“I’ve got good news and bad news” the Wedding Date tells me.
Seeing as we’re supposed to be meeting for dinner in less than 24 hours, this can only mean one thing: he’s won the lottery and is moving to the Cayman Islands, thus rendering all previous dinner-and-dancing plans null and void.
“Tell me the bad news first,” I say.
“Well, when I called Amada to make a reservation, they told me the earliest they could seat us was 10:15. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can wait till 10:00pm to eat dinner.”
I nod, rather relieved, but then, remembering that we’re talking on the phone, I proceed to come up with one of the best lines in the history of awkward pre-date conversation: Ten o’clock? Yeah, I would probably need a snack before then.
(This, by the way, is almost as good as “I carried a watermelon.”)
Undeterred, the Wedding Date proceeds to tell me the good news. “So I called Cuba Libre instead and got us a reservation for 8:30. Does that work for you?”
I’m floored.
He’s… capable.
Cuba Libre was my second choice for dinner anyway, and only because their sangria is the second best in the city of Philadelphia (as opposed to Amada’s, which is the absolute best) and comes with a full half pear wedged into the glass. I sometimes forget my manners when it comes to wine-marinated fruit (Remember Date #1?) but now that I think about it, Amada’s sangria is just as bad: it comes with a cinnamon stick that you can use as a straw if you don’t care what your date thinks about you.
Not that I would know anything about that.
So we’re going to Cuba Libre and I will dutifully resist the urge to go plunging my newly manicured hands into my glass to pluck out the pear (or will, at the very least, wait until my date decides to do so; I maintain that it’s perfectly acceptable to be a heathen, so long as you’re not the first heathen).
I have, of course, no idea what to wear and am equally stumped on shoes, accessories and handbag selection. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a first date—months, actually—and the thought of going salsa dancing with a man who actually knows how to dance salsa and isn’t shorter than me is fairly terrifying: we might actually be good together.
Of course if we’re not, I won’t be able to blame it on the height variance (which means I will have to finally concede, for once and for all, that I’m not actually all that good at dancing salsa).
But it’s Friday. I’m three hours away from the end of the work week and am meeting a man for dinner who has managed, on his own, to select a restaurant, call for a reservation and a call a second restaurant upon learning that we would not be seated at the first until well after acceptable dinner/snacking hours.
I do love a man with a plan.
Cuba Libre
