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After: The Date Begins


Ashley

I got back to my hotel room and leaned against the door as it closed behind me. My hands were shaking. I'd completely intended for that trip across the hallway to Nick's room to end entirely differently than it just had. I didn't really want to admit it to myself when I'd set off, I'd told myself it was just to talk, but I'd had a very different motive in all reality. Now, here I was, safely back in my room, completely clothed, and dangerously teetering on the edge of right and wrong.

I pictured Nick in his room, changing, getting ready, planning.

I couldn't believe he'd waited so damn long for the truth to come out. If he'd only told me before, if he'd just let me see his stupid scar in the first place, if he'd just been less of a douche bag in Las Vegas... maybe if all those "ifs" were, then maybe I wouldn't be standing in a hotel room in a two-thousand-dollar wedding dress.

I struggled to reach for the zipper, some insane part of me wondering if it was even neccessary to change out of the dress. A part of me was tempted to run back across the hall and take it off there. Another part of me wanted to wear it on our date, just to remind he and I both that I was getting married the next day and that no matter what fairy tale we lived tonight it didn't matter, I didn't belong to him.

The white dress said I belonged to Chris.

Once I'd gotten the candy shell of a dress off me and laid it carefully on the bed, I stood there in the middle of the room in my under things and the silver heels that I was wearing under the dress. My hair hung down my back all wild and frizzy and I caught myself in the mirror hanging beside the TV in the room. I stared at myself, studied my shape, studied my belly button. Was this really me? Was I making a mistake, going out with Nick, qustioning Chris?

I almost picked up the phone and called it off.

But I couldn't.

My favorite movie for a long time when I was younger was My Girl. I really identified with Thomas Jay. It sounds stupid but I saw eye-to-eye with him more than I did with Vada. I mean Vada's the center of the story, and she's the girl, so really it should've been her I was obsessed with, but it was actually Thomas Jay. He spent the whole movie madly in love with Vada, adoring her from a position too close to be anything but too far away. But there was one scene where I did identify with Vada. And that was the scene when she sings a love song to the photograph of her teacher. She swings herself onto the bed, swooning and singing loudly, imagining the beauty of a world in which they were together forever.

I used to do that, too. With a photograph of Nick.

That was the only thing keeping me from cancelling this whole idea.

Because I knew better, I knew even as I pulled on my purple dress and ran a comb through my stubborn red hair, and slid the tube of lip color across my mouth... I knew even then that the next twelve hours could very well change every single aspect of my life.




Nick

I was waiting in the lobby for her. I kept checking my watch nervously, my heart pounding against my ribcage in anticipation.

A part of me prayed she'd come down those stairs, still in that dress, and we'd run to the car and drive all night to Vegas and find the first ordained Elvis Presley we could... Some part of me had hoped when I opened the door and saw her there, dressed like a giant cream puff, that she was there for just that purpose. Now, my hands sweaty, I could feel the pressure piling on.

I had one chance.

Twelve hours.

The elevator doors behind me dinged and I turned and there she was, back in her purple dress from the dinner party and Toms. Her hair in a messy pony tail. She'd wrapped a shawl around herself, which she clutched to her chest. Our eyes were locked as she walked across the lobby, and came to a stop in front of me. She stared up at me, her mouth curved in a slight, almost hesitant smile.

"I'm yours," she said.

I grabbed her hand. "Then it's okay that we hold hands. Couples hold hands."

Ashley nodded, "They do."

I led the way out of the hotel's front doors and we walked down the sloping parking lot, the air smelled sweet and salty from the vineyards and the nearby ocean. We climbed into my car and we pulled away from the hotel, away from everyone who knew who we were. I rolled the top down and the warm-winter-even-for-California air made her ponytail fly back. She reached up and slid the rubber band off, letting it billow out behind her head like a flag of freedom.

I drove the coast back to the city, the lights glowing ahead of us in the darkness, the stars overhead. Music played from the radio, and Ashley held her hand out, letting it roll in the air.

"Where are we going anyways?" she asked as I pulled into the city limits.

"Well considering you gave me such short notice and most everything is closed at this hour... my options for wooing you are limited," I said.

Ashley laughed, "I'm sorry. Who gave who short notice?"

"Point made," I conceeded.

Ashley smiled, "So what's your plan, sir?"

"I'm going to give you the best date ever," I replied, "Every element of the best dates, all rolled into one." I pulled into a public parking garage and cut the engine after finding a space. "Come with me."

Ashley climbed out of the car and followed me down the stairs to the street level and I pulled her along down the street, past all the neon glowing signs and the people that, even at a little after 11:30, were still crowding. I dragged her across the parking lot of a 7-Eleven.

Ashley laughed as we stepped through the door, which dinged loudly. A Chinese man was standing behind the bulletproof glass surrounding the counter. He eyed us suspiciously over the top of his newspaper. Ashley looked around, "What in the world could possibly be at a 7-Eleven that's a date-night must?" she laughed.

I waved at the slushy machines.

Ashley grinned, "I've never had a slushy on a date before."

"Then you've never lived."

"No?"

"The best time to have a slushy is on a date," I replied.

As Ashley filled her slushy cup, I grabbed one of those plastic air freshener flowers that gas stations always have for sale. I came up behind her and tapped her shoulder, "Let me see your hand." She held it out obediently. I wrapped the stem around her wrist carefully. She smiled down at it. "And a corsage," I added, "Also very important for a proper date."

We paid for the two slushies and the flower, and we left the 7-Eleven holding hands and sipping our syrupy-flavored ice. Ashley's fingers laced through mine as we strode along the street. I watched her as we walked, the way her mouth curved around the straw, the way her eyes sparkled under the street lights...

"You're right about the slushies, by the way," Ashley said, "This is pretty good."

"Then your mind ought to be blown by dinner," I said.