1153 and Me, Part 2

The weekend wasn't all that bad as my friend Kelly was in town from Cincy and we had bleacher seats for the Indians game that Saturday. Even so, on Monday I attacked Chuckie the second he walked in the door.

"Did you talk to him? What did he say about me? Did he say anything about me? Did you give him my number? Did he ask for my number? Is he going to call me? What does he think of me? Do you think he'll go out with me? Does he like me? Did he call you this weekend? Did he ask you about me?"

Chuckie was visibly irritated. "How can I give him your number if I don't even HAVE it, Amber?" he frowned. "Besides I didn't even talk to him this weekend, I was busy."

"Chuuu-uuuu-uuuck," I whined, "this is important."

Chuck sighed. "Look, if I give you his cell number will you stop talking and go away?"

"YES! Yes! Yes I will. I promise."

Chuckie handed over the goods and I ran into my office and shut the door. I got voicemail so I left a message. I decided to get some work done. I spent my morning preparing the payroll, and also pestering Chuck every 15 minutes: "Why hasn't he called me back yet?"

"He's probably working some part time at the bank. Which means he probably doesn't have his phone on him. Which means he will probably call you LATER. Which means you should LEAVE ME ALONE AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT."

He didn't call until that evening after I got home. He called me while he was working from inside the police car. I could hear the radio squawking in the background. "Hi, it's [1153]. From last Friday? Um, I was returning your call from this morning. So, how are you?"

"I'm okay," I said. "What are you up to?" (Duh, retard, he called you from the police car. You can hear the radio. He's working.)

"Oh, my partner and I just finished up a run, checking an alarm, and now we're about to call for 30. Oh yeah, that means we're going to have lunch." He sounded authoritative and important. Checking alarms and stuff. How brave of him. The radio squawked on importantly. "Anyway, I was hoping maybe I could take you out some time this week? I work nights, so I can't really do anything until real late, but I was thinking maybe I could take you to lunch?"

Whee! He asked me to lunch. The important, brave policeman wanted to have lunch with me. Me. This is the coolest thing ev-er. The policeman, asking me to lunch. Go Amber, it's your birthday..."Sure, that sounds fine," I replied casually.

"How's Wednesday for you?"

"Wednesday is great."

"Um, okay, so then I'll pick you up at noon on Wednesday at your office?"

"Yeah. So see you then."

On Wednesday, he picked me up and took me to Luchita's, which is one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city. For the life of me I can't remember anything we talked about, except for one story he told me about his partner. His partner apparently had a pretty rocky relationship with his wife, a stripper he met while she was dancing, and over the weekend they had gone to Pennsylvania. They got in an argument on the way home, and she got out of the car on the side of the highway and started walking away. So he left her there. And drove away. All the way back to Cleveland. "Is she okay?" I asked.

"I don't know, she isn't back yet."

Anyway, aside from that disturbing story (she hitch-hiked and made it home in one piece I found out later), the date went great. He was all about getting chairs and holding doors and acting interested when I was talking. He drove me back to work, kissed me goodbye (!!!!!!!!) and asked me to lunch again the next day. On Thursday he picked up some sandwiches from Subway and we had lunch in the park. He asked me to lunch for Friday.

"Actually I can't. I'm not working tomorrow because I'm flying to Atlanta for a weekend trip with my girlfriend." Stupid stupid Atlanta trip. I had almost forgotten it. I had been monumentally excited about it, but suddenly it was really damned inconvenient.

"That's too bad. I actually have this weekend off. I only get 2 weekends off in a 7 week period. Maybe I can come and see you off tomorrow?"

"Sure come on over my dad's. I'll just be packing." I gave him directions and he took me back to work.

He came by the next day, and we ran out and grabbed some pizza before I left for the airport. Before he left he kissed me for a really really long time. I was melting. "I'll call you from Atlanta," I said.

And call him I did. The second night we were there I waited for Smorgan to fall asleep and I called him with my calling card. We talked for 3 1/2 hours. I finally hung up the phone about 3 am and snuggled into my covers, grinning like an idiot. I couldn't wait to get back to Cleveland.