Free The Waitress by Melissa Nathan Page B

and make-up, Sukie and Jon arranged their first acting lesson and CV writing session.
    An hour later, Katie was waiting, wide-eyed and bushy tailed, for Dan to pick her up and take her out.
    Dan was five minutes late. The first four minutes were totally acceptable, but that last minute dangled dangerously between This Is A Man Who Cannot be Trusted and It Was All A Cruel Joke. By the time the doorbell rang, only four minutes and fifty-seven seconds after the appointed time, her stomach was one great fur-ball of fear. She gave herself a once-over in the hall mirror, smiled at her reflection and approached the door – and as she did so, her life went into slow-motion. As the door loomed larger and larger, she was assailed by the terrifying prospect that waiting outside was a mutant who only looked good at crap parties you were drunk at. She could feel her legs continuing to walk towards the door, while her spirit stretched behind her, from her chest all the way into the living room, like a cartoon pair of braces.
    All too soon, she watched her hand rise up to the door handle like someone under hypnosis, while she desperately tried to think of an emergency escape plan. She could pretend she had urgent business with Jon and tell Jon to phone her after half an hour. Depending on how much Dan resembled last weekend’s vision of pearly manhood or how much he resembled Frankenstein’s monster, she could use Jon’s call as a get-out. (The old ones are the best.)
    She stared at her hand now resting on the handle, as if it held the answer, and could hear the unmistakable sound on the other side of the door, of a grotesque giant who’d got lucky at a party last Saturday night, mentally undressing her.
    The evening stretched ahead of her. She took her hand off the handle. She didn’t have to do anything silly. She owed this man nothing. She could just pretend she wasn’t there , he never need know. She could just stop breathing until he went away and then stay in with Jon and Sukie and watch cosy Sunday evening television.
    She stared at the door handle until it went out of focus. When the doorbell rang again, she jumped, offered up a McPrayer – there are no such things as atheists before a date – and imagined telling her mother from her hospital bed, ‘I had no choice, he rang the bell twice,’ and opened the door.
    Halo of light, trumpet fanfare, choral blast. Dan was here! Dan of the cliff-face cheekbones, the crinkly cheek, hazel-flecked blue eyes, long legs and Roman nose. Dan Someone was here! Prayer, charity and goodwill fought for supremacy in Katie’s singing heart, just before her mind turned to mush.
    ‘Hi!’ she probably shrieked. ‘Come on in!’
    ‘Hi,’ he grinned, his dark hair even darker from the rain.
    ‘I’ll just get ready,’ she said, bent down and picked up her umbrella. ‘Ready!’ she sang.
    He laughed at her joke. A rich, deep, fruity laugh that did things to her insides.
    He Laughed At Her Joke.
    This thought swelled as if she’d added water to it, and expanded to fill her brain completely, rendering her incapable of thought. She didn’t allow herself to speak while they walked to his car because she’d probably come out with something off the
Teletubbies
.
    ‘Here we are,’ he said, stopping by a sporty silver number.
    She made a noise of approval, which she hoped didn’t sound too much like ‘eh-oh’ and got in. The seat was much further down than she’d imagined.
    ‘Wow,’ she said before remembering not to speak. ‘I have a low-slung bottom.’
    He laughed at her joke again.
    He Laughed At Her Joke Again.
    ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It is a silly car. I’ll get a sensible one any day now.’
    She wanted to say something about how it wasn’t a silly car and it would be a shame to do something sensible, and her bottom was not low-slung at all, it was the seat, just so they’d got that clear – but her brain seemed to be completely full up with the fact that he’d laughed at