A Little Slice of Heaven

Robin smoothed the napkin on his lap and smiled at her. “It was only after I was stung by the box jellyfish that I realized I liked chocolate cake best.”

Lisa put down her cosmopolitan and looked for the waiter. Robin was the kind of irritating jerk that she avoided religiously, or had, until her dermatologist, with whom she’d been sleeping for months, told her he could never leave his four kids ages four to eleven. She had been angry, annoyed, and since then, horny.

Then she met Robin at a car wash. He had a scrupulously clean car, and always kept an extra chap stick and a package of tissues in the glove compartment. For this, she might forgive him anything. After the second date, she let him take her home. His apartment was full of disinfecting wipes and breath mints. He was straight, had fresh breath, and was prepared for the new millennium of germ warfare. He was boyfriend material.

“Is that so?” She applied some lipstick and blotted it on the napkin. He did look cute when he was talking. He had a boyish face, smooth skin and full cheeks that sprouted stubble as easily as grass on fresh ground in spring. If you didn’t pay attention to what he was saying, he sounded swell; handsome and earnest, voice booming like a king.

He leaned back and stretched his arms behind his neck. “Some days I’d like vanilla, and some chocolate. I’m not the kind of man that likes uncertainty. Still, I shouldn’t have put my hand in the tank.” Lisa nearly choked. She had assumed he’d gotten stung on the beach.

Her previous boyfriend had collected his fingernail clippings in a small wooden box. This didn’t turn her off as much as his insistence on reading the entire Economist sitting on the toilet Sunday morning. She would lie in bed, hungry, envisioning the post-coital crowd at the local eatery finishing the last scraps of bacon. She didn’t think she was picky, just selective. But still, her mom was married by twenty-five and had three kids by the time she was Lisa’s age.

The tables near them were full of married couples, eating silently and occasionally smiling and touching. Lisa was jealous of them, their ability to look backward and forward, to rest in the present with barely a gesture. Her life was on perennial reset.

Finally, the appetizers came. Tuna tartare, brilliant little slivers of reddish fish snowed with kosher salt, and a delicate basket of fried calamari. She hooked a piece of tuna on the tines of her fork and slipped it onto her plate. The fish reminded her of her uncle Walter, who loved fish, but hated odor. All his fish had to be raw. He would come to dinner and slap his sushi-quality fish down on one of your plates and go to town.

“So, you’re not related to the Colonel, are you?”

Lisa was used to being asked this as a joke constantly, but Robin was serious. She was surprised this hadn’t occurred to him before. “No, a different Sanders,” she said.

“No chicken?”

“No chicken. My family made paper clips.” She waited, but he didn’t seem bored.

She watched as his thick, golden fingers plucked one of the breaded tentacles off the pile of rings. Some people would never touch food with their fingers; others seemed to love the familiarity of it. Robin held the squid to his lips and gently pulled off one of the arched limbs. Lisa felt attracted and repelled at the same time. His hands seemed warm and gentle in the candlelight. She wondered what he would be like to sleep with. Would he talk, or would he just touch?

“My granddad owned a paper clip factory,” she continued. “My father took over for him when he retired. By all accounts I should either be making paper clips or babies, or both. Not writing legal papers.” She looked down at her own cold hands, dry and cracked from a long day in the office. Maybe he would hold them later when they walked to the cars. She was glad she wasn’t eating alone again.

She had let him order, again, unusual for her. You couldn’t go wrong with Italian, anyway. She’d done the calculation in her head, balancing equality, self-esteem, with the need for one less decision and the possibility of being touched. The main course was taking just a little too long. He was looking at her. She was sad, a little. There just wasn’t that much to wonder about her. People like her were a dime a dozen; the job, the condo, the mother calling every weekend. All the guys she met were the same. Equally desperate, looking for true love in a haystack full of settling.

Finally, the main course came, two steaming plates of veal saltimbocca, so politically incorrect and tasty. Robin looked so happy, she could be with him forever.

“Is this your favorite dish?” she asked.

“Nah,” he said, grabbing his knife. “Kung pao.”

“What?”

“Kung pao chicken. I always get aroused after eating kung pao chicken.”

Lisa smiled and blushed a little. “Probably a good thing we’re eating Italian tonight, then. People would talk.”

He smiled back. “I like Italian too. And I like eating with you.”

“You sound like you like a lot of things.” She wasn’t sure if she was flirting.

“I like sex,” he said. She guessed she must have been flirting. “Sex is like Chinese food,” he continued, his fork full of veal paused in mid-air. “A little slice of heaven every time.”

They finished their meal over small talk and wine and walked to the parking lot, close enough to feel each others’ heat like a beacon in the cool autumn air. She thought maybe she’d take a chance on him. One thing could lead to another thing and to another thing, and it could be pretty good even if it wasn’t your favorite.