I hold the door open, letting the stray gossip, transient cackles, and a fusion of salmon and anxious conversation filter out into the cold April air.

You mention something about how refreshing it is to be with a gentleman, as you glide by in your fluorescent, jelly-fish dress.

She would have curtsied, over-exaggerating so we didn’t let the posh’ness slip to our heads.

You seem to drink the posh’ness in, an “I could get used to this” look playing across your face in the dim crackling-fire lights from above.

I think how we are in something like a Bond villain’s living room but filter the thought away as more of a fourth to sixth date type observation.

The hostess asks how many and you revel in telling her “two” and that we have a reservation.

Obviously. This isn’t Applebee’s. But your glee is infectious. No need to be an asshole. Besides, whether you’re more of an inner asshole or outer asshole it doesn’t really matter, eventually you smell the shit. I’m glad for the smell of steaming vegetables assaulting our noses as a skinny waiter with spiked tips bustles past.

Metaphors about assholes are crass and I remind myself they don’t belong in a restaurant that houses a mosaic rug beneath our feet.

A painting of a pristine, stick of a smoking Parisian woman is hanging on the wall adjacent to me. The street this woman is on is filled with dogs, elderly couples, and a stroller or two. They all look eerily like Eiffel Towers, all in human, dog, and stroller form, their spindly legs elongated like the whole painting had been pushed through a pasta strainer.

It looks crowded along this Parisian street, and I’m not sure if I would like living in this particular painting. I think of this a lot; a man-version of Alice sucked down the rabbit hole, only in my case it’s always a poker scene, a screaming Bruce Springsteen concert, or a dimly lit, one spotlight street. I guess any scene would be hellish to live in forever but some more than others.

I think of pointing the painting out to you, but see that you’re engrossed in a lively conversation with the hostess. I’m sure you’re asking for a booth by the window.

I decide not to mention the painting to you. You would say how beautiful it looks, how quaint. You would say how much you would want to visit but I don’t think you would.

She would say something about how their long legs matched her own.

“Perhaps that one right there is my mother,” she would say, pointing to the smoking woman front and center on the bench.

I would say something about how I know her mother well, and that her legs are much much longer than that. She would laugh and hit me, harder than present company would seem to allow for.

“And this is why you would never get brought to Paris!”

Then, in a glimpse of unjoking clarity, she would tell me she wouldn’t like Paris, which is good cause she could never afford it she’d say.

She’d be half right. She was lousy with financials and working as an assistant for a dental company rarely came with Paris level spending money.

But she would like it, I would be sure.

I hardly notice how long I’ve been watching the large middle class family at the nearest table that somehow slipped past posh security. I feel a little more at home seeing the group of invaders sliding quarters across the table for entertainment, much to the displeasure of mom and the partially concealed bemusement of dad. I wonder if they would recognize a fellow party crasher such as myself, hidden beneath the dry cleaned jacket I stole from my father just a few years ago.

If it weren’t for your frantic hand waving normally reserved for an airport runway employee (it usually required flags I always thought), I would not have realized we were being ushered to our table. You laugh off my distractedness as me “getting caught up in your beauty”, and I respond with a polite smile. Your grip is cautious but direction is stern as you pull my hand like one would an overstimulated child at Disney World.

We are finally seated at a booth. The tone in which you thank the hostess makes me understand you were the winner of the where-shall-we-seat-you debate. I thank her in turn as well.

“It really is a nice place,” I say, realizing I have added little to the ambiance of our date but having little to lead with. I’ve only known you so long.

Having made it to our personal alcove safe, you are back to gawking at the surroundings.

“It is,” you respond in a whisper, “and did you see the wine glasses?”

You hold your face of shock a bit too long. For a moment it is as if I have been frozen in time. I would rather be stuck in the Paris painting I think.

“I did,” I say, “very fancy.”

We settle into a discussion of the lighting smoothly.

Soon the waitress is upon us. She is cute enough to be a waitress but not cute enough to make my date feel threatened by her flirtatious, serving presence. I wonder if it shows in her tips. She trounces her curly black hair with a twist of her head and throws a smile on that looks like it might get stuck by the end of the night. Her tone and excitement seem authentic enough though, and she settles right into the spiel she must give nearly a hundred times a night.

“Can I interest you guys in the house wine tonight?” she says, her smile gaining momentum as she speaks.

I graciously turn it down, without consulting my date. You look a bit put off. If it was in my price range I would, but we will have to do with Moscato for the night.

“Yes, and we are actually ready to order if that’s alright,” I say.

It isn’t classy but you did tell me you were 90ish percent positive you knew what you wanted. I’ll go first and give you a few more moments to decide.

She would’ve called me an ass.

I order the chicken parmigiana. I fumble through the menu as I recite it to the waitress, as if I hadn’t had the dish memorized and she would need a friendly point to be reminded it was, in fact, on the menu.

You smile and tell me it’s a wonderful choice.

She would have mocked me and told me to try something new.

I don’t really like trying new things though, that’s the thing. I found out I was allergic to shrimp once that way. No, I think Chicken Parmigiana will do for tonight.