The first thing that gives me away, maybe, is that I show up ten minutes earlier than I’m supposed to. The date’s in a cozy cafe-bar, bathed in dim orange with blue moonlight shining through the windows in complement. Murals on the walls depict frontier era Kansas. A barista with curly green hair chats with a sulky coworker, a bulletin board behind them advertising slam poetry on Sunday evenings. There is the smell and heat of people, of rasping espresso machines and margarita makers, the speakers playing “Comfortably Numb.”

I expect to hold a table for her, to have time to get used to the place, but there she is, already sitting by the window. Her crossed legs, her hips, her torso, everything about her is long and lithe. A black, long-sleeved shirt with a conservative neckline, clinging to the form of her chest.

She smiles at me as I approach, tilting her head enough for her messy ponytail to hang down. Blonde, wavy hair. She asks if I’m Nathan, her date. Then she chuckles.

“Rather early, aren’t you?”

Her accent is gentle and lilting, and makes her sound like she’s reading a nursery rhyme. But her joke makes me nervous. I’m suddenly aware of how dressed up I am. I’m wearing slacks, a sports coat, and a button up shirt. I’ve gotten a barber’s appointment and trimmed my beard. By comparison, my date’s simple shirt and jeans are a casual outfit, her hair thrown together. I feel overdressed now. A college student, trying to seem older than they are. Then I remember the obvious: my date arrived even earlier than I did. She’s poking fun at herself.

I smile. “How desperate of me.”

“Nothing wrong with eagerness, dear.”

I want to ask if she really is Grace, the girl who agreed to meet me. It’s a stupid question. She knows my name, looks the same as the pictures, and has the same accent from over the phone, when our mutual friend Maisie gave me her number. But she’s so enchanting; it’s easier to think there was some kind of mix-up.

Holding my tongue, I take my seat. My feet bump against hers and she withdraws herself. She’s pretty tall — Maisie told me she was five-nine, when I asked. She wears gray, backless, flat-bottom shoes that make my leather ones seem unbearably stiff. I want to run home and change.

My worries fade as the date progresses. Even though she’s less dressed up than I am, she has a poised air to her that makes it feel appropriate for me to have dressed smartly. She sits with a straight posture, her hands in her lap, her thin lips always smiling. She smiles while she talks, and she smiles while she listens. Her eyes are kind. They’re a desaturated, light blue, so pale it’s hard to believe. They’re like frozen ponds on a white winter day.

One of the workers comes by and brings Grace her drink, a margarita she ordered before I got here. I order the same thing for myself, almost out of reflex, and don’t ask myself where the compulsion comes from.

The date keeps flowing. She asks me questions, listens to my answers. I mean to ask her questions too, but she always seems to ask something else before I can think of something, and she’s just so good at coaxing out more. Musical “aaahs” of understanding. Slightly off-base guesses that compel me to fill in the gaps. I tell her about being an English major, about the stories I want to write, the things that have inspired me. Her slender-fingered hand props up her chin, her elbow resting on the table.

Eventually, I can’t stand to keep talking; it’s like the entire date is for my benefit, and it makes me feel scummy. I get my opportunity to change the dynamic when I notice a shift in Grace’s expression. She’s still leaning in, still smiling, still looking at me, but there’s something distant about her eyes. Her thoughts have gone somewhere else.

I stop talking for a few seconds, and she doesn’t call me out on it.

“Grace? Are you there?”

She blinks a few times, keeps her smile. “Apologies. My mind tends to wander. That’s something people notice quickly about me.” Her speech is smooth and calm, as if she’s been waiting for me to call her out.

“You don’t need to be sorry. I’ve been going on for a while.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, dear, but I’m quite certain this is my fault. Whenever I go on a date, I often forget that I’ve remembered to show up for it. I just let people go on and on. A lot of men don’t mind, naturally.” Her smile grows a little more, her eyes crinkling. “Though, I suppose you’re a much more considerate sort of fellow, aren’t you?”

I smile, hoping I seem like someone graciously accepting a compliment, and not like someone melting into a puddle.

She continues. “I got distracted, thinking about the art in this place, the art over there.” She points. Behind me, on the wall to the left, is a mural of Kansas plains stretching into the sunset, light blue fading to orange and red. “I think its style is rather distinctive. Do you see all those straight lines on the field? Do you see how neatly they converge to the vanishing point? Perspective was relatively new during the Renaissance, and so they often included conspicuous straight lines in their paintings, just like those. And the texture. That’s fresco — or, an imitation of fresco, at least. Also Renaissance.”

Grace points to the mural as she speaks, but never looks away from me, and in fact leans in closer. At first I observe the painting for the features Grace points out, but as she goes on — as she enthuses over the contrast between the classical art style and the modern day objects depicted, as she shares a fun fact about The Last Supper being painted on a convent’s refectory wall — I focus all my attention on my date, listening as attentively as I can, doing my best to show that I care what she has to say. I won’t be a man who likes to listen to himself talk. I’ll be considerate, like she said I was. I want her to call me considerate again.

After quite a few minutes of this, and not long after finishing her margarita, Grace halts her lecture. She lowers her gaze into her empty glass and smiles ruefully. “Apologies for my rambling. I’m worse than you are.”

“No, you’re okay,” I say immediately. “I like to learn about you. Are you an art history major?”

She sighs. “I was hoping to keep that secret.”

“What’s wrong with being an art history major?”

“If you don’t see the problem, you clearly haven’t heard me talk about it for long enough. I can be a real bore.”

“You wouldn’t bore me.”

“There’s no need to protect my feelings.”

“I mean it. I think you’re too considerate to go on about something if it’s boring me. You’re a really sweet person. And passionate, too. I can already tell that.”

Something about the date shifts, just then. Her gaze rises to meet mine. Once again, like earlier, the look she gives is so smooth and calm as to seem rehearsed. She smiles at me. Something about the smile is less kind than before. She’s amused.

She studies me like that for several seconds. I shift in my seat, feeling heat under my arms. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing.” She turns away her face, but keeps her eyes on mine. She seems to decide upon something. “I was just thinking about how adorable you are.”

It’s like being punched in the chest. My legs clench in towards each other beneath the table and I have to look away, at once. I tell myself that I hadn’t meant to seem obsequious; I just thought she felt embarrassed for talking about herself.

But, no. She’s exposed me. She said exactly the words I wanted to hear. Me, adorable.

The lurch of my stomach, the involuntary hitch in my breathing. I don’t want her to see my reactions. She must never know that I want her to say that a hundred more times, to work at me until I collapse. You can’t give someone that power. You can’t let someone know how much you care what they think about you. 

She doesn’t say another word, won’t look away. I turn my face from her and can still feel her scrutinizing me. I make myself laugh. “Thanks. I just didn’t want you to be hard on yourself.”

I look up, thinking that I’ve been released, that it’s her turn now. Grace doesn’t comply. She gives a hum of acknowledgement and then keeps watching me, keeps appraising me. There’s an entirely different glint to those icy gray eyes of hers, something coolly self-assured and unflappable.

I hold her gaze, try to remind myself that she’s the one being weird. She’ll realize it’s her turn to speak if I wait long enough.

But she just keeps looking at me. I feel myself smiling, trying to appease her and defuse the tension despite my desire to seem put-together. I’m pushed past my limit when I suddenly realize that none of her self-deprecation was genuine, a minute ago. I break my gaze and finish my drink.

She laughs, not unkindly. She sounds so relaxed that I wonder if I imagined the whole stare-down. “Struggle with compliments, do you? That’s alright, dear.” She slides out of her chair.  “I’m going to get another glass.”

I look at my empty drink. Before I can start thinking about whether I want more, it’s snatched away from me. 

“You’re having another, too.” Her voice is cold, calm, and pleasant as the breeze.