Page 41 of Mr. Principal

He stopped the car and said, “I hope you like Jamaican food.”

“Never tried it.”

“You’re going to love it.”

He quickly got out the car and made his way around to open the door for me. As I stepped out, I felt a little out of my element.

Almost everyone else was dressed casually, while I looked like I was dressed to go to a club.

I tugged at my hemline self-consciously.

Carter noticed and hooked an arm around my waist. “Stop. You look great.”

“Everyone else is dressed so casually.”

“They’re probably going to the outdoor or bar section.”

He led me inside and I could see that the building was deceptively large. We walked past an area with a bar and a live band and headed up a flight of stairs.

It was then that I saw other people dressed a lot like me. The top floor had a hostess who greeted us warmly.

She had caramel colored skin and dreadlocks that extended down her back.

“I see you have a date tonight, Carter. Who’s the lucky girl?” Her accented English held a slightly British hint.

He smiled down at me as we followed behind her. “This is Dana.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “The Dana? Dana from college?”

“One and only.”

I didn’t know what to say as we settled down at our table and she handed us a menu, giving us a big smile. “Enjoy yourselves.”

“So the hostess at this restaurant knows me by name?”

He tried to look nonchalant but I knew him too well.

“Come on, spill it.”

“She’s the bartender on Friday nights and I might have mentioned you a time or two.”

“Oh really?”

“I mean, briefly, in passing. I don’t sit at the bar every night and sob into my beer pining after you.”

I tried to hold back a smile. “So, is crying into your beer and sobbing over me just your Saturday activity?”

“Yeah, weekends and holidays. And maybe every other Monday,” he joked.

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I looked at him. It felt good to be around him. It felt good to be wanted. More than that, it felt good to be loved. But that’s how he felt about me. How did I feel about him?

I’d always loved Carter as a friend. And I’d thought my crush on him had faded after I began to date Tom, but maybe it hadn’t faded. Maybe I’d just buried it and what happened between us back in college had been a result of all those emotions bubbling up and spilling over the surface. I’d thought that Carter had been making love to me while I’d only been having sex with him, but maybe for both of us, that act had been an act of love.

It was too much to consider thinking that I, or rather, we’d wasted so much time, time that we could have had together. But we had the present. And he was sitting across from me now, so it was time to do something different.

Maybe the divorce had been the push I’d needed to find myself. And maybe I would find myself much in love with Carter. I didn’t believe in happily ever after. With Tom, I’d thought just ‘content ever after’ was good enough, but with Carter, I felt anything was possible… even a fairy tale where things worked out in my favor. Maybe tonight I would stop feeling broken, useless, and sad.

My morose thoughts didn’t last long as Carter reached for my hand and said, “What do you think of the restaurant?”