Amy Rossi
Dinner is the hardest time. We think, oh, that place is in the business district, we can get a table no problem, or, it’s so late in the evening, it should be fine. All I’ve had is a handful of grapes. Maybe a few crackers. I’m hanging on to okay because the bread basket is in sight. Then the hostess says, not without a smirk, there’s an hour and a half wait, and we’re back in the car, staring at each other like it’s a contest. Whoever shrugs first loses.
I think since I came up with Plan A, he should figure out Plan B, and he makes a larger, sweeping statement about the status of our relationship – why do we struggle? he sighs, so plaintive – and I want to say, why can’t it ever just be about dinner, but instead I ask if this is as unfulfilling as the relationship he was in when he slept with me. He offers to take me home. I stop skirting and ask if there’s someone else and he doesn’t answer immediately, just drives, and what happens is, we end up sitting in the car outside of the Chinese food place for an hour while I sob so hard the capillaries above my eyelids will have burst tomorrow morning.
Later he says, you got a lot of mileage out of us not being able to get a table and I think, we have to start going to places that take reservations.
Amy Rossi’s work has previously appeared in decomP and the other room journal.
