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Last Date
by
Kurt Reichenbaugh
“Why are you stopping?” Tim squinted in the dark.
Melissa steered the Honda up to the Circle-K, parking it near the ice cooler. A locked chain draped through the handles of its aluminum panels above the red letters I-C-E. The spaces near the entrance were occupied; a sallow orange and white VW van with obligatory cracked windshield next to a Dodge Neon the color of soot caked sunset. Light from the gasoline island washed out across the lot.
“I’m thirsty.” Melissa answered, pulling up the emergency break. A habit, Tim figured, that she brought from San Francisco. “You want something?” she asked.
“Can’t you just wait ‘till we get to your place?” Impatience bubbled below the surface of his voice.
“I’m thirsty now.” She turned the engine off. Tim noticed with a pang of desire that the hem of her short black dress had ridden high up on her thighs. Her legs shifted as she dug through the coins in the change compartment between their seats.
“Let me go in.” Tim undid his seatbelt.
He grabbed the handle of his door and noticed for the first time the shadows stirring at the corner furthest from the store’s entrance. Four of them. Not counting any he couldn’t see around the side. They faced the Honda, all jackets and baggy pants, hung low, bunched thick around shoes as they leaned against the store. A cigarette’s glow hovered against the hooded face of one of them.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Melissa said as she counted out change. “You wait here and I’ll be right out.”
“Let’s just go,” Tim said. “I don’t like the look of those guys.”
“You worry too much,” she said, door open, loud enough for them to hear. He wondered, with a guilty twinge of envy, how much of a view up her skirt they enjoyed as she climbed out of the Honda. She slammed the door shut and stepped onto the walk, her heels clicking on the pavement, skirt swirling around her fine dark legs as she entered the store.
They had just attended a performance of Sunset Blvd at the Orpheum. The tickets set Tim back more then he would have liked, but if it meant, at last, getting an invitation into Melissa’s bed, then it was worth it. He knew he was treading dangerous territory of becoming her friend, her confidant, and worse, one of the “girls”. Hours spent lusting after her, ever since she came to the firm, going to waste.
The first time he asked Melissa out, a thinly disguised offer to “show the new girl the town”; she had politely declined, begging a previous commitment. He would have given up then, had she not suggested a rain-check for the following weekend. He took the bait. Sushi for dinner, then a movie at the multiplex. One of those hackneyed movies starring Cameron Diaz, something he never would have gone for if she hadn’t picked it. The date ended in her driveway, with her telling him how she had to be up early the next morning to meet her new friends at the gym. “Call me,” she said as she fluttered out of his Lexus. She waved goodnight from her front door, before shutting it and turning off the porch light.
He should have gone into the store with her. Bad form letting her go in alone, especially considering those grungy hoods skulking around the corner. Tim looked for her through the painted windows; his view blocked by signs advertising Busch beer and Power Ball tickets. That was his problem; never knowing what the right thing to do was until the moment to do it had passed.
He screwed up somewhere on that first date. Driving home that night, second-guessing each exchange between them, every subtle gesture she’d made, hints he might have missed, opportunities squandered. He tried to convince himself that Melissa wasn’t one to rush things and that he did right by not making a move on her. But he knew in his gut he’d blown it.
He didn’t call her the next morning. Maybe she would call him instead. He puttered around his house, trying not to think too much while getting chores done. By sundown, he decided that Melissa had probably spent the day, much like he had, in a listless funk waiting for the phone to ring. He made up for it by calling her Sunday morning and getting her answering machine. He left an innocuous message about seeing her at the office on the following Monday.
How long could it take to buy a bottle of water? Tim sat up in the Honda, hoping to see Melissa at the cash register. She wasn’t a soda drinker, so it wasn’t like she’d be at the fountain dispenser topping off a bucket-sized plastic cup with carbonated syrup. Bad for the figure, that. Nor would she be grazing in the snack-food aisle. A vision of her as a hot-assed little blue-jeaned teenager craving munchies in a 7-11 flittered in his mind. Bet she was a real heartbreaker at seventeen.
He remembered the message she had left for him that Monday morning after their date, thanking him for the nice evening. He called her back, getting the standard “I’m-either-on-my-phone-or-away-from-my-desk” recording. She was never in her office. The fleeting moments he saw her were usually between appointments with clients or meetings with the Sales department, outside of the odd minute or two when they happened to hit the break room at the same time. She always greeted him with a big company smile, asking how his day was going. Moments that never provided the right opportunity to ask her out again.
Maybe she didn’t feel well, Tim thought, and was too embarrassed to tell him. They weren’t yet familiar enough to announce nature’s call out of the blue to each other. Give her a few more minutes, he thought impatiently, glancing back at the shadows in the corner. Just like her to do this to him.
They became pals at work. “Hey buddy,” she’d greet him at the coffee machine or when crossing paths between cubicles. Always “hey buddy”, which really began to annoy him. It announced to everyone exactly where he stood with her. Then she’d flash that white grin of hers, breezing off to another meeting, lilting offers of “doing lunch together, sometime,” trailing behind her. Lunches which always included a third or fourth party, an audience, should he try maneuvering his way into another date with her.
Then he scored the tickets to Sunset Blvd. An email, polished to a brief but appropriately pithy finish, nailed down the invitation to her. Melissa’s response, also by email, had the right amount of slammers he’d hoped for. But she insisted, after agreeing on a time, it was only fair that she drive since he wouldn’t let her pay for her ticket.
She’d been in there long enough. Tim opened the car door. He thought she left the keys in the ignition but apparently she hadn’t. He climbed out, shut the door, locking it first, knowing her handbag was still in the car. No point in giving the hoods still hanging around a green light.
He walked to the entrance. The VW van in front of him backed away, headlights on, lighting him up as a gust of wind blew his Fendi blue silk tie over his shoulder. He felt a thin shiver of vulnerability as he smoothed it back down. They were overdressed for this neighborhood, he thought, just asking for trouble.
A bell dinged hollowly as he entered the store. A guy in a red smock draped over bony shoulders in a gray t-shirt looked up at him from behind the cash register. Something wrong with one of his eyes, Tim noticed. Like a different color or something. A loser regardless, working a crummy job like this.
He scoped out the back end of the store, past the garishly packaged shelves to the beer and dairy coolers. No one else appeared to be around.
“Excuse me,” he said, approaching the guy behind register. One of his eyes was definitely different; a milky blue with no pupil. “I’m looking for the woman who came in here a few minutes ago; black dress, attractive.”
The one good eye flickered once toward the rear of the store then back at Tim. The other one didn’t move. “Not here, man. You sure she came in?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Tim tried to keep from looking at the blind eye as he spoke, his voice rising. “I just watched her come in here a minute ago.”
“Just some kids trying to buy beer. That’s it, dude. I’d notice any classy babes come in here.”
“Where’re your restrooms?”
The cashier gestured with a grimy thumb. “For customers only, though,” he said.
Tim ignored him and followed the gesture. A door, shut, with a handwritten sign: “Mens and Womens” taped to it. Past it was an office with a shower curtain serving as a partition. He banged on the restroom door with the edge of his fist.
“No one’s in there. I told you.”
Tim pushed it open. Empty but for a sink and a commode against the opposite wall filled with yellowed water, gelatinous in the dim light. The small room smelled like a cat-box.
“Is there a back way out of here? I saw her come in this store.” Tim peeked into the office. A desk littered with post-its, plastic cups and a full ashtray sat next to a door marked Emergency Exit. A safe crouched, bolted to the floor, beneath a laminated schedule board. Boxes filled with cigarette cartons blocked the exit.
“Customers ain’t allowed back there.”
“I know she’s in here. If you don’t tell me where she is I’ll call the police.” Tim’s voice sounded shrill in his own ears. “How about that?”
“Go ahead.” The guy sat down at register. “Pay phone’s outside.”
Sure, out by those punks, Tim thought. It was just like her, bringing him here to face them down, the teasing little bitch.
He shoved through the door, bell dinging again, and headed boldly toward Melissa’s car. His cell phone was inside it. The Neon was gone. With any luck, those punks were gone with it.
He reached the handle, remembering it was locked, looking inside, wishing she’d be sitting in it; waiting for him. Its black windows reflected the store lights back at him. He went to the payphone and lifted the receiver from the box. Its cord swung free and dangled at his knees.
“It’s dead, man.” One of them stepped out from around the dark corner.
“You lost, dog?” Another one came forward.
Tim’s heart raced. They surrounded him, faces impassive; bad teeth imbedded in patchy beards, blue-lipped and pimpled, black eyes beneath wool caps. Oversized jackets displayed team logos.
“I’m looking for my wife,” Tim said in a small voice. “You guys seen her?”
“What she look like?”
“Black dress, long hair, good looking. That’s her car.” He pointed a thin, soft finger at the Honda.
“Dog, she ain’t your wife.” The tallest one said.
“Maybe we seen her,” another one giggled. “What color panties she wearing?”
Tim then heard the Honda start and the break release. Its tires whispered over the black lot as it backed out. He tried getting around them when a hand pressed into his chest.
“We got some real fine stuff for you instead,” another one said. “Still warm even.”
The retreating headlights glimmered off their shining fists. He’d wondered how he’d answer the guys at work Monday when they asked him if Melissa finally put out for him. He’d tell them how he’d given it to her real good and how she begged for more. He knew this as the thrusting blades flashed, penetrating him, dripping fresh strawberry sized drops that burst on his Cole Haan loafers.
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© Reichenbaugh , 2007
Kurt lives in Phoenix, Arizona and he writes mostly on weekends and evenings. He enjoys reading all types of genre fiction and literature. By day he works as an accountant for a small life insurance company.