Chapter 10: Not a date

Dalon

“Buonasera, un tavolo per due, per favore.” Jane says and again, I can only assume that she is asking for a table. The restaurant that we found is a very small cozy brick building with low lights. It looks romantic, but I know there is no romance happening tonight, or any other night. Not that I would be opposed to it. I have never been with a woman more than two years older than me, but it is probably the same, right?

“You need to teach me how to speak Italian.” I tell Jane as we are lead to a private corner in the back of the restaurant. The couches are a tan brown, nearly blending in with the brick wall. The dim lights casts shadows throughout the restaurant, ensuring that every table has a bit of privacy. Aside from the kitchen making slight noises, the only other sound you can hear is soft music playing in the background. If I ever decide to get serious with a woman, this is definitely a place I would take her. My eyes move from the setting back to Jane and the idea starts to fade. The only woman I want to be here with is Jane. There will never be another woman that I bring to this town or this small restaurant because already, just thinking it feels like I am betraying her.

“I told you, I know very little Italian, but that was me asking for a table for two. I can teach you the different greetings, and words for a few things, but more than that, I can’t teach you at the moment.” She shrugs, as if it is not already amazing that she can speak more than one language when most of the world is only fluent in one, sometimes two languages.

“Is there any other languages you speak?” I ask her, curious to know more about her. “You seem to have your hand in nearly every pot. You work full-time, right?” I ask.

“I work full time, yes, then I study when I get home, write when I am done with that and then pray and read my bible and then, after that, I learn a new language. Oh, and before I even start my day at work, I jog and when I get back home, I run to clear my mind.” She says and honestly, I am impressed, but she seems to be so focused on getting ahead. Does she ever slow down aside from now?

“That is great and all, but when do you have time for yourself? When do you unwind and have fun?” I ask her, She can’t be serious all the time, that would send any person to an early grave.

“I am off on weekends. I told you I used to go hiking. Unfortunately, that changed when my partner passed away just over a year ago. Since then, I haven’t been able to truly relax, so I work. I did however decide to take this break and to unwind in the hopes that I would find that part of myself that is not so shit scared of enjoying life.” She says, and this time I take the opening to ask about Collen.

“You were in a relationship when he passed away?” I ask, wondering if there is any hope that she has moved past him, even if that makes me the world’s biggest asshole.

“I um, haven’t really spoken about him in so long. We were engaged for about a week before he passed away. The typewriter was actually my engagement ring. He wanted to do it differently and he knew I loved writing. The short version is that before him, I had some really shitty and mentally abusive men in my life, and he showed me that it isn’t all men. He was kind, never judged me, even though I gave him plenty of reason to. He was respectful of my believes where others had expected things for doing the bare minimum. He just, he changed my view of men and I think what makes me still hold on, is the fact that our time together had been so short. I never had the opportunity to fall out of love with him. He was just there and the next moment, he was gone.” She says, playing with the tablecloth instead of looking at me. I can hear the pain in her voice. She isn’t over him, and there is a very good chance she never will be.

“You know what bothers me the most about him being gone?” She asks, looking up at me with tears on the lids of her eyes.

“Uh, no.” What am I supposed to say? I have been having inappropriate thoughts about this woman, and she has been mourning a man, that by the sound of it, she never even slept with because she was waiting for marriage.

“I don’t know if love is what is making me hold onto him, or regret. I did love him, don’t get me wrong, but after a year, I can hardly remember his smile or his eyes. I remember he had lots of laughing lines, I remember the color of his eyes, but I can’t picture it. I can’t picture him anymore. When I look at photos and videos, I remember, but when I try to imagine him, it is like taking off my glasses and only seeing shapes and colors, but I can’t make out what I am really looking at.” She says. I can’t really give an answer or agree that it happened. I have experienced loss, but like losing a race, I mourned them for a short while and then picked up my head and moved on. I haven’t lost someone I planned on spending the rest of my life with. The people I lost were part of my racing carreer and even tough I mourned them, it was never for months or a year later.

“How did he pass away, if you don’t mind me asking?” I actually regret asking at all about him, but now that I have asked, I feel like we need to get all of it out of the way before we can move to anything else. To my surprise, Jane laughs at this question. She starts laughing so hard that she forgets to breathe, and I finally understand why no one worried when she was choking, it really does sound the same. Maybe asking about his death was a awful idea.

“I am so sorry, I am not losing my mind or anything, it is just. Oh, how do I say this?’ She wipes at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “He had a very severe back problem. I know, he sounds really old, but he wasn’t. Anyway, the day he passed away, he had a spasm that was so bad that he couldn’t breathe. I was reading this book that we had said we were going to read together, except he was a very slow reader, and I was so far ahead in the book and so lost in it that I didn’t hear my phone vibrating next to me when he called. I got to a part in the book where everyone died aside from like four people and I picked up my phone to call him, to spoil the book that he was taking so long to read. I was calling him to tell him everyone in the book had died, only for his brother to answer the phone and tell me that my fiancè was dead.” She says, and I am not sure if I should laugh at the irony, or if I should book her into a mental hospital for laughing at the irony. “Now you get where the guilt part comes from. He had been trying to get a hold of me for an hour. For an hour, I was stuck in a book about people dying and he was dying. I kept thinking after that, that if I had just picked up the phone, if I had just had my phone on loud. So many if’s but I have learned that if will never bring him back.” She says and I feel for her. She truly has battles that she is fighting and it makes a lot more sense why she has become a workaholic.

“What would’ve happened if you had answered the phone?” I ask, wondering if I can help her get through it.

“That is just the thing. I am terrified of driving. I never bought a car, because I was never going to drive it unless I had to. I wasn’t scared of dying in a car, I was scared of causing a death. I still am, even though I have tried to drive more often. The best I would’ve been able to do is call an ambulance, something he should have done the moment the spasm reached a point where he knew he would need it. I have had more than a year to work through this, had enough time to realize that it was his time, even if I wasn’t ready for it, or even expected it, but no matter how many times I tell myself that, I have never been able to get past that guilt, at least not until I arrived in this little town and finally got away from everything we had started building together.” She says and a part of me, a very selfish part is hoping I am a part of the reason she can move past her guilt and in time past him. Not that it will help much, by the time she has moved past him, I will be in Miami.

“Then it is a good thing you finally took a break.” I tell her and just as she starts to say something, the waiter shows up. We quickly take our orders, but by the time he leaves, Jane looks like she had decided against saying what she had wanted to say.

“I am going to go on my hike at 5am. Do you think you can be awake by then?” She asks, and I am glad that I don’t have anything to drink yet, or I would be choking on that as well.

“You snuck out at freaken 5am this morning? No wonder I didn’t wake up. Who the hell goes hiking at that time of the morning?” I ask her, shocked that she had gone out at that time alone. It is still really dark at that time.

“Well, I had coffee and breakfast first with Mila and then I went hiking and you would be more open to it if you had seen the sun rising over the town. I wish I hadn’t left my camera in the room. My phone doesn’t do it justice.” She pouts, and it is the cutest thing I have seen her do. “Come on, live a little!” She says and I want to tell her I do a lot of living, but that is not what she needs right now.

“Fine, if you can get me awake at 5am, I will consider taking a hike with you.” I tell her, and then it strikes me how long she had been out there, walking around alone, in a strange place. “You really shouldn’t go out at that time alone.” I tell her.

“I have five years of self-defense classes behind my back, I can aim and shoot faster than you can draw in a breath and I can also kill a man with his own knife. I am quite good with choking a man to death with my legs, so if it ever got that far, that is probably where I excel the best when it comes to self-defense. I don’t want to say I am really good on my back, because I know how it is going to sound, but I was the best in my class.” She says with a proud smile. What has this woman not done?

“So you are not afraid of killing someone with your legs, but you are afraid of killing someone by accident?” I ask her, trying to tease her, but seriously, I am second guessing my desire to get between her legs.

“Hey, if it is me or the person attacking me, then I will choose myself. But killing someone that is innocent, that never provoked me or tried to harm me in any way? Yeah, that doesn’t sound tempting.” She says just as our drinks arrive. Jane had gone with a sangaria, will I had decided to go old school and order a beer. “Grazie mille.” She says to the waiter, and he smiles at her like he is falling in love. Jane doesn’t even seem to notice that the waiter hasn’t moved and is still looking at her like he wants to ask her something. He looks to be slightly older than me, but definitely not thirty. I really need to get over the fact that she is so much older than she looks.

“Ehm, lo chef vorrebbe sapere se vuoi vedere la cucina?” The waiter asks, starteling Jane. Did this fucker just ask her to go on a date while she is sitting here with me. Jane stares at him for a while, probably trying to figure out what he just said, and then her face lights up as if she just got the best news ever. She jump up and give the waiter a hug that is full of excitement and I nearly have to hold onto my chair and bite really hard on my tongue before I say something I might regret.

“Sì, per favore!” She shouts in excitement. “Jack, just give me a moment, I am going to be back in a short while.” She says and then she practically run in the direction of the kitchen. What the hell just happened?

“Uh, the chef, um the owner and marito to Mila. Mila in the um, kitchen. Lei want to show Jena to cook.” He says, mixing his home language with Italian, but I get what he is trying to say, and I quickly calm down. No wonder she got so excited. She seems to have a bond with Mila that grew really quickly.

“Her name is Jane, not Jena.” I tell him, but he only nods, gives a short bend of his head and then heads to another table.