What He's Been Missing

“Parish? Tonight? I can’t!”

“You can’t?” Ian frowned in disbelief. “Why?”

“Because I—I—”

“You what?”

“I have a date!”

“Whatever!” Ian laughed like he expected me to join in. “A date? There’s no way!”

“No way?”

“You tell me everything. I would know.”

“Well, maybe right now you don’t know,” I teased like we were in a school yard.

“Why wouldn’t I know?” Ian stepped in close to me like a bouncer.

“Because . . . because I just made the date.”

“You just made a date?” Ian smirked.

“Yeah!”

“With?”

I looked around and there was Bird still grinning at me from the red truck.

“Him!” I pointed to Bird.

“Him?” Ian looked at Bird.

Bird waved.

“Fine,” Ian said. “If that’s what you want. Fine. How about tomorrow? Lunch?”

“Lunch? That’s our lunch. We always go alone. No one else,” I said.

“Just this one time,” he said. “So you can tell Scarlet about your rule, and she can get it out of her head and we can be done with it.”

I exhaled as I watched Bird cleaning a tool he was holding at his waist.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Great! Same place as always?”

“Same place,” I said. “Same time.”

“Good. I’ll tell Scar,” Ian said, taking out his phone as he started walking back to his car. “And have a good time”—he pointed at the sign—“Big Bird.”

“So, you’re a woman of your word?” Bird said when Ian was gone. “Guess I’ll see you tonight.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to think of how I could get out of the date with Bird, but the truth was, I didn’t have anything else to do. Either I’d sit at home or go out to confirm what I already knew: there was no way anything between Bird and me would develop. We were just too different. I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t making love plans. But it wasn’t bad to have some plans. And what harm could he be? He was named after one of nature’s most splendid creatures . . . and the most popular puppet on Sesame Street. Maybe he was the man I’d been waiting for. The one to sweep me off my feet. Be full of surprises I couldn’t imagine. Sure, he seemed to like gold jewelry and obviously had some kind of s-curl kit in his hair. But I could change that. Love is meant to prevail against all odds!

Still, in case I couldn’t change those things and the date was a disaster, I told Bird to pick me up at the office at five o’clock. That was the only address he’d had on file at the shop and there was no sense giving him my home address.

Of course, he showed up in a Ford. One older than mine. Shiny and purple and big. He pulled tight to the corner on Peachtree in front of the building where I was standing with Krista. I kept telling her I was all right and I’d see her in the office the next day, but she insisted on reviewing every single detail of the work day while scrolling through messages on her cell phone. I think she was just waiting to see my date, though, because when Bird pulled up in that purple car, she nearly squealed like a preschooler who’d just found an Easter egg in the school yard. “This is your date?”