Butter or non?

My date this week was a fine catch, eccentric but a fine catch none the less. He ate only part of his popcorn I observed during the movie, a love story with a predictable plot and heart wrenching good guys in tights and leather who always rushed into save the day; to say the right things at the right time. It was a routine second date, dinner followed by a movie. Dinner at the local pizza parlor in which he ordered Hawaiian pizza but didn't eat the pineapples. Now here, in the movies, he followed up; ordered popcorn without butter. Somehow he only ate half of each piece, leaving the obscene things that were below the popped tops, the part of the anatomy with the remainders the kernels intact, for my unclean mouth. 1

He was a good catch, I reminded myself as I drifted through the popcorn listening to the protagonist on screen say sweet words to his leading lady. Sweet words, like those that Jack used to say on stormy nights when in the solitude of the car his pale hand would drift towards my hair, parting its waves with his smooth and tantalizingly slow touch. His words were equally as slow and equally as tantalizing as they were breathed into my ear, making my heart beat faster and my entire world stop. At this precise moment he whispered those words, those sweet delicate words that every girl longs to, no, dreams to hear--2

"I love you." 3

The protagonist said to his female lead upon the television. His words were barely audible beneath the popcorn decapitating mouth of my date.4

A good catch, I thought, whipping my own hair out of my face and falling even further back into my seat. A good catch, as he always reminded me not to think those forbidden thoughts that I couldn't help to think. Further and further I seated myself into my chair and closed my eyes. I hadn't seen the movie before but I knew how it would end. The same way that all romance movies now and days ended. The protagonist would say the words, those magical three words like they all did, and run off with his female lead into the sunset.5

Too bad real life isn't like that. I thought, closing my ears to the ending dialogue and zooming my ears in specifically to the crunch, crunch of the popcorn rolling around on my date's mouth. Hearing, even though I had no desire to, the protagonist's sweet words and his leading lady's response to them. I felt my heart break again.6

It was cold in the car but my date didn't touch my hair at all. Good thing too, I thought, as we scooted into the back seats and the cab driver took off. I didn't need a pervert messing with my hair in weather like this. 7

I was being carried off into the sunset alright, the sunset of my aparment. I turned to look my fine catch in the eye. Imagining, well, imagining everything. Imagining his arms around me in the movie. Imagining his fingers tickling my body making me burst out in laughs and giggles during the duration of the cab ride home. Imagining him leaning over to kiss my cheek goodnight...8

But he didn't. He didn't do any of this. And good thing too, I was afraid my make up would smear anyway, and his breath probably still smelled like the anchovies that he had refused to rip off from his Hawaiian pizza. He was a fine catch, I thought politely returning his smile and watching as through the veil of coldness that had become my life, my romance movie, I saw the cab pull away. It left me inevitably alone. A good catch to save kisses and everything else for at least the fourth date. 9

Fourth date. Four tiles until my apartment door. Four tiles until I escaped the cold. Four in the morning when over the phone Jack and I started yelling at each other. 10

I didn't understand why we couldn't go on our fourth date. I couldn't understand why on the very night when we were supposed to go dancing he had some girl, some whore, over at his house. His house, the one place where he promised me we would go after the dance, but instead he had some other girl there. 11

I was angry. He was flustered. I wanted his sweet words, his everything. He didn't want me at all. 12

He had been too flamboyant anyway, too high class, too handsome. Not a good catch for me. Not a good catch at all. He always ordered his Hawaiian pizza intact. He always ordered his popcorn with butter and ate it all. 13