The Lesson

My friend Rachel came from Maryland to visit many years ago. Rachel is a pretty girl and one of her favorite things is to go out at night and chat up all the boys. It’s her Olympics. 

One evening, after poring over my pathetic wardrobe of yoga tops and thrift shop skirts, we finally found a dress that met with her approval, and to ensure success she shared a tactic with me. She instructed me to enter the room, walk past a guy I found cute, then turn and smile coyly over my shoulder at him. 

“But why don’t I just smile at him when I see him?” I asked, reasonably. “I could wave, too.” I illustrated by grinning like a baboon and flailing my arm wildly, taking out a small picture frame and upsetting the cat. 

“You just don’t!” she said. “It’s called flirting! Come on—there must be someone you like right now.”

Unenthusiastically I sorted through my most recent feelings. Hm. Euphoria over a good parking space? New LOTR movie coming out? Nope, those couldn’t possibly—hello, what’s this? Somewhere in that tangle of emotions I recalled a funny feeling in my tummy after I’d encountered a cute sushi chef. I had attributed it to a bad shrimp, but could I have been wrong? Were love and salmonella so close in texture that they could in fact be mistaken for one another? Since it was the closest thing I had at the moment, I shrugged and offered up Cute Chef.

Rachel was pleased. She outlined our strategy (which was basically going to Sushi Planet), and reminded me to walk PAST him then turn and smile.

I suggested a couple of practice runs in the living room, slightly concerned about walking in one direction and looking another, but she nixed that, although she did offer to illustrate at the restaurant by going first. 

At the hostess station I nervously chomped seven after dinner mints while the girl perused the seating chart. “We’ll sit at the bar,” Rachel said. “Maybe at the end?” I stuffed a second fistful of mints in my mouth then spied Cute Chef, who glanced up and smiled. I stopped chewing and scowled back, in a clever attempt to throw him off the track and save the good stuff for later. 

“What ARE you doing?” Rachel asked, but before I could explain, she swanned off. Gracefully she followed the hostess the length of the bar, smiling at the many approving glances tossed her way. HER feet obediently walked straight although she glanced over her shoulder several times.

The long white floor unfolded before me like a horrid slippery plank, and the fashionable tile and concrete room was bright with noise. I took a step and didn’t fall down, so I took a couple more. Still all good. Encouraged, I galloped three steps forward then remembered the protocol. Oops. I stopped, rebooted, then slinked forward. No one was looking at me, so that was good. (But wait! They’re supposed to look.) I cleared my throat loudly, to catch a few eyes, but no one looked up. Coughing loudly worked, however, in fact so successfully that a pimpled busboy, apparently concerned for his health, took a long cut to the kitchen by actually leaving the restaurant and going through the alley. Several diners shielded their food.

A couple more steps and I’d be past the hostess station, the bowl of mints and squarely in open water. My self confidence, usually tucked in a corner with a good book, sat up, ears pricked. I was getting the hang of this! Every molecule in my body was dancing; my arms and legs were as synchronized as a swimmer’s limbs. For the first time in my life all systems appeared to be on line and functioning smoothly, rather than fighting for individuation. This is what it meant to be completely and utterly alive!

Third step. I saw Rachel giving me the sign: Now! Like a carelessly blossoming flower, I took my eyes off my feet, half turned and flashed Cute Chef a forced and toothy grin. He smiled back at me just as my left foot, drunk with power and newly unsupervised, caught the stack of metal and wood chairs behind the hostess station and sent them crashing to the floor. Some fell straight down and stayed politely there, but several of them took the opportunity to scrape, screeching loudly, to a halt several feet away. I glanced furtively around. Well, Rachel’s tutelage was successful on one level. I definitely had everyone’s attention. Out of the corner of my sheepish eyes I saw Rachel sidling out the back.

Later, as we were in line at the grocery store—I mean, that incident called for SERIOUS cookie therapy—we caught sight of a big magazine display: GQ, Men’s Fitness, Vogue, and more. “Oh my god,” I said, spying an especially appealing cover. We both rushed forward and snatched a magazine from the rack. I thumbed excitedly through my copy, and Rachel hers, when she had an epiphany. She looked up from her shirtless Johnny Depp, and pushed up the cover of my magazine to reveal a hot and steamy full color completely nude picture of a bowl of beef noodle pho. I don’t know if it’s possible to sprain one’s eyeballs from rolling them too hard, but Rachel was in serious danger of that for a moment. Needless to say, the flirting lessons were deemed useless and stopped after that night.