“I wish you would have worn a different shirt.”

Dan never understood how people could describe themselves as speechless until that moment.  There was nothing wrong with his shirt.  It was plaid and blue and grey and sold by Eddie Bauer.  And the last time he checked this was America where he could where any damn shirt he wanted.  Especially to meet a woman named Cathy for coffee on a Saturday morning.

And what the hell?  They hadn’t been inside Starbucks more than a minute before she said that.  What kind of impression was that to lay on a guy?  It’s not like she showed up in a ball gown, or that he would expect her to.  If anything, he was overdressed for this particular situation, place and time.

“Oh, sorry.”

Why did he just apologize?  What is it about that kind of comment that makes people retreat into apology instead of confronting the originator of the rudeness?  The nerve.

“It’s fine.  Let’s just order,” Cathy said.

He remembered from her profile that she did not consider herself a coffee drinker, except for rare occasions that apparently included today.  Starbucks had been her idea of a meeting place.  And that was fine with Dan.  He loved coffee.

“I’ll have a half-caf Pike, please,” he said to the smiling barista.

“Worried about not being able to sleep tonight?” his date chimed in.

“I just like to not overdo the caffeine.”

“Whatever floats your boat.  Grande mocha for me.”

Whatever floats his boat?!  Dan’s mind was sprinting in rage as he pulled out his wallet to pay.  He was the one just trying to float on.  “You do you” was perhaps his most uttered phrase in all of life.  As the barista handed his credit card back, Dan caught Cathy staring again at his shirt.

“My shirt has not magically morphed into something else.”

“It’s just mesmerizing in a way, you know?  Like seeing roadkill.”

Roadkill?!  Dan began to wonder if one of his friends had put this woman up to this whole charade.  He quickly scanned the rest of the store to see if one of the newspapers would dart aside and reveal one of his buddies in uproarious laughter.  He didn’t recognize anyone.  Still, there could be a camera.  There was always a camera somewhere.

He made small talk while they waited for their coffees to come out and started to feel for a minute like maybe this date would turn around.  She told him about her cat, and he had a cat too, so that was a thing, right?  But the moment they sat down, her eyes were stuck in a faraway gaze penetrating straight through one of his shirt buttons.

Dan was never a man of subtlety.  His criminal record included multiple citations for public urination during (and a little after) college, as well as one still-pending case connected to a night of excessive drinking at the bar around the corner from his house that is still missing two stools that may or may not have been broken as a result of Dan’s escapades.

He was telling Cathy about the time his cat, Mr. Wiggles, fell off a ledge he had constructed on a windowsill and magically landed on his feet despite going from full-on sleep to the ground in what seemed like 0.7 seconds.  Cathy heard none of it.  Yeah the words may have entered her skull through the ears and perhaps even rumbled through her eardrums and a few synapses in the brain, but there was zero comprehension in her face.

The man sitting behind Cathy was an older gentleman with a khaki-colored golf hat from some place called Bay Pines.  His eyebrows nearly smacked the brim of the cap when he saw Dan stand up slowly, and, with a slight gyration to match the rhythm of the jazz streaming from the ceiling, begin to unbutton the objectionable shirt.  Dan moved slowly, one button to the next, staring into Cathy’s face the entire time, daring her to react.  Only blankness stared back.

He finally slid the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, revealing a bright white t-shirt underneath.  Out came his right arm.  Then the left.  He balled up the shirt and held it for a second, waiting for Cathy to say or do something.  Anything.  She just sat there paralyzed by either shock or indifference.  Dan had no idea which it might be, but either way, obviously this was not the love of his life and it was time to go on with his day.

His left hand picked up his coffee cup from the table.  The right hand put the shirt back down in its place.

“I love this shirt,” he said, never more sure of anything in his life.  “I only hope that one day you can appreciate something so beautiful.”
Dan walked with purpose straight out the door and out into the parking lot.  A minute later, the still silent Cathy cracked a smile, shook her head and sighed.  She slowly stood up and strolled out the door, beaming all the while.

The old man looked around and saw no one else in his half of the store.  He shuffled over, picked up the shirt and searched for the tag.

“Large. Just my size.”