“Gave me a five, but told me I was hiding my figure in this dress.”
“Wow, how dare he?”
“I know! I like this dress.”
“I mean, you’re at least a six. Six and a half in the right light.” She winks at me and grins.
“Thanks a lot.” I look at my plate, but I’m not hungry anymore. “I think I should just give up on this whole dating thing. Stick with Old Faithful and accept it’ll just be me and Spock for the rest of time. Maybe I should marry him.”
She puts a hand across the table and rests it on mine. “Honey, I love you, and I support any life choices you make, but you can’t marry your cat.”
“Why not? I bet I could get him to say yes if I dangled a mouse in front of him long enough. He’d jump at the chance to marry me.”
“But you know he wants to marry me. Demands I feed him most days.”
“That’s just because you’re normally up first.”
“And I heard a rumor he’s already married to about half the girl cats in town.”
“That bastard. He told me he was just working late.”
“They all say that. Still, at least he’s been done. Won’t be bringing home any kittens for you to raise.” She looks at the clock on the wall. “I’ve not got long, but as your fairy godmother, can I tell you something?”
“What? Have you spotted a tumor on my neck? Poisonous spider on my ass. End my evening in the best possible way.”
“If there is a spider on your ass, I’m not sucking the venom out.”
“What kind of lesbian are you? Won’t suck venom out of my ass? I thought we were friends.”
A decent-looking guy walks past us, glancing my way. He wrinkles his nose in disgust as he hears us talking. “Keep walking, bud,” I tell him. “Unless you were hoping to chat me and my friend up but you’ll have to work hard to do it. We’re lesbian Martians, don’t you know?”
He turns his head away and marches off to his table.
“What are you doing?” Maisie says. “He was hot.”
I shrug my shoulders. “So what?”
“So, maybe you could try flirting with a guy like that instead of telling him you’re a gay alien.”
“Gaylien.”
She picks up a breadstick. “En garde, gaylien Zonk from the planet Nocock.”
I pick up my weapon and we fence across the table as she continues to talk. “One day you will find someone who likes you for you, quirks and all. He’ll love your little foibles and the unique things that make you who you are. You’ll get married and have babies and you’ll have your gardening charity and I’ll come visit and you’ll feed me lots of cake and these dating fails will all be very distant memories.”
“Will they? Every guy I’ve dated so far either tells me how weird I am or tries to get in my pants before we’ve even had the appetizers.”
“You live in a town of ten thousand people. The pool isn’t exactly thriving.”
“Your point being?” I swipe her breadstick aside as she lunges.
She picks up a second breadstick and starts dual wielding as she talks. “Your net isn’t very wide for one and they all know about you being abandoned in the woods. You’ve got some backstory that’s hard for people to get past. You’ve also got cracking tits which explains the attempts to get in your panties. Maybe you should let them.”
“I’d quite like my first time to be with someone who doesn’t see me as a notch on a bedpost. Call me old-fashioned, if you like.”
She jabs forward, hitting my chest. I fake blood spurting out, slumping down on my chair until I’m on the ground, foot twitching.
She nudges me with her toe. “Get up, I bring you back to life with the power of my nipple magic.”