“Pretty well, actually.” I told him about my kids, about the goofy things they did and said, the trials and tribulations of a first-year teacher, all the while watching for boredom on his face. My life was certainly not as interesting as his. It also didn’t take as long to talk about; I found myself falling silent not too long after starting to talk.

This was absolute agony.

JACK

THIS WAS ABSOLUTE agony.

I could tell she was nervous, but the worst part was that I was so nervous myself I was having a hard time making her feel comfortable. All the suave charm and flirting that I usually employed seemed to have dried up completely. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to relax and just be myself, but I’d never done that on a date before and didn’t know if I was even supposed to. Wasn’t that the whole difference between going on dates and steadily dating someone? When you date, you charm, you flirt, you’re on your best behavior, and you never let them see who you really are, since that would send them running. You save that for after you’ve started sleeping together, after you feel attached and it’s harder for them to just one day stop returning your calls.

The other weird thing was that, while she was obviously nervous, she wasn’t nearly as star-struck as women usually were. She just seemed shy, not in awe of me. What was wrong with her? What few non-celebrity women I’d come in contact with always gushed and fawned and made themselves completely available to me for whatever purpose I might want to use them. That I knew how to deal with. This shy, demure stuff boggled me. I was completely out of my element.

We tossed the small-talk ball back and forth for a while longer until I thought to turn on the radio. That gave us a new topic, and we discussed bands and songs and albums for quite a while, but the underlying tension was still there, thick as cement. This was worse than any other date I’d ever been on, and we were only an hour into it. I prayed to the gods of time and conversation that they’d save us from ourselves.

GRACE

GOD, HELP ME. I was exhausted from scrambling for more conversation, from trying to be witty (and feeling sure I’d failed miserably), from forcing laughs, and I was dying for something to drink. Why had I turned him down? I felt stupid changing my mind, but my mouth was like cotton.

I was figuring out in my head how to ask without sounding stupid when a glance out the window revealed why we’d been moving so slowly for so long. Three mangled cars were blocking the two left lanes, and a slew of emergency vehicles and uniformed people surrounded them.