Free Arranged by Catherine McKenzie Page B

that’s the one shade of pink I can wear. I’m even having a good-hair day.
    Richard stands when I approach and kisses me hello on both cheeks. I’ve never liked this quasi-European practice, but I hear Gil’s voice in my head telling me to relax, to give this guy a chance, so I smile and take a seat in the chair Richard pulls out.
    He’s wearing a dark charcoal suit and no tie. His sand-colored hair is cut close, and his dark brown eyes are deep and chocolaty. He’s a handsome man, just not my kind of handsome.
    I order a gin and tonic.
    “Tough day?” Richard says.
    “Why do you ask?”
    “I just thought because of the drink you ordered . . .”
    “I like gin and tonics.” I try to keep my voice even, light. I don’t quite manage it.
    “That wasn’t the right thing to say, was it?”
    “Probably not.”
    “What was the right thing to say?”
    “That I look great,” I say jokingly, flirting a little.
    “Sorry. It’s been a long time.”
    “I heard.”
    His face constricts in pain. Crap.
    “Sorry. I guess that wasn’t the right thing to say either.”
    “That’s all right,” he says, but his tone says otherwise.
    He picks up his menu and starts looking through it, and after a moment I do the same. We spend way too much time picking our food. The waitress comes back with my drink. I take a large gulp, choking on the bitter tonic.
    “I have an idea,” Richard says when the waitress leaves.
    “What?”
    “Let’s pretend I said the right thing and you said the right thing, and we’re five minutes into the night and everything’s going well.”
    I smile. “Sounds like a plan.”
    We clink glasses, and for a few minutes I think this might work out.
    I’m not sure what pushes that feeling away, exactly, but the instinct to say the wrong thing to each other keeps coming back. It’s nothing big, only a continuous stream of small annoyances. I order fish and he’s allergic to fish, but instead of mentioning it as I order, he brings it up when I offer him some and he pushes my fork away. I ask him what Gil’s like at work, and he tells me stories about how Gil rode him into the ground when he was a first-year. These are supposed to be funny stories. They’re stories I’d tell to tease Gil, and yet hearing them from him makes me defensive about my brother.
    But the worst part is that Richard doesn’t seem to notice how badly the date’s going. His moment of insight, when he could tell we’d started off on the wrong foot, was just that, a moment that passed.
    We spend two awkward hours together, and now we’ve been waiting for the check for at least twenty minutes. Even clueless Richard is beginning to look restless.
    “What are you doing next Friday?” he asks.
    Uh-oh.
    “Um, not sure yet. I have a lot of deadlines around then.”
    The waitress finally brings the check. She’s about to leave again, but I grab her by the arm to keep her at the table. “Hold on a second, we’ll pay now.”
    I reach into my purse, but Richard gives his card to the waitress before I can get mine out.
    “You in a hurry or something?” he asks when she’s gone.
    Is he really going to make me say it out loud?
    “Oh, I had a long day. I’m kind of tired.”
    “Sure, I understand,” he says in a disappointed tone.
    Thankfully, the waitress comes back quickly, and we get up to leave. Outside on the street, I thank him for dinner.
    “My pleasure. We should do this again sometime.”
    “Um . . .”
    “I’m pretty busy this week, but Friday’s free.”
    “You mentioned that in the restaurant.”
    “Right, right. And you said you might not be available . . .”
    “Yeah, sorry.”
    “That’s okay. I’ll call you during the week when you have a better idea of your schedule.”
    I look over his shoulder for a cab and realize too late that he’s coming in for a kiss. I stand there, frozen, unable to turn away. His lips touch mine briefly. I’m too stunned, and the kiss is too brief, to tell what