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Was it strange to worry about her being lonely when the entire point of me coming down here was to get a divorce? Maybe. I didn’t know. It wasn’t like our situation was common and came with an instructional video.
“Hello sir, may I take your order?”
“What?” Oh, I hadn’t even realized that I had reached the counter. That was certainly a surprise. Quickly, I rattled off what she had put into my phone and then just ordered the same thing for myself. Minus the soda, of course.
I had been quite the pop-fiend when I was a child, and my reward had been several cavities. I had quit in my teens, but I was well aware that a single order of soda was probably enough to have me relapse. Besides, water was pretty delicious.
About five minutes later, I had a tray loaded with junk food and I was headed towards the center of the food court.
Perhaps it was strange that I was willing to eat at such a place, but honestly it was a bit novel every once and a while. It reminded me of the cafeterias at school, where all of us kids would sit closer to each other than necessary while we ate food, talked trash and played trading cards.
I spotted Nicole over in the corner. True to what I had asked, she found a seat that as about as far away from the lines and hubbub as it could be. As I walked toward her, I couldn’t help but notice again how radiant she was.
Even without a drop of makeup, her cheeks were glowing a slight pink, her lashes were long, and her lips were curled into a happy smile that filled me with a sort of warmth that I wasn’t used to.
I sat down, and she dug in with a sort of eagerness I wasn’t used to seeing. Most of the women I went to meals with were models, starlets or aspiring personalities who were contractually obligated to maintain a certain weight. I guessed it was good for me to know someone who was so completely outside of the realm of what I was used to.
“You probably think I’m gross,” she said with a laugh, inhaling a burrito which was just downright impressive.
“Not at all,” I answered honestly. “Do you think any less of me for already being full?”
“What? You’re kidding me.”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m about halfway through my order and I think that’s about as far as I’m gonna get.”
“Weak,” she teased.
But instead of being patronizing, it was endearing, and I chuckled a bit. “You’re possibly the only person to call me that in years.”
“Well good. You’ve probably surrounded yourself with too many yes men and you need someone like me to bring your head back down to the ground.”
“Well, if we’re talking about you bringing my head anywhere, you’ve already proved you’re quite good at givi-”
She choked on her food and I reached over to pat her back, concern overwriting the joke I had been about to tell. “Dude,” she said once she could breathe again. “You gotta warn me if you’re gonna slam down something like that. I just about died.”
“Quite literally, it seems.” I said, still a bit worried. That coughing had been pretty hard, what if something was stuck in her throat?
“Whoo boy. It’s almost enough to put me off my food.”
“Oh really?” I countered, feeling the shock fade and slipping back into our banter. “Well I guess that I can just throw this all away then.” I said, gathering up the rest of the food.
But she quickly caught my wrist and sent me an intense look. “I said almost.” She managed to hold her glare for about ten seconds before it broke, and then we were both chuckling at our silliness.
We sank into a loose conversation as she finished eating. Although I was pleased that she was helping herself, it did make me worry about how little she must have been eating lately to be so hungry. Was the baby alright? Was it getting all the nutrition it needed?
I supposed there was no way of knowing what had happened before, but I would make sure that our little bean was appropriately fed from now on.
When we finished, I found myself almost a little sad. While normally I would try to get out of the mall after half an hour or so and the novelty of it faded, I found myself wanting to stay.
“So, baby shopping then?”
“Actually,” she said, folding up all her trash so it made a very neat little pile in the center of our tray. “I think it’s a bit too soon for that. We don’t know the dimensions of the place that I’m going to be living, or even the sex of the little bean.”
Huh. I was disappointed. Now that was an emotion that I wasn’t expecting. Quickly, my brain scrambled to try to think of a reason to prolong our time out and about together.
