Dinner (fiction)

I’ve always had a thing about where I sit. I can’t have my back to a room. Whether it’s a restaurant or a coffee shop I will gravitate to the table that best surveys the room and I will sit against the wall so that I can visually lord over everyone. I don’t know why I do this, nor do I recall any specific incident wherein I was taken by surprise from behind that would help to explain this particular habit of mine.
But. Let’s not discuss weird habits. We’ll be here all night.
So I’m sitting at a table towards the back of the room and I’m facing the door. I’m talking to my ex boyfriend because, at 34, I have been feeling the strange desire to have at least one ex boyfriend in my life that will talk to me since, as it stands, I’ve burned most of my proverbial bridges to the ground in the past and I’m trying for a more Zen-like approach to life. Plus he has quite a bit of cash and often picks up the tab. I’m just saying.
He’s regaling me with tales of woe regarding his current relationship and I’m laughing, not because it’s necessarily funny, but because I think we’re both a little damaged and we aren’t so good at navigating relationships too successfully. That whole burning bridges thing.
It’s a nice restaurant: darkened; mellow electronica music; attentive but friendly waiters; what is purported to be good food; and I’m currently sipping a fantastic glass of zinfandel and thinking that I should really get my teeth whitened because the two main staples of my diet are coffee and red wine and my smile isn’t the brightest and I’ve been told that I’m much more approachable when I smile.
He asks me about my current relationship status and I tell him I’ve got a couple of things on the go. I don’t really want to get into it too much at this point, but I know after my second or third glass of wine I will start to lament that all these men are perfectly good and they treat me well and I don’t know why I always manage to fuck it up in some regard and am I doing it subconsciously? And what exactly is it that I’m looking for? Or perhaps even that, were I to find the perfect guy, I would still manage to botch it in some regard because I have this deep-seeded feeling that I’m not really good enough and that they’re lying when they tell me that they love me because I’m not really deserved of such love. You know, the usual Psych 101 stuff.
As we’re talking and waiting for our appetizer to arrive (curried popcorn shrimp) I find my gaze is continually drawn to the woman at the table in front of us. She has voluminous, bleached blonde tresses and is wearing a tight and low cut dress and her fake boobs are all but spilling out onto the table. She is with three other guys, one of which is her boyfriend and he’s kind of greasy looking with long hair in a ponytail and he has his arm draped possessively around her and he laughs a little too loudly and I think he’s quite impressed with himself to be able to trot around town with such a pretty trinket on his arm.
Then I think about my own appearance: nice jeans on the tight side; high heeled boots and a nice top set off with some funky jewelry. I’m in dire need of a haircut and my nails need to be trimmed and I my legs are sporting three days of stubble and I look a little tired cause it’s Friday night and I’ve worked all week but I’m not wearing any mascara because I ultimately end up rubbing my eyes and it gets smeared everywhere. A girly girl I am not.
My ex, Jon, is wearing a nice dress shirt and blazer and some jeans and he’s actually looking quite dapper tonight and I’ve told him as much and he has told me that I look lovely (he always tells me that) and that it’s good to see me. But of course he couldn’t possibly mean any of that, right? Or does he? I take another sip of wine and see movement out of the corner of my eye that seems rushed and agitated.
Two guys wearing jeans and black hoodies – which they have up – have walked in rather brusquely and have quickly bypassed the hostess station and are entering the dining area and something is culminating in the back of my mind as I see their furtive and determined movements.
One of the men at the table in front of us is pushing back his chair and starting to stand up and I watch the expression on the couple sitting across from him as it changes from jocular to tense and they start to turn around to see what is happening behind them.
At this point everything is happening simultaneously but in slow motion. As the guy who has risen to his feet at the table behind us is reaching into an inner pocket of his sports jacket I am reaching across the table for Jon’s hand and he is looking at me quizzically as I stand and start to pull on him and he looks at me with vague irritation as though I’m engaging in some kind of petulant behavior but then that look passes into something else as several things occur: he hears the shooting behind him and the clatter of a chair as it falls over and the loud report of a gun shot and the high pitched screaming of the woman behind us.
I’m around the table now and pulling hard on him because both of the men in hoodies have guns out and are starting to shoot at the people at the table in front of us and I think oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck and also: not today. Not today.
As we move in the direction of the washrooms and the kitchen, other patrons are staring on in horror: some resolutely fastened to their seats – mesmerized; some starting to flee into the sanctuary of the kitchen where there must be an exit. I look back as we run, my heart hammering in my chest and drumming in my ears, feeling so full of adrenaline that I think I could fly if I so desired and Jon is pulling on my hand now as I see the man who had initially stood up falling backwards because he’s been shot and then I see blood start to spurt and gush from the blonde woman’s neck and she starts to scrabble wildly at her throat and I can hear these muffled, choking sounds and I understand that a bullet has passed through her neck and she’s dying and she has this panicked, wild look on her face as her manicured fingernails become bloodied and the blood continues to pump heavily, coursing down her chest and breasts and she starts to list forward and I realize that I’m screaming.
Then we’re in the narrow hallway the leads to the washrooms and, beyond that, the kitchen and I everyone’s shoes are clattering on the wood floor and I’m being pulled along by Jon and at the same time I’m being roughly pushed from behind by other patrons and I dimly understand that this is how stampedes happen, this is the blind panic that causes people to become trampled to death when fires break out in nightclubs and when riots happen in soccer stadiums and we rush past the bathrooms and into the fluorescent lighting of the kitchen where the chefs, in pristine white, are staring dumbly on and Jon yells “We need to go!! Where is the exit?” and while this is happening I hear more sharp cracks and the fear is just utterly overwhelming now. I can’t move fast enough. We need to be out of here. It’s uncontrollable.
In retrospect it’s easy to understand that the gunmen would shoot their victims and then try and leave as quickly as possible to escape capture, or they would be shot themselves and that, aside from sitting behind the people that were targeted, we weren’t targets ourselves, but not of that was resonating in my mind as Jon slammed open the exit door so hard that it swung violently outwards and I almost fell down the three concrete stairs that led down to the alley and I would have had Jon not still been holding my hand so that he could pull me up as he felt me start to lag. I think that, had he not pulled me up, I would’ve been trampled by the dozen or so people that were hot on my heels.
Clattering into the alley we ran down it to the next street, coming across a Subway and bursting in, panting, gesticulating wildly until one of the sandwich artists dropped sliced tomatoes he was holding and, with a plastic enshrouded hand, picked up a phone to call the police.
We were interviewed by the police for a long time. They wouldn’t let any of us go and we were all corralled into that Subway and eventually the media showed up and were camped outside the restaurant, waiting to pounce on us when we emerged.
After the initial adrenaline wore off I felt fatigued and we were given coffee and, after being asked for the third time what the gunmen looked like (one had been shot by the people at the table in front of us, the other had managed to escape) I started to cry.
The policeman who had been asking me questions looked uncomfortable and cast an eye in the direction of his supervisor who nodded to him and he said I was free to go and I said, “What about my jacket and purse?” and I was advised that I could go back to the restaurant and ask the officers there to retrieve them for me and Jon came over and put his hand on my shoulder and said “I’ll get them for you”.
I described my jacket and purse to him as we walked down the alley. It was a black jacket with pockets and a belt. I remembered when I bought it and wearing it with Jon and joking that I looked like a French spy and that all I needed was a beret and a baguette and Jon had said “The eagle lands at midnight”. The purse, I said, was hung on the back of the chair, under my jacket.
“I’ll get them. I’ll be right back,” he said, holding my elbow as I leaned back against the brick wall in the alley, shaking somewhat.
I waited for a period of time that was neither short nor long before he returned and held my jacket for me as I shrugged it on and we walked along the alley that smelled of puddles and garbage.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I looked up at him and he looked much different than I had ever seen him.
“I’m sorry too,” I told him.