A Twist of Romance

The night crowd rang a buzz in my ears. The chorus in my head wasn't making sense. There was a loud stir of voices that did not make sense. "Bring out the desserts so that we may engage in a bottle of wine. This is the last print we have in the store and I am sure it won't happen again. His dark eyes turned darker to me when I felt that dreaded flutter again." That is all I could pick up from the buzz in the crowd. It intoxicated me. I just kept it all in the back of my mind.

I was still intoxicated by the limo drive through downtown Chicago all the way from northwest Indiana. Only nineteen years old and lots to learn. I knew it was the last night I would spend at Chicago's Planet Hollywood restaurant. Buying something from the store was number one on my agenda to remember.

"Bring out the desserts. We are going to engage in a bottle of wine." My date's voice brought the waitress I was to him at a Greek restaurant without alcohol to a surprise. The stir of the crowd started making more sense to me.

"Did you want a menu?" I dumbly asked. I wondered if there were going to be any choices for me in the situation. It was all just going to be taken care of for the bequest of his dignity or something like that. How did I take this honor so dumbly? Good words to say were beyond me.

My young mind paused and started again with direct eye contact at me. A waitress just walked up to our table, "You can handle that?" she asked. She really wasn't our waitress. I thought there was a waiter somewhere that was going to bring us wine. My date was really teaching me how to be a customer after he was mine. It was nice but confusing. "Your order and the finest bottle of wine will be right with you sir," the waiter finally showed up to remark. Did I even say yes to this date I was remembering?

A limo.

"Yes, I am sure it is waiting outside. Then what?" My date was reading my mind way too much. "I seem to get myself in the strangest of predicaments. Dates are something of an awkward situation to me." That was my reply. The awkward pause subsided so I could finish. "I am only nineteen. I really am not old enough to be drinking. I do drink occasionally though."

My date chuckled with tough apprehension. He really only remarked, "You will be fine then." It was very generous that he did not take back the wine. However, being picked up in a limo was enough to leave my stomach in a twist. The twist was a twist that seemed to never leave or get any less intense. Nineteen and consistent episodes with sporadic good men well above drinking age seemed to be my new thing. Dates in public with older men were enough to put the frenzy of my fantasies of romance to a halt. Life is difficult when engaged with such temptation.

Money.

It was not good. One day money just could bring a couple decent values and morals to obstruction and then that kind of obliteration that makes dreams become extinct. "Here, the wine has come. Drink and be merry." The waiter was finally back. My date uttered from some sort of literary source I had to remember or learn. The wine was as bitter as wine usually tasted to only me. "So what kind of wine do you guess it to be?" he flirted. "I really do not know wines all that well. It is where we are going after this," I nicely replied somewhat intoxicated.

I was a young inexperienced single parent already getting a little tired. The answer I hoped for was home. "Well this may be your last experience here at Planet Hollywood," he stated confidently. "Come again?" I asked. I was confused. I guess older men like him really do not know how to read minds. I also wondered why it was such a special occasion to him.

"Since the store at this restaurant is going out of business I thought we could run by the gift shop where I would let you pick out anything you would like," he hinted. A gift was nice to hear about. It really excited me.

After the wine was done we entered the gift shop where the crowd made me whirl. I was a little out of sorts in terms of my perceptual balance. "It seems the wine made me sick," I confessed. "Have you had a chance to see what you would like?" My date smiled admirably. It was very nice of him to be so generous. However, I did begin to feel backed up against a wall. I did not want him to spend anymore money. The affections afterward were not a part of the evening I had planned. My intense attraction to almost every single ounce of him was not what he thought. "I really cannot see. The crowd is too much. Also, my vision is not at all that good. We did have wine in the limo before the meal you remember?" I said that as a hint at a chance to go home.

"Do you like Sylvester Stallone?" The man behind the counter that said that was all the sudden the only normal person in the world to me. How could he dare ask such an exciting question?

"I love him!"

That was my brilliant winning answer. "Well, there we have it," my date chimed in. "The Sylvester Stallone t-shirt is on sale over there on the wall." The t-shirt was bought. We had an hour and a half drive home in the limo. All of these reoccurring dates with older men haunted me with possible intimate encounter I still did not do. I was half drunk on wine and with a very decent guy I really did not want to be with. I needed an escape plan. A quick one.

"My girlfriend Shari thought you were really interesting. She really couldn't stop talking about you" I said that very flirtatiously from Shari's heart. This date had taken me one day to see what she called her restaurant that was not mine. We both worked at that Greek restaurant. I knew he had a thing for waitresses. That is how we met. I was his waitress many times. Beggars came to mind. Was either one of us one?

I didn't want to think in terms of the word prejudice. I began to talk then talk some more. I spoke the whole time of my friend's obsession with him. The ride finally ended. "We had a very nice evening didn't we?" My date said it very nicely! He was a little too good looking for me to handle. "I am sure my parents are waiting up for me," I sputtered. That was another line I used on every re-occurring date.

"Am I going to see you again?" he asked with his head tilted. My date started stepping closer with his eyes looking up and down every part of my body he could possibly catch a glimpse of. As he moved closer. I told him something I had long waited to say. "I don't kiss on the third date either!"