Fiction: The Last Blind Date

By José L. Recio

 

In the summer of 2004, Anne, a twenty-year-old American college student, and Alfred, a private second-class in the Army based at Port Irwing in the Mohave Desert, met through the Internet. 

On their first date, Anne suggested they go to see Heaven—she had just watched a trailer, she said—at a cinema in Las Vegas, where she lived, and Alfred agreed, eager to meet her in person. He invariably felt elated before meeting a new blind date.  That afternoon, he drove his jeep from Port Irwing to Vegas, a drive of over two hours, parked in front of the El Portal Cinema, downtown, and waited for his date, guessing he would recognize Anne by her description of herself over the screen. 

Alfred stood in the shade in the middle of the sidewalk, waiting in front of the theater, with his back to the front of the building and gazing left and right down the street to spot Anne approaching. While waiting, he checked that the buttons of his green jacket were done correctly, his black boots shiny, and his beret was well centered on his head—Anne had said she would like him to dress in his military uniform. He smiled at the coincidence, for he liked himself best in his uniform. 

Five minutes passed. Alfred began doubting Anne would come when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned as he heard ‘hi,’ said in a soft voice, and there she was, standing beside him, a girl almost as tall as he, with a gracious female figure and a face like a doll. ‘A doll with a mother-of-pearl face, lovely pinky lips, and eyes as blue as mine,’ he thought. Together, they made a lovely pair of young people. Both were about six feet tall and slim. Anne possessed a flexible, undulating body and pale countenance. Alfred was a well-proportioned, muscular young man, tanned from the Mohave sun, with trimmed blond hair. He looked stylish in his uniform.

“That’s the movie,” Anne said as a matter of fact, pointing to a billboard on the wall in the hall of the building. 

Alfred half-turned to look at the movie announcement and nodded, perplexed by the girl’s disregard for his physical presence.

“And this is you, and this is me,” he said, smiling, half-ironic and half-serious, as he softly tapped her hand and his chest with the tip of his finger. 

Anne drew a light smile, seemingly indifferent, which didn’t go unperceived by Alfred. He interpreted her verbal shortness as shyness, something he had noted from the beginning of their online communication when she only said that she shared an apartment on campus with two other girls. Still, he let it go unchecked, excited by the prospect of a new date.   

“Don’t worry. We’ll see that movie. Ready to buy the tickets?” Alfred conceded. 

“Yes, please.”

He walked to the ticket window, bought two tickets, and jokily flashed them in front of Anne as if to reassure her. She looked at him directly for the first time, and her lips insinuated a neutral smile. She might be shy, Alfred thought, but she has beautiful eyes. She’ll warm up. 

Their pass to see the movie was at 6 pm; they had about an hour to fill in. 

“My jeep is parked across the street,” Alfred said as they stepped out of the building and onto the sidewalk. “Would you like to go for a ride, have a drink and a bite, or something?”

“Okay.”

Her reply sounded dry in Alfred’s ear. He wondered whether her shortness was indeed due to shyness or lack of verbal ability. Or maybe she felt intimidated by him being in military uniform? Anne was a pretty girl, no doubt, and he was delighted by glancing at her face, blond hair, and intense blue eyes, even if, so far, she had paid little attention to him. Nevertheless, he imagined she would look more attractive in a brighter outfit instead of a worn-out, thin cotton purple cardigan, white T-shirt, old black jeans, and discolored shoes.

 “Okay? Good. I know of a small Mexican place near here that serves typical dishes. Would that be okay with you?” Alfred deliberately stressed the word okay to signal his disappointment, which he immediately regretted, fearing his veiled, cynical allusion to Anne’s verbal short supply would upset her.

“Yes. I like taquitos,” Anne said.

“Sounds good.”

Alfred drove them to a restaurant three or four blocks down the street. While he drove, Anne said that she liked his jeep. Alfred acknowledged her compliment and wondered what else she liked.

“How do you spend your days? Do you just go to school?” he asked.

“No.”

He turned his head to look at her while keeping his hands on the wheel, expecting to hear more words, such as, ‘No, I don’t…’ whatever, but she added nothing. 

“You mean no school?” he said, sounding a bit irritated at her dryness, and he turned to focus on the road.

“I quit school.”

“You quit school? College? When?” Alfred again turned his head to see her expression.

“I don’t know, two or three weeks ago, I think.”

“Oh, wow!”

Silence followed. Alfred would have given away his jeep, which his parents (his father was a surgeon, and his mother a schoolteacher) helped him to buy, to know what was in Anne’s head. Was she socially drifting? The thought that she was weird crossed his mind, but he quickly replaced it with the idea that she was an intriguing girl. She’ll warm up.

“Where were you heading to in college?” He showed curiosity.

“Drama.”

“I see. You wanted to be a movie star?”

“My mom says I’m an actress.”

Alfred said nothing. He didn’t know how to interpret Anne’s declaration; she seemed to think she was an actress just because her mother had told her she was one, probably to show a mother’s expectations about her daughter’s future. However, a minute before, Anne admitted to being a college dropout student. Such inconsistency! He had never come across anyone as illogical as Anne appeared to be. He thought of inventing an excuse and leaving. But they had reached the tiny parking lot at the restaurant and desisted on breaking the relationship, judging it to be cruel. Besides, he liked Anne’s looks and calmy moves, and he still hoped things would improve in their initial connection.

“Well. Here we are. Plenty of time to eat something,” he said.

“Taquitos,” Anne said.

Alfred laughed, taking Anne’s reiteration of the word as her way of joking. 

“Funny,” he said.

Anne said nothing. Inside the restaurant, sitting at a table for two, when the waiter approached them, each ordered taquitos with beans and rice, and Mexican beer.

“Funny,” Alfred said.

“You said that word before.”

“You’re right. We go from taquitos to funny and from funny to taquitos,” he said, laughing loudly, visibly entertained by his play with words. Anne, too, laughed, and Alfred, still amused, noted her laughing, as compared with her previous interactions, conveyed a warmer emotional tone. 

They were still in that joyful mood, sitting at the table one across from the other when the waiter brought the dishes. Anne was the first to try a first bite. “Oo la la,” she uttered as she began chewing, gazing at her companion, her eyes bluer than the Firmament, brighter than the stars. She swallowed the bite, had a sip of beer, and, still gazing at Alfred, smiled sweetly. She has warmed up, Alfred thought. He wanted to believe that Anne’s emerging merriment responded to his attentions: He had yielded to her desire to see a movie, paid for the tickets, took her to a restaurant, and ordered the food she liked. Suddenly, it dawned on him that tasting those taquitos triggered her contentment, not him or his courtesies. Or wasn’t it?

The festive atmosphere between them prevailed throughout the dinner, which they enjoyed; they drank two jars of beer each. Anne was chatty; she talked about many different subjects, loosely connected. Alfred, although glad to see Anne elated, regardless of the source of her enjoyment, could not always make sense of what she said. 

After they left the restaurant, Alfred drove back to the cinema. Anne was still talking about this and that celebrities, names of actresses Alfred had not heard of, or, if he had, it was only from one or two of them out of the many she named. She became so talkative that he was not only surprised by her change of behavior but also indignant that, apparently, he played a small role in it. However, he was determined to catch her attention. 

As they arrived at the theater and entered the building, Anne talked about Cate Blanchett admirably, the actress they were ready to watch in the film. However, during the projection, Anne remained silent, watching, at times stirring in her seat for reasons that escaped Alfred’s understanding, uninterested in eating popcorn from the box he bought before going in, attentive only to the scenes in the movie. When the movie ended, Anne got up from her seat while the long casting list was still flashing on the screen. She made her way along the row where the other spectators were still sitting and towards the dim corridor in the middle of the projection room leading to the exit. Alfred hurried, apologetically, behind her. He reached Anne near the exit and tenderly and reassuringly wrapped his arm around her waist while holding his beret with the other hand, and together, they stepped into the lighted theater hall.

“Was there something in the movie that scared you?” Alfred said.

“No. Cate had to do it.” She smoothly pulled Alfred’s arm away from her waist. “I’m sorry, I must go to the ladies room,” she said coolly. 

Something in Anne’s tone of voice told Alfred the excitement she showed before entering the cinema had softened. He observed her walking to the bathroom, and her moves reminded him of somebody else. Suddenly, he realized she was walking like Cate Blanchett and dressing like she did in the film. Such awareness made him think Anne’s personality was strange rather than intriguing, or maybe strange and intriguing. Standing in the middle of the hall, waiting for Anne to return, Alfred internally debated whether to end their connection or try to understand what was going on in her head. He was startled by, again, a tap on the shoulder and a 'hi’ whispered in his ear. Anne stood beside him.

 “Oh! Sorry. I was distracted thinking about the movie,” he lied.

“What about it?”

Alfred hesitated for a moment. “Cate had to do it,” you said. “What did you mean?”

“I thought the man she shot was mean. Cate believed the same thing,” Anne said.

He grabbed her arm and stared at her. “That makes no sense!” he growled.

Anne pulled away from him and started to walk out to the street. “I want to go home,” she said, looking back at him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” He checked his watch—almost 8 pm. “I’ll take you home.” 

Alfred drove with Anne as a passenger. He checked if she was hurt by his earlier remark, but she said, “No.” Then why did she behave subdue? he wondered. Such drastic changes in her behavior puzzled him. However, he wouldn’t talk about it while driving; he would ask her out again. When they arrived at the campus, he asked if he could call her again, and she said, “Okay.” 

***

Alfred woke up the next day feeling morose. He had tossed and turned all night, unable to stay asleep. His date with Anne had been a failure. She had paid little or no attention to him. He got up from bed and, while attending to his personal routines, thought that there were two possible explanations for Anne’s attitude: either the mismatch originated from Anne’s way of being or from him. Anne was odd, he thought, both in her personal style and communication. Were her oddities an indirect way to say, ‘I don’t like you, Alfred, go away?’ But what was it about him she disliked? He considered himself a lucky guy. Born within an upper-class American family from Arizona and being the only child, he enjoyed significant privileges: his parents helped him to buy the car he wanted and often gave him money allowances and gifts; he always returned home happily when on vacation; he was admired by his peers for his physical abilities and liked by his Sargent, and so on. 

Alfred’s blind date with Anne was not the first ugly encounter he had experienced using the Internet for his romantic chances. Many peers in his unit also did, but he was conscious that he had gone overboard with it because he used all his leisure time arranging those blind dates. Aside from one or two successes, which fulfilled his ego but ended in a neutral departure, during his other numerous dates, he had had his wallet stolen, called an assassin by Middle Eastern girls because of the war in Iraq, and had been offered gay sexual relations with a man disguised as a woman, among other misfortunes. However, his habit seemed to have evolved into an addiction, and he connected with Anne again. He was determined to like her and make her like him.

As on their previous date, Anne asked whether they could go to the movies in town to see Monster. Why not see a more entertaining film, such as Spider Man? Alfred suggested. No, it was Monser that Anne wanted to see. ‘Charlize Theron is in the movie,’ she wrote back, and Alfred agreed, as he had the day before, thinking that Charlize might be another of Anne’s icons. 

Alfred had the evening free. He drove to Las Vegas and waited for Anne outside the Tropicana Cinema. When she arrived, ten minutes late, Alfred became dumbfounded. She had shaved her head! 

“Are you acting in some movie?” he said in disbelief.

“What’s the big deal?”

“I welcome surprises—don’t get me wrong. But sometimes—”

“What’s the big deal? Anne repeated.

“Why have you shaved your head like Cate did for the movie we saw yesterday? What’s going on?”

“Now, Cate and I are twin sisters,” Anne said as a matter of fact.

Alfred broke into nervous laughter. “Are you kidding?

“I’m honest.”

“Look, Anne, I’m sure you are. But sometimes you behave surrealistically or are confused about who is who.”

Anne said nothing. They entered the showroom, found their seats, sat down, and began watching the film, which had already started. When a few minutes later, the protagonist in the movie killed her third victim, Anne watched the scene without blinking. Alfred wrapped her shoulders with his arm as if driven by a protective instinct.

“I hate Charlize,” she mumbles.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he whispered. “She is just playing the role of Aileen Wuornos. How can you hate the actress?”

“Charlize’s vicious.”

“Anne, you mean the character she plays was vicious, not her, the actress.” 

Anne did not argue. She opened her purse and got something out of it. To let her maneuver freely, Raymond smoothly removed his arm from her shoulders. As the scene of a fourth crime evolved, suddenly, Anne got up from her seat, leaned forward and stabbed a male spectator sitting in front. Blood gushed from the victim's wounded neck, sprinkling several people in the vicinity. Alfred quickly plugged the victim’s injury with his right hand to stop the bleeding, in vain, for the wound was deep, and the blood jetted underneath the pressure point until the victim fainted or died. Anne, who had remained silent throughout the attack, screamed. The lights went on, and in a split second, cries from horrified people around them resounded and filled the theater. Alfred paled as he witnessed the assaulted man lying slumped in his seat and blood stains on Anne’s and his hands and everywhere. 

The sight triggered panic reactions among the spectators, and many tried to leave the place in a hurry, blocking the exit. Anne remained in her seat, acting as if such a commotion had nothing to do with her, still holding the blood-stained knife in her hand—the knife she had secretly taken out of her bag to commit the crime. Fingers pointed at her from everywhere, accompanied by angry, accusatory words; sirens from the police and ambulance vehicles sounded outside the building, and soon a group of paramedics and police officers burst inside the cinema. Six agents surrounded them. The officer in charge asked how the assault happened while other officers took pictures and examined the victim’s body without touching it. The paramedics confirmed the victim had just died. “She did it!” someone near them said, pointing directly at Anne. The police officer asked her whether she had anything to declare, but she said nothing, and the agent ordered her arrest along with Alfred’s. Meanwhile, the paramedics carried the victim’s body on a stretcher to an ambulance.

At the police headquarters, the agents directed Alfred and Anne into separate holding rooms.  He was visibly shocked, but Anne didn’t seem to register the facts. An officer informed Alfred that he would be interrogated but could use the phone to call an attorney first. Alfred called his sergeant instead and, with a broken voice, said he was under arrest because of a crime. The girl he had dated committed the crime in his presence.

“What kind of crime?” the sergeant asked.

“She stabbed a man.”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

For a long while, neither the sergeant nor Alfred said a word. Then the latter started talking fast over the phone, describing in detail everything he had witnessed: The assault, the commotion in the theater, the arrival of the police and paramedics, the removal of the victim’s body, the arrest, and Anne’s apparent lack of concern. He confessed to feeling numb, stunned, and confused. 

To those strings of words, a brief silence followed until the sergeant spoke again.

 “Are you in uniform?”

“Yes.”

“Have you talked to anybody else about this crime?”

“No.”

“Don’t do it yet, not even to your folks.”

“Can you say why? 

Alfred was calling from a fixed phone in the hall of the police headquarters, watched by the officers. His legs trembled, and he was afraid he would faint in the presence of the agents and everybody else there, a shameful weakness.

“I must report what happened,” the sergeant said. “The military may decide to channel your case through Court Martial.” 

“Is that good or bad?” 

Alfred was aware of his voice fading.

“It might be a lengthy, tiresome process.”

“I’m innocent.”

“I believe you, Alfred. But I’m your sergeant, not your attorney. A civilian lawyer may serve you better and prove your innocence quicker than one serving in the Advocate General’s Corps. That choice is the first thing to decide. Still, tell me, did you notice anything indicating Anne had a criminal intention?”

“I never did. She’s odd in various ways, but not in that one.”

Alfred was feeling increasingly weaker and wished to end the conversation.

“Odd? You mean like a person with a sick mind?”

Hearing these words, Alfred's breathing paused, his vision blurred, and his hands and lips shook. The sergeant's last phrase (‘a sick mind’) echoed in his ears.

“I…I must…hang up,” he stuttered.

 “I see. We’ll talk again soon. Be firm.”

Each police officer grabbed Alfred´s arms and helped him regain his composure and led him to a holding room with a small barred window, a granite table and stool, a bottle of water, and a plastic glass. He would remain solitary until the police decided on the next step. 

When the two officers left the room, Alfred sat on the stool, leaning his elbows on the table and hands capping his forehead. After a while, he shook his head as if awakening from a nightmare.  ‘Why did I fail to grasp that Anne was a sick girl? She wasn’t shy nor stupid but brainsick,’ he mumbled to himself. Then he loudly self-reproached: ‘Vanity, presumption, falsehood blinded me.’ Alfred’s monologue continued until he, through a mental pirouette, promised himself to support Anne and cut his blind dates. Then, he stopped mumbling, poured water into the glass, sipped, and wept.

José L Recio was born and raised in Spain. He came to the States young and practiced medicine in California. He’s also interested in creative writing. A second edition collection of stories will soon appear from Anxiety Press.