Date Knight

He prepared himself for what he thought was their first date; she however: knew it was going to be another anniversary.

Lance had stopped just short of the coffee shop windows to remain out of sight, huffed on his hand and smelled it, straightened out his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times. He stated to the world in general, “This is it, I’m going to finally ask her out on a date.” Drawing in a deep breath and exhaling, he affirmed to his brain that was trying to turn him around. “We got this… Come on.” With another short sharp breath, he stepped forward into the aroma of cinnamon, apples and coffee and braved his way into the cafe.

Someone who had just received their order was walking directly toward him. Lance tried to side step only for the person to annoyingly mirror him. “Oh sorry mate,” they said jovially. “I didn’t mean to…” Lance didn’t hear whatever else the person said.

And there she was. He could not take his eyes off of her. Nothing else existed. Certainly not the person who firmly though not aggressively, shuffled him out of the way of the flow of people. Her cherry blonde ponytail swung left and right as she moved between outlets of the coffee machine, delicate fingers pushing buttons, turning dials, placing cups like a surgeon and slamming the spent portafilter onto the coffee grounds bin that with each thump felt and sounded like a beating heart. Finishing off the order she turned, grabbed a sample of cake with tongs, placing it onto the coffee lid, carefully slid the coffee on the counter, then called out the order.

When she spoke, her words were soft, she kept her head down and looked at people by lifting just her eyes. “Here’s your latte. I hope you enjoy it. I’m trying a new blend. Tell me what you think.” Her voice. Oh, her voice was an entire angelic choir.

“Oi. You ordering anything?” came a voice behind Lance.

“What? Oh, yeah, sorry.” Lance stepped forward into the radiance of a honey-brown face and a smile that felt like Christmas.

His eyes flicked down to the counter at the menu that had no words, no images, and no descriptions. Internal Monologue had instead struck up an instantaneous conversation.

Ok what do I say?

Ask about her day.

No that’s boring. What about what fruit she likes?

Are you daft! Next you are going to ask what her favourite shoe size is.

You aren’t helping.

Then ask her about her day.

No! I’ll ask when she gets off work.

Ok that is a good start, but first you should answer her question.

What question?

“Do you want your usual Lance?” She leaned in just little closer and lowered her voice. “And yes, I’d be happy to go out with you tonight.”

Wait what? When did I…

Oh shut up, she’s suggesting where to go.

“A what? The annual monster truck rally? Um, sure.” Rude. “I mean, yes. Yes Tahlia, that sounds great. I’m happy to drive, but you’ll have to navigate, I don’t know where that is.”

She smiled again. “Yeah of course. It’s not too far but it is a bit of a drive.”

Tahlia then made his order. As she pushed the cup toward him she softly spoke, “Time and my address is on the paper.” Between her hand and cup was a piece of paper. As he took it her finger lightly brushed along his hand. The caress and image was mentally photographed and immediately submitted to long term memory.

As Lance left the café, people came up to him and patted him on his back and shook his hand. People stood up from their tables and slowly clapped and gave him the thumbs up. ‘We all knew you could do it’, ‘you tha man, Lance.’ The café door swung open, the golden sunlight carried him outside and down the street.

Indicating and pulling out into the mid-afternoon traffic, Lance steered with one hand and drank his coffee with his other, while his car connected the phone call.

“Hey darl.” His mum was always pleasant. “I can’t talk long, I’m on another call at the moment. What’s up?”

“Oh I just wanted to tell you.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I’m going on a date tonight.”

“You finally ask that lovely girl from the café didn’t you?”

“Err, yes?” He had mentioned her more than a number of times over the last few months.

“I’m really happy for you. Remember to be a gentleman. And there is nothing wrong with opening doors and carrying her bag.”

“Yeah, I know mum. I’m not a barbarian.” He rolled his eyes as kids always do with their parents.

“And don’t you roll your eyes at me either young man.”

Lance rolled his eyes again.

“And, you protect her ok?”

“What?”

“Promise you will protect her,” she demanded.

He went silent. She demanded again. “Promise me!”

“Oh my god, gees! Ok I promise.” He barely got the words out when the line went dead. Looking at the car console, the phone call had disconnected. Did mum just hang up on me like that? Weird.

. . .

Lance looked in his closet and was parting clothes hangers, pausing at jackets, shirts and pants. He wasn’t sure what the normal thing to wear to a truck rally, though he was sure that it was going to be cold and loud and smell like diesel. Then it occurred to him. “Hang on! Who goes to a truck rally as a first date?” He blinked a few times trying to process this oddity. What was the deal with his mother, and why was she so insistent on protecting her? And then just hanging up like that.

He continued to query this and run various scenarios and expectations of the night as he got dressed in what he hoped was appropriate. Satisfied, he gathered up and packaged his thoughts and made his way to Tahlia’s place which was a moderate distance away on the other side of the city.

He parked his car in her driveway behind a blue four door sedan car and headed to the front door. Reaching out to ring the door bell, his finger vibrated so much that successfully pressing the button would come down to chance and multiple attempts. Eventually the sound of a bell came from in the house. “Coming,” was the reply.

The door opened in slow motion. No, actually Tahlia opened it slowly deliberately teasing his anticipation. She stepped into view. She was wearing a delicate knee length floral dress, woollen tights and leather boots with buckles. Over her dress, she wore a pilots-type leather bomber jacket. There was something bulky about her appearance, as if she was wearing several layers of clothing. Did he underestimate how cold it was going to be? She pushed out any questioning thoughts as she greeted him warmly with a big smile and the biggest bluest eyes.

“Hi there. I’m surprised you didn’t have troubles finding the place. Normally you’d find it a bit tricky getting here.” His brow furrowed a little. “Um, people in general I mean.” She turned away from Lance to face the door, masking her expression of ‘Oooh that was close.’

Lance seeing her turn, thought that was a que to come inside for a moment, so shifted his weight forward and almost bumped into Tahlia who’d bent over after taking a step forward to reach inside around the corner to grab a sports bag. He leapt back innocuously, a little embarrassed, and then frowned at the bag.

Tahlia handed him the bag which weighed far more than he was expecting. “Picnic stuff,” she clarified. “Blanket, thermos, food, umbrella if it rains. You know, picnic stuff.”

“Um ok, this is pretty heavy for ‘picnic stuff’.” He air quoted with his free hand.

She shrugged and dismissed his curious concerns. “Ok. Let’s go.”

As Lance placed the bag onto the back seat, he dared a look. Unzipping it and opening the flap a little, he did in fact see a thick woollen blanket. Lifting it and digging a little deeper at one corner revealed a thermos and a couple of cups. As Tahlia sat in the front seat, he surreptitiously cleared his throat a couple of times to mask the sound of zipping the bag back up, he then also jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car.

The trip out of the city took about forty minutes of navigating through the back streets, local hills and countryside. They laughed at each other’s jokes and made pleasant conversation about hobbies, where they used to live, favourite music, movies, art and books. Lance mentally swooned that her tastes were so similar to his, almost like she knew him. But as comforting as that was, what really intrigued him was that she was into theatrical sword fighting.

“Do you mean like re-enactment or role playing?” he asked.

“Kind of both. More historical accuracy added into choreography. To make theatre and movies look more realistic.”

“So you’ve worked on movies then? Can you name some?”

“No not specifically. Usually the actors come to the studio to learn how to swing a sword without hurting themselves.”

Lance tried to process his thoughts.

“If tonight goes well, when you drop me off I might help you with some sword work.”

Did she just…? Focus! Don’t crash, eyes forward, just smile and keep driving.

Lance could not see the wicked mischievous smirk that glided across her face.

“Oh, the turn off is coming up just around this corner.”

When he thought about it, it would be obvious that a truck rally would probably be in a remote location where sound wasn’t going to be an issue for the community. It was odd however that the entrance was entirely easy to miss. Just an innocuous gravel path with no signage indicating the event. After a short winding drive through the night time forest, the track finally opened up to a car park. There were several dozen vehicles scattered around that varied from common cars to sporty classics and fancy motorcycles. The area was lit with temporary spot lights powered by an industrial sized generator. Hundreds of people were mingling around, though it was apparent that they were generally heading in the same direction toward another path into the forest.

They parked the car and got out. Lance offered to carry the bag and slung it over his shoulder and onto his back.

“Oh thank you. A real gentleman. Your mother taught you well.”

As they headed in the same direction as the flow of people, Lance realised it wasn’t really that cold, but, a lot of people also seemed to be dressed for colder weather. Additionally, a lot of these people were accompanied by an individual who like himself, were dressed in fairly normal attire.

And then something dawned on him.

“Um?” he began. “Shouldn’t we hear monster trucks driving around?”

“Trucks? I didn’t say anything about trucks.”

“Yeah. You know, the annual monster truck rally… with big noisy, smelly, monster trucks.”

“Oh I see the confusion,” she clarified. “Yeah… I didn’t say truck. Try saying what I actually said again.” She continued. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, your mum said,” signing with air quotes, “you promised to protect me.”

Stopping abruptly and grabbing her arm, he spun her on the spot. “Wait! What? What do you mean? How do you know my mother?”

“Well she called me after you asked me out.”

WHAT IS GOING ON!!!

Tahlia turned to fully face Lance who was now looking around everywhere to work out what was happening. She cupped his face with both terribly soft hands, his eyes locked onto her smiling face.

“This,” she said, “is called peak curiosity. Exciting isn’t it?” He face moved up and down slightly. “You really want to find out what is down the path don’t you?” Another nod. “You want to protect me don’t you?” He didn’t nod till she physically and slowly moved his head in her hands. “Fantastic. I should show you this then.”

She let his face go and reached past him, unzipped a different part of the bag, fumbled around a little, then stepped back with a machete. His eyes locked onto the weapon that did not at all look like a stage prop.

“And no,” she began. “It isn’t a machete. It is a Falchion. It has a custom grip for a specific hand and has also been properly balanced. Here hold it.” She lifted his limp arm and placed the weapon into his hand. “Hopefully you won’t crash out quite so quickly this time. The last few times have been a little embarrassing but still fun.”

He looked at the weapon where his fingers had wrapped around the handle. It felt as snug as a hand sliding into a glove. As men and boys instinctively always do, he waved the blade in the air in broad sweeping arcs. Its weight and balance didn’t pull at his forearm. Instinct and muscle memory triggered something deep within him.

Looking back up he realised that he’d been walking or rather, was being led through the event path. As he stumbled along, he began to hear peculiar sounds of the clash of steel hitting steel, a barking screech and a crowd of people erupting into excited cheers.

She looked back at his expressionless confused face. “Whatever happens, I’m still going to enjoy my date knight.”