Page 61 of The Frog Prince
Paul sits in the chair opposite me. The table’s small, we’re practically touching, and the restaurant is beginning to fill up. The hostess seats a couple on one side of us. The middle tables are virtually full.
As I pick up my menu, Paul mutters, “I can’t sit here.”
I look up at him. “Why not?”
“I can’t face the wall. I always sit with my back to the wall. I have to be able to see the door. I have to see who’s coming and going.”
If I had known Paul was going to be such a pain in the ass, I would never have agreed to dinner. “Would you like to switch places with me?”
“Yes.”
I get up and give the hostess an apologetic smile as I have to squeeze past the couple she’s now trying to seat on the other side of us. And now Paul’s squeezing past the couple, and it’s a four-way traffic stop with everyone backing up, moving forward, turning a corner, sitting down.
It’s a damn production, and I’m roiling on the inside, but I take his chair. His chair is hard. And warm. For some reason that gives me the creeps. I suppose if I liked him, if I were more attracted, it’d be a nonissue, but right now, thinking of my butt sitting where his butt has just been is making me feel a little squirmy.
But Paul’s still not happy. “Now you’re too tall.”
I look across the table, try to avoid my reflection in the big mirror running behind Paul’s head. “What?”
“Can you scrunch down a little?”
I smile, but I feel peculiar on the inside. I’m not understanding. Something’s happening, and I don’t understand what it is.
“People are going to think I’m short.” He’s talking again, probably because I’m just staring at him, my mind blank, my face blank, unable to process anything.
“People will think you’re taller than me,” and he’s still talking. His mouth is moving, and I’m watching his mouth, thinking this is weird, he’s so weird, but I can’t seem to say or do anything. “But you’re not taller than me, Holly. I’m taller than you.”
“I know. And nobody is going to think that.”
He gives a little bounce on the bench, and yes, okay, he is rather low, but he’s no lower than I was, and I never worried about who was taller or shorter.
“I can’t sit this low.” He bounces on the bench again, up and down in his black “Sprockets” turtleneck, and with his pale hair combed all the way off his forehead, I feel as if I were in a German postmodern play. Abruptly he leans across the table, tries to get the attention of another unfortunate busboy. “Yeah, hi,” Paul says as the busboy approaches. “I’m too low. I can’t sit this low.”
The busboy stares at Paul and then me, uncomprehendingly, but I say nothing, too fascinated with my glass of ice water.
“I need something to sit on.” Paul’s voice carries, and I slink lower in my seat, knowing that people are going to think Paul is my boyfriend. They’re going to think we’re together, because, well, we’re together, and that’s humiliating, so I practice detaching myself from my body and floating above the restaurant.
“I need something to sit on,” Paul repeats, and I’m no longer floating anywhere but crashing back into our table headfirst.
Something he can sit on? Like what? A booster seat?
“You want something to sit on?” The busboy repeats haltingly. He doesn’t speak English as a first language, either, and I curse Paul silently for putting young immigrant males through this torture with me.
But Paul’s pleased. He’s been heard. “Exactly!”
The busboy leaves, and Paul looks at me, hands folded on the table. “We’re going to get this fixed.”
Oh, yes, we will. And my thought is that I’m just going to stand up and leave—I don’t owe him an explanation; I can just go—but before I can move, the manager returns with the busboy in tow.
“What seems to be the problem?” the manager asks.
Paul bounces on the seat once, twice. “I can’t sit here. I’m too short. I can barely see over the table.”
“Why don’t you change places?” the manager suggests with exaggerated politeness, pointing to me.
Paul shakes his head. “My back would be to the door.”
I glance down at the napkin in my lap and think calming thoughts.