The Merlot

First dates are always awkward. Especially when you’re sitting in an expensive high-end restaurant trying to hide the tags on your designer dress so you can return it the next day. Jonathan Jones the Second (JJ for short) doesn’t seem to find it awkward, immediately ordering Merlot from the harried-looking waiter. He tells me it’s his favourite, and makes sure to slip in the four-figure price tag. I play the part of the impressed date and don’t mention that I already know it’s his favourite wine from stalking his social media. The restaurant is beautiful, if out of my price range. The chandeliers look like real crystal and I’m yet again relieved that he agreed to have our date here instead of a home-cooked meal at his apartment like he had originally suggested. You can never be too careful; public dates are statistically safer.

JJ doesn’t seem to pick up on my nerves, beginning to talk about his most recent business acquisition, and I’m glad to let him fill the silence. First dates, in general, make me a nervous wreck but this one has put all my anxieties into hyperdrive and I’m too embarrassed to admit I made a list of conversation starters on my phone before I arrived. JJ makes a joke about his business rivals' lack of intelligence and I make sure to laugh softly while leaning closer across the table to make myself seem interested. The smug look on his face and the way he subconsciously mirrors my movements let’s me know he’s bought the bait.

JJ doesn’t bother asking me about myself which is fine by me. I can’t be bothered to answer questions when on the inside I’m just trying to wait it out until the wine comes and I can hopefully get tipsy. I have a feeling I’m going to need to be intoxicated to put up with his company. I’m proven right almost immediately when JJ’s next train of thought is to tell me how he believes all homeless people deserve to die and then laughs as if it’s a joke, which to someone who started their first business with a few million given to them by their daddy it probably is. I laugh too and pray for the Merlot to get here quicker. I think the only time I speak through the whole date is to ask how such a handsome, accomplished man such as himself has stayed single and I let him stutter his way through the answer while trying to avoid answering truthfully (that no sane woman would ever date him).

The waiter interrupts that delightful train of conversation - does it count as a conversation if only one person is speaking? - with the Merlot we ordered. Two separate glasses full of blood-red liquid instead of a bottle to serve from. I immediately reach for the glass in the waiter's left hand, desperate for alcohol to get me through this. When JJ picks up his glass he makes sure to swirl it while sniffing the aroma and takes a small sip humming contemplatively before nodding at the waiter and remarking on the robust body. I wonder if it is possible for someone to die of pretentiousness. He takes a couple larger sips and I gulp down my own glass along with him. The waiter tells us the day's specials in a language that I think is French, most of which goes over my head but JJ nods along. He orders for both of us. Steak for him and a salad for me, which I don’t bother correcting as it won’t matter soon.

He’s barely through his order, when he starts to cough, clearing his throat and then coughing again. When he starts clutching his chest and struggling to breathe both the waiter and I start to move forward to help. Watching someone die is terrifying. I call out for someone to call an ambulance, anyone. I barely register the restaurant staff around us on the phone with emergency services. As the waiter begins CPR I start tearing up. I can’t seem to help it as the tears roll down my face. The thought of him surviving and not getting what he deserves terrifies me. The police weren’t able to convict him on the rapes of his last three dates because of his expensive lawyer, but they won’t be able to charge me with murder over a “heart attack” either because the foxglove in the Merlot won’t show up on the autopsy.