by Tina Scordo
“Good evening,” he
greeted, in a gentle tone of voice. The musician stood up and made his way
toward me. “Did you like it?” he asked, cocking his head to one side and placing
a warm gentle hand on my shoulder. The musician had a bit of an English accent.
I wondered what part of England he was from.
“Yes---no---I mean,” I stammered, not expecting him to talk to me let alone touch me. I swallowed and said softly with a shy smile, “I loved it. It was beautiful.”
“Thank you,” the musician said, strolling toward the empty seat across from me. “Is this seat taken?” he asked, touching the top of it.
“No,” I said, gesturing for the musician to sit.
He pulled the chair away from the table and seated himself. He then snapped his fingers above his head and a waiter approached our table with a bottle of some sort of red wine and two glasses. The waiter set the glasses on the table and popped the bottle open. I was afraid the wine would shoot out all over the place, but to my surprise, it didn’t. The waiter poured us each a glass and left the table. The musician took hold of the glass in front of him, raised it a little and said, “A toast, to you and me, on a beautiful evening.” We tapped each other’s glasses and drank. “Not bad,” he said, placing his glass on the table.
I could hear music beginning to play, assuming it was coming from a jukebox or stereo for there wasn’t a band on stage serenading us. I listened closely placing my wine glass back down on the table. I began picking out each instrument listening to them separately to see how their part went.
“Would you like to dance?” asked the musician.
“I’d love to,” I answered.
He stood up and took my hand leading me to the dance floor. He was a foot taller than I was. I feared that he would be a bit difficult to dance with, since he was so tall, but there didn’t seem to be a problem.
“What is your name,” I asked my mysterious dance partner.
“My name is-------RING! . . . RING! . . . RING! . . . RING!”
I abruptly sat up, breathing heavily.
What’s that noise? . . . Oh.
My phone was ringing. I let the answering machine answer the confounded contraption for I did not want to pick it up knowing who it was already.
“Antonia? Are you there? This is your mother. Hello? Hello?”
The sound of the voice on the machine just made my skin crawl. I glared at it as if to tell it to shut up and swatted at it lying back down, throwing the blanket over my head.
Mothers! They can be so annoying!
Later that morning after I had gotten two more hours of sleep, I was still in my nightshirt and boxers. I was sitting at the table by the window with a bowl of cereal looking blankly at the slow bumper-to-bumper traffic below on the busy city street.
Thank God I don’t drive. It looks so aggravating.
My eyes narrowed at the thought of the rude awakening I had gotten by the harsh tone of the beast that I vowed never to become one day. I bulldozed that out of my mind and tried to decide what to do for the rest of the day.
At that moment, the phone rang in mid-bite. I put down my spoon, slowly getting up from the table. Staring at the contraption, I listened to its tormenting rings until the machine picked up. I never ever pick up the phone, because nine times out of ten it is just some annoying telemarketer.
“Hey! Antonia!” It was my friend Simoane. I picked up the receiver.
“Hi, Simoane!”
“Hi! Andrea, Nichole and I are going to hit the mall and see a movie this afternoon and we wanted to know if you were interested in joining us?”
“I’d love to,” I replied abruptly, thinking that it might get my mind off the weird dream. “Are you guys going to pick me up here or do you want me to meet you there?”
“Oh I can pick you up,” Simoane told me.
I had almost forgotten what malls were like. It had been almost three years since I’d been inside one. The buildings were overwhelming, almost the size of a museum these days.
“Ok, I can be ready in an hour,” I told her.
“See you at noon then, bye-bye.”
“Bye.”
Hanging up the phone, I skipped toward the linen closet and took out a huge towel placing it on the towel bar and turning the shower on. I adjusted the water temperature until it was warm and pulled off my nightclothes. I threw them into the hamper, and stepped into the shower. I washed and shaved while singing one song after the other until I was finished. With the towel wrapped around me, I proceeded to brush my teeth and dry my hair.
In my closet, I found a whole year’s supply of clothes I never wore. My mother had bought them for me, saying how they looked “so cute” on me. Any article of clothing that my mother thought looked “so cute” on me had to be the world’s most hideous looking outfit ever designed in the entire history of world fashion. I sighed and searched for the one outfit I actually purchased myself with my own hard-earned money and that hadn’t been complimented on by the beast herself.
A few minutes later I was folding up my cane and climbing into the back seat of Simoane’s car. “Hey, Antonia,” my friends greeted me, as I slammed the door shut. Nichole sat in the front passenger seat and was changing the stations on the radio until a song came on that she liked.
“Oh! I love this song,” she exclaimed, turning up the volume.
“Me too,” Andrea and Simoane agreed, followed by an echo of giggling.
I, on the other hand, didn’t like the song at all. It was just too lame for my taste. I mean how hard is it to write cheesy, girly lyrics that go:
Baby, I’ve got my eyes all over you.
Analyzing everything that you ever do.
Making sure I don’t miss a single beat.
Oh can’t you see you’re the only one for me.
That’s right.
You’re the only one for me.
Oh baby!
You’re the only one for me.
