Lexie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Date

The alarm sounds at exactly 6 am in much the way that good alarm clocks do when set by someone with misplaced optimism the night before, unapologetic and nauseatingly cheerful. Lexie groans and gropes blindly in the clock's direction, trying to stop the horrendously happy binging. It’s supposed to be reminiscent of a magical sunrise, but she suspects that sadistic monks wrote this delightful piece of musical torture.

As she's hunting fruitlessly for the snooze button one of her father’s oh-so-helpful army sayings floats through her mind, ‘You can sleep when you’re dead!’

Thanks, Dad, she sighs. But wait, it’s Thursday, right?

“It’s date day!”

Lexie grins and jumps gracefully out of bed, as graceful as a penguin on dry land, anyways, and dances like no one's watching. Lexie has good reason to be happy, she met Tony.

Tony is smart, he’s an aspiring journalist and shares her love of books. Lexie blithely ignored too many red flags from her last boyfriend, she should have ended things when he ordered the 'mer-lotte' during their first formal night out. Tony, however, is completely different. He's sweet and seems genuinely interested in getting to know her. The morning promises good things to come!

The happy dance gets away from her and with an ill-timed booty shake, Lexie flails into the nightstand, knocking over a glass of water and drenching her phone.

“Ah! It’ll be fine, it’s fine, it’s fine,” she mutters as she searches for a towel. Lexie dries off her phone as much as she can, hoping the internal machinations aren’t damaged.

Unphased, Lexie hops in the shower. She’s shampooing her hair, singing merrily and off-key when the water slows to a trickle, then a dribble, and then drip, drip, nothing.

“Oh come on, now what?” she fiddles with the faucets before vaguely remembering a notice about the building's water. “I thought that was next week,” she grumbles. Lexie, always the practical sort, makes do with what she can find. She rinses her hair using a water bottle. It's almost enough to remove all the suds. Almost.

Her phone makes a sad, depleted buzzing sound like a dying cricket. She sees a text from Amanda asking if Lexie can pick up coffee on her way to the set up before the screen goes black.

Oh no.

“The conference set up!” Lexie completely forgot why she’d needed to be up before the sun. That’s the only reason Lexie has this afternoon free for a coffee date - she volunteered to set up her team’s booth at the Med-Tech and Engineering Conference. Her company is promoting a new digital rendering software for X-rays that she helped design, this conference is the first time it will be advertised.

The phone does not seem to be responding to any life support. Lexie pops it into a bag of rice, hopeful it can be salvaged.

Lexie is late. Punctuality is one of her core defining characteristics, she detests being late and judges others by her own strict standards. She rushes out the door, certain that Amanda will not let her live this down.

The setup for the conference goes mostly well. Amanda had to vouch for Lexie to get past security, they’d emailed the confirmations and the guards weren’t impressed by Lexie’s bag of rice. There's also the account of Lexie’s little toe. She suspects that Amanda intentionally let go of her end of the table to make Lexie stop gushing about Tony, or maybe because Lexie forgot the coffee. Whatever the reason, the sudden imbalance caused Lexie to drop her end right on her toe like a blunt guillotine. It’s swollen and a perfect shade of purple, looking almost ready to come off the vine. Which would be lovely if it were a grape, not a toe.

A doctor at a nearby booth offers to examine it. He carefully holds Lexie's foot, gently prods her sore toe and pronounces that it is probably broken. “Should I go to the hospital?” Lexie worriedly asks him.

“You know what I do for a broken baby toe?” the doctor says gravely. “Say, yes, it looks broken, nod seriously and send patients home! Keep it elevated, try not to bash it into anything, you’ll be fine,” he reassures Lexie with a smile. “Maybe tomorrow we can use your toe to try out that new imaging software,” he added.

Lexie hobbles home with an hour to spare. She feels prepared to meet Tony, Amanda helped her put together the perfect first date outfit and it's already laid out on the bed.

“I think I'll have a glass of wine,” Lexie says to herself. She has ample time and there's an open bottle of merlot from Pelee Island, the vineyard by her grandparents’ home.

Lexie sits down on the bed to relax and put her feet up, following the doctor's orders. Sipping contentedly, she's reminded of the bottle she once shared with her mom, the last one from her parents’ wedding. They used to drink a bottle every year on their anniversary. Maybe she and Tony - nope! Lexie derails that train of thought before she falls down the rabbit hole.

She pulls her phone out of its ricey grave and prays that it can be resurrected. She presses the power button, holds her breath and waits. The screen flares up, “Let there be light!” she exclaims. There’s a message from Tony, <Looking forward to seeing you!> Lexie is two heartbeats away from being totally twitterpated.

There’s a message from Amanda, too. She opens it, clicks on the link, and immediately sprays her wine everywhere. What was seen cannot be unseen.

Oh no.

As she recovers from Amanda’s unsolicited text, Lexie slowly realizes what she’s done. Her room is a crime scene, there’s wine spatter everywhere, all over her bed and clothes. The anxiety-reducing, plan-in-place, perfectly flawless yet casual first date outfit is now ruined.

She has only fifteen minutes to get ready. I can do this, no need to panic, Lexie thinks as she takes a calming breath. She downs the last of her merlot and heads to the closet.

Fourteen minutes later, her closet is empty of all but a handful of desolate hangars. The floor is littered with the rejected outfits of a movie montage. Lexie’s newly deformed little toe is demanding something less constricting than the boots she’d planned on wearing. She opts for the open-toed flats, instead. Second best outfit and shoes on, Lexie's on her way, still excited for this first date.

Lexie arrives at the coffee shop with just two minutes to spare, feeling late and frazzled, not unlike her hair. She searches the little café but doesn't spot Tony among the caffeine addicts. While she’s staring at the patrons, her phone buzzes gently in her hand - a message from Tony!

With dawning horror, she realizes that she didn't respond to his earlier text. Maybe he isn’t coming at all? A quick reply would only have taken a few seconds, but Lexie was distracted by Amanda's trauma-inducing link.

She apprehensively opens the message, <Hey, are we still on for today?> Lexie exhales the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Before she replies, she quickly scans the older messages. There’s the address Tony suggested, 89 Bayfield.

Oh no.

Tony wrote 89 Bayfield North.

Lexie is at 89 Bayfield South.

She replies to Tony’s message, <Yes, definitely! I’m on my way now. Would you order me a latte?>

<Sure thing, see you soon> he replies.

89 Bayfield South can’t be too far away, maybe a fifteen-minute walk. Lexie vows to do better than that and starts jogging as fast as her hob-goblin toe will allow.

The open-toed flats may be adorable but weren’t designed for speed. Five minutes in and Lexie loses traction, her foot and her hands go up, the rest of her goes down and she lands flat on her back in a puddle. Dazed, she spots a city bus heading her way, sloshing through the inadequately drained water, predictably drenching unsuspecting pedestrians. “Not today, bus!” Lexie yells as she rolls herself out of the splash zone, and right into the path of a double stroller. “Ack!” she cries as the little wheels plow into her face.

“Are you all right?” the driver of the baby’s buggy of pain asks as she helps Lexie up.

“Yes, sorry, thank you, got to run!” Lexie rambles off as she continues her epic journey limping towards the northern coffee shop.

There it is. It looks exactly like all the other indie, unique cafés in this city. Lexie takes a deep breath, tries to brush off some dirt from her outfit and her face. She walks into the coffee shop resembling Harrison Ford's Dr. Richard Kimble after he survived the train crash in The Fugitive, minus the beard.

Tony stands when he sees her come in through the door, to be fair, the entire shop is staring. Maybe she’s just out of breath, but her stomach isn’t flipping like she was anticipating.

Lexie musters a smile. Tony leans in for a hug, she goes for a handshake and what ensues is the complicated dance of two awkward people meeting in person for the first time.

“It looks like you’ve got a story to tell,” says Tony with a smile as he offers Lexie a seat and passes her a latte.

Lexie hesitates for a moment, takes a sip, and starts, “The morning started on a high note but went downhill after I accidentally soaked my phone,” she proceeds to share highlights of her supremely unlucky day. He laughs, but not unkindly, and Lexie starts to feel more comfortable. “Then I sprayed wine all over my outfit!” she laughed, “That’s what I get for pre-gaming a coffee date, I guess. But in my defence, it was a merlot from Pelee Island,” shrugs Lexie.

“Pelee Island, really?” asks Tony, “That’s amazing, I have family near there.”

“Me too!” says Lexie, “My grandparents live practically next door. Actually, my brother moved there a couple of years ago. He’s got a big dream about starting a winery. My great-grandparents tried, but I guess it didn’t take off.”

Tony is giving Lexie a strange look. “What is it?” she asks, “Don’t tell me your family is full of wine country fanatics, too?”

“Uh, well yes, actually,” Tony takes a deep breath, exhales loudly, and says, “By any chance, is Lexie short for Alexia?”

“Yes,” Lexie replies, drawing it out, “Why do you ask?” Lexie didn’t think that anything today could drag her down, but Tony is making her nervous.

“Everyone used to call you Allie," Tony mumbles, "Well, this is embarrassing. How do I put this? My grandma grew up on a farm near that winery. She moved away, got married and her brother lives there still. I’ve been a few times for family reunions as a kid.”

Oh no.

Lexie experiences an uncomfortable moment of clarity.

“Oh no, you’re Anthony? As in, cousin Anthony?” she spits out.

“Technically we’re second cousins, but I’m pretty sure that doesn't make it better,” Tony acknowledges.

“And that’s the bookend for today,” Lexie says. She takes one last gulp of latte before standing up. “Thank you for the coffee, it was nice seeing you again, I think I’ll go now.”

Tony nods, they say polite good-byes, avoid making eye contact, and Lexie heads out on her long trudge home.

That’s it, I’m moving to Australia, she thinks.

Lexie feels a familiar vibration in her pocket. Another message from Amanda, what could that harbinger of doom want now? Lexie winces and reluctantly opens the text, fearing the worst.

<Hey! Just thought I’d let you know, that doctor from earlier has been asking about you!>

Maybe I won’t pack my bags just yet, thinks Lexie, tomorrow is a new day!