Free The Overlap by Lynn Costa

the back of my mind, thinking about what the details Zack was describing might mean to how I would approach a couple of meetings on Monday morning.
    But Monday morning was an eon away; I wanted to focus on the here and now. The waiter arrived at our table just as Zack was wrapping up the tale of his Seattle trip – complete with the obligatory description that accompanies almost everyone’s trip up there of either a) how much it rained, or b) how it was surprisingly sunny the whole time. (In Zack’s case it was the latter.) The waiter greeted us and asked about our preference for bottled or ice water and then about drinks or wine. Zack ordered Pellegrino and then asked me if Chardonnay was okay; after I replied that it was, he ordered a bottle of a boutique Sonoma Chardonnay I had never heard of, but which he assured me was one of his favorites.
    Before departing for the Pellegrino and wine the waiter asked if we would like to hear the specials. They all sounded delicious, and I was wondering if Zack would be one of those guys who would preemptively try to take charge on a dinner date. You know the type: the guy who will suggest that the girl order something in particular with that “suggestion” being all but an outright command; something of a control play. Josh Chamberlain was a little bit like that when we went out in Miami, which was funny because we only went to three or four restaurants, just him and me, during those weeks and he had never been to any of them before or even knew anything about them. I remember at the time thinking it was odd that Josh would say something like “you really should try their swordfish” or “they’re known for their beet and goat cheese salad” to me; in fact the last time or two he did that my unspoken reaction was something along the lines of “WTF, Josh???”
    Since Zack didn’t seem interested in playing that role, I decided to ask him.
    “You’ve been here before, right?”
    He nodded.
    “Yeah, I’d say about ten times now since they opened. How about you?”
    I shook my head.
    “First time. I’ve been meaning to try it with Kensington and Courtney; you know, the two girls who were with me at Cerise on Thursday, right?”
    Zack nodded again.
    “Haven’t made it here though because I’ve been traveling so much, at least until I started at MetroGen and got back in town. Anyway, what’s good?”
    Zack gave me a quick rundown on his own favorites from the regular menu – each one of them fish, which is how I discovered that he didn’t eat beef – and then told me which of the specials the waiter had mentioned he had tried before and liked. I figured that I wasn’t going to go wrong with anything that I ordered, though a couple of the best-sounding dishes were heavy on the garlic or onions and I was thinking about what my breath would be like after dinner, right? So I settled on the panko-crusted halibut special, wondering what Zack would order.
    The rest of the next hour or so was a bit of a blur as we engaged in typical first-date chatter as we ordered. Zack wound up ordering the blackened redfish from the regular menu, which he proclaimed as good as any he had ever enjoyed in New Orleans. We had our Chardonnay poured (Zack toasted to “new beginnings” as he gazed penetratingly at me), and ate our wonderful meals. I asked him about the spelling of his name (“Zack” rather than “Zach” – I had noticed that from his cell phone contact info that he had texted me on Thursday), and he said that his parents had steered him down that path when he had started going by “Zack” more than “Zachary” in grade school. No particular reason, he told me; that’s just the way it turned out.
    The only uncomfortable moments came when I asked Zack where he had grown up and he replied with “Joliet, about 40 miles outside of Chicago.” We got into a short discussion of growing up in the Chicago area, all the while my mind percolating little reminders every thirty