“This girl you’re seeing drives?”
“No,” I answered. “It’s one of those self-driving cars—she just sits there.”
My mother is usually pretty quick, but I suppose she didn’t trust her own grasp of changing technology, because she said, “You’re kidding, right?” It was very Howie-like. I found that disturbing.
“I’ll be home by eleven,” I told her as I headed out the front door. “And just in case I’m not, I put the morgue on your speed dial.”
“Cut my heart out while you’re at it.”
“I’ll put it on my to-do list.”
I made a mental note to actually put the morgue on her speed dial. She’d be mad, but I also knew she’d laugh. Mom and I have a similar sense of humor. I find that disturbing, too.
I arrived ten minutes early, dressed in my best shirt and slacks. Kjersten arrived three minutes late, and was dressed for an evening on the Riviera.
“Is this too much?” she asked, looking at her gown that reflected light like a disco ball. “I heard that Crawley’s has a dress code.” Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t tacky or anything—in fact, it was the opposite. Heads turned when she walked in. I kept expecting flashes from the paparazzi.
“It’s perfect,” I told her with a big grin. The gown and the way she had put up her hair made her look even older, and I started to imagine us like one of those tests they give little kids. The one that goes: What’s wrong with this picture? A girl in a gown, crystal chandeliers, a waiter carrying lobsters, and Antsy Bonano. A first grader would pass this test easy.
I greeted her with a kiss on the cheek in clear view of the entire restaurant, in case there was any doubt who she was with.
“You look great,” I told her. “But you already know that, right?”
We were seated at a table for four, and I wasn’t quite sure whether I was supposed to sit next to her, or across from her, so I sat down first, and let her choose. This was probably the wrong thing to do, because the waiter gave me a look like my mother gives when I do something inexcusable. Then he went to pull out Kjersten’s chair for her—clearly what I was supposed to have done.
“I hope you don’t mind this double-date thing,” I said.
“Just as long as they’re not all double dates,” she said with a little smile. She reached across the table and took my hand. “I’ve never been taken on a date to a place this fancy before. You score a ten.”
Which meant there was nowhere to go but down.
“Of course,” she said ... a little bit awkwardly, “I’ve never been on a double date with a blind couple before.”
“Don’t worry—they’re just like people who can see,” I told her. “Except that they can’t.”
“I don’t want to say or do anything wrong ...”
“Don’t worry,” I told her, “that’s my department.”
Lexie and Raoul arrived a minute or so later, and I wondered where they’d been, since Lexie lives right upstairs, and then I wondered why I’d wondered. I went up to Lexie and took her hand. Kjersten was confused by this, until I guided Lexie’s hand into hers. It was something I was just used to doing; it spared Lexie the awkwardness of an inexact docking procedure when it came to shaking hands.
We sat at a table that used to be reserved for famous people from Brooklyn, until they realized that people from Brooklyn who got famous never came back.
Lexie released Moxie, her Seeing Eye dog, from his harness as soon as we sat down, and he obediently took his place beside her chair.
We made awkward small talk for a while about the differences between public high school and their ultra-high-end school for the wealthy blind. For a brief but unpleasant few moments, the girls had this little tennislike discussion about me, like I wasn’t there—all I could do was follow the ball back and forth.
“I like Antsy because he’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind,” serves Kjersten.
“Believe me, I know,” returns Lexie. “Even when he shouldn’t say anything at all.”
“Oh, but that’s the fun part,” Kjersten smashes for the point.
I decided a change in subject matter was called for.
“So,” I said to Raoul as the busboy poured water not quite as expertly as I did, “you don’t have a guide dog—is that because clicking does it all?”
“Pretty much,” said Raoul proudly. “Echolocation makes canes and canine companions seem positively medieval.” He’d been pretty quiet until now, but once the conversation became about him, he perked up. “Personally, I think it could be an adaptive trait. Evolutionary, you know?”
“Raoul doesn’t have a guide dog because most people don’t get them until they’re older,” Lexie explained curtly. “Technically I’m not supposed to have one either, but you know my grandfather—he pulled some strings.”
“I don’t need one, anyway,” Raoul said. Then he clicked a few times and determined the relative location of our four water glasses, and the fact that mine was only half full, on account of the busboy had run out of water since he didn’t check his pitcher the way you’re supposed to before you start pouring. And he calls himself a busboy!
“That’s amazing!” Kjersten said.
But I wasn’t so convinced. “He could have heard the water being poured.”
“Could have,” Raoul said, “but I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Okay, then,” I said, crossing my arms. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“He can’t be that specific,” said Lexie, jumping to his aid, but Raoul clicked, and said: “None. You didn’t even put up your hand.”
Kjersten looked at me, and grinned.
“All right, Raoul wins,” I admitted. “He’s amazing.”
“And the crowd goes wild!” said Raoul.
“Can we just order?” said Lexie, running her finger across the Braille menu. Maybe it was my imagination, but she was moving her finger a little too fast for her to actually read it. I’ve seen Lexie read before. I knew the pace of Braille—or at least her Braille. Kjersten was watching me watching her, so I looked away. Maybe a double date with Lexie wasn’t a good idea after all.
“They’re flying me out to Chicago next week,” Raoul said. “To do a national talk show.”
At that, Lexie closed her menu a little too hard. The sudden clap made Moxie rise to his feet, then sit back down again.
Raoul reached out, gently rubbed his hand along her sleeve, and then took her hand. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I grimaced at that. I couldn’t help myself. If you knew Lexie Crawley at all, you knew never to call her “baby.” That, and the fact that he was holding her hand, just kind of gave me mental dry heaves. I mean, sure, I was dating Kjersten, but I think the human brain isn’t designed to deal with situations like this.
I looked over at Kjersten, who noticed my reaction, and again I looked away.
“You don’t have to accept all those TV invitations,” Lexie told Raoul. “And you don’t have to echolocate for people all the time. You’re not a sideshow act.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Well, you should.”
Suddenly I found my menu to be a place of safety. “I’m thinking maybe the ribs,” I said. “How about you, Kjersten?”
“Isn’t this a seafood place?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like seafood.”
That’s when Kjersten’s phone rang. Even her ring tone was cool. NeuroToxin’s new hit. She pulled the phone out of her purse, looked at the number, then dropped it back in. “Not important,” she said, although the look on her face said otherwise.
The waiter took our orders, and once he was gone, small talk became big silence, until Raoul said, “I can echolocate the number of people in the room—wanna see?”