A Second Bite at the Apple by Dana Bate

“And one we don’t have time for because apparently I only have five minutes left to convince you I’m not a loser. As far as I can tell, I’m doing a really bad job.”
    â€œI’ll be honest. The situation is not looking good.”
    Jeremy slaps himself across the face. “Come on, man! Pull it together!”
    I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a five-minute extension. So you have ten minutes left.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œReally.”
    Jeremy pumps his fist under the table. He shakes out his shoulders and loosens his neck, tilting his head from side to side. “Okay,” he says. “Time to do this right.”
    He rubs his hands together and fixes his blue eyes on mine, and I’m struck by both how familiar he seems and how much better looking he is than I’d realized. “Okay,” he says. “Tell me about the best and worst things you ever ate, and where you ate them.”
    â€œEver?”
    â€œEver,” he says. “And I’ll go next. Think fast. We only have ten minutes. Ready? Go.”
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    Somehow, ten minutes morphs into thirty, and before I know it, we’ve drunk a beer each and have ordered starters and entrées off the menu. I’ve learned that the best thing he’s ever eaten was fresh ricotta on a small farm outside Scanno in Abruzzo, Italy, and that his worst meal involved Hamburger Helper, minus the hamburger, when he was a poor college student and couldn’t afford to splurge on beef. He is a beer nerd who brews at home and brought me here because he loves their draft list, and in the thirty minutes of our date, he has already taught me the difference between brewing a porter and brewing an IPA. I’ve learned that he loves Fitzgerald and Hornby, Bach and Death Cab for Cutie, autumn and Seinfeld and Humphrey Bogart movies. I’ve learned we have a lot more in common than I thought.
    â€œSo wait,” he says, as he takes a sip of his second beer, a Kasteel Tripel. “Let’s go back to this cigarette spaghetti situation. I’m seriously confused as to how this could have happened.”
    I laugh and almost spit my porter back into my glass. “I know. It’s a mystery. But I’m telling you: It tasted like eating a plate full of cigarettes.”
    â€œAnd this was at band camp?”
    â€œNo—not band camp. It was more like a band . . . festival.” Jeremy starts snickering. “Shut up! It was a big deal. Only a few kids from each high school were chosen.”
    â€œHey, you’re talking to a former tuba player. I’m not judging.”
    â€œYou played the tuba? ”
    He blushes. “It’s an important instrument—and, I’ll have you know, one that’s difficult to play well.”
    â€œTell me about it. I learned a lot those years at band ca—sorry, band festival .”
    â€œSo what did you play?”
    â€œClarinet.”
    He smiles. “That fits.”
    â€œWhat is that supposed to mean?”
    â€œAll of the clarinet players at my high school were cute girls. And none of them would go on a date with me.”
    The waitress returns with our grilled octopus and tuna tartare appetizers, cutting off Jeremy before I can point out that I am on a date with him—the first date I’ve been on in ages, actually. I could blame my dating misfortune on the intensity of working on a daily news show, but that would be an easy excuse, and it wouldn’t be entirely true. I could also blame Zach, and although he started me down this path of mistrust and loneliness, I’m the one who has continued on it for so long.
    What happens, if you’re me, is at a young age you let someone know you, totally and completely, and then that person breaks your heart. So you don’t date for a while, and you blame the breakup, which is true but eventually sounds lame as the months pass. So then you