A Date with Destiny

Sunday afternoon I had a date. He picked me up. That should have been a good start.

"You look very..."

"Very what?" I wanted to know.

"Very...I don't know."

"What word are you looking for?"

"Ummm..."

I couldn't force an answer from him. After my saying we should go to Santa Monica for the best dining options and his firmly stating he was too tired to drive there after having skipped so much sleep due to work, he turned the car toward the beach anyway.

He wasn't dressed up. He'd run out of nice clothes and hadn't done laundry. The visual mismatch carried over into the aural realm. Conversation was strained, decorated only with awkward silences. I resorted to stale topics like weather and hobbies.

"Your lips look juicy."

"Oh, yeah, my lip gloss. It's organic."

"Of course, it is."

"Well, it needs to be pure. Women eat an average of 6 pounds of lipstick over a lifetime, and most of what's sold contains heavy metals, petrochemicals, and other toxins."

He said nothing.

"Do you drink juice?" I tried.

"Yeah. Wine. It's made from grapes."

"You're right about that," I said, laughing, understanding that he had not maintained the dietary changes he'd made, under my influence, some time ago. "I'm just trying to decide where we should go. If you're feeling adventurous, we could go to a raw restaurant. If not, I have another place in mind."

"Why don't we go to a place where you can eat and I can have some real food?"

I knew exactly where to take us for his real food and for my, as was implied, rabbit food. His tone, his everything was reminding me of being out with my last ex. I won't bore you with all the parallels. Let's just say that there were plenty, that it was uncanny.

In Santa Monica, he groaned about having to find parking. I'd already been wanting to either jump from the car or disappear for half an hour, courtesy of our pained dialogue during the traffic on PCH. We found a spot that anyone local would consider great, but he was irritated. In crossing the street, he walked a good two feet ahead, only turning around once to say with disapproval, "Your shoes are very impractical, dear."

"All high heels are impractical," I thought to myself, and there was certainly no need to say that I'd chosen the shoes to look nice for him. I didn't even want to eat with him, but I'd saved my appetite for the occasion. Rather reluctantly, I kept walking in my useless shoes.

Waiting for our table outside Real Food Daily, I asked if he'd like to visit the little bookshop next door, as most patrons do to pass the time. He did not. I, at least, wanted him to see the little Freud, Jung, and Einstein figurines in the store window, as I thought he, as a rocket scientist who named his daughter after Einstein's own and who, on many mornings, enjoys dream interpretation for breakfast, would get a kick out of them. Whenever I've seen them, I've thought of him. Alas, he would only humor me with three steps, a glance, and a brief muffled laugh.

I was uncharacteristically blue when a young woman headed for her yoga class came up to me and remarked with contagious enthusiasm and sincerity, "You look so beautiful! My friend and I saw you while we were looking for parking, and we were like, 'Omg! Look at her shoes! Her dress!' You're really beautiful." I thanked her with equal enthusiasm and sincerity. Ah, the sweet smell of vindication! Take that, impractical!

Once inside, inquiring about his wine, we were told that only the adjoining bakery had a liquor license, and I said I'd be happy to move, but he declined and began perusing the menu.

"Well, maybe they have grape juice," I winked, referring back to our earlier exchange.

"God, you are so strange!" he said too loud for my comfort, while rolling his eyes. "Sometimes I wish you weren't so strange, especially in restaurants."

I wanted to cry.

To make it worse, he kept bringing up how much he could use a glass of wine or a beer, when I'd been more than accommodating. I could only reiterate that I had been willing to move.

"It's fine. Green tea is better for me anyway."

When the people sitting next to us left their table, the woman mentioned that she loved my shoes.

My chaperon replied, "Yeah, it's pretty green."

"No! Not her juice. Her shoes!"

I'd heard her the first time and thanked her. Mmhmm. That's right, dude. Everyone else loves my shoes; you can only see their impracticality. And, lest we forget, my essential strangeness.

We would then visit the homes of two of my uncles, both of whom made a point of telling me how beautiful I am. To him, of course, I was still only very something. Very strange, maybe? Ugh. Those words were on repeat when we reached our first stop. My cousin asked why I was all dressed up.

"Because I have a date with my Dad." A palpable guilt descended upon my father's face.

At the second destination, after all my cousins had left, we were watching Slumdog with my uncle. Dad was staring at me. I looked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I turned my head around to continue watching the movie. A bit later, he was still staring, so I turned around once more.

"What???"

"You look like Grandma, except you have a better nose. I don't know where you got that nose." He even critiques the facial features of the dead, including his dead mother. To be sure, no face in history is beyond careful evaluation.

"How do you know what she looked like when she was young?"

"I saw pictures, dear."

He'd mentioned the resemblance more and more over the years. It was nothing new, so I went back to the movie momentarily, until he put his hand on my cheek. "You're very beautiful, dear."

"You're very beautiful, too," I responded, sliding both of my hands childishly over his face.

"You're so strange."

"What you call strange other people consider cute and charming."

"Oh, do they?"

"Yeah."

"You're a lot like me."

"Oh, is that why you find me so objectionable?"

He half-smiled and drove me home. He walked me to my doorstep with the same teary eyes he's had every biannual visit, reminding me that I, too, could visit him in Florida. I left him with a maybe and the caveat that any visit of mine would be contingent upon a jaunt to St. Augustine as well. Words devoid of meaning. Those plans didn't feel probable, being that our 5-hour date had so drained me. After all, I had found in him that night irrefutable proof of his being the prototype for the boys I have previously loved. At this discovery was a mix of incredible relief and acute loneliness.

I have enough evidence now. I know why I've attracted certain people, and I know I will not get from my father what I've seen other daughters get from theirs, and I am at peace with that. This isn't about getting, anyway. It's more about my feeling particularly conscious, compelled to give at a level beyond what my father and the boys who have masqueraded as him are able to receive.

I am reminded of a time a few years ago when, at Point Dume, my father carried me, his full-grown daughter, uphill on his shoulders. The moment was expansive and eternal. I never wanted it to end. It didn't matter that my step-mother was looking on with jealousy, as she always does; my heart soared regardless. That moment was real. I want more of the real. With all men. With all people. I am interested in giving without obstacle or interference.

Something inside me has opened. I feel very light and very free. I definitely don't want to be, as I've heard it phrased, dragged by my destiny. I would much rather be carried to its apogee. By piggyback, even.