22/11/2001 - 12:14 a.m.

Part 9

They came out of the restaurant into the comparative darkness of the street. The dinner had been a rather hesitant affair made much more so by Paula's interupttion. Michael was seriously beginning to regret having introduced himself, more for her than him, but the principle was the same.

"I expect you'll want to get going," he said, a matter of course.

"Yes." She tried to tell herself she wasn't lying.

"Well, I'll pay your bus back..."

"My apartment's just around the corner. This is the reason I come here a lot."

"Oh."

The awkward silence that had sloshed around their knees all evening rose a little higher.

"You might volunteer to walk me back."

"Yes."

He took her arm, and she refused him. He grimaced to himself for having messed up again. He followed just beside and behind her- she knew where she was going. He thought that if she hated him, at least he knew the type of ground he was on, so he was glad to know where he stood.

"I'm sorry you've had a rotten evening," he said.

"Did I say I did?"

"No. Did you?"

She stopped and looked at him, thinking of his introduction to her, the restaurant, Paula. No, she hadn't really had a rotten evening.

"I'll laugh in the morning," Lisa began.

"Because you'll call up your best friend and tell her how all about the crazy weird-o you met in the street, and how you ran into his ex girlfriend, who is probably really just a prostitute."

"Is she?" she asked, laughing.

"No," obvisouly offended. "She's just that way. I thought it meant something, but it just means she has bad taste. So, enjoy your phone call."

"How do you know I'll make one?"

"I just assumed..."

Lisa frowned, he really thought she hated him. "I enjoyed myself, and I don't just say things, so you can put that out of your head as well. How can you not enjoy the company of someone you hardly know?"

"True."

"However, you're shy. I'm not."

"The bravest thing I ever did was stop you in the street today." Lisa chose to remain silent. "I generally let girls ask me out, the results of that speak for themselves. I guess... Nevermind."

"All right. This is the place."

"I won't ask to come up."

"Good, it smells horrible in there."

"OK. Lisa, thanks."

She wondered if she wanted to see him again.

"Could I just have your phone number, so that when I call the cops, I can give them that as well?"

He smiled and scribbled it on the piece of paper she handed him. She took back the paper, glanced at it, glanced at him, and walked into the building. He stood on the pavement for a moment, in the dark, until an apartment window lit up. Walking back to the bus stop, he assumed it was probably the wrong one, but he knew that a cinematic time to leave was that moment.

Lisa glanced out the window to see him turn and leave. She put the scrap of paper by the phone, and went to bed, knowing tonight was not an evening to try the coffee.

"You know, that was a really stupid thing to do," Jeff said, leaning back on the couch and looking at him. "I'm impressed."

"Thanks Jeff, I appreciate that."

"Well, I'm just saying. She really could've got your ass hauled in, and she didn't. She must've liked you. At least then, obviously she didn't or you wouldn't have walked in at such an inopportune moment last night."

"I've told you before, I try, but I wasn't expecting you back from dinner yet." Which was a lie, and Michael knew it, but figured it didn't matter. When you come back from a date to find your roommate and his girlfriend... "Well, all I'm saying is that you're either getting the couch cleaned, or you buy one that I can sit on. You've obviously claimed that one."

"How do you know that's all I've claimed?"

"I don't want to know. That, I know about. Take care of it."

"Sure. OK. Oh, by the way, Paula called when you were in the shower. Did you know she was back in town?"

"Yes. I sort of ran into her last night."

Go to Part 10

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