“This isn’t a date,” I reminded him. “And, it’s really lame that you just told me you’re taking me somewhere you’ve taken other girls.”
“Right. Well next time I’ll remember to lie to you then,” he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What makes you think there will be a next time?”
“What makes you think there won’t?”
I didn’t bother looking at him I just sniffed my response and stared out the window.
Jaxson’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream was located on one of the busier streets in Dania. Its neon circus sign blinked impatiently from a nondescript shopping plaza, working overtime to attract the attention of passersby. Despite the bright lights, the cutouts where tourists place their heads on animal bodies, and the blaring organ music, I had never noticed the place.
“Oh,” I said, trying to mask my surprise. “This is interesting.”
“Are you lactose intolerant?” he asked sliding his car into a parking spot.
“Nope.”
“On a diet?”
“Not this week.”
“Great. Then you’re going to love it.” He came around to open my door, and offered me his hand as I maneuvered my way out of the car.
We entered the lobby and were immediately greeted by an elderly man with cotton candy hair. He wheezed in excitement when he saw Caleb and shuffled over to shake his hand.
“Good to see you again, Caleb,” he said in a cigarette chapped voice. He was wearing a red pinstriped jumpsuit with buttons made to look like lollypops.
It embarrassed me.
Caleb put a big hand on our host’s shoulder as he greeted him. They exchanged niceties for a few moments and then annoyingly enough, Caleb’s hand found my lower back again.
“Harlow, is my table open?”
Harlow nodded and shuffled forward. We towed along behind him, passing through the first room and taking a small walkway between the ice cream coolers until we emerged into a second, larger room. I looked around in awe as we slowly made our way to the table. The place was a smorgasbord of twenties paraphernalia. In fact, there were so many knick knacks and doodads hanging from the walls, my eyes crossed in confusion. “Caleb’s table” was rinky-dink and small, with a lopsided baby carriage hanging over it. I pursed my lips, unimpressed. Caleb turned to look at me and smiled like he could read my thoughts.
Harlow began wheezing again as he struggled to pull out my chair.
“I can get it. Thanks,” I said. He shrugged his shoulders and disappeared, leaving us alone.
Rich, British boys didn’t eat ice cream in places like this. They ate caviar on yachts and dated rich, blond girls with trust funds. He had to be seriously flawed in some unobvious way. I went through the possibilities in my mind; bad temper, clingy, mental illness…..
“I suppose you’re wondering about the table?” he said, sitting down across from me.
I nodded.
“I’ve been bringing girls here since junior high.” He folded his hands on the sticky tabletop and leaned back in his seat casually. “Anyway, you see that table over there?” I turned to look at the corner table that he was pointing to. An old traffic light was spastically blinking red, green, red, red green above it.
“That is the bad luck table and I will never sit there again, not by myself, and not ever with a date.”
I turned back to him amused. He was superstitious. How tacky. I felt smug.
“Why?”
“Well, because every time I sit at that table something disastrous happens—like my old girlfriend seeing me with my new girlfriend and dumping death-by- chocolate on our laps, or finding out that you’re allergic to blueberries in front of the hottest girl in school….” He laughed at himself and I let a smile creep through my tough girl act.
A blueberry allergy was kind of endearing.
“And this table?” I asked.
“Good things happen at this table,” he said simply.
I raised an eyebrow but was too afraid to ask. Bringing a girl to an ice cream parlor that looked like it was funked in the twenties scored pretty big points. Cammie would be eating it up. It was his sex ticket, I decided.
I was inordinately relieved when our server showed up with two waters and a colander of stale popcorn.
I was still looking through my menu when I heard Caleb ordering for me.
“Are you kidding?” I asked when out server walked away. “Are you aware that women can now vote and order their own food?”
“You never give an inch,” he said. “—I like that.”
I lick the salt off my fingers and narrow my eyes at him.
“I saw you looking at this.” He tapped a picture of a banana split. “—right before you started looking at the low fat ice cream.”
He was observant, I’d give him that.
“So what if I wanted something low fat?”
Caleb shrugged. “It’s my night. I won. I make the rules.”
I almost smiled. Almost.
He told me about his family while we waited. He grew up in London with his mother and stepfather. He had the type of magical childhood every kid dreams of, fancy vacations, Christmases with the cousins in Switzerland, and a goddamn pony for his birthday. They transplanted to America when he was fourteen. Michigan first, and then when his mother said the cold was bad for her complexion, Florida. There was an abundance of money, little fighting, and an older brother who did things like climb Mt. Everest in his spare time. His biological father, whom he still occasionally saw, was a womanizer who graced the covers of British tabloids by dating and breaking up with famous models. When it came my turn to spill, I filtered my story for his upper class benefit, leaving out my alcoholic father whom I just called ‘deceased,’ and replacing the projects with ‘a bad neighborhood’. I saw little reason to drown him in the ugly details of my un-charmed life. I didn’t want to bruise his happily ever after. He listened with attentiveness and asked me questions. In my opinion, one could measure a person’s self-absorption by the amount of questions they did not pose. Caleb genuinely seemed interested in me. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Either it was a ploy to get girls in bed, or he really was that nice.