Our Story, Part 4

Our next date was tennis. But it was such a bad experience, and it was on a weekday, so I really don’t consider it a date. I had taken a beginning tennis class a year earlier, but I was terrible. The ball never went where it was supposed to go, even when I tossed the ball up myself. I never, in the entire semester, hit a backhand in the correct square. The bigger problem, however, was that during our first date, I joked about how great of a tennis player I was. I told him that I would kick his trash. I thought it would be so hilarious to talk up my skills and be so tricky.

It wasn’t hilarious. It was just dumb. I hardly ever managed to hit the ball back. The worst part of missing hits was not the clear demonstration that I sucked at tennis. It was the running after the ball again and again and again as Nathaniel, unable to help me out all the way on the other side of the court, stood there and watched. No, actually, the worst part was bending over to pick up the ball, giving my opponent a great view of my backside sticking up in the air. I called it quits after ten minutes.

So what I call our second date was actually our third, but I can’t call it the third or else I will get all mixed up in my head.

You know how Utah high school kids have themed group dates? Nathaniel has a friend who decided to do one of those. I guess he had some good experiences with that sort of thing in high school. We didn’t do that in Georgia.

Looking back on the date, I wish I hadn’t been wearing what I wore. You see, it was gangster-themed and Nathaniel encouraged me to go all out. With Marisa Tomei as my inspiration, I wore a black fitted jacket and a black pencil skirt with gaudy diamond-y costume jewelry, black gloves, stilettos, and fishnets. I guess that part of the outfit wasn’t so bad. It was when I decided to really get into character and wear pale make-up and dark lipstick that I did myself in. Why did I think that gangster’s girlfriends had pale faces?

If I had been smarter and just wore the plain, boring, make-up I usually wore, I would have a decent picture to show Summer when she starts to get curious about how her parents got together. Instead I have this.

Urg. Oh, and I have the memory of the awkward feeling I got when I saw the other girl on the date who was wearing jeans.

After dinner at Fazoli’s, a very gangster-y place, we went to the store to get stuff to make dessert. Because this was a creative date, we weren’t just going to be boring with dessert. Nathaniel and I would make dessert for the other couple on the date while they made dessert for us.

I was totally down with whatever plan gave Nathaniel and me more alone time.

We chose to make the easiest dessert in the world: ice cream sandwiches made with those cookies that you just pull apart and bake. As the cookies were baking, Nathaniel and I lay (lie?) down on the floor and talked. WHAT? WE DID THAT? IS THAT ALLOWED? Chill, people, there weren’t any couches in the basement and we were far apart from each other.

Nathaniel and I talked with the ease of old friends, so my questions got progressively less inhibited. I told Nathaniel he seemed like a very upright, do-good, stay-within-the-lines type of person. “Have you ever done anything rebellious?” I asked.

Ok. This is where I have to add my part of the story (This is Nathaniel).

UPDATE: Due to the nature of the internet, you'll have to ask Nathaniel to hear the story. It's a good one.