Honestly, if he hadn’t been looking, he probably would have missed her.
He had known from the instant that she’d set foot into Miyazaki that she was the woman that he’d been set up with. Not just because of her skin tone and facial features (which were, yes Brennan, very Middle-Eastern) but also because she, too, had dressed up more than anyone else in this restaurant. It was clear from the get-go that she was looking for her date and, whether he was ready or not, Fayzan was the man that was in her plan.
“Hi.” She said to him in a small, but confident, voice, “Monique told me that I was going to meet a Middle-Eastern guy…”
“Say no more.” He snapped his fingers playfully, “That’s me.”
She was a short woman, standing in front of him at a little more than five feet tall with a few inches to spare. In a stark change from the other women that Fayzan had dated in the past, the woman who was standing in front of him was delightfully thick. Something that made him feel just a little better about his own gut, but not so much as to think that she was anything short of beautiful.
A little chubby, for sure, but then who wasn’t?
“Fayzan?” she asked, “I’m Rashaun—you can call me Raye.”
She put herself out there for a handshake. Not too strange, he supposed. He had neglected to rise from his high stool to greet her, but he didn’t think that she minded too much. Hopping up on her own stool across from him, she crossed her arms and stared him down from behind her thick-rimmed glasses.
“So.” She said plainly, flatly, and a little intimidatingly, “You got set up with a blind date by some rich kid from Spartanburg Prep school too, huh?”
And as soon as she’d said those words, he had known that this night wouldn’t be a complete waste of time.
“Tell me about it.” He admitted with a sheepish smile, “My friend Brennan told me that he found a girl for me to go out on a date with, and the only thing that he told me was that she was Muslim. Like, that was the only thing about her that he knew.”
“Monique did the exact same thing.” Raye scoffed, “She told me that she met the nicest guy who just so happened to be Middle Eastern—”
“Like really, thank you, it’s so nice to know that the only thing you know about me is that I’m a different color Crayon than you.”
She laughed; she had a surprisingly good laugh. That kind of thin was important to him. Whether or not he could laugh with somebody. Hers was vibrant and jovial, with a hint of a little snort somewhere in there.
“What kind of sushi roll are you having?”
“I was thinking about ordering two…”
From there, it all felt natural. Fayzan would make a joke, she would laugh. Raye would make some kind of quip about the kind of people that Monique hung out with, he would laugh… there was so much to talk about, so many of those awkward first steps when you’re just getting to know someone. Fayzan hadn’t had that kind of chemistry with anyone in a long time, and getting to experience it now after so long alone, well…
Suffice it to say that he didn’t want this dinner to end.
“You, uh… you want another sushi roll?”
“Oh God, I’m stuffed… I don’t think I could eat another bite if I tried…”
The waitress had been good enough to take the plates away as they’d finished them, but each one had held three to four rolls split between them. They were three plates in now, with at least three glasses of drink down each. Fayzan had always been a bigger eater than some of the other guys (now that he was getting older, that was starting to bite him in the butt) but even he had started having trouble about halfway through the second plate.
He just didn’t want this dinner to end, and she looked like she’d been having a good time, and…
“Alright, how about we… maybe go somewhere else then?” he suggested with the smallest smile, “You know, there’s a really great park downtown—”
“You mean the park that absolutely everyone goes to when they’re trying to take cutesy photos or impress a girl that they just met?”
Raye had asked the question with a pique of her dominant black eyebrows, the corners of her lips tugging into a little smirk. Placing her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm, in that moment she looked to have been more beautiful than any of the other women that Monique could have set him up with. The afternoon sun setting in the east, casting an orange glow over the entirety of Downtown, her skin glowed like honey.
“Um… yes?”
“I’d love to.” Her façade broke immediately, “Give me a chance to work off all that sushi you fed me.”
As Fayzan grabbed his coat, he reached into his rear pocket for his wallet.
“Um, what do you think you’re doing?” Raye asked, placing a hand on his as she corrected his chivalry, “Were you not paying attention when I said that I was a doctor? I’ve got this one.”
“Oh, cool.” He tried not to seem too shaken by the suddenness of it all, “I’ll, uh… I’ll just get you back next time then?”
Another pique of those eyebrows, her glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose as she sized him up one more time. She was clearly just as excited to hear it as he had been to say it.
“Who says that we’re done with this time?”
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