Things I Won't Tell You on Our First Date
by Jennifer Lai
In third grade, I switched schools mid-year. No one in class talked to me except for my neighbor —a curly-haired skinny boy with a galaxy of freckles who I developed a crush on—but only because I let him ride my bicycle on the weekends since his parents couldn’t afford one. After his dad got promoted and surprised him with an electric scooter for Christmas, he pretended he didn’t know me and told everyone that bicycles were for babies.
On our five-week anniversary, I lost my virginity to my high school boyfriend on a twin mattress covered in faded Transformers bedding in the basement of his great aunt’s house while she took her afternoon nap. Later that night he gave me a promise ring—a sapphire-shaped heart set in a braided silver band—that I wore everywhere: mathletes club, science club, my junior and senior proms. At his graduation party, enclosing me in a bear hug he whispered profusely his gratitude for helping him through calculus and chemistry, that he wouldn’t have gotten into college without me, that he’d be leaving for the east coast tomorrow, and could he have the ring back?
When I was twenty five, I dated a guy more than twice my age who said he wanted to take care of me. Together we ate discounted TV dinners, drank gas station beer, and binged on The Price is Right. Four months in, he had a heart attack while fucking me wildly on my velvet chaise lounge; his hairy sweaty chest nearly smothered me to death. At the hospital, I shook hands with his very pregnant fiancée and their four-year-old son before introducing myself as his coworker and drowning my sorrows in the cafeteria with a cup of hot lemon tea.
I once got fired from an animal shelter after my manager accused me of having attachment issues. After turning in my uniform, I went to the nearby park. There, a black and white schnauzer with a name tag reading ‘Venus’ and a phone number approached me and licked my hand while I picked at my tuna on rye under an Elm tree, so I took her home and for two months fed her dried mackerel and lamb from the organic pet boutique, walked her three times a day (even in the rain), and treated her to massages twice a week before calling her owners when I finally ran out of money. When they came to pick her up, she ran straight into their arms, never once looking back.
On my twenty-eight birthday I was cast for a budding reality show with six suitable bachelors. We strolled along the promenade, jet skied in tandem, and drank aperitifs before indulging in three-course delicacies as they spoke of our future kids and honeymoons to Fiji and Jamaica. Off camera, they hotboxed their rooms with bongs the size of didgeridoos while spewing misogynistic knock-knock jokes. I divulged my concerns to the casting director and was let go three weeks later after the producer caught us in the back seat of my Camry in a Denny’s parking lot two blocks from the studio.
Sometimes in the evenings, I give myself a pedicure, picking colors with ludicrously wicked names like Granny’s Golden Girlfriend and Baby’s Bazooka Blue and Purple Peekaboo Pantyhose before curling up on the couch in my pink onesie fleece with a fifth of Basil Hayden’s dark rye and a bag of kettle corn to watch Pretty Woman. I’ve seen the movie a thousand times. Still, I laugh at the dinner mishap incident—the slippery little suckers—and woot at the Rodeo drive shopping scene, at the sales associate’s big, big, HUGE mistake! And after the movie ends, I insert the DVD gently into its keep case packaging, then place it on my 5-tier storage rack. Far left on the top shelf. Same place, every time, so I’ll always know where to find it.
On our five-week anniversary, I lost my virginity to my high school boyfriend on a twin mattress covered in faded Transformers bedding in the basement of his great aunt’s house while she took her afternoon nap. Later that night he gave me a promise ring—a sapphire-shaped heart set in a braided silver band—that I wore everywhere: mathletes club, science club, my junior and senior proms. At his graduation party, enclosing me in a bear hug he whispered profusely his gratitude for helping him through calculus and chemistry, that he wouldn’t have gotten into college without me, that he’d be leaving for the east coast tomorrow, and could he have the ring back?
When I was twenty five, I dated a guy more than twice my age who said he wanted to take care of me. Together we ate discounted TV dinners, drank gas station beer, and binged on The Price is Right. Four months in, he had a heart attack while fucking me wildly on my velvet chaise lounge; his hairy sweaty chest nearly smothered me to death. At the hospital, I shook hands with his very pregnant fiancée and their four-year-old son before introducing myself as his coworker and drowning my sorrows in the cafeteria with a cup of hot lemon tea.
I once got fired from an animal shelter after my manager accused me of having attachment issues. After turning in my uniform, I went to the nearby park. There, a black and white schnauzer with a name tag reading ‘Venus’ and a phone number approached me and licked my hand while I picked at my tuna on rye under an Elm tree, so I took her home and for two months fed her dried mackerel and lamb from the organic pet boutique, walked her three times a day (even in the rain), and treated her to massages twice a week before calling her owners when I finally ran out of money. When they came to pick her up, she ran straight into their arms, never once looking back.
On my twenty-eight birthday I was cast for a budding reality show with six suitable bachelors. We strolled along the promenade, jet skied in tandem, and drank aperitifs before indulging in three-course delicacies as they spoke of our future kids and honeymoons to Fiji and Jamaica. Off camera, they hotboxed their rooms with bongs the size of didgeridoos while spewing misogynistic knock-knock jokes. I divulged my concerns to the casting director and was let go three weeks later after the producer caught us in the back seat of my Camry in a Denny’s parking lot two blocks from the studio.
Sometimes in the evenings, I give myself a pedicure, picking colors with ludicrously wicked names like Granny’s Golden Girlfriend and Baby’s Bazooka Blue and Purple Peekaboo Pantyhose before curling up on the couch in my pink onesie fleece with a fifth of Basil Hayden’s dark rye and a bag of kettle corn to watch Pretty Woman. I’ve seen the movie a thousand times. Still, I laugh at the dinner mishap incident—the slippery little suckers—and woot at the Rodeo drive shopping scene, at the sales associate’s big, big, HUGE mistake! And after the movie ends, I insert the DVD gently into its keep case packaging, then place it on my 5-tier storage rack. Far left on the top shelf. Same place, every time, so I’ll always know where to find it.
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Jennifer Lai lives in Washington state and works in research. Her recent work can be found in Atlas and Alice, Brilliant Flash Fiction, MoonPark Review, Star 82 Review and The Sunlight Press.
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