“No offense, but who comin’ to you for surgery? Your hands shakin’ like a motherfucker.” Her jowls jiggled as she snickered.
Tad’s left hand grasped his right to stop his lanky fingers from tapping on the Formica table.
Tinder. Should’ve known, Tad thought. The fact that she said her video chat wasn’t working should’ve raised suspicion. A pair of Air Jordan’s dangling from a power line as he pulled up to her meeting place of choice, the second clue.
“I don’t actually do the surgery,” Tad said.
Her head snapped back. “You don’t do the surgery? I thought you was a surgeon?”
“Surgical Technician.”
“Yeah,” she said, wielding her butter knife. “So technically, you’s a surgeon.”
“Technically, I’m a surgical technician. I assist surgeons.” He felt like he was being argumentative. He didn’t want to be argumentative. Besides, weren’t you supposed to respect your elders—no way she was the two and a half decades she claimed to be.
“Sheeiiit,” she wheezed.
Jasmine stabbed her stack of syrup-drenched pancakes. Her eyes fixed on Tad as her mouth detached three soggy layers from her fork. By all appearances, this was not her first stack of heaping pancakes.
Not that Tad was much of a brunch-er himself, okay, technically, he’d never actually been on a brunch date, but he knew it was supposed to be a bit fancier than this. Where were the tall thin glasses filled with orange juice and champagne? What was that drink called? The one alcoholics thought was good for them because it had Vitamin C? That was brunch, right? Not Formica tables, stacks of pancakes and a neon diner sign with a flickering “n”.
“More coffee,” the youthful, tight-curled waitress asked, hovering the pot over his half-filled cup. He waved his palm over the mug. “No thanks.”
“Hit me,” Jasmine barked at the waitress, leaning back into the booth. She slid her tongue across maple syrup on her front teeth and made a wet sucking sound.
Tad smiled at the waitress like he was telepathically apologizing for his blind date’s crudeness. The waitress grinned back. Then shifted her eyes back and forth between the two of them, before walking away.
I’m such a sucker, Tad thought. She must have used a photo of a model for her profile pic. This, sitting before me, is not that. Not even close. But here we are. At least for another half hour. Unless this is an all-you-can-eat. God, I hope this isn’t an all-you-can-eat.
“So what about yo–,” Tad tried, but Jasmine cut him off. “So you’re just some fancy nurse or somethin’,” she said, pointing her fork at him—a piece of pancake stuck to it. “Why’d you go braggin’ about bein’ a big shot doctor?”
“Braggin’? I didn’t say anything about being a doctor.”
“Oh, no?” Jasmine whipped her phone up off the table, tapped the screen and scrolled. She stopped and turned the phone around for Tad to see. “Who dat?”
Tad leaned forward for a closer look. It was one of his Tinder photos.
“That’s my graduating class.” He leaned back into the booth, not feeling the least bit found out.
Jasmine continued to hold the phone for him to see, like it was all the evidence she needed. “You all dressin’ like doctors. Pretendin’ to be doctors.”
“We wear scrubs. That’s what everybody in a hospital wears. Anyone who sees patients.”
“So you ain’t no doctor.”
“No.” Tad was more amused than annoyed. “I never said I was.”
Jasmine flipped the phone around. “But you went to doctor school.”
“Two years at Pittsburgh Tech.”
“Psshh. Two years? That’s ’bout how long it woulda taken me to finish cosmetology school.”
Done with it, Jasmine picked up the pace on the destruction of her pancakes.
Tad could’ve stayed silent and let her hurry up and finish, but it poked at him. “Why do you care so much whether I’m a doctor or not? What’s it matter?
Jasmine sneered at him as she chewed.
“You callin’ me a digger?”
“What?” For a brief moment, he thought she said the other word.
“You think I’m a gold digger. I ain’t diggin’ for nothin’ but information, honey.”
Jasmine slurped her coffee.
“Me thinkin’ you was in the doctorin’ business, I was hopin’ we’d talk shop. What, you think it was your good looks that got you a yes?” Jasmine laughed; her jugs jiggled. “Think again.”
She broke half a piece of bacon off a side dish and devoured it.
Tad’s neatly handwritten goals for the year flashed before him in his mind. He quickly scanned the list to this ridiculously optimistic gem: MEET THE WOMAN OF MY DREAMS.
Below it:
• Be more outgoing
• Have confidence
• Put yourself out there
• Be openminded
He scrubbed out every word in his mind, jagging his pen back and forth, tearing through the Mead composition paper.
Tad knew the smart course of action was to get the tab and pay it as quickly as possible, and forget this “date” ever happened, but again, curiosity prevailed.
“Talk shop how? I’m not followin’.”
“I know you not followin’. You most def not followin’ me home after this, I’ll tell you that.”
Tad, ignoring her rejection, persisted, “So what would we talk about? If I were a doctor?”
“Health and wellness, honey.”
“Uh-huh.” His brain waited on the platform, the connecting train nowhere in sight.
“Life coachin’,” she said with a silent “duh” at the end.
“You want me to coach you?”
“Nuh-uh. I do the coachin’. That’s why I swiped you. You supposed to be givin’ me pointers. Dr. Phil-like stuff.”
She shoved the other half of the strip of bacon into her mouth.
Tad smiled. Amused. “You want to be a health and wellness coach.”
“Now he’s gettin’ it. Ding-ding-ding. Yeah, you way too slow to be a doctor.”
Not only is she dishonest and a porker, Tad thought, she’s delusional too.
“So ya got anything for me?” Jasmine asked.
All he had was befuddlement.
“Didn’t think so. Waste of my time.”
They sat silently.
Tad eyed the last bit of pancake on her plate, willing her fork to stab it and shove it into her mouth, so they could end this. Tinder. Never again. Being alone wasn’t so bad.
That last soggy layer on Jasmine’s plate finally succumbed to its fate. Jasmine leaned back into the booth, arms stretching forward, her bulging belly full.
The tight-curled waitress appeared at the edge of the table with the bill and set it down between them. Her empathetic eyes found Tad’s. He returned her gaze with a silent, thank you.
“Your deceitful ass probably wants to go Dutch, don’t it?” Jasmine said.
Tad slid the check toward himself.
“I got it.”
He didn’t even bother looking at the total. Didn’t matter. Just plopped his Discover card down on it.
Jasmine smirked, like she’d just broken a dog chained to a stake.
She slid to the end of the booth, the faux leather cushioning screaming under her weight.
Tad looked up at Jasmine looking down at him and couldn’t help but smile, relieved.
“Hmmh,” Jasmine huffed.
Her suffering heels clacked as she headed for the exit.
Tad waited. He watched through the dirty window as she got into her Hyundai, checked herself in the mirror, almost backed into a passing car, then drove off.
Solitude.
“Thank you.”
It was the waitress, back to pick up the check.
She smiled.
And there it was. That heightened awareness. Possibility. Hope. Only this time, she wasn’t a fake digital profile. She was real. Standing right in front of him.
He read her name tag out loud.
“I’m Tad,” he said.