They were supposed to meet in the coffee shop of the bookstore. It was a safe place; Gloria knew it well. She got there first, on purpose. She had two bad knees and didn’t want him to see her wobbling up to the store’s coffee shop. Better for him to see her sitting. First impressions and all.

        The date was planned for three o’clock. She got there at a quarter to two, ordered coffee regular, and sat at the corner table with Anna Karenina in her hands and her eyes on the literature section. It was through the shelves of Salinger and Thoreau that people made their beeline from the doors of the bookstore to the coffee shop inside.

        She opened the book to the marked page, shifted in her seat, and cursed the merciless padding of chairs like these, which always reminded her that she was middle-aged, overweight, and in constant need of aspirin. She only hoped that she looked comfortable when he showed up.     

        He had said that he didn’t read much. Fortunately for him, Gloria’s list of standards had shrunken considerably since her late twenties. “Avid reader” had fallen from the list long ago. Considering this, she figured the bookstore wasn’t necessarily the most ideal place for their first meeting, but she couldn’t think of anything better. She was also beginning to question her choice of bringing a thick Russian book to their first meeting. She would have preferred not to have a book at all, but she couldn’t fathom the thought of sitting still at that table for thirty minutes, wearing a pair of pantyhose that made the insides of her knees itch, without having something to do, even just for show.

        The bookstore may not have been an ideal place, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to eat in front of him yet at a restaurant. Besides, she often had trouble sitting in those booths and she didn’t want to embarrass herself. Not this early, anyway. She didn’t want to meet in a bar, either, because the smoke aggravated her sinuses.

        Coming through Salinger and Thoreau were women, men with women, and women with children. No single men yet. She had no idea what he looked like because they didn’t trade photographs, only descriptions, so she had to be on the lookout for a 40-something-year-old man with “thinning brown hair” and a “slight belly,” while he would be eyeing the room for a “thick-figured” 40-something-year-old woman who was five-foot-three and had “an ample bust line.” She made sure to mention the bust line—guys liked that kind of thing—but she chose not to mention her bad knees, and she shaved off a few pounds when he asked for a more specific number on how much she weighed. A ballpark, if you will. Under 220, at least?, He asked through instant messenger, and she quickly typed Yes, still grinning from an intimate joke they had shared earlier, without thinking much about future things like bookstore meetings. She wasn’t that much over two-twenty.

        “Hey, Miss Gloria.” It was Samantha, the 20-year-old liberal arts student who stocked shelves at the bookstore. She pointed at Gloria’s coffee cup. “Coffee regular?”

        “Of course.”

        “You want me to freshen it up for you?”

        Employees typically did not freshen up customers’ coffee there, but Samantha was a rare breed—a friendly, enthusiastic youth who loved her job. Gloria accepted this enthusiasm with a strange disgust because Samantha was the kind of girl that other girls loved to hate: blonde, tiny waist, big boobs, radiant smile. The fact that she had a great personality made matters worse. Personality was the only weapon in the arsenal that Glorias could use to overcome Samanthas. The “great personality” was supposed to be reserved for the frizzy-haired, the bug-eyed, the over 220s, the buck-toothed. Yet here Samantha stood, with her bookstore apron tied thrice around an enviable waistline, with her voluntary offers of coffee refills.

        “No, thanks,” Gloria said.

        “I haven’t seen you in a few days,” Samantha said. “I was worried you weren’t feeling well or something.”

        “Oh, no. I’m just fine.” Gloria peeked around Samantha and looked toward the literature section. No one was coming in. “Do you happen to know what time it is?”

        Samantha pulled her pink cell phone from her apron and flipped it open. “Three o’clock.”

        Gloria nodded and suddenly became very aware of Samantha standing at her table, looking young and ravishing, with her French-manicured fingernails resting on the table top. Gloria had made a special point to get to the bookstore early so he wouldn’t see her wobble up and now she was confronted with something much more frightening—a model of comparison.

        “I’m waiting for someone,” Gloria said. She blurted it out so matter-of-factly that she felt foolish, even though Samantha was at least twenty years her junior and much too young to feel foolish around.

        Samantha’s plucked eyebrows went up. “Really?”

        “Yes. He should be here any minute.”

        “Oh. Love interest?”

        “We’ll see.” Gloria opened her book.

        Samantha straightened her apron, understanding the hint. “I’ll get back to stocking those books, then.”

        When Samantha walked by, on her way back to the shelves and the paperbacks, Gloria got a whiff of her perfume and felt guilty about rushing her off and annoyed that the girl not only had a narrow waist and great personality, but had to smell good, too.

        She craned her neck toward the literature again. A man wearing a blue pullover fleece came in with iPod buds in his ears. Looked about twenty-five. Gloria sighed.

        When she began to lose her single friends to marriage and motherhood, Gloria convinced herself that she was single by choice, exercising the joys brought on by female independence. There were plenty of women like that. Nevermind that they were busy and confident, unlike Gloria, who went home, greeted her tailless cat Mercutio, and lay on the bed to review her life’s choices, wondering if she had made the right ones. One afternoon she started to wonder what would happen if she had a heart attack or a stroke while she lay there.

        “How long before someone would find me?” she asked Mercutio. He batted his sleepy eyes at her and laid his head in the crook of her arm.

        The next week she went to work and eyed her male colleagues. She was on the hunt. If she was single by choice, it stood to reason she could be taken by choice.

        After six months, she put a personal ad in the newspaper.

        “Is this an admission of being desperate?” she asked Mercutio as she flipped through the questionnaire. He meowed and pranced off to his food bowl while she filled in the blanks. Age: 40-something. Description: Curvy, with ample bust line. Occupation: Professional. Hobbies: Reading, music, theatre. Which of these traits do you prefer? Please check all that apply.

        She poised her pen over each box, ready to discard undesirable traits with a slash of her pen. She didn’t want to date a smoker, but what if he was a great guy who happened to smoke? Could she tolerate it? Did he have to be college-educated? Was that really important? “Never been married?” Well, that depends.

        She dropped the questionnaire in the mail with all the boxes checked. One week later, she was summarized in the local paper with a one-inch paragraph buried in a list of personal ads. Three weeks later, she got the first bill. Fifteen-seventy-five. It’d been fifteen-seventy-five for three years now. The bill came due every fourth of the month and she paid it faithfully. The Friends Network invoice was considered a household expense, like groceries or electricity.

        It was through this network that she met Mr. Three O’Clock. He would be her seventh pairing. She had become quite an expert on first dates over the past thirty-six months, since she had not yet been asked for a second. Lessons were learned, indeed. After failed date number two she promised herself that she would have no more first dates at restaurants. After three, she started wearing perfume. On date four, the perfume was strong enough to give her a headache. Failed date five resulted in a trip to the salon. Six put her on a diet for three weeks.

        Seven? Well, that remained to be seen.

        Gloria glanced down at the same paragraph of Anna Karenina that she’d been staring at, off and on, since she sat down. He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious and exceptional women.

        She looked toward Salinger and Thoreau, then peeked at the watch on the bespectacled elderly man reading “Home and Garden” at the next table. It was three-ten.

        He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men …

        She closed the book, finished off her coffee regular, opened the book, closed it again.

        Opened it.

        but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself …

        Maybe he came in, didn’t see her, and sat down. She closed the book again and looked around the coffee shop. In addition to the bespectacled “Home and Garden” man, there was Kid with iPod, a single woman scolding a boy who had spilled something on the table, and a brunette with a Pixie haircut sitting behind a stack of thick textbooks. Mr. Three O’clock was certainly none of those.

        She opened the book and vowed not to look up again until she got to chapter eight.

        … and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious and exceptional women … Without picking up her head, she raised her eyes to glance toward the lit section. … that he could not live without deciding the question, would she or would she not be his wife …

        She sighed and, again without picking up her head, looked over at Home and Garden’s watch. Three-fifteen.

        Could he have come in and left?

        She looked around the coffee shop a little more closely. There were crevices. Lots of them. Sure, it was typical for people to come into the shop through the literature section, but there were certainly lots of discreet places available for a person to scout the scene. There were shelves with gaps between them. There were spaces too small for a person to walk through, but definitely wide enough to see what was going on in the coffee shop. Was it too ridiculous to consider?

        She went back to Tolstoy, vowing to get to chapter seven, where she knew Levin would go to visit his brother Sergey to tell him that he wanted to marry Kitty. After chapter seven, she’d worry about Mr. Three O’Clock.

        … and that his despair had arisen only from his own imaginings, that he had no proof the he would be rejected. And he had now come to Moscow with a firm determination to make an offer ...

        Three-twenty.

        She looked at the hiding places again. There was no one in those crevices now, but there could have been.

        Twenty minutes ago, there could have been.

	About the Author:   E.K. Cormier's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in several print and online journals, including Keyhole, Audience, Johnny America, Kartika Review, Kyoto Journal, Boston Literary Magazine, and elsewhere.

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