"What?" I snapped into my phone as the light turned green and I crossed at Lafayette St.
"Oh my god. What are you doing? Why are you answering your phone?"
"Why did you call, then?" I rolled my eyes.
"You're on a date! A date. You're not meant to answer your bloody phone on a date. Not this date, anyways!"
"I'm not," I answered evenly.
A gasp. "Yes you bloody are. Oh my god, don't even tell me you stood him up again."
"What do you mean again? I haven't stood him up...yet."
"No. Don't even play word games with me, you know what I mean. You can't keep doing this."
"OK. Calm down. I didn't stand anyone up. I met him."
"And what? He didn't know who Picasso was? He was colourblind? He wore red and pink together? What?"
"Oh geez, don't be a pig. Just don't expect me to get along with anyone I just...don't get along with, OK."
"Look, just because you're a hot shot en-tre-pre-neur," she enunciated as if reading off a French menu "You can't expect everyone to be as artsy or whatever!"
"I don't. That's fine. I don't."
"Where are you? All the noise just disappeared. No traffic."
"You creep. I'm at home kicking my heels off. Pouring a drink, why?"
"Alone?"
Silence.
"Don't do this. You can't be alone forever! But OK, Nik. He still likes you ... after your date last month. Then you stood him up. What was wrong with Nik?"
"Which one was he? Oh him. He couldn't do math."
"MATH? Are you crazy? Did you test his calculus skills or something?"
"No. He didn't know what 17 times 10 was."
"17 times...Where the hell does this kind of question even come from on a date? Oh don't even tell me. Why would you expect anyone to know their 17 times tables, anyways. Who does that? Don't we usually stop at 12 and say that's enough? I remember that in school. What a drag."
"A, think. 17 times 10. Who doesn't know how to multiply by ten?"
"Oh. Ten."
"See."
"Nik didn't know how to multiply by ten?"
"See."
"Whatever."
"So can you stop suggesting all your guy friends for me to meet with? No offense to your friends, but I have a feeling I don't need to meet anyone else."
"Fine, but you can't expect everyone to be Jack Porter."
"I don't."
"What was wrong with tonight's date?"
"What makes you think anything was wrong?"
"OK forget it. When do you leave Manhattan?"
"After Labour Day."
"OK, I'll pick you up at LAX."
"Yeah, whatever," I yawned into the phone and disconnected.
"You didn't tell her hi for me," he said from the couch, right at home with his shoes off.
