On Saturday nights, we have dinner at a restaurant she selects from a list on her phone of
Trivago’s Top Places to Eat Out in our city. This is our thing, our couple’s thing.
In the bathroom mirror, I watch her reflection sweep black liner across her glossy eyelids as I
struggle to gel my hair into place. She waits for me by the front door in the light of the lamp,
toying with the keys, while I go to put my shoes on.
At the Japanese restaurant, the waiter brings us a bottle of sparkling saké. Though I do not
ask her to, she orders for us: a platter of sashimi that is overly expensive for something
uncooked, but I don’t say this either.
In the back corner, there is a woman with wrists like wings playing a kind of string
instrument and we don’t speak.
The saké goes down like a drop of spring water. I watch her over the crystal rim of my glass
shift a lock of hair over her shoulder, her black spaghetti strap, and bring a piece of raw tuna
to the curve of her mouth. Red flesh glistens under dim lights. Her napkin comes away with a
smudge of cherry lipstick.
This is our thing. Our couple’s thing.
•
The first time we met, we were at a speed-dating event the bar at our local university runs bi-
monthly. I was wearing a pale-pink button down and the pen I had been given—the one they
give you with the list of names that you’re supposed to place either a cross or a tick next to—
had spilled blue ink down my sleeve.
I recognised her from my Matches on Hinge. A week ago I’d sent her a message – ‘hey, what
do u like to do for fun/hobbies etc?’ – but no reply. I supposed I’d bored her, asking a
question like that.
By the time she sat down at my table towards the end of the night, I’d made a habit of telling
the story of my pen and the ink as a way of introducing myself as the kind of person who
could laugh about these kinds of things. Once I’d finished, she made a breathy ha-ha noise
(that I would later come to understand as her being patronising) and told me it wasn’t such a
shame my shirt was ruined anyway, since she’d always thought blond men looked washed-
out in pink.
When I got back to my apartment that night, I went to my wardrobe and pulled out anything
that was pink/purple/maroon and shoved them all into the kitchen bin.
•
Later, we lie in bed illuminated by the cold light of her phone.
She is rolled over, facing away from me. I watch the lump in the covers that is her body
quiver as she giggles about something on her screen and think vaguely that it must be
something to do with me.
The saké gurgles in my stomach, swishing around like a fish tail.
Next Saturday we will go to perhaps a French or Spanish or a Greek restaurant. Drunkenly, I
will watch her ink-black heels click against the pavement as she leads the way to the Uber
and I will think that they sound a little like hooves.