A couple of months ago, not long after
my separation, the girls' after-school had a talent show on an evening
that M and E were with me. There was a very attractive European woman
there, who liked the gazpacho I'd made and told me so. She didn't
give off any “mommy” vibes, and it turned out that she was a very
close family friend of one of M's Latina classmates. I chatted to
the parents in Spanish, and to the friend, D. To cut a long story
short, she and I have been on a few “dry-dates” since then - good ones, long ones, lots of talking ones, but ones that left me in blue-balled pain like I haven't experienced since, well, in a while.
Yesterday I'd called D to see if she
was free tonight, but she said she was going to a party with her
friends. What a great day for me to do my laundry and iron my
underwear!
The after-school had a
Diwali function this evening, and though they were with their mom,
M and E both had expressly wanted me to come. So after work I went to the
laundromat, started a couple of mega-loads in the washers and made it
to the Diwali function in time. M had organized some of the
younger kids into some kind of group play, E was very excited
because she had mehndi on her hands, hence couldn't play and was facing the model vs. athlete dilemma for the first time. M had already come down in favor of "athlete". Their mother was
sitting with a group of Indian fellow-moms from the Cupertino colony. She was
easily the most elegantly and appropriately dressed for Diwali,
except for the after-school director, who is
of Indian origin.
After a while I realised that M's
Latina classmate had turned up and out of the corner of my eye I saw
D. She is a striking woman, in fact it was the first thing about her
that had struck me when I'd struck sight of her for the first time,
and it had been a stroke of luck that she was also recently
separated. It is another matter altogether that I had struck out.
I played it cool, approached her and
mentioned what a pleasant surprise it was to see her there. She said,
“But I told you I was going to be here with my friends!”. Huh?
Am I already not processing what she is saying to me? Anyway, I sat
and chatted with them for a while, then borrowed $5 in cash from M and E's mom for the dryers, and left for the laundromat - intending never to
return. As I left I noticed that M and E's mom had met Maya's friend's Latina mom and D
and they were all chatting quite pleasantly.
On the way to the laundromat, I first
stopped at home, shaved and changed out of my grungy work clothes and
into decent ones, and then went to the supermarket. As I paid and
headed to my car, myself all spiffed up in a nice shirt and with a
bunch of flowers in my hand for the woman I'd met in the laundromat
an hour earlier and who I'd given my cell number to so we could go
get a drink later, well, who should I run into but the Latina mom, my
ex, my nex and all the kids!
The woman from the laundromat never
called.
Anybody in the market for a bunch of
second hand flowers?
