Work Text:
San Francisco, 2017.
White shirt? No, it has a grease stain by the collar. Blue shirt? No, he already wears it to the office almost every day. Yellow shirt? It’s stiff and sweaty. Cream shirt? Not his color.
He sighed and sat by the edge of the bed, only in his underwear and socks, where a lineup of shirts and pants were laying, not too far off a fairly old and battered teddy bear which he suddenly felt embarrassed about. For a man with a stable nine to five job, he was such a child, he thought bitterly, pacing up and down the bedroom.
Maybe there was still time to cancel the date, order some takeout, perhaps call his ex -tell him he had takeout and a big hole in place of a heart-, rent a cheap TV movie and laugh about it with him. Just like the old times. Ugh, no . Saying “the old times” made Fred realize how old he was getting.
Defeated, he settled for a lavender shirt he had not worn since forever and a frankly ridiculous tie. He didn’t like it, but was sure she would. Fred shoved himself in a pair of pants, looked desperately for a pair of nice shoes that could hide his mismatched socks, and eventually finished getting dressed up. Well, that was one thing off the list.
His head probably elsewhere, he waddled once again to the bathroom -the shower head was still dripping and the mirror still coated with steam-. Careful not to slip -God forbid he left off for his date with an intracranial hemorrhage!-, Fred slinked in front of the glass, cleaned up a clear spot, and stared at himself for a minute.
A wave of self-consciousness hit him like a truck. Oh, Ann was not going to like him at all. The only picture he had sent was one from two or maybe three years ago, a time where his hairline wasn’t as much of an active battlefield and his eyes weren’t as sunken from many nights of poor sleep. He wasn’t as thin, too- in his current state, he could very well be confused for a raw nerve with legs.
“I should have listened to Sadie.”, he said to himself. “This online dating business… thing… never works.” He paused. “Then again, what does she know? She gets more action than me, and I’m not surprised...”
Quietly rethinking his plan to order takeout and regret his life choices, he went downstairs, holding on nervously to the railing -God forbid he left off for his date with a broken neck!- and asking himself if Ann had ever sent him a picture of herself. Once in the hallway, he fished out his phone out of his pocket and scourged the gallery for something that wasn’t photos of OSHA violations or funny-looking dogs.
There it was, a singular image of a young woman in a bright orange cocktail dress that didn’t fit her at all, forcing a smile at a fancy bar. She looked so young and frail, and her friend by her side being so tall and wizened-looking didn’t help. Fred gulped. Was he sure she hadn’t lied about her age? What if Ann was a college student? What if Ann was a teenager? What if Ann was a vampire? No, scratch that, that one’s ridiculous. Although…
“Come on, Fred. Get it together.”, he muttered to himself.
At least he was sure he wouldn’t be late… for now. In his rush to prepare, he now had a good twenty minutes to spare. Twenty minutes to panic, fry his nerves, and hit his head against the fridge door, asking himself out loud when he had become such a loser.
Whatever. It didn’t matter anymore. He was in his thirties— that was half of his overly realistic life prospect already. The same way he had learnt to brave the San Francisco public transport, he was going to survive his first date with Ann.
Hopefully.
Ann paced up and down her living room. As always, it was a mess. Whomever had once told her OCD makes you “neat” was dead wrong. Thank goodness no one would come visit, not for a long time at least— a blanket was strewn on the duvet, cans of Red Bull stacked in a miserable-looking woven bin, she had managed to displace a single solitary sock on the flatscreen TV, and a discarded box of tea bags on the coffee table only added to the chaos.
She even considered cleaning up.
“He’s going to hate me, I’m sure of it.” was all she could think of, grabbing at her sweater sleeves. All she had thought of for the last three days, in fact. And still, she really wanted to go. Crap, she had canceled a therapist’s appointment for that! What had Enid said…? “You need to get out and touch grass.” Yeah, well, some guy’s flesh might be a fitting replacement.
Her hands lightly trembling, she opened the dating app yet again to make sure she had sent him that picture of herself in that ugly cocktail dress, and not a bomb threat. A horrible pit formed in her stomach. He didn’t know she never wore cocktail dresses. He didn’t even know she had started T last year. Oh, crap crap crap, he was going to hate her and hate crime her and get her fired somehow and—
Dizzy, Ann tried to steady herself. That was ridiculous. Hadn’t he said he was bi? Besides, he had sent only one picture as well. She had liked those big watery eyes of his, which were much like hers. Ann quietly wondered if they were distantly related, if she had miraculously matched with her long-lost third cousin twice removed… no, that was silly. He would’ve told her, right? Right? God, there were so many things she didn’t know about him!
Come to think of it, what if he was much older than what his picture implied? Or much uglier? Or—
Ann rushed to the bathroom and vomited. There went what little she had had for breakfast.
She miserably wiped her mouth with toilet paper, panicking that her sweater -the only nice sweater she owned- would be stained with barf. It wasn’t, thank the stars. The woman stood up and gave her reflection a pitiful look. Her sweaty face was riddled with acne, her ginger hair was so uncombable she had to content herself with tying it into a messy bun that had spontaneously turned into a carrot-like ponytail, and her makeup consisted of slightly shaky eyeliner and nude lipstick that only made her look more amphibian-like than she already was.
She whipped her phone from her bag and frowned at the numbers on the cracked screen. There were still a good twenty minutes until the date officially started. Good enough to quit, Ann thought, tugging at her sweater collar. But then, much to her horror, the phone suddenly vibrated and a little push notification appeared on the screen. Shit. It was him.
IVE TAKEN A CAB. SEE YOU XOXO
Aw. He was such a dork. And maybe he couldn’t drive as well…? Getting to meet him wouldn’t hurt that much, surely?
Still a little unnerved, she texted back alright, I’m taking and then she deleted the message before she could even hit send, and settled with ok, then closed the app again. Ann fixed her sweater, forced her pants back on her waist, sprayed a startling quantity of her most expensive cologne on herself, and sprung to the door in her too-tight boots.
Fingers crossed it won’t be a complete disaster.
There he was, by the door of the little cafe they had decided to meet in, shrinking against the frame to not be an obstacle to passing clients, looking at his phone like it contained the secrets to the universe. It probably was because she was five minutes late. She could always say the traffic was terrible, and lie, claiming that she couldn’t find a parking spot anyway. By God, he didn’t have to find out she didn’t have a driver’s license until the fourth or perhaps the twentieth date… if they got there. Maybe she was lucky and he got lost on the way, one of these days. San Francisco was a big city, after all.
Running a hand down her hair, Ann relaxed. Alright, he was her type, that she was sure of. Tall, thin, and more or less her age, or at least so Fred seemed.
His gray eyes opened wide when she appeared; she waved at him, sporting a nervous smile of uneven teeth, and he gave one as well.
“Fred, right?”, she started, and he nodded, offering a rather knuckly hand for her to shake, which she happily did. The spiral of what-ifs, of possible ways the date -and her social life- could be ruined that had been tormenting her on the bus dissolved a little. That was Fred113, the man she had chatted with many times, and even sent her a photo of him with a bit more hair on his head. “I’m Ann Shryke.”
“Huh.” Fred paused, furrowing his thick brow, then beamed as the gears in his brain started to turn. “Shryke, from the IT department…? We work in the same company! I’m Fred Ortega, from the Human R- ”
“Wait. You’re the Fred from HR?”
“Oh, don’t worry-“, he started, looking at a side anxiously. Shit. Was she mad at him? Had she heard any weird stories from the middle manager? All those anecdotes about his former job as a workplace safety inspector? About that one embarrassing accident? “I, uh, have only heard mostly good things about you.”
That was Fred-ish for “I like you”. But he would rather walk into an active construction zone than say that out loud in front of a woman that was, on top of that, his type- very, very far removed from the airbrushed models in magazines and grotesque approximations of beauty in tabloids. This Ann, she was imperfect. Flawed. Real.
“That’s good enough for me!”, Ann laughed, mentally filing “what do you mean mostly” for later. “M-mind going inside…?” She gestured at the door. Behind it, the inviting scent of coffee and freshly prepared food… Lord above was she hungry.
Fred nodded enthusiastically, much to her relief. “Yes. Very good idea. I like you already.” He then added, “I have to admit I haven’t had breakfast this morning. I was, uh—“
“Oh, you really shouldn’t…”
“I know, I know… well, let’s go in and order something. We wouldn’t like to starve to death out here.”
Right. Neither of them would. They were like-minded enough to understand that.
And so, they walked in, Ann fidgeting with a loose strand of frayed, orange hair, and Fred tugging at his horrendous tie.
“This is literally my first time coming here, so uh…”
“Well, this is literally my first time seeing a guy!”
“Oh, wow. Sorry?”
“Hah!”
Of course neither of them knew that, but at that moment they both silently planned, almost at the same time, where to go for their second date.