• With my left hand desperately clutching the straps of my bag, I do my best to hail a cab from the sidewalk. I wave my right arm around a few times, trying to catch the eye of one of the taxi drivers zooming past on the busy New York City street. It’s getting late, as the sky is beginning to darken with clouds that threaten rain in the next hour or so.
    I’m already late, I’m supposed to be meeting my date in fifteen minutes. I’m not going to make it there in time, I can already tell. I’m never on time to these things, blind dates. I tell myself that it’s because my lateness enhances my ‘mystery’, but I really just need to buy a watch or look at the time on my phone more often.
    Finally, one of the drivers takes notice of me. It pulls out of the traffic over to the sidewalk. Thankful, I pull my bag over one shoulder and climb into the taxi through the backseat. “Happy Valentine’s Day ma’am,” says the driver, a friendly Middle-Eastern man. I smile back at the man through the rearview mirror briefly. Nice cab drivers are a rarity these days.
    “You too. Thalassa, please. I believe it’s in Tribeca,” I say as he pulls the cab back out into the traffic, swerving once to avoid a large delivery trunk with a driver who is fairly loose with the horn.
    “Of course,” he says, and off we go. It takes a solid twenty-five minutes to get into Lower Manhattan. I should really learn to time myself. Just as the driver says, “Two blocks left, ma’am,” my phone vibrates with a text from a strange number which reads “Are you here?” It’s my date. I furiously type back, “In a cab, should be there soon.” I hope she’s cute. I always feel like I have to go home with the average or ugly ones so I don’t seem prissy.
    We finally pull up to the Greek restaurant, a place I had no part in picking. I like Greek food though, so maybe it’s a sign that this girl is going to be a good one. I hand the driver forty bucks, a rather generous tip, and as I climb out of the cab and start to close the door behind me, I hear him say, “Good luck!” I smile back at him once more and then walk into the restaurant.
    Earlier me and my date had exchanged brief descriptions of each other so we wouldn’t be totally lost. Her description of herself was: blonde, blue body-con dress and green eyes. She sounded hot already. Once I walk in to the restaurant, I catch sight of the back of a young woman with blonde hair, wearing a very sexy blue body-con dress sitting alone at a table for two. I walk over and sit down, flashing my date a smile, and I say “Hi, so sorry I’m late.”
    When I look at her face for the first time, the smile drops right off my face. A similar sense of confusion and recognition flashes in her face that I imagine is visible in mine. “Anna Chapman?” I ask, almost accusatory. She nods, and responds in time with her own question, “Jane?” I frown at her.
    “You called me a whore for kissing Bradley Thomas in the 9th grade,” I blurt out. She narrows her brow at me.
    “You told me I looked like I was going through menopause when we were seventeen,” Anna says. I look at our table. There’s two glasses of champagne on the table ready for our date.
    “Since when are you a lesbian?” I ask.
    “Since when are you?” she responds.
    “I hope you give good head,” I say.
    “I do,” she says.
    I down my champagne in one gulp.