Chapter Nine
I changed my clothes four times before finally walking across the street to the cafe wearing a pair of khakis and a button up shirt. I carried a handful of flowers I'd stopped at the Little Red Hen and picked up on the way home from the Littrell's house. I stood outside the cafe, shifting my weight from one foot to the other until the door jingled and Kim walked out. She had on the jeans and t-shirt she'd been wearing that morning - the denim hugged her butt just right and the Beatles crossed her breasts instead of Abbey Road. I stared at her. She raised an eyebrow.
"I really like the Beatles," I said by way of explanation.
Kim laughed. "Nice flowers you have there," she commented.
"Oh crap these are yours." I shoved them into her hand.
She smiled, "You're good at this."
"Sorry, it's been awhile."
"Yeah? You don't get a lot of action?" Kim turned on the sidewalk and started meandering along and I realized suddenly I had no freaking idea where we were going or doing. I hadn't planned anything.
"I've been busy lately," I answered.
Kim nodded, "Me, too, Stock Boy."
We walked side by side along the street in silence as I raced through my brain trying to come up with just the right thing to say I'd planned on doing all along. I imagined bowling, but that sounded dumb. Or the movies, but that was practically high school. So nix the activity for now, I thought, just walk to a restaurant. But what restaurant? What if she didn't like Italian? Or what if she couldn't eat shellfish?
Finally I decided it was best to tell the truth.
"I don't know where we're going," I admitted.
Kim laughed, "I know you don't."
She knew I didn't know? Then who knew? Did she know? "Do you know where we're going?" I asked.
She looked up at me, her brown eyes twinkling, "Are you capable of being spontaneous, Ben?"
If she only knew, every breathing moment of my life - every choice I made, everything I said and did - felt like spontinaity to me. There was no conscious memory to back up choices I made, or to explain the random thoughts that traversed through my head (even as we were walking, I had Raspberry Beret stuck in my head and I have no idea why). "It's hard to tell the differenc between being spontaneous and breathing for me sometimes," I answered.
Kim smirked, "You seem habitual to me, actually."
"I do?"
She nodded, "I like that about you."
I tried to think about how I'd seem habitual. I guess because I ordered the same coffee every morning when I went to the cafe - every morning. I guess that's how I'd seem habitual to someone who didn't really know me. Although now that she said it, I did kind of have a little routine when I got home, too. I mean not like OCD-esque stuff like tapping the door knob three times before entering things or anything like that but I did have a pattern. And here all this time I thought I'd been moving in a random motion, freefalling kind of way but one word from a stranger who only had my coffee drinking habits to go by and I realized that I really was a habitual creature.
"I guess I am," I said. "But it feels spontaneous."
Kim laughed. "So, how old are you, Stock Boy?"
I hated this question. So I turned it around. "How old do you think I am?"
Kim paused walking and looked at me, her eyes sweeping me. She looked at each feature of my face carefully, then turned forward. "Definitely between 30 and 40."
I could roll with that. I walked quietly beside her, nodding.
She looked up at me, "Well?"
"That wasn't specific enough," I replied.
"Is it true though? Between 30 and 40?"
"Possibly," I said.
"Thirtyyyy-" she dragged out the word, bit her lip, then spit out the word, "Six. Thirty-six. Am I right?"
"Women," I said, quoting Brian Littrell, "Are always right."
"But what if I'm wrong?" she asked.
"Then it's an enigma."
We ended up at McDonalds.
Kim was shoving fries into her mouth like there was no tomorrow and we had a grand total of forty-four chicken McNuggets on the tray between us with a pool of ketchup the size of a small lake. I was busy constructing a land scape but she kept eating the mountain range. Salt was everywhere. Music played quietly overhead and children were yelling in the ball pit a few feet away from where we sat.
"Can you go refill my Diet Coke?" Kim waved her empty cup, which had Grimmace printed on the side of it.
"You're the waitress, Waitress."
She beaded her eyes, "But you're the gentleman."
"And so I am." I took her cup and walked across the restaurant, filled it, and carried it back. She smiled up at me as I handed it to her.
"Why thank you," she said, "You didn't have to do that."
"I figured you might like a refill," I quipped.
Kim sipped her soda and waved her arm at the food in between us on the table as I squeezed into the red vinyl seat. "Did you ever in a hundred thousand years think you'd take a girl to a freaking McDonalds as a first date?" she asked, laughing.
"I don't believe I ever thought that, no," I said, laughing back.
"This is like gourmet," she said.
"I have to say I find it really amusing you're drinking diet soda while we're sitting here with 44 chicken nuggets to consume."
"I know, right?" Kim's cheeks flushed as she laughed, "That's like a hundred billion calories each."
"It's actually somewhere around 1030 calories each," I said,"Twenty-two nuggets apiece at approximately 47 calories each."
"Forty-seven calories each?" Kim looked at the nugget in her hand, "Jesus H., these fuckers are loaded, huh?" She tossed it into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, then asked, "How the hell do you know how many calories are in each chicken McNugget?"
"I'm a master at quantum physics. Einstein would salivate at my IQ level," I deadpanned.
"Seriously, how do you know?" she asked.
I picked up the box that they'd come in an turned it to her. "A service size is six an there's 280 calories per serving, that's 46.66666667 each, round up to 47. That's how."
"So you aren't a master at quantum physics you're just fucking good at math," she said, nodding and snapping the box out of my hands. She stared at it a moment, put it down, then looked up at me. "I like that we went to a McDonalds for a first date, you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because when I was little and they had the Barbie Happy Meals, my dad always brought me here."
"So I remind you of your father?"
"No," Kim laughed, "It just is a place that has an ability to make good memories for me." She reached into the box her food had come in and pulled out a plastic doll with a plastic pink prom dress on, "And I get to add this to my collection."
After Self by Pengi
