"Mom, I'll be fine."
"George, I just think you should meet her."
"Mom, Gina just broke up with me two days ago. I'm not ready to meet anyone. I don't even know if I want to meet someone else. Maybe she'll change her mind."
"Now, George, don't hurt yourself believing that. What you described was not a woman unsure of herself."
"Thanks, Mom. I don't want to talk about this any more. I'll call you later." With that, George folded his cell phone, and put it back in his pocket. D*mn it, he swore to himself. *I know she's trying to help, but she just ends up twisting the knife. Just what I need, especially with that history midterm tomorrow. I hope this dinner can help me clear my head for a bit. It might not be Eiffel Tower Cafe, but I can afford it. Well, once a year, anyway.
I just wish I knew what happened. We didn't fight; we had a good time when we went out. Different colleges, yes, but they were only ten minutes apart.* With a sigh, he pushed that out of his head to try to contemplate the menu.
Just as he was looking at the appetizers, a family of five came in to sit at the next table. It was a mom, dad, and three kids. The parents looked to be in the early-to-mid forties range; the oldest son looked to be about old enough to be learning to drive, his sister a couple of years younger, and the youngest boy had to still be in elementary school.
The two older kids did not look thrilled to be there, especially the goth chick. The youngest, on the other hand, looked thrilled, and not only wanted to take apart everything he could get his hands on, but to talk about that stuff loudly.
After a couple of minutes of listening to the youngest, Mikey talking loudly, and their parents trying to get him to be a bit quieter, George heard someone say, "I wish I could eat here without the rest of my family."
Something got in George's eye as that was said, and made him blink. The subsequent silence was deafening. When he looked in that direction again, there was only the oldest son sitting at the table, with his back to George. George shook his head in confusion. Where had the rest of the family gone? They certainly couldn't just disappear.
Just then, the waiter came up to take his order. Distractedly, he made his choices, and sat back to wait and think.
His train of thought was broken a minute or two later, though, as he heard from the next table, "I wish this place had belly dancers." Once again, his eyes watered, and he blinked. When he was able to see again, there were three very nice-looking girls about his age moving between the tables, and shaking it impressively. What was going on, here, he thought to himself.
All three dancers looked to be middle eastern, although one of them had lighter skin and blond hair. The other two had very dark hair, one shading significantly towards red, the other so dark that it almost looked bluish. They were wearing traditional clothes for such dancing, even going so far as to have tiny cymbals on their fingers to help keep the time.
When he was able to take his eyes off the shapely young ladies, it occurred to him that the whole decor of the restaurant was different. It now looked faux middle eastern, rather than faux italian. There were even a couple of hookahs in the corners. The change was driven into him even further a moment later, when his food arrived, and he got a jujeh kabob instead of a chicken cacciatore.
He went back to watching the girls, especially the red-head, as he started on the food. After a couple of bites, it would seem that the kid at the next table wasn't so impressed, because he suddenly said, "I wish the dancing girls had 31DD-21-32 measurements".
By now, George was getting used to the look away effect, and when he looked back at the girls, he was amazed. Their figures had gone from very nice to I-can't-believe-she's-real. At this point, he couldn't have taken his eyes off the red-head if his life depended on it. When she noticed, and smiled back, he felt like he'd died and gone to heaven. Her smile widened and she
laughed a little when she saw him trying to pick up more food from his plate, unable to find it. Looking in her eyes, he used his knife to shove some rice (or something) onto his fork; he dropped the food on the way to his mouth, however, leading her to laugh a bit more. Undaunted, he tried again without looking away from her, with only slightly better results.
When he saw her laugh again, he raised his glass in a quick toast to her. That got an eyebrow raise and a tilt of the head from her.
George had completely forgotten about the kid at the next table until he said, "I wish the blond dancing were my friend Karyn." That didn't really mean anything to him, so he returned to his contemplation of the red-head.
His ears perked up when he heard the kid say, "I wish the women who are now dancing had to obey the men who are now eating." He then looked over to see the kid gesturing to the blond dancer, who came over to the kid's table.
