TBD (or, As Time Goes By)

Part I: Seated for the meal

It was the third time they’d been out for dinner together during the past month. Spring was in the air—and perhaps—so was something else. While Hobohemia had nowhere near New York City’s abundance of gourmet eateries, the neighboring city across the Hudson River that they could see from the restaurant table they had just been seated to dine that evening, it still had some great spots to offer. The location he had chosen for them, with her consent of course was no exception.

After one dry Grey Goose vodka martini each (ordered with a solitary olive and a bit dirty yet not obscene), they chatted away amicably while awaiting the appetizer. Since the maître d' had suggested the baked brie in puff pastry served with mixed greens, apple and pear slices, then drizzled with a honey Dijon dressing, and with silent co-conspiratorial nods to one another, they mutually agreed to go with the flow of his tasty and worthy suggestion.

Before the appetizer arrived the already helpful member of the establishment’s servers had returned with a bottle of a sparkling 2016 Pointe Brut wine from Long Island. With an apparently rehearsed faux flourish, the young man proceeded to pop the cork and pour them each a glass, before leaving the bottle to chill in the slim, chic-looking wine cooler atop their linen-clothed table. Toasting before drinking they clinked their glasses together as they each said, “To you!”, and then enjoyed the effervescent elixir. After lowering her wine flute, she told him how she loved the way the bubbles tickled her nose, and although he didn’t share this tiny tidbit with her, he loved how she loved that.

Timed to perfection, at the end of the appetizers, their entrees arrived next. She had ordered the sautéed filet of trout with capers, lemon and butter sauce, and he, the magret de canard; a boneless breast of duckling with shallots, raisins, and port wine. While these culinary delights elicited lusty “Oohs!” and “Aahs!” as they were devoured, they managed to save enough room for dessert, and thus complete the repast with slices of strawberry rhubarb pie.

Being still only mid-March, and the sun had set by the time they had exited the restaurant, she accepted his chivalrous offer to walk her home on that pleasantly chilly moonlit evening.

Part II: You must remember this; a kiss is still a…

It was merely a short, ten-minute walk from where they had dined to the front of the building where she lived in Hobohemia. Most of the world was still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, so for a few awkward moments they just stood at her doorstep in the quiet night air until she finally broke the silence by saying, “You know you can kiss me if you wanna?”

“Yeah,” he replied before reluctantly walking away, “I do.”

Confused as she now lowered her cloth face mask, she questioned while following him, “What?”

“I know I can kiss you.”

“And…”

“Well, isn’t that what you wanted to know?”

“I don’t know anymore, do you?”

“What?”

“Wait a minute!”

“What??”

“So?”

“So, what?”

“Do you wanna?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ! Do you just want me to kiss you?”

“Do you?”

Spinning back around to face her, and taking a few moments to think it over, he answered, “What if we just wait and kiss the next time we go out?”

“Well, how do I even know if I’d still wanna kiss you the next time we go out?”

“Are you saying there’s a shelf-life expiration date on this kiss you want?”

“I didn’t say I wanted a kiss. I only wanna let you know that if you were thinking about kissing me and wasn’t sure how I’d feel about you trying to kiss me, that just to take some of the pressure and uncertainty out of it for you of not knowing, I figured it was better to simply let you know that you could and that I’d be okay with it, even if you didn’t do a very good job of kissing me.”

“Hold on now! You think I’m not a good kisser?”

“I don’t know! And I won’t know until we kiss, but it looks like that’s not ever going to happen now. I wasn’t even going to say anything, but I got my second Moderna vaccination shot today on the off-chance you were finally going to take this whatever-we-have to the next level of this-is-where-we’re-going and kiss me tonight.”

Partially to settle the argument and partially to merely shut her up (or so he may have told himself), he lowered his own cloth face mask before gently drawing her into his arms, met her soft lips with his own, and then tenderly planted a long, slow kiss upon those lips. And as if engaged in a choreographed pas de deux dance of love, and in perfect unison, their mouths opened, tongues darted forth, and the unpaired pair kissed for the first time. 

“So, did I make the grade when it came to kissing you?”

“I don’t know,” was the reply as she readjusted her face mask in its original position.

“How can you not know? Did your mind wander somewhere else while we were kissing? Or, was the kiss so bad you immediately erased it from your mind?”

Turning from him, the woman began to walk away as she said, “What if we just wait and I’ll let you know the next time we go out?”

“What?” the man asked, “Well, how do I even know if I’d still want your answer the next time we go out?”

“Are you saying there’s some sort of a shelf-life expiration date on the answer you want?”

“No, I guess not.”

Taking a few more steps away from him while lowering her mask again, then turning back with a playful Mona Lisa smile pasted on her flushed face she paused for a brief time before demurely telling him, “Alright then. Hey, you know you can kiss me again if you wanna, so you can—you know—find out sooner than the next time we go out what the answer is?” 

It was, after all, the age of the Coronavirus, wherewith the new norm even a kiss was no longer just a kiss, or a sigh just a sigh. And that, no one can deny. Thus, with a heart full of passion he’d concluded that he was done with talking, and set about to kissing her again, and again, and again...