Breve Series: Date at the Water Grill

Untitled part

                                                                                                  -7-

The day of Evelyn's big date arrived.

"Come on Brigitte! We have to leave in five minutes!" yelled Susan loudly on her cell phone. She was sitting in her car, impatiently drumming with her fingers.

"I'm coming! It doesn't help at all if you call me every five minutes!" yelled back Brigitte. "I'll be right down."

Susan sighed. Brigitte already promised her four times that she would be down in a minute. Susan had been waiting for 20 minutes now and she started to lose patience. After another five minutes, she was just about to call Brigitte again when suddenly she heard a series of rapid-fire raps on the passenger-side window and a blond head with a bunch of pink, green, yellow and blue curlers appeared. Susan almost jumped out of her seat.

"Damn it, Brigitte! You scared the hell out of me!"

"Open the door, Susan, and stop yelling. I'm not deaf yet but if you go on like that I'll be soon," said Brigitte calmly.

Susan opened the car door and surveyed her sister. Brigitte was wearing her Victoria Secret's pink pajamas, green flip-flops, and she had at least a dozen curlers in her hair.

"Are you sure this is what you want to wear to the restaurant?"

"This wasn't the plan," said Brigitte, "I couldn't decide what to wear and you were bugging me non-stop."

"And what's the story about your hair?"

"I had no time to do my hair. I took a shower, washed my hair and put the curlers in but had no time to finish. Again, with your constant calls... Are you satisfied now or do you want to read my diary too?"

"Okay, if you're fine coming like that," shrugged Susan. "But I'm not walking into that restaurant with you on my side!"

"Are you crazy? I'm not going into the restaurant looking like this," exclaimed Brigitte, "I'll stay in the car and observe the situation from there. If there's an emergency and we have to intervene, nobody will care about my hair curlers."

"You got a point there," agreed Susan, "Maybe you can scare off the zombies."

"Everyone needs a big sister like you," replied Brigitte.

"Brigitte, have you considered that the chances of finding a parking spot right at the restaurant are next to nothing? Do you want to spend mom's entire date sitting in the car in your pj's a block away? You have five minutes to pull yourself together or I'll go alone. No one is going to observe anything at this rate."

Brigitte scurried back to her apartment, and miracle of miracles, came back in record time and got in the car. They drove in silence to the restaurant. They sat at the counter in the back, ordered salads and cokes, and waited. They were late but Evelyn was nowhere to be seen. They just hoped that if the guy was already there he was the patient kind. It would be too bad to blow this one chance they had at setting their mom up.

                                                                                            -8-

Ginger had arrived at the Water Grill a few minutes before noon. She wore the red dress, as instructed by Eddie. She sat down at the bar facing the entrance. She felt that this whole situation was stupid, pretending to be on a date, dealing with flowers and a chocolate box to get the money! But she went along with it to please Eddie. She ordered a whiskey on the rocks and waited. It wasn't long before a man in his early 60s entered with a rose in his hand. He stopped to look around; it was obvious he was looking for someone. It must be this loser, thought Ginger and waved to him. The man smiled back and approached her without hesitation.