Apparently, everyone in the universe wants to go out to dinner on Valentine’s Day. I didn’t particularly want to go anywhere schmancy, but I did kinda want to get something nourishing and delightful after toning my figure into various heart shapes and curves at the gym all evening.
Mark suggested Dal’Italia, where we go so often, the sexy blond waiter says every time, “Oh-a my Gawd, you havenna been here-a inna for-ever! Where-a hava you been?!” I love him, because he really does talk like that, sort of a combination of Italy and some Northeast city where he obviously learned English, and he’s also very spry, quick with the pizza and always making ridiculous jokes that wouldn’t be funny at all if he didn’t have that excellent accent.
So, I was totally ready for Dal’Italia, in pale pink cotton voile and a shawl collar, only when Mark arrived, he was wearing textured poplin and talking about Bella Brava, so I had to delay for some wardrobe game and, with the addition of white rabbit and metallic leather, we both looked really good, especially with all the love in the air.
“You think we can still get a table?” I said. “I really don’t mind pizza or Chinese.”
“Chinese? That’s like chemical poisoning. We’ll save that as a last resort.”
And we were off, ready for romance and adventure.
Except when we got to Bella Brava, it was totally not happening. We walked up to the hostess and a very frustrated, overweight guy with sweat beads on his lip spat out, “Good luck getting a table. We’ve been here for 55 minutes! And that’s with a reservation!” His girlfriend came over and tried to take his hand, but she was sort of nagging him about talking to other people or something, and he yanked his hand away and glared at the hostess, who totally ignored him.
We debated asking the hostess if the hour or so was about right, thinking the high-tops at the bar might make a lovey-dovey warm-up, but she was immediately bombarded by two couples flying in the door, ready to shove each other out of the way, each brandishing bright red beepers that were blinking and screaming.
The one guy was actually dragging his poor date, who was desperately using her free hand to try to keep her cleavage in her dress as her man pushed the other guy out of the way. He had this look of totally focused, hard-charging competition, and his girlfriend was all discombobulated and wondering where the romance had gone, so we decided that we wouldn’t antagonize the waiting couples by getting on the list.
We then embarked upon a completely farcical tour of St. Petersburg, whereby every single door we approached darkened its neon Open sign right as we hit it. Seriously, every single place was shutting down the absolute instant we arrived. We tried Primi, Tedesco’s and The King and I - closed, closing and closed.
“That’s OK,” I said. “My favorite thing about Valentine’s Day is how much I love you.”
We kissed for awhile on the sidewalk. Mark smelled really good and the rabbit added a little tactile fun. We got back in the truck and tried Outback, Carrabas and Gumby’s. At Gumby’s, another sweaty, fat guy came up to us and snarled, “We’re closed!” It was pretty silly, because, first of all, are you that jerky because you don’t have anyone to love this year or do you have no one to love this year, because you’re always that jerky, and, secondly, are you seriously yelling at me for walking in to an unlocked pizza place with a flickering open sign at nine forty-five at night and not knowing it was closed?
We were a little punch drunk at this point, only because we had both worked out for a couple hours and we were basically starving and all the Valentine’s kissing was making us a little giddy and, for real, we were just hungry.
“So, no pizza,” Mark said.
“No pizza.” I said.
We got back in the truck. Hope was waning and I was imaging how good a bagel would be for breakfast the next day when, suddenly, flickering to the left, nestled next to my dry cleaners, the only restaurant that was open - Great Wall II.
“Look! It’s open!” I said.
Mark screeched into a U-turn and slammed around the back of the building.
“Hurry! It might close!” I yipped. We were laughing like gerbils, rollicking in disbelief and jittery with hunger. We ordered way more Chinese food than any two people could ever need.
And, so, we ate the chemical poison, at my desk, in cotton voile and poplin, stabbing at dark meat chicken and twirling high-carb, mystery noodles. Then we kissed a little more and fell asleep by eleven.
It wasn’t too bad, actually, although word to Bella Brava - when you refuse people reservations, you build an image of elitism and desirability; when you make people wait hours on reservations, you build an image of tackiness and desperation. Sometimes, you just gotta say no.