First Dates Are For Silences by Eilise Norris
She takes to wearing a Pikachu onesie on first dates. The first man to meet her watches her approach like a malignant swarm of something. She has a curious smile. He doesn’t smile at all.
"Sorry, uh, can I help?" he says, as if he could close a door in her face from the middle of the restaurant. Instead, he gestures away from the empty chair.
"Hi. It’s Lizzie." She never knows whether to shake hands with dates. Never mind; the moment has fallen into the man's gaping. She sits down.
"Why are you dressed like that?" Clearly, he wouldn't stay polite in a crisis. Her yellow fleece and zigzag tail are drawing stares from the servers and other diners. At least she lowered the hood so her date would recognise her. At least, when she told the stunned greeter at the door that she was meeting someone, they had only smiled and said, "Sure!"
Lizzie says, "Don’t you want to ask me how old I am, or how many brothers and sisters, or what my job day is?" Total bollocks. She didn’t think he'd open with that, but she hoped he'd be a bit funny about it. (Coming straight from the convention, I see? Pikachu, right? Because you’re shockingly beautiful.)
He takes a cat-sized sip of water. Looks from the other diners are ricocheting. A phone is raised in that distinctive unobtrusive way. She’ll be someone else's story later.
Lizzie says, "A guy I went out with for a while said I was too intimidating. Talked too fast, lots of opinions." Which made her chuckle, the sort of chuckle an untied balloon makes leaking air. “So I thought I’d try something different.”
Red-eyed olives lie in an oily bowl between them. She spears one on a cocktail stick, while a frown sinks through her date’s chin, neck, and shoulders. His shirt is quite tight on the arms, she thinks. Deliberately so.
"I wouldn't say... well, I don't know you, but you're quite intimidating in this," he moves his hand up and down, "to be honest. On a first date."
She knows there are two kinds of intimidation: the kind that expands over you like a vulture’s shadow; the kind that creeps up with embarrassment. Both real but different. Alternate definitions.
When he goes home and talks to his roommate, he’ll redefine many more words, like difficult, nightmare, lunatic. Lizzie’s friend will listen to the recap and tell her she’s hilarious but couldn’t she have given the poor guy a chance. As though Lizzie hadn’t said to him, after another olive, "Fourth date outfit, do you reckon?” Then, drawing up her chair, tipping forwards with crossed-ankles and enquiring elbows, “So, do you have any brothers or sisters?” And he’d said nothing.
………………..
Eilise Norris is a writer based in Oxfordshire, UK. She writes flash fiction and poetry. Her recent stories have been published in the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, Ellipsis Zine, and Milk Candy Review.
Twitter: @eilisecnorris