HOLLISTER
I didn’t know what Ben had planned for our date—it was a secret—but he did mention that we’d be taking a car service into the city.
“That way we don’t have to worry if we want to drink,” he said.
“There’s another cure for that,” I explained. “It’s called public transportation. You do know there’s a train that will take you from Long Island into the city? It’s how the rest of us lowly people travel. They also have the best hot dog cart near Penn Station.”
“Hot dog cart?” He grimaced dramatically. “Yuck. And the train is awful. Do you like sitting down on other people’s chewing gum? Not to mention the pervasive smell of urine and antiseptic.”
He had a point. Traveling by car when we were dressed up would be much nicer. When I asked what to wear, he said, “formal but not black tie.” Not sure exactly what that meant, I wore the swankiest thing in my closet—a silver dress that revealed what I considered a tasteful amount of cleavage. It looked fabulous paired with the secondhand black Louboutins that I’d gotten for the reunion. Jenna styled my hair into a messy updo she called bedroom Bardot and gave me smoky eyes and a subtle lip.
When she was finished, she stood behind me with her arms folded across her chest and smiled. “He’s not going to know what hit him.”
Judging from the way Ben stumbled on the sidewalk when I walked out the door of my apartment, I knew I’d achieved bombshell status.
“Wow.” I caught the scent of his cologne, clean and masculine, as he leaned in to kiss my lips. “You look incredible.”
I ran my hands down the lapels of his suit, my high heels putting us nearly eye to eye. He looked dashing in his charcoal gray suit and black tie, changing my mind about conservative menswear. I’d never realized before that there was a lot to be said for a confident man in a perfectly fitted suit. Surprisingly, I liked it better than worn jeans and a leather jacket, at least on Ben.
“You do too,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see once we get there.”
We walked hand in hand to the black Lincoln Town Car, our fingers wound together, and it felt both completely natural and utterly surreal. Maybe if and when we ran into someone we knew, the reality of Ben being my boyfriend would finally sink in. The shock value of Ben and me being a couple was enticing—it would blow some of our classmates’ minds. But I needed to be comfortable with it first, and I was still getting there.
An hour later, we were seated in a Manhattan restaurant that buzzed with subdued conversation and the light clink of silverware against plates. The waiters and waitresses floated unobtrusively among the diners, delivering delicious-smelling food and bottles of wine. There wasn’t a child in sight, and I wondered if there was a rule against them or an unspoken understanding that they weren’t particularly welcome. Everything on the leather-bound menu sounded incredible, but there were no prices, which made me fidget in my seat even though I wasn’t the one paying the bill.
“Are you supposed to guess what everything costs?” I asked Ben.
“You’re not supposed to worry about it. Get whatever sounds good to you.”
A prickly sensation crept up the back of my neck as I took in the copious amount of silverware surrounding my plate. There was enough for several meals. I knew one of the forks was for dinner and the other was for salad, but this setting had three forks. Three! Why was it even necessary to have more than one? They all did the same job.
Resentment and anxiety coiled in my belly as I thought about how this type of table arrangement seemed purposely exclusionary. Only the in-group knew what to do with such a surplus of utensils and tiny plates. I glanced across the table to see if Ben was watching me, waiting for me to fail at this, and found him studying the wine menu instead. When he sensed my gaze, he looked up.
“What’s wrong?”
I tried to keep my tone light. “I’m getting a serious Princess and the Pea vibe.”
“What does that mean?” I waited for understanding to dawn on him, and when it did, he set down the menu. “You think this is a test?”
When I saw the shock in his blue eyes, I was hit by the absurdity of my suggestion that he would take me to a fancy restaurant to test my etiquette skills. Of course he wasn’t doing that, but knowing I was wrong didn’t diminish my discomfort.
“No, I don’t actually think you’re testing me, but you have to understand how foreign this is to me. My mother calculated the tax down to the penny to make sure we could pay at the grocery store. Hell, I did the same thing when Zoe was little and money was tight. Eating in a restaurant where they don’t put prices on the menu gives me a panicky feeling right here.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “And all this freaking silverware…”
I expected him to be upset with me, to think I was being ungrateful. How could someone like Ben understand how overwhelming a place like this was for someone like me?
He nodded briskly and put his napkin on the table. “Okay, no problem. We’ll go somewhere else.” From what I could tell he was disappointed but not angry.
I pressed my hand on top of his, pinning it to the table. “No, I’m not saying I want to leave. I just need you to understand that I’m feeling like a fish out of water. Maybe if we talk about it, I can get over it. The food smells amazing, and I’d like to stay.” He eyed me uncertainly. “Seriously, I would.”
“I do understand.” He turned his hand over and wove his fingers through mine. “A menu with no prices suggests that money is no object. I’m sorry if I was flippant about that. I can see how that feels elitist.”
“That’s exactly it.” The relief I felt at his words made me relax a little. “I appreciate you taking me somewhere this nice; I really do. I’m not trying to be difficult.”
“Do you want to know why I picked this place?” he asked. “You had ‘eat lobster’ on your YOLO list. I found out what restaurants had the best lobster in New York City, and this place was in the top five. I’ve never even been here before tonight. That’s the only reason I chose it.”
Everything inside me turned to molten chocolate. “That’s why we’re here? Because I wanted lobster?”
“It’s a little stuffier than I imagined it would be, but yes, that’s why we’re here. Lobster. No tests.”
This man with the soft blue eyes and eager-to-please intentions was not “Ben Rose, the asshole from high school.” He was Ben, my handsome date who brought me to the best lobster restaurant in town. Or at least one of the top five. He was the man who wrapped my ankle when I fell out of the sky and who made a salad in my kitchen. Who gave me multiple orgasms and was going to warn me about the sodium content of microwave dinners for the rest of my life, if I let him. He wanted to impress me and make me happy, not outclass me. The issue tonight was mine, not his.
“Thank you for being so thoughtful,” I said. “If this place wasn’t so classy, I’d come over there and kiss you.”
It was Ben’s turn to shift uncomfortably in his seat. Someone wasn’t used to getting compliments from me. Or maybe it was the threat of public displays of affection that made him squirm.
“You’re welcome.” He lifted the wine menu again. “Shall we pick a wine?”
Even though I knew his intentions were noble, the opulence of the setting still made my pits sweat. It was hard to get over the feeling that I wasn’t the kind of girl who ate in a place like that. Over the years, I’d prided myself on having leveled up—going to college and working corporate jobs, becoming a woman who could network and speak the language of the elite. It only took a heavy leather-bound menu and a massive set of silverware to put me back in my place.
After we gave our orders to our server, I made my confession. “I’m excited to try lobster, but there’s one problem.” I dropped my voice to a whisper, feeling my face heat. “I don’t know how to eat it.”
Admitting weakness wasn’t easy for me, but there wasn’t going to be a way to hide my ignorance when a dead crustacean was placed in front of me. I might as well do it now.
“It’s easy,” he said reassuringly. “You get this tool to crack it and that small fork is to get the meat out. I can show you how.”
So that’s what fork number three was for.
“You’re not going to laugh at me?” I asked warily.
“Of course not. We can swap plates if you don’t like the lobster.”
“You’re being very sweet to me,” I said. “I like it.”
“I have my moments.”
“Hey,” I made sure I had his attention. “I appreciate all of this. I know you grew up eating lobster and such, but it’s a real treat for me. And I’m going to enjoy it and just follow your lead with the fork usage.”
“We didn’t go places like this often.” He took a sip of water before adding, “But my mother was a stickler for manners, and she liked to set a table. Still does. This place makes me think of her. She’d love it.”
“Where do your parents live now? Still on Long Island?”
He stiffened ever so slightly, and it brought to mind the old Ben Rose. The shift was so subtle, just a straightening of his posture, a flare of the nostrils. A memory flickered inside of me. This was the response you got from Ben when you touched a nerve, something I’d tried to do often in high school.
“She’s in Naples, Florida. My father is deceased.”
I murmured my sympathies, curious why he bristled when I asked about his parents. Did he have a troubled relationship with one or both of them? Maybe someday he’d open up to me about his family, but a fancy restaurant wasn’t the place to press the issue.
Even though my stomach was beginning to growl, I waited until Ben took a roll out of the basket then copied the way he sliced a pat of butter for his bread plate. I made certain I had the right knife when I did it. He ate one small bite of buttered bread at a time so I followed suit, hoping if I mimicked everything he did, I could steer clear of mistakes. Eating that carefully was laborious, but the quality of the food made up for the effort. After we’d finished the salad course—tiny plate number one—the waitress brought my lobster and Ben’s steak.
I stared down at my plate. “Thank God it’s just the tail. At least I don’t have to figure out what to do with the rest of it.” Ben was trying not to smile at me, but he wasn’t doing a stellar job. “Wait, that sounded unintentionally dirty.”
He picked up his knife and fork and began to cut his steak. “Enjoy.”
“Remember when Julia Roberts ate the escargot in Pretty Woman?” I attempted to use my third fork to delicately disengage the lobster meat from its casing.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ve seen that movie several times.”
That was not the response I was expecting. “Several times?”
“What can I say? I love a beautiful redhead.”
“Well, if any parts of this thing fly off my plate,”—I tapped the lobster shell with my fork—“we both look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen.”
He held up his right hand. “I was a catcher in little league baseball. If it comes this way, I’ve got it.”
Other than some lobster juice squirting down my cleavage, I didn’t mess the deconstruction process up too badly. With a little butter, the lobster tasted like decadence, and the filet mignon Ben ordered was so tender it barely needed to be chewed. My head buzzed with the wine and good conversation, and my stomach was full to capacity. Then came the dessert course.
I licked the last of my crème caramel off my spoon, glad that I’d decided not to wear tight shapewear under my dress that evening. “Pretty sure I ate my calories for the week, but YOLO, right? This is one of the best meals of my life.”
Ben basked in the glow of my enjoyment. “Then whatever it costs, it was worth it.”
It was something you said if you had enough money to order off a menu without prices. I felt a twinge of concern over the fact that Ben and I might have different ways of viewing the world, but reminded myself of why he’d brought me there. He knew I wanted to try lobster and wanted me to have the best. It was thoughtful and kind of him, two traits I didn’t think he possessed when we knew each other in high school. Maybe I’d been wrong back then.
Even though it wasn’t proper, I popped my shoe off my foot so I could run my toes up the inside of his pant leg. His eyes widened and his lips parted as my skin made contact with his ankle. I let my toes glide as far up his calf as his pant leg would allow.
“You can be my second dessert this evening,” I said.