Page 41 of The Frog Prince

His eyebrows lift, and we both order. I pay. He’s a cheap date. Seven dollars and fifty-eight cents total, and that includes tax.

We sit down with our coffees, and Brian leans back in his rattan chair, stretches his long legs out. He’s wearing jeans and a funky tweedy blazer over a T-shirt. He could be a college professor on a campus somewhere.

“Where did you go to school?” I ask, intrigued by his glasses, his height, the way he fills out the blazer. He doesn’t look muscular big, but his shoulders are wide and there’s no obvious gut.

“Yale.”

“Yale?”

“It’s on the East Coast, New Haven, Conn—”

“I know where Yale is,” I interrupt, thinking I like the way he speaks. It’s his delivery, his expressions. He has a dry, wry wit, and it’s been a long time since I talked with someone who made me feel like smiling. It’s been since…

Jean-Marc.

I don’t feel like smiling quite so much anymore.

“So you’re new in the city?” Brian asks.

I nod. “Been here three and a half months.”

“You’re still counting in terms of weeks, I see.”

“It’s been an adjustment.”

“Where are you from?”

“You’ll make fun of it.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

“I won’t.”

“People like you always do.”

He pushes his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Now, that’s just offensive. You don’t even know me. You can’t categorize me yet.”

I hold my cup in two hands, blow on the steam. “I’ve moved up from Fresno.”

His lips twitch. He takes off his glasses, makes a show of polishing the lenses. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughs. Slides his glasses back on. “That’s terrible language, Miss Bishop—” He breaks off, looks at me. “It is Miss, isn’t it?”

“Ms.”

“Never been married?”

I look down at the table. “Going through a divorce.”

“How long were you married?”

“A little over a year.”

“I made it to ten. My divorce was final last week.”