In Every Possible Way

One

It was probably a bad idea-spending my thirty-seventh birthday on a first date-but I admit I'd let myself daydream. It would make a great story, wouldn't it? If we ended up together forever?

I didn't even know it was her birthday at first, he'd say to our . . . well, kids felt like a bit much, but maybe he'd be telling the story to his big, happy family who marveled at the way he lit up around me. But when she told me I said, Okay then, let's keep the night going.

And we'd do something extra romantic, I didn't know what because what was there romantic to do near this strip mall Thai food restaurant, but it'd be something. It'd be magical.

Instead, my date was fifteen minutes late and the night only went downhill from there.

"Jess?" he said, pointing at me. The way his gaze swept down my body, I could tell he was disappointed. It's just one of those things you can pick up on, after you've been on enough dates. I was wearing my favorite dress, made of a gauzy fabric with a lining underneath except for the sleeves, which were sheer and a little blousy, ending in cuffs with a line of buttons on them like something out of the Victorian era. Two overlapping panels of fabric across my chest made a deep V neck, and the skirt was swirly and tied with a string around my waist that was more fashion than function. I'd owned this dress forever, so it was kind of shabby, if you looked too closely at it. It was a little loose on me, but in a way I personally thought looked good-skimming my body without clinging to it. It also happened to be the most beautiful color I'd ever seen, a deep purplish-blue or bluish-purple depending on how you wanted to describe it. I didn't even know the name of the color.

"Sure," I said, because in my mind I was like, Sure, of course, this is how it always goes so why did I think it would be any different?

"Is that not your name?" he asked. His was Niall, as I knew from the app, and there was a hint of an Irish accent in his voice that said maybe he'd come by the name honestly.

"No, it is," I said. "Should we-"

An apathetic hostess had grabbed two menus and was showing us to a booth by the window, where I had a perfect view of the advertisement for $8.99 Botox next door.

"I feel like I got robbed," I said, gesturing to the sign. "They charge ten dollars a unit down the street."

He looked at me blankly. "If you'd rather me call you Jessica, just say so. Your profile had your name as Jess."

"My name is Jess," I said, trying to give him a smile. It occurred to me that maybe he was nervous, which endeared him to me a bit. He didn't look like a man who'd be nervous on a first date-he was attractive, with dark hair and blue eyes, and then there was that accent. His profile had said he was younger than me by a year-two years now, I guessed, technically-but I'd figured that age gap was so small as to be inconsequential. Who cared about a couple of years when you were in your thirties? At the same time, I couldn't help but be conscious that most of the men my age on the app seemed to be looking for women ten years younger. My Botox joke had only been because there happened to be a sign outside the window, but maybe it had been a poorly chosen reminder of one of the differences between us.

"Sorry." I fiddled with one of the buttons at my wrist, which was starting to come loose. "I don't know why I said sure when you asked me that the first time. I think I'm a little nervous? I always get nervous before first dates because I don't know if I'm any good at them."

He'd already flipped the menu over and was looking around for the server. "I usually get the panang curry here. It has a bit of a kick, if that's a problem for you. I know some people really can't handle spice."

"I read a lot of romance," I said. "Believe me, I can handle spice."

What the fuuuuuuuuck. I didn't even know what I was saying, or why I was saying it. I was stuck in some horrifying I need a vacation from my vacation type nightmare, except in this one I wasn't just spouting clichés but potentially opening up a can of worms I really didn't want to open. I'd made the mistake of talking about the books I was reading on a date before, and even if it was a mix of genres, somehow the romance was always the one that got interrogated. It bummed me out, having to argue for my own interests like there was something wrong with them in the first place. I didn't even like the word spice when applied to books, for god's sake, it had just flown out of my mouth.

The worst part was that I think I'd been trying to flirt.

Niall had flagged down the server and was already placing his order. "One panang curry, with a Diet Coke to drink. And she'll have-"

He looked at me expectantly, but I hadn't even had time to review the menu yet. The server was a young woman in her early twenties, probably enrolled in classes at the university ten minutes away. I felt a sudden pang of tenderness for her, just thinking about my own food service and retail jobs in college, while I was studying to be an artist. I'd often been surprised by how much habit and muscle memory could pull me through when my head was somewhere else, thinking of brushstrokes and composition and shadows and light.

Not unlike now, when this woman just wanted my dinner order.

"The same, please," I said. "Only with water."

Once the server had left, Niall looked at me full on for the first time since we'd sat down. His gaze dipped to my cleavage, which would've been gratifying except it kind of awkwardly just stayed there.

"Diet Coke underwent hundreds of tests to make sure it met Coca-Cola's standards before it was brought to market," he said to my chest. "Some people think it's Coke with the sugar subbed out, but it's a completely different formula."

"Oh," I said. "Well, that's cool. Are you big into the history of soda?"

I'd meant the question sincerely-I could settle in to learn some interesting facts about carbonated beverages over the years-but he gave me a look like I was out of my mind. At least he was looking at my face again.

"No," he said. "I just take an interest in what I put inside my body."

Me, too, buddy, I wanted to say, but of course I couldn't. I thought about making a joke about the market testing for water, remembered his non-reaction to the Botox joke, and decided against it.

I cast around for things to say related to what he'd put in his dating profile, or the few conversations we'd had through the app's messaging function. I knew his name was Niall and he was thirty-five, he had a job in marketing but I wasn't quite sure what, and he'd picked this restaurant because it was around the corner from where he lived even though it was so far from my work that I'd had to ask to shift the start time for the date back half an hour. I'd liked his profile picture-not just because he was attractive, but because he'd been standing in front of the greenest grass I'd ever seen. Something about it had called to me.

"You must be from Ireland?" I said, thinking of that picture, that accent.

"God," he groaned. "What do women find so compelling about Ireland? Let me guess, you've seen Leap Year a few times? It's a rainy backwater shithole, is what it is."

I had, in fact, seen Leap Year a few times. But obviously I wasn't going to say that now. I thought randomly of a painting I'd studied as part of a twentieth-century art history class, The Liffey Swim, the way it put you as one of the spectators to an annual sporting event in Dublin. The colors had been all grays and greens, unexpected streaks of red in the water, and then the contrast of the pale clouded sky above. I thought of everything else I knew about Ireland-how green it was, that it rained a lot, yes, that it had a rich history of folklore and fairy tales and storytelling. I'd gone through my own phase of looking for four-leaf clovers, believing in them as a symbol of luck.

"That's how some people would describe Florida," I said with a smile, trying to show that I hadn't meant anything more by the question than idle curiosity, something to talk about. "Sunshine State reputation aside. How long have you lived here?"

"Just over a decade."

"It must've been a bit of a culture shock."

"Not really."

I was grateful when our drinks came and I could take a sip of my water just for something to do. There was no way I was going to tell this man that it was my birthday. I just hoped I could get home in time to read a few chapters of my book before I was too tired to keep my eyes open. It had been a long week.

"I've never been out of the country," I said. "I don't even have a passport."

He made a face that had to be because of what I'd said and not because of his Diet Coke, which had been meticulously formulated to be delicious. "That's irresponsible," he chided. "If you haven't traveled, you haven't lived."

"Well, I've traveled," I said. "I went to Washington, D.C., on a class trip. When I was a kid, we spent a lot of time in St. Augustine. My parents both worked a lot and couldn't always take more than a long weekend off, so that was where we'd go for family vacations." I brightened as I thought of something that might actually get his attention. "Oh, and I've been to Atlanta-we did the Coke museum and everything."

"But that was all when you were a child," Niall said. "And by car, which doesn't count. I went on enough school trips to Carrowmore and you don't hear me going on about it."

I didn't think listing a few cities was going on about it, but I just took another sip of my water. "Maybe you should," I said. "Do you still have a lot of family there?"

He stared at me for a beat, like he was trying to work out if that first comment was sarcastic or not. It weirdly lifted my mood, gave me a tiny sliver of hope. Before that, it wasn't always clear how much he was even following my side of the conversation-so far, he'd either ignored what I'd said or seemed to want to debate a slightly different version of it. Maybe by the time dinner came, he'd be ready to ask me questions or reciprocate in any way.

"My older sister Kathleen," he said. "Then after me, my sister Siobhán. My brother Eamonn. And then there are the twins, Rachel and Claire."

That snagged my interest. "Oh wow. You have a lot of siblings."

"Yes, well done," he said. "Go ahead and make the joke. I've heard it before."

I was sorry I'd gotten us down this path at all. Somehow, I seemed to have really offended this guy, but I couldn't figure out how. "No, no joke," I said. "I don't know, I've always liked the idea of a big family. I'm trash for-"

"Stop," he said, harsh enough that I flinched. "Don't do that. I hate when you do that."

His mouth was a tight line, and he looked genuinely upset. Not just upset . . . angry. I couldn't believe the way he'd said that-I hate when you do that-like he'd known me for longer than fifteen minutes, like we had a relationship deep enough for him to have already developed a strong distaste for some pattern or habit of mine. I wasn't even entirely sure what he was talking about.

"You hate when I . . . do what?"

"That self-deprecating kind of humor, I hate that."

I still had to trace backward through what I'd said to piece it together. "I'm trash for? That's just an expression. You know, a meme. I'm trash for iced coffee, that kind of thing."

"And then earlier you said you weren't good at first dates," he pointed out. "Just stop it. It's unattractive, putting yourself down like that."

If anything, that had been a vulnerable confession in hopes of easing the early awkwardness between us. One that he hadn't even bothered to respond to in the moment, so I was surprised to hear him bringing it up now. "I'm not very good at first dates," I said, my voice flat. "Clearly."

"Well, if I can give you some constructive feedback, you could try being a little more positive. Smile more. You looked a lot happier in your profile picture."

That's because my best friend took the shot, I wanted to say, and she wasn't in the middle of giving me any constructive feedback while she did it.

"So did you," I said. Come to think of it, he hadn't smiled at me once, not even the reflexive one you usually give someone upon meeting them for the first time. "Any more feedback?"

His gaze flickered over me, and immediately I regretted asking. This was a man who'd take that kind of question literally, so I'd just opened myself up for it. "That dress looks like a bag on you. You shouldn't be ashamed of your figure."

I could feel my face growing hot and I really, really didn't want to cry. I was, unfortunately, one of those people who cried for almost any reason. When there was a particularly gnarly paper jam in the printer at work and it was just the last thing I needed that day. When I turned a corner in an art museum and happened upon an abstract painting with an evocative title that hit me in the gut. I couldn't even hear the opening notes to "Fast Car" without my throat getting tight.

"I'm not ashamed of it," I said. "I like this dress."

"You don't think that when someone has an accent, it might be the first thing anyone ever asks them about? It gets old. It's problematic, when you get down to it. And sure doesn't make a guy feel great, like you'd rather be on a date with his brother just because his accent's stronger."