Page 27 of Swiped
The teens with the speaker were now standing in the aisle. One of them lay down a flattened cardboard box. A young manin baggy jeans and an all-black San Francisco Giants cap started breakdancing. The kissing teens stopped kissing, and clapped and whooped at the kid’s moves. The song bopped with lyrics about feeling yourself and owning the moment — no haters!
Nat shrank down in her seat, all the better to hide her hater tendencies, and kept swiping. At least someone out there was having a good night.
* * *
Nat pushed open the red pleather swing doors to her favorite bar, and felt the atmosphere greet her like a sigh of relief. Bathed in moody red light, the place was intimate and dive-y, with jazz standards on the jukebox and no-nonsense bartenders who served up stiff, classic cocktails in front of a hand-painted mural of forest creatures cavorting with elegant, robed figures. It was a little slice of the city that time and the tourists had never touched. It was perfect.
It didn’t look like Sara was there yet, so she pulled herself onto a stool by the door. She set her phone on the tarnished brass bar top and kept swiping. As if by magic, a gin martini appeared in front of her with a wink from the server. She took a sip and let it course through her body, unraveling her nerves like unzipping a zipper.
“No way, this place is off-limits for dates.”
She turned to the voice at her shoulder. It was Rami, standing like a sentry with a bourbon in his hand, and glowering at her.
“It’s definitely off-limits,” she snapped. “And I’ve definitely been coming here longer than you have, so, sorry.”
Rami eased up his glare by an iota. “So, you’re not here for a date?”
Nat sipped her martini. “Never. This place is sacred.”
Rami’s entire body softened with relief as he said, “Tell me about it. Did you know they’ll kick you out if you order a cosmo?”
Nat tossed her hair. “Was that embarrassing for you?” she asked.
“You’re hilarious,” said Rami, flatly. He gestured to her phone. “You should put that on your profile!”
Nat blushed and stashed her phone as Rami pulled himself onto the seat she’d been saving for Sara. He let out a theatrical sigh and looked at her sadly. “One night of the BeTwo hellscape and you’re already hitting the sauce.” He sipped his bourbon with a smirk. “Sounds about right.”
“How do you know that this isn’t a celebratory drink?”
“Because you’re drinking it alone.”
Nat shrugged. She looked into his amused brown eyes with what she hoped was utter confidence. “The date was great, actually. He was really nice.”
Rami frowned. “It’ll wear off on the second date.”
“Oh good, another cynical insight!”
“It’s not cynical if it’s true.”
At that line, a smile twisted on Nat’s face. She couldn’t help it.
Rami’s left eyebrow perked up, and his eyes narrowed with interest. “Trust me, there’s a weird thing that happens when you meet up with someone you’ve been talking to online. First online dates are notoriously unreliable.”
Nerves suddenly crept into Nat’s stomach. “You know we’re not supposed to be in contact, right?” she said.
Rami waved his hand in defiance and continued. “First of all, you have the huge relief that your date is not, in fact, criminally insane, which is a low bar that makes you overlook a lot of other perfectly valid red flags.”
Nat rolled her eyes at him. “Should I be writing this down?”
“Then there’s the fact that you’ve already formed this whole idea of them in your head from their messages. You think, ‘Oh, she’s a nurse. She must be kind!’ or ‘She wrote ‘lol’ to myHobbitreference and went to a good school, she must be smart—’”
Nat almost choked on her martini. “Please don’t tell me you’re a sapiosexual.”
Rami grimaced. “God, no. That’s just code for ‘asshole.’”
“Right?” she cried, raising a hand in righteous validation. “Who says that?”
Rami lifted his nose in the air and took on a pompous tone as if reciting from a profile. “Hello, I want you to know that I think I’m smart in the most entitled way possible.”
