“I Walked Into a Door.”

  I know that there is a rule that you aren’t supposed to call someone the day after you get their number and things of that nature, but the day after the BBQ my roommate Melissa had extra tickets to a band called “The New Jazz Project” on Wednesday night.  Christine and I weren’t due to go on our first date until Friday, but I figured I could ask… That evening I gave her a call and got her answering machine. I left a message, but she never called me back.

  The next morning while I was at work I received an E-mail from her. She was in a Volley League that played on Sundays and after her usual game another team asked her to sub in for them and didn’t get home until relatively late. I had asked her if she liked Jazz and she admitted that she wasn’t really sure, but that she was interested. We continued to E-mail correspond throughout that day and the next.

  We made arrangements for Wednesday. I would pick her up at 7 and we would go to dinner and then make it to the venue in time for the show. I told her that I was very punctual so she could count on me being on time. Big mistake.

  On Wednesday, everything was going fine. I even bought flowers. I got to her apartment on time. At least I thought so. It turns out I went to the wrong building. I went to the one on the right. Chalk it up to nerves. She lived on the 5th or 6th floor, so when I got there and knocked on the door and it wasn’t her, but instead,  a Hispanic lady with two children, I knew I had made a mistake. Now, I was going to be late.

  Racing down the stairs as fast as I could, I got to the foyer and ran face first into a glass door both stunned and embarrassed. My nose was in pain and I knew it would swell up, but I was relieved when I lightly raised a finger under my nose to see it wasn’t bleeding. As I crossed the parking lot to the other building, I realized that although the nose itself wasn’t bleeding, the bridge of my nose was. By the time I got to her apartment I was indeed late. She had all intention of teasing me about it until she opened the door with me holding my hand to my face trying to contain the blood.

  I handed her the flowers as I asked for a paper towel. She pointed out the paper towels were as she got a vase for the flowers. She admitted later that she was more interested in the flowers at that moment than anything else. She asked what happened, and mortified with the truth I modified it to say that I walked into a door only because someone opened it on me from the other side just as I got there. At least I wouldn’t seem to be a complete clown opposed to being mostly a clown.

  As we sat in her apartment waiting for the bridge of my nose to stop bleeding, I noticed the décor. It wasn’t as ‘old person’ as Dana’s had been when I had seen her place, but it did look more sophisticated than the bottle cap ceiling art designs I had in my apartment. I never asked her age but I was guessing a few years older than me.

  We went to a nice Mexican restaurant and got along just as splendidly as we did the previous weekend. So much so that I realized that I wanted this girl in my life one way or another, even if it was just as friends. She was amazing. I told her as much. She knew I was into her enough to tell me up front that she was planning to move to New York in the near future to further her career in publishing. I responded with, ‘I’m from New York…. If things do work out between us and I’m forced to move back to my family and friends, it wouldn’t exactly be twisting my arm!”

  By the end of dinner, I think that she to thought that this may be something serious too, because she felt obligated to let me know that she had been diagnosed with MS a couple years back. I quickly responded with, “my aunt has that,” without as much as a hint of reservation. She was so relieved. She had always thought that it may be a deal breaker in any relationship she might get involved with.

  By the time we got to the show, Christine and I was so absorbed into each other, we hardly cared that “The New Jazz Project” was not Jazz at all. You could barely call it Jazz Fusion. We found Melissa and her date standing at a cocktail tower toward the back of the venue. Christine and I were ‘making out’ like teenagers, ripping it up on the dance floor and just holding hands all night long. Christine was beautiful, sexy, smart and funny and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It had to have made Melissa and her friend  slightly uncomfortable, but I don’t recall or more likely, didn’t notice. At one point a total stranger came up to us and said that her and her boyfriend had a bet going about us. One said they thought we were married for ten years and the other said we just got married. They were shocked to hear it was just our first date. The first of many.