Perhaps if I had chosen a different restaurant, I pondered to myself, this would have turned out differently.
This particular Italian restaurant had seemed like the ideal spot for a first date. The room was candle lit and elegantly topped by a cylindrical ceiling that made me feel like I was in the centre of a towering wedding cake. Unfortunately, after squinting at my date for the last half an hour, who hadn’t gotten up the nerve to say much beyond pass the parmesan, it had started to feel more like being in the barrel of a gun.
His inability to talk had led to my own verbal constipation, so I decided to focus myself on the business of cutting my ravioli into tiny pieces. My date was fully consumed by his own project, wrapping noodles around the tongs of his fork, while chewing loudly between slurps.
Smack, smack, smack, went his lips in a way that made me want to reach over and cut him into tiny pieces with the gleaming cutlery.
I turned my eyes to the waiter. He was dogpaddling around the other half of the room busily, but never made it anywhere near our table. My face burned liked I’d eaten a chili pepper as I directed my annoyance towards him instead of my date.
“Waiter!” I bellowed over the clatter of cutlery and the sloshing of water. My crappy date pushed his round silver framed glasses further up his nose and glared at me as I shouted.
A slurper like you, thinking that I’m the rude one! I threw my thoughts angrily at him.
The waiter sloshed over apologetically, as though he would have arrived in just a second had I not caused such a scene. He didn’t even have his fins on.
“I need goggles,” I said to him and pointed at the menu item.
“Yellow or blue, madam,” He asked as he scribbled down my order.
“Does it even matter?” My date hissed at me as he splashed the water under the table with his hands. It was rising rather quickly.
“I suppose not,” I replied with a shrug and grabbed the waiter’s arm before he could disappear again.
“Also, a shot of espresso and the tiramisu please. Two forks.” I instructed quickly, wanting to spear the last bit of ravioli before it was washed off my plate.
“Two forks? Tiramisu?” my date spit out quickly. “That’s a bit presumptuous, isn’t it?” his tone dripped with revulsion.
I laughed silently and said to myself, “Oh, so the turtle comes out of it’s shell now. For what? Tiramisu? What an absolute jerk. I’ve got to keep it together long enough to get home without punching this dude’s lights out.”
“They’re for me.” I lied in a honeyed tone. “I like to keep a lucky fork around.” I thought I almost caught him roll his eyes as he turned his head away.
A wave rolled abruptly in from the kitchen and the table floated up to just below my chest as a murmur went up amongst the patrons. I struggled to figure out how to arrange my arms on it and decided for an awkward tentlike shape. The red and white checked tabletop dipped to the side and heaved my plate, the cups and most of the silverware into the water where I watched it sink quickly to the bottom.
“What kind of dessert are you going to order then?” I asked the man, whose name I realised I’d forgotten, as surely as I hoped to forget about the events of this evening.
“I prefer gelato, if you please,” he replied with a smug grin as though gelato was the only acceptable answer to such a delicate question.
Sluuurrrppp, he went as he continued to single-mindedly masticate the noodles on his plate, which he’d narrowly rescued from our table’s earlier purge. I put a hand up to my face and grimaced behind it.
He’s even incapable of ordering his own food! What kind of mommy issues does this guy have? The faster we finish dessert, the faster I can get out of here.
“I’ll go tell the waiter,” I squeaked as I realised that the goggles I’d ordered were around my neck. I was terrifically happy for an excuse to get away from the table, if even just for a few moments, and I grinned as I dove under the water.
As I swam I surveyed the jumble of Italian delights suspended in the water around me. A medley of linguini, lasagna and red and white clouds floated by, perforated by swarms of parmesan. I immediately recalled the feeling I’d had when I snorkeled for the first time as a child. The awe that had struck me as I took in the teeming universe below the surface.
A meatball smacked into the right side of my goggle and startled me back to the task at hand. I swatted it aside before surfacing next to the waiter.
“Gelato, please. Oh, and if you can make that fast, I’d much appreciate it,” I disclosed as I tucked a fiver into his hand. He looked from his hand to my date and winced, before smiling conspiratorially.
Almost instantaneously, the desserts and espresso popped out of the kitchen on a small boat.
“All aboard,” the waiter called and stretched his leg out. He hoisted me up and onto what I had thought was a small sailboat, but once inside I realised was the center of a white ceramic bathtub. My date slid down the slick white side nearest me and lurched for his gelato. The tub shook as he shifted his weight.
“Is that vanilla gelato?” he said disappointedly as he pulled the bowl towards his pasta splattered face.
“You did ask for gelato, didn’t you?” I asked as my smile faded like a sunset.
“Yes, but I only eat chocolate gelato,” he scoffed, picked up the gelato and tossed it out of the tub. He pulled his fork and plate out of his bag and continued working on his noodles.
As I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of silly men who didn’t like tiramisu and couldn’t be asked to order for themselves I noticed something. My date was sitting directly on top of the bathtub drain. I quickly moved my foot over and with a spry ninja-like kick I dislodged the rubber stopper. The water around him began to form a vortex that sucked him down, all the while his mouth kept working on his noodles.
Slurp, smack, slurp, smack.
Rachel awoke in her bed. She was drenched in sweat and reached up to wipe her brow.
“What the? Where am I?” She puzzled aloud before flicking her bedside light on and sizing up her surroundings. She was at home in her room and everything seemed in order, expect for the ungodly heat.
She vaguely recalled that after a night out she’d eaten a plate of spaghetti on her bed and then left the window open to air the room out. She was now realising that had been a mistake as today was one of those summer days where an egg could fry on the sidewalk and the heat had only helped to make the room smell even more like pasta.
She got up to close the window and her phone tumbled out of her lap and onto the floor, almost landing in the plate of half-eaten spaghetti that she had hastily tucked under her bed.
Would have made more sense to take the plate out, instead of opening the window, she thought hazily to herself.
Rachel quickly rescued her phone from the floor to check that it was still in working order. As she swiped up she was startled by the face on the screen. That face was not quite familiar, and yet it perturbed her, but for no reason that she could ascertain.
Wait, she thought, he was in my dream. There was an Italian restaurant… or was it a pool… or the sea? She clutched for the details of her dream. At first the memories fell from grasp like sand, but then in a more mud like manner she grasped onto some clumps. Something about noodles… and an aquarium or snorkelling? But she just couldn’t sort it out.
As she picked up her phone again, she realised that they’d matched. She grimaced and disliked him, for no reason in particular, before shutting the window and going back to sleep.
