No wonder I was nervous. First dates always had that effect on me. A mutual friend from my office, Sarah, had set us up. Not my usual way of meeting people, but Sarah had a good head on her shoulders. She said that Gina had been a good friend for several years and if Sarah liked her, then that was enough for me.
My watch read 2:53 PM. I was seven minutes early. That was good. Now I just had to sit and wait for the hour, the moment of truth. It couldn’t come soon enough for me.
It was strange to feel déjà vu on a first date. I felt it when I sat down at the little table on the patio of the Café De Lisle. The grid pattern on the table, the feel of the chair against my back, the way the sunlight hit the glass, all of it felt so familiar. Of course, when I saw her approach (somehow I knew right away that it was her) all of that was carried off on the breeze.
Gina was gorgeous. Her frame was slight, and she wasn’t tall, but she walked with a confidence taller than me. She wore the expression of someone who knew exactly what she wanted, yet without revealing exactly what that might be. Or who.
Very Mona Lisa.
She picked me out right away. No hesitation, one glance and she found her target. In seconds, she was sitting across from me, looking me up and down.
“Tom, I presume?”
Was that my heart, or the jackhammer from the construction site up the street? Those eyes, ice blue, didn’t do justice to the word “piercing.” I was positively impaled. The slight curve of her half-smile had me dizzy. I’d never been the type to fall for someone on first sight. This was different.
She was different.
I took a breath, swallowed my anxiety, and tried to relax my shoulders.
“Gina, right?”
“No, actually, I’m your waitress.”
“I...uh...what?”
Her head tilted back and she laughed, a deep bellowing kind of laugh that complimented that husky femme-fatale quality in her voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she was an actress. Or a dream.
“You’re too easy,” she said, “Sarah told me you were easy to tease.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said, grinning like a fool, and feeling wholly unprepared for whatever I’d gotten myself into.
“Sorry,” she was trying to keep from laughing, “let’s start over. Hi, Tom. I’m Gina.”
She stood up and moved to embrace me. This, at least, felt a little more down to earth. Maybe I’d survive this thing after all. Though I have to admit, I was shaking as her arms wrapped around me.
“Relax. You’re doing fine. That’s just my little trial by fire.”
She laughed again, lighter this time.
“So how long have you known Sarah?” I asked, thankful that I’d had the presence of mind to say anything.
“Oh, it’s been...I want to say...about three years now.”
“How’d you meet, anyway? I haven’t seen you around the office before,” I paused, “I’d remember you if I had.”
She flashed that smile again.
“We were gym buddies. Not very close at first, admittedly. But I went through a bad breakup and I just...lost it, one day, on the treadmill. Ugly crying, the works; it was not a pretty sight. And Sarah, oh, that sweetheart, she was there for me.”
“That definitely sounds like her.”
“Sarah stuck by me through all of it, took me out to movies, and brought me ice cream, the whole nine yards. I was lucky to have her there.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I can’t picture you, you know, like that.”
“Honey, trust me, when I fall for somebody, I fall hard. Hell, I might as well be up front about this: I am a bit...possessive.”
An eyebrow rose without my permission.
“Hey, don’t let that scare you off. It just means I’m committed. When I click with someone, I treasure those memories. It’s just hard to let go, you know?”
Thinking back on a few less-than-stellar failed relationships of my own, I thought I could relate.
“I do. You want something that will last. And hey, let’s just enjoy the day. Maybe we’ll make some memories of our own to...look...back...on...”
The woman sitting in front of me didn’t seem to notice my stammering, but the woman standing behind her, just around the corner, certainly did.
She stood right in the street, staring right at me, unfazed by traffic.
Why would she be? The traffic didn’t come up to her ankles, and wouldn’t have, even if she hadn’t been wearing heels. The same heels, I realized, beneath the table.
The same heels? The same feet. The same curves. The same smile. The same eyes.
Gigantic.
Gina stood behind...Gina, standing taller than the skyscrapers. Yet she was transparent. She was like a ghost, an enormous phantom. Her massive eyes, that same piercing ice blue, were set on me, and her smile wasn’t unlike the playful look she’d worn just moments earlier, when she’d been toying with me. But there was something else, too. Some kind of...satisfaction, one I didn’t, couldn’t, understand.
And then the ghostly giantess was gone.
Gina went on talking, but I’d completely lost track of what she’d been saying. It was as if she hadn’t noticed me looking off in the distance. Nobody else paid any mind to what I’d seen, either.
“...so how about it?”
Finally Gina, this Gina, this real Gina, came back into focus.
“Sorry, uh...what?”
“Am I boring you?” The question was playful, though still a bit concerned.
As she said the words, suddenly everything went out of focus, just for a moment. What was happening? Was I having some kind of breakdown?
“No, I, uh...what did you say again?”
“I said, how about we skip the coffee and just take a walk in the park? I love walk-and-talk dates. And I’m sure we can find more fun things to talk about than my past breakups!” she said with a laugh.
“Oh, sure, yeah...let’s go.”
I hoped the walk would clear my head, even though I could barely think through what I was doing. What was...whatever it was, that I saw? I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’d never had a hallucination before. Why Gina? Why this woman I had only just met? What did it mean? She went on, and I responded, my brain on auto-pilot.
“I used to dance,” she said as we stepped onto the foot bridge, crossing the stream that winded its way through the park.
“Didn’t you mention that already?” I was sure she had.
“No, I don’t think...so...”
Everything felt out of focus again. This wasn’t right. Had she drugged me? But we hadn’t even had a drink...
No, something wasn’t right. There was no getting around it. This woman was gorgeous, and charming, and that chemistry I felt was instantaneous, but if I was going to get to know her better, I had to have a clear head. And that was something I didn’t have right now.
I looked at my watch: 2:53 PM. What the hell? I’d just replaced the battery yesterday.
“Gina, I...”
Why wouldn’t the words come?
“Yes? Are you...okay...Tom...?”
Her voice seemed...slower, dripping from her lips like molasses. Everything felt slower. Even the birds, even the cars were inching along.
“I think I...need to.
Why was it so hard to say it?
“I think we need to...reschedule...some other time...I feel...”
“DAMN IT!”
The words boomed out from above, like the condemnation of an angry god.
And then there she was.
Standing taller than the buildings that made up the skyline, there was Gina.
The Gina in front of me froze entirely, slowing from a crawl to a complete stop, along with the rest of the world.
“That isn’t how it happened!” the giantess bellowed. “We hit it off, we go back to my place, and we fuck! It was one of the most beautiful nights of my life!”
I wasn’t sure what I would do next, but that didn’t matter; I couldn’t move.
The giant version of my date strode through the trees, crushing everything in her path, stooped, and loomed over me. Her clothes were different, so was her hair. She crouched down, the shadow of her colossal body cast over me and half the park.v“This is the third time you’ve ruined it, Tom,” she said, her voice steady. “I’m starting to get pissed. You’re one of the most persistent I’ve dealt with. You’ve got such a sticky recall.”
A massive, carefully manicured hand reached down and plucked me up. Standing up again as she moved, I rose to her incredible height, and the whole world faded away.
Around me I saw a familiar place, but enlarged to Gina’s size: her apartment.
The apartment where I’d spent so much of the past six months.
They were six wonderful months, until she became clingy, and jealous, and questioned me every time I spoke to another woman. Until she began reading my texts and emails. Until the spying started, the stalking.
Until I ended it.
And it was here that she screamed, and cried, and begged, and did all the things that were the opposite of our first date.
The first date she forced me to relive again and again. The first date she wanted to relive again and again and again. Before it all went wrong. Before I remembered, again, how it all went wrong.
A knock came at the door. Gina turned back, frowned, and gazed down at me, stuck, immobile, between her fingers.
“We’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe then you’ll feel more nostalgic.”
Nostalgic is the only thing I ever feel.
She placed me back on the mantle, alongside all the others, the same collection of perfect figures I used to admire. Moments later, Sarah walked into the apartment. She and Gina chatted, and before long, Sarah walked over to me, studying me, that sweet face impossibly huge in front of me.
“These are so cute, G,” she said. “And...holy shit, this one looks like Tom!”
I saw the familiar confusion in her eyes.
“Hey...what happened to Tom, anyway? He...used to work with me...”
Gina put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder.
“Don’t you remember? He transferred a few months ago. He seemed like a cutie, too. I was sorry it didn’t work out, he seemed like a really sweet guy, the way you described him. Very...loyal.”
She glanced back at me.
“Right...he...transferred,” Sarah said, still lost in the haze that had become my reality.
“Hey, let’s go downtown and get coffee. No use staying here on a nice day like this. It’s too beautiful to be stuck inside.”
Sarah perked right up at the suggestion.
“Sure! We haven’t been to the café in forever! It’d be nice to go back, for old time’s sake.”
Sarah was already out the door. Gina turned back, winking at me, winking at all of the others, all of us frozen in time, frozen in an endless stream of first dates and beautiful moments that had gone rotten in cold storage.
“For old time’s sake.”