Unicorn

"What does one wear to see one's college girlfriend's ex-husband?" I ask Amber. She suggests that clothes might be the current fashion and that it does not matter what I wear since Adam will not be asking himself the same.

She jokingly resents that, for this encounter, she must put on a bra, which is the end of her sartorial angst.

The reason that I'm having dinner with Adam is stranger than this might suggest.

Last month, I messaged Adam, "I had a dream that you called to tell me you were looking forward to hanging out with me. How did you get my number, Dream Adam?" We interact enough on social media, mostly via puns, that this seemed on the cusp of propriety. After asking if my number was 867-5309, he said he would be in the area for a wedding this weekend, if I wanted to make my dream a reality. It would be so weird a thing to happen that I decided it should.

Amber and I arrive barely early. I have until then missed Adam's messages that he is at Kate's parent's house a few minutes away and wishes to show up as soon as possible, as his daughter is peckish.

I message that we have arrived and obtained a table. Amber goes into the foyer to speak to her sister on the phone. When Adam comes, he asks if my lady will be joining us, then asks her name.

His daughter sits and shows off the knitted unicorn doll her grandmother had made her. It looks hydrocephalic and thus adorable. My compliments on it border on effusive.

When Amber returns, Adam begins a sentence with something like, "So, how do..." and I worry at once the rest of the sentence is going to be "...I know you?" It is easy to have amnesia about how your online friend arrived on your wall. Then I would have to explain having been Kate's first boyfriend and that he doesn't otherwise know me.

This is not what he is asking. He wants to know how we make our livings. I state that I teach literal juvenile delinquents and write fantasy novels (he thinks he remembers the novels, though not the teaching), but get into more detail about Amber's career trajectory. It is easier to gush over her rather than let the focus rest on me, as that feels like arrogance.

Our interactions are stilted at first. I had only seen him in person once before, and that was at the funeral of Kate's eldest brother. This is hardly the place to make a first impression or a lasting connection.

We don't have the right buffer in place to make the conversation flow. If Kate were here, little would be uncomfortable from my side. Having her here could be less enjoyable for him.

I don't know why Kate and Adam are no longer together. He was just at her parents' home, picking up his daughter and socializing. Things between them seem amicable as co-parents. My assumption was that Kate met a someone else or so, but I have no business doing more than quietly speculating. I have long since not been on the echelon of friendship where I could ask for dirt without seeming invasive and prurient. I do have a nasty habit of weaving other people's trauma I know into entries and stories. One should not trust me.

Kate is a topic I avoid. I do not feel I should ask him to rehash emotional wounds so I can find an easier conversation. Prior to the funeral, my last interaction with Kate involved a late dinner at a nice restaurant. There, she told me that Adam and she had broken up, shortly before they got back together, became engaged, married, and bore their daughter.

He deflects conversation onto this daughter as I deflected it onto Amber. We talk her through the puzzles on her placemat.

Like pets, children provide a focal point for adults who are uncertain what they have to say to one another.

His daughter is clever and cute, with tiger stripe glasses and a tumbleweed of dark curls, a nose perpetually in need of wiping, and a constant smile. I can subtract Adam's features from her and see the childhood copy of a girl I loved, making me care for his daughter. I've watched her grow via social media -- she is a child photogenic beyond most given her a joyful demeanor. I still ask Adam if she is in school, since she could be anything from three to seven as far as I can tell. She is in first grade, an average of my extremes. I recall after asking having liked first day of school pictures.

Adam goes to his car to get his wallet, leaving his daughter behind to color. Amber wonders if Adam abandoned the girl to become our ward. I assure Amber that I know where her grandparents live.

She has the rounded accent of children, one parents translate natively, but of which I catch only every few words. Still, most adults have learned how to fake it with "Really?" and "Cool!" Most of what kids need is affirmation and encouragement. I doubt they much need adults to understand them.

I try a few common sorts of questions to stimulate a conversation. What shows does he watch? He does not watch television. The best I can say in response is that I don't have cable, nor have I for most of my adult life. He is wearing a Legend of Zelda t-shirt, so ask him if he's played Breath of the Wild. His daughter mentions that she has only gotten two Divine Beast. I tell her that I've gotten zero Divine Beast, because I only watch Amber play.

For the moment, the conversation almost seems alive, so I kill it by asking him if he still lives in Philly. I assume that he does, since he has to co-parent his daughter. Then after he answers that he does, I tell him that I had no follow-up to that.

I don't feel the need to impress him. That makes this easier. Otherwise I might feel social anxiety. Instead I feel the quiet. It is as though I am dining with a stranger, and aren't I? Even though I have enjoyed his jokes on Facebook. Even though I enjoy his music. I don't necessarily have anything to say to him. We don't have much of a shared context, aside from both having been with Kate in vastly different circumstances.

Adam is visibly exhausted, having been to a wedding the day before. That slows the conversation even more. I asked about the wedding, since it is a topic on which we adults can speak. He says a little, but we don't get in-depth. I don't even know who got married, aside from someone on his side of the family. I share some wedding stories, but it still falters.

I am now used only to conversations with adults. I can talk a good game about an unsolved axe murder of an entire family in Germany in the 1900s. That's not the sort of thing I want to bring up around a six-year-old. Likewise, I can't start talking about the morass of our current political landscape. I assume that he is socially liberal, but I don't think that it's a conversation appropriate to this scene. Religion and politics used to be verboten topics of conversation in polite company. They are not something that we can discuss above the watchful gaze of his daughter.

Amber feels no sort of pressure since she has nothing invested. She gets an early dinner of short ribs and risotto. She is hanging out with me. She is satisfied.

I pay for Adam and his daughter's meals. They total $11 and paying for it is less awkward than trying to negotiate money. He thanks me. We say our goodbyes.

Soon in Xenology: Writing.

last watched: Schitt's Creek
reading: Trying Not to Try