Page 44 of I Won't Be In On Monday

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe we could do a pizza and salad.”

“That sounds good. Caesar salad?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course. It’s my favorite.”

“I thought you really liked Cobb salad?”

“I do. But not with pizza. Plus, I don't like love the dressing options. Do you know who has the best salad dressing?”

“No, who?” I wait for her to answer, thinking she is going to name some exclusive five-star Michelin restaurant that I will never be able to afford in my life.

“Olive Garden,” she says with a steadfast face.

“What?” My jaw drops.

She grins. “Olive Garden has the best salad dressing ever.”

I start laughing then. “You did not just say Olive Garden.”

“What? You’ve never been to Olive Garden?”

“Of course, I’ve been to Olive Garden. I went when I visited Florida with my dad. We got the never-ending breadsticks and pasta. And I mean, the salad was good. But I don’t know if it was the best salad I ever had in my life.”

“Trust me,” she says, “I’ve eaten in a number of different sorts of restaurants, and their salad dressing is good.”

“Man, maybe you should get a job working for them in their marketing department because you’re selling their salad like it's your day job.”

She giggles. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t think that's the job of my dreams. But I guess I could make them a trillion dollars just from the salad dressing alone. If they gave me 10 percent of the profits, I'd be willing to share my talents.”

“Bet you could get a good .000001 percent.”

"Might still be worth it." She looks around and then bursts into a wide smile. “Finally!” She motions to the waiter approaching with our strawberry margaritas.

“Hi, sorry about the wait,” he says, batting his long, dark eyelashes. He's a handsome man and reminds me of some of the frat guys I used to see in of my college classes. “The barman got mixed up and made you Russian mules, and I didn’t think you wanted those.”

“That’s a big mistake to make.” I take my glass from him. “Strawberry margaritas became Russian mules. Not even the same liquor, right?”

He stares at me for a couple of seconds and nods. “He’s new. And may or may not be able to read properly.” He looks me up and down, a half smile on his face. “But thank you for being so patient. These two are on me.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” I say quickly.

“When I say me, I mean on the restaurant, so don’t worry.” He winks. "Don't worry about it, Lois Lane.”

I grin at him. “Well, thank you, kind sir.” I'm not sure why he's calling me Lois Lane, but I'm not going to ask either.

“You’re welcome. Have you decided what you would like to eat?”

“We’re still waiting on another friend,” Skye says. “But she should be here any moment.”

“Okay, well, I’ll wait for your friend to arrive and then I’ll be back. Enjoy your drinks, ladies.” He gives me another small wink and then walks away, turning to look back at me and waggling his tongue once.

Skye stares at me for a couple of seconds. “I don't think you need that makeover. You're getting men left, right, and center without it.”

“What men am I getting?”

“Um, Marco the waiter was just flirting with you.” She wiggles her tongue. "Man wants to get down with you."

“No, he was not. He was just being nice because?—”

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