La Tofana's First Third Date

“My mother’s name is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.”

That’s a terrible icebreaker, but I hate small talk so I’ve taken to starting all my first dates with that line. That way, they can make an informed decision about whether or not they want to pursue things any further. If I say it up front, they can’t accuse me of lying by omission or wasting their time. It’s the second thing out of my mouth, right after I make sure they’re the person I’m supposed to be meeting. I usually manage to get it out before they’ve even ordered a drink, so they’re not even on the hook for that. Since I started doing this, I’ve managed two rounds of drinks (both with guys who had already ordered before I got there, and upon hearing this chugged their IPAs like it was rush week), one full dinner (where she honestly tried, but failed, to steer the conversation to hobbies and career goals), and exactly zero second dates.

“Oh no shit, my brother’s on there, too. See? Even just from your bio, I knew we’d have a ton in common.” Oscar smiles broadly and pulls out a barstool for me. His teeth are crooked, but it’s a really nice smile. I hate that I’m about to make it disappear.

“Yeah, I can see why you’d think I’m kidding, and please trust me when I say you’re not the first, but…”

His mouth stays open, but the smile vanishes. “Oh. You’re serious?” He pulls out a stool and sits down, motioning for me to join him. This is unexpected. I lay my wallet and phone on the bar and perch beside him, unsure exactly how to proceed. The place is surprisingly busy for a Tuesday, but we’re still served pretty quickly. We clink rocks glasses and I down mine a little faster than you should on a first date; thankfully, he seems more impressed than offended. “So,” he says, leaning in a little closer than I’m used to, “I don’t know if the mom thing is off-limits, like if you want to tell me about it, or if asking would be rude. So I’m not going to ask, unless you decide you want to talk about it, in which case this is me asking.” He takes another drink. “Or not asking,” he adds, “if that’s what you’re more comfortable with.”

I know the staff here, and without me saying a word Annalise has already topped off my whiskey. I smile my gratitude, but hold off on the shot and instead take a sip of my beer as I think about how to explain it. Because he’s right, I do want to talk about it, but I’ve never had the opportunity before tonight. Everyone else who knows the story knows it because they were already a part of my life when it happened. Hell, some of them were even part of the crime, if you want to call it that. I look more closely at him, at the two dead giveaway zones for conversational discomfort; his eyes look inquisitive, but not eager, and he’s holding his beer bottle without picking at the label. He’s calm.

“Well, the official story, like what she’s charged with, is human trafficking. Like, running a human trafficking ring.” I pause, take a sip, study his composure again. He doesn’t recoil, but he does take a long swig of his beer. The question behind his eyes doesn’t flicker. “I guess that’s not entirely inaccurate, really, but it’s an ugly way to describe it. It’s prosecutorial overreach, basically, because a few of the women who went missing are cops’ wives.” Annalise brings over a plate of oysters we didn’t order, and points to the kitchen door, where one of the cooks waves at me. I smile and wave back, savoring the salt pop of an east coast bivalve before pressing on.

“It started with a woman around my mom’s age, they volunteered together at a women's shelter. Her husband was a detective, and I guess he’d always been ok, but after the kids moved out and he retired, he changed, started hurting her.”

“Shit.” Oscar shakes his head, more out of disappointment than shock.

“Yeah, seriously. Shit. Twenty-five years of Jekyll, suddenly he’s Hyde. And she can’t file charges, because of who he is, but it started bad and got worse quick, and I guess my mom thought she could help. And she built kind of, like, a network, and over time just more and more people asked for her help, and she couldn’t say no, obviously.”

He still doesn’t look uncomfortable, but I can hear the question form before he asks it. “So, how did they make this a crime, exactly?”

I throw back another oyster, swig some beer. “Come on, man, anything can be a crime if you do it to the right people.”

He breaks eye contact and we sit in silence for a moment. I’m suddenly second-guessing that last statement. He certainly doesn’t come off as someone with a Blue Lives Matter fetish, but maybe I misread something. Maybe, in my haste to tell this story to someone who wanted to hear it, I picked someone who couldn’t understand it. But when he looks back up, that smile is back on his face, even more inviting and warm than before. “Yeah, you’re not wrong. Hey, sorry, I was just looking at the menu and I realized I’m starving, you feeling like any food? Just some of the small stuff?”

We place an order and step outside so I can smoke. He’s not a smoker, he says, not anymore, “But if she pours me another whiskey like that first one I’ll probably bum one off of you.” He shelters me from the wind as I light my cigarette, then leans against the wall, his eyes prompting me to carry on with the story.

“Right, so, basically when they tied these missing women to her, they knew she wasn’t doing it all alone, so they offered her a deal or whatever. I mean, I guess they had proof she drove a few of them over state lines, so it’s federal, but they wanted to know who else was involved and they’d go easy on her.”

He finishes the thought as I take a deep drag. “And I’m assuming she told them she’s no snitch?” He flashes that smile again, and I chuckle at the thought of my mother saying those words.

“I mean, I guess? But it’s more than that. It’s not strictly an honor among thieves thing, y’know? First of all, she doesn’t even know all the people involved. She designed it that way. She knows like four, maybe five names, and they don’t know each other, and each of them know a handful, and so on. Like a -”

“A pyramid scheme,” he jokes.

“I was going to say phone tree, like when we were kids. But yeah, whatever, however you phrase it. It’s so no one person knows everything. And it worked. But then they went after her, saying without proof that these women were alive and well they’d be pursuing the federal charges, and she said she wouldn’t tell them where they were even if she knew, and she wouldn’t give them names, and she pled guilty, saying she acted alone. Before she went in, she told me this way someone else could start things back up someday, because hers is the only name they know.”

“So she wants you to take over the family business?”

Shaking my head, I crush my cigarette under the heel of my boot and we head back inside. “God no. I’m not the one. I’m a chef, the most organizational stress I can take is helping the guys with their immigration forms whenever they have an appointment.” I glance towards the kitchen. “Speaking of which, a few of my guys work here, too, I should check in with them before leaving.”

As we sit back down, seven plates of food appear on the bar in front of us. “Did we order all of this?” he asks. “I honestly don’t remember.”

“Nah,” I respond, “my friends sent it out.”

We tuck in, veering dangerously close to Small Talk territory as we inhale our meal. Hobbies, favorite restaurants, general first date banality. Once we’ve slowed down on the food a bit, he takes a sip of his whiskey and leans forward. “So. She pled guilty, went to prison. So how’s she on the wanted list?”

“Oh, she’s not in prison.” He looks up. “Not anymore.”

“She broke out? Nah. Ain’t no way.”

“You know how it’s, like, a well-known fact that child molesters tend to have a real bad time in prison? And wife-beaters, too, to a lesser extent?” He mutters an assent through a mouthful of nachos. “So, being in there for saving women from wife-beaters has the exact opposite effect.”

He chews, swallows, looks to me for more.

“Look, man, I don’t even know who all helped her. But it’s not just the other inmates, you know? It’s a women’s prison, lotta women guards, and a whole lot of them probably have a story of when they needed someone to ‘human traffic’ them.” Annalise comes over to refill our drinks, and Oscar asks her where the restroom is and excuses himself.

“You sure that’s a good idea? Telling him everything?” She pours herself a short shot and joins me in this round.

“Girl, even I don’t know where she is. All of this was in the papers. Shit, it comes up when you Google me.”

“Yeah,” she concedes, “but men don’t Google their dates the way we do. They don’t need the free background check.” She opens the dishwasher, steaming up her glasses. “Whatever, as long as you leave me out of it, say whatever you want… He’s taking it pretty well, really.”

“Yeah, he is, isn’t he?” I see him across the room, weaving his way through the after-work crowd that’s been here long enough for the men to have loosened their ties, but not yet so long that I can see HR meetings in their futures. After sitting back down, Oscar traces the rim of his glass with his index finger, making intense eye contact while he parses his next words.

“I remember reading about her, your mom.” He pauses again. “Didn’t they think she killed some of them?” I mumble in the affirmative while ripping into a chicken wing; he takes a sip of his beer. “What was it they called her in the papers? La Toscana?”

“La Tofana,” I correct him. “After this woman in the seventeenth century who basically gave battered wives this arsenic thing to kill their husbands. So they nicknamed her that.”

“What ever happened with that, like, they couldn’t get a good enough case, or what?”

“The problem with that one,” I reply, wiping hot sauce on my napkin, “was that she didn’t kill anyone. They thought it had to be connected, when these assholes started turning up poisoned, because they had the same… personality traits as the ones whose wives disappeared.” I pick up another wing, gesturing with it like I’m directing air traffic. “I think, you know, they underestimate just how many women are willing to help each other out, so they figure it has to be someone she knows. Makes their jobs harder if there’s more than one group doing this.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “I guess it does.” We sit in silence for a minute, and when my phone buzzes against the bar, the screen lighting up like a beacon, he looks away from it almost performatively. I laugh and show him the text from my roommate, asking how the first date is going, followed by a string of lewd emojis. He chuckles and apologizes for glancing at the screen, but we both know it’s a reflex beyond our control. We’re not too different from moths, in that way: if the rectangle lights up, we look at the rectangle, no matter whose it is.

“What are you gonna say?” he asks, with a half-smile that makes me think I might actually have a second date this time. “And before you answer, you know, to be perfectly honest, I don’t usually put out on the first date, so those eggplant emojis aren’t really in the cards. Hope that’s ok.”

I laugh and type back, “So far so good! He’s still here, so that’s a first. Turns out he’s a prude, though.” I slide the phone over to him, and he smiles as he pushes it back.

“Send it.” He leans back a bit, clears his throat lightly, and fixes his eyes on me with an inquisitive stare. “So, you said it’s going good. Does that mean there’s a third date in our future?”

I look at him sideways. “A third date? Little bold, no?”

He laughs again. I like the sound of it, like a proper French croissant, all airy and buttery. “Well, I’m counting this as dates one and two, y’know, given how much I’ve learned about you. I mean, really, we’re in third date level conversation, but I don’t want you getting any third date ideas.” He brushes my hair out of my face and smiles again, kissing me in a way that has me thinking he’s already got some third date ideas of his own.

My phone buzzes again, but this time he doesn’t look at it. I almost ignore it as well, preferring to stay in this bizarre intimacy we’ve created in this incredibly public setting, but it’s Katie again, and I put her on mute before she says something she shouldn’t and he learns something he can’t know. I lean close to him again, kissing him lightly before putting my hands in his. “So, this third date, what did you have in mind?”

Over another round, we make plans for Thursday. He suggests a different bar, “one where they know me, this time,” and I agree on the condition that they serve equally cheap beer. We ask for the tab, which he insists on paying before excusing himself again to the restroom. I glance at the tip line before letting Annalise pick it up. Satisfied with what he left, I slide it over.

“Fifty percent?” She puts it by the register and rings the bell. “Damn, girl, he’s trying to impress you. That’s cute. He’s cute, I like this for you.”

Oscar returns, and we finish our drinks and start to make our way out. Annalise calls me back for a moment and quietly hands me her phone. “Katie’s freaking out, dude, she says you’re ignoring her?”

There, on the screen, is exactly the kind of text I can’t let him see, not yet, anyway. Not before our third date.

Yo, can you tell Giulia to answer me? I don’t remember the ratio, I don’t want to fuck it up and waste $200 worth of shit.

“Oh my god. 2-1-1, maybe even lighter on the nightshade. Tell her I’ll be home soon.”

Oscar’s waiting for me by the door. I tell Annalise I’ll see her later, and I weave my fingers through his as we walk out into the early evening.

Maybe someday I’ll tell him the whole story, but not today. Today, he’ll kiss me as I climb into an Uber, and I’ll text him when I get home, and I’ll reassure Katie that some boy isn’t going to stand in the way of my legacy, no matter how good a kisser he is, and I’ll keep texting him late into the night, and on Thursday we’ll have our third date, where we can do third date things.