”

           “So then why am I about to waste thirty dollars?!”

           “Because.”

           I let out an exasperated groan. I wasn’t annoyed with Ari. I was annoyed with what Ari wanted right now and her vagueness about it. She was such a great girl, but her secrecy could at times really take a toll on others around her (namely, me). Unlike most people, she couldn’t just come out and say why she wanted what she wanted. She had to keep it concealed until the last possible moment. But Ari Remon without secrets wasn’t Ari Remon.

           Taking one last look at the beautiful girl and begging her mutely to change her mind, I found that it was no use. I cleared my throat, causing the cashier dude to look up slowly, his movements delayed. Then, as discreetly as I could, I found myself saying, “Can I please have two tickets to the twelve-thirty show?”

           He gave me a blank stare, and then asked a dazed question I could hear myself asking, just a few months ago: “Wait, what?”

           “The twelve-thirty show,” I said quietly.

           “Which one?” I mumbled something incoherent under my breath, not wanting to say it out loud. It was too emasculating. “Huh?” I said it a bit louder, wondering why Ari couldn’t just intervene and get the tickets herself. She was the one who wanted to see something made solely for twelve-year-old girls with addictions to texting and tweeting. My third attempt hadn’t been any more helpful, for I was then addressed with a trippy, “Man, what?”

           “Can I have two tickets to the twelve-thirty showing of…theOneDirectionmovie,” I said, hoping desperately that I wouldn’t have to repeat it again. The guy looked at me with a blankness that I didn’t miss even a little bit. He appeared to be lost, though completely mellow. It was like going back in time and looking in a mirror. I sighed. “Two tickets. Twelve-thirty. OneDirectionmovie.”

           Ari was laughing. And why wouldn’t she be? It wasn’t as if she was the one buying tickets to a movie that could potentially end any chance she had at ever socializing to anyone on the planet ever again. No, that was my job. Ari could afford to laugh, for to her, the situation was humorous. Here I was. Eric Wilson comma ex-quarterback and ex-druggie with a perfect body and a face to match, attempting to buy tickets to the—the One Direction movie (even thinking about it made me want to vomit). The concept of it was pretty funny…just not to me, right now…or ever.

           “Dude, talk slow-er,” instructed the ticket guy, his own words coming out in a jumble of indolence.

           “Can. I. Have. Two. Tickets. To. The. Twelve-thirty. Showing. Of. The. One. Direction. Movie,” I expressed each individual term as slowly as I could.

           “Oh! Yeah, totally!” the guy said with a what was meant to be an energetic yawn, but he was stoned, so anything he did just appeared delayed and off. “You high, man?”

           “Haven’t been for about six months,” I muttered, but Ari heard. She grabbed my hand and squeezed, and that was all she needed to do so that I didn’t lose my composure and end up in a heap of tear on the floor, needing to call my mommy.

           “Well, I’ve seen 1D 3D ten times. Nine high. One without anything. Don’t see it if you’re not high, dude. Big mistake,” he advised me.

           It was now Ari’s turn to step in, and I was glad that she did. I wasn’t really sure how I would respond to something like what he had suggested. What was the appropriate response? You couldn’t reason with a stoner when they were stoned. Regretfully, I knew all too well from experience. “Tickets. Two of them. Now,” Ari commanded, getting straight to the point in a sharp voice.

           The guy bobbed his head up and down a few times, and then lackadaisically typed some stuff into a register. An amount popped up on a screen before us, and I handed over the money in exchange for the two tickets that I would burn after I survived this date. He gave me my change (in pennies), and then before giving us our 3D glasses, let out a cautionary, “The movie’s way better without them!”

           We took into account what he had said, and then quickly made our way over to the concessions stand. The movie was starting soon, and though I wouldn’t mind missing, oh, the entire thing, Ari seemed to be in a bit of a rush. She said that she didn’t like popcorn, so I got her three big boxes of Sour Patch Kids, and two waters to split among us. With that, we approached the usher who was in the midst of a midday nap, got our embarrassing tickets ripped in half and a look of complete and utter judgment, and were then directed to the very last theater down a hallway.

           There were so many other movies that we could see, and not wanting to be tempted, I didn’t even look at the pixelated titles as we walked through the corridor, hand-in-hand. The One Direction movie. Of all the things Ari Remon could’ve done, this was probably among the most surprising. Alas, Ari was an enigma, and part of playing that role was the surprise that not even she herself could anticipate. So here we were, standing before theater 12A, ready to face the UK boy band with about as much preparedness as Taylor Swift when Kanye interrupted her at the VMAs.

           Ari was first to venture into the completely blackened room that was illuminated only slightly by emergency signs and a few lights that appeared on the stairs. I was in tow right behind her. A roar of sound echoed, and brightness flashed from the large screen. We had come in during the commercials. Obviously, we just had to miss the best part of the entire movie. I let out a stream of air, self-conscious of being seen by anyone—even a twelve-year-old girl with posters of the boys lining the walls of her room. By some miraculous phenomenon, though, there wasn’t a sole in the entire theater. But then again, why would there be? This was the One Direction movie, after all. Who their right mind (besides Ari Remon and me) went to see it? No one. That was who.

           Ari strolled right over the very middle row of seats in the empty theater, and all I could do was follow. It was just the two of us, and some ad for a 401K plan. The targeted audience seemed a bit old for this particular movie, but maybe there were more cougars than I thought who came to see this with their daughters. Anyways, we sat down in the very middle of the movie theater, and put our water bottles in our respective cup holders. Then Ari began to munch on her Sour Patch Kids, not saying a word. I still didn’t know why we were here, and physically had to restrain myself from reaching into my back pocket and extracting my phone. I had never felt more like one of those iPhone-reliant tween girls than I did now.

           The lights dimmed even more (if possible), and the trailers came to an end. Some music started playing, and then pictures that looked like they were from the nineties started popping up in almost a collage-like manner. This was just the beginning, and I already wanted to freaking jump out of a window (alas, it was a movie theater, so there were none). Then I felt something on my knee. It was a finger, outlining my kneecap in a circular motion. After a moment it stopped, and Ari turned to face me. Neither of us had put on our 3D glasses yet. They weren’t even out of their plastic packaging.

           “Do you know what the name of this movie is, Eric?”

           “‘How To Torture Eric Wilson in One Easy Step?’” I guessed lamely, not bothering to keep my voice down to the typical movie-theater-quiet. Ari did, though.

           “Actually, it’s called ‘One Direction: This Is Us.’”

           “Do you know the best part about being in a movie theater alone, Ari Pomegranate?”

           “Tell me, Eric Wilson,” she prompted without even an ounce of hesitation. But I couldn’t. The best part couldn’t be expressed in words—like description in writing, it had to be shown, not told. So I showed her.

           My face inched closer to hers, and within a nanosecond, we were kissing, and I almost didn’t mind that we were currently listening to the One Direction movie as a soundtrack. Almost. The kiss made up for it, though. Kissing Ari Remon could make up for just about anything. There was such a sincerity about it, and also it was the fact that I was kissing Ari Remon that added to the sensation. One Direction, Ari Remon’s lips (which tasted like Sour Patch Kids, for the record), and me. It was an unexpected mix, but it worked.

           Then, because all good things had to come to an end, I heard a frighteningly high-pitched shriek from a few feet away: “OH-EM-GEE! YOU LOOK JUST LIKE JACKSON FROM TEEN WOLF! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” And there were the twelve-year-olds.

           With that, we sprinted out of the theater, haphazardly grabbing our candy and water. As first dates went, I already knew that this was by far the best. But the date didn’t earn its spot at the top of Eric Wilson’s List of Epic Dates because of what we did or where we went, but rather whom I did it with. This was us.