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TGI Thaidays was one of those restaurants that looked askance on seating you at a table any larger than your party's size demanded. If you had a party of 1, you got squashed into one of those shitty two-person tables. If you had a party of 2, you'd get reluctantly led to a four-person one -- unless it was busy, in which case shitty two-person table it was. It wasn't busy right now. Ray held up two fingers like the peace sign when the hostess asked him how many -- but he must've looked like someone who would've faked a larger party to get a larger table, as she just went ahead and seated him at a shitty two-person table anyway. Just went to show.

He checked his watch. 1:14. Stephanie was late. Ray had been late, too, which was why he'd drove straight to the restaurant on his lunch break rather than changing into a different shirt first; he'd expected to find her there, shaking her head at his interminable lateness and smiling, but he'd been wrong. It was now nearly 15 minutes after their date. No sign from Stephanie. He'd called her. No answer.

The laminated menu was still sitting in front of him: feeling like he was in a text adventure, he flipped it open and started to read it, or pretended to read it, anyway, to put the servers at ease. With his other hand he took off his glasses and rubbed some of the smudges off on his blue button-down. He scanned the menu again, mostly out of boredom this time. It hadn't changed. He didn't have the attention span to reread it.

It occurred to him halfway through that he was less worried about his girlfriend than he was by the prospect of being stood up by her. Guilt gave him a poke in the ribs. He ignored it.

It also occurred to him, a bit more slowly, that he was sitting next to a pretty red-headed stranger -- at the neighboring shitty two-person table, seated across on the other side, also distractedly scanning a menu, also looking like she was waiting for someone. She looked younger than him, early twenties. She looked concerned. Oh, well, what the hell, he was bored.

Ray replaced his glasses, slid them up on his nose and went back to looking at the menu. "I'm sure he's just caught in traffic," he said without looking up.

The unconvincing artificial-paper-lanternlight glinted off the woman's wedding ring. He wasn't single, and therefore had no business being disappointed that any other woman wasn't either, but he noted it down anyway: good to know what he was dealing with. Ray leaned both elbows on his table and put his chin in one hand; his glasses slid down a little on his nose and he raised his eyebrows at her. "Sure seems like it," he said, "though I gotta say, in my experience if Steph gets stuck in traffic she transforms her car into Bumblebee and takes a shortcut." This was his way of saying his girlfriend drove like a New Yorker. "So I'm thinking the robot button on her dashboard got stuck. Your husband," he nodded to her hand, "he an Autobot too, or does he spend a lot of time being late?"

He was aware vaguely that he owed her positive reaction largely to how he was dressed. This was one upshot to being dressed as the person he dubbed Mr. Gordon. It was like being Clark Kent; women found Mr. Gordon fundamentally nonthreatening. And threatening was the last thing most women needed in their everyday lives. Mr. Gordon was a good listening ear. Mr. Gordon was a regular Care Bear. But Mr. Gordon was still only 29, and -- well, nothing dictated he act like Mr. Gordon when he was off work.

He cupped his hand into the universally recognized sign for I am telling you a secret. "Put your menu down, look a little sad and they'll bring you a free Coke," he stage whispered.

"You married a Decepticon? You poor thing." Ray shook his head and made a tsk, tsk, tsk noise. "One day it's I love you, let's get married: then it's oh no, let's take over the world, let's kill Optimus Prime -- then it's I'm sorry, I'm leaving you for Starscream, and it's an utter wash, all of it." He clucked his tongue again like a concerned gay friend. It was a certain type of heterosexual man whose masculinity had no objection to this. "I kid. I'm sure he's just caught up in something."

He took a sip of his water and set it down in front of him, crossing one khaki-covered leg over the other. "I'm Ray," he said, "at least until my lunch break's over, then I'm back to being Mr. Gordon. You sly dog. I can't pull your Jezebelian tricks, you know, it's unwholesome. I'm a schoolteacher." He winked at her. "Well, and male, but when did that ever stop anyone. Where do you work?" She was dressed in business casual: emphasis on the casual, if the way she wore her blouse was any clue. Either she really liked walking around the house in heels or little Mrs. Killingworth worked somewhere.

Abruptly Ray folded his menu under his arm, got up and then seated himself in the chair across from Ursula. When she raised her eyebrows at him he slapped his menu down on the table across from her and grinned at her, unapologetic. "We were wasting space," he said in response to the unvoiced question. "I hate waste. Captain Planet hates waste. Can't be having with that."

In reality the likelihood of Stephanie coming and interrupting this unlikely tableau was growing increasingly slim -- as was a similar likelihood with Mr. Killingworth, from the sound of it. So if it was to be lunch with a pretty stranger, lunch with a pretty stranger it damned well was. There were worse things a boyfriend could do than have pad thai with a married secretary from Hillworth. From what he'd heard of Hillworth, she could use the break. From what he'd heard of Hillworth teachers, she might be in want of a break from that, too. But that was unkind, and he wasn't getting paid to be unkind just this second, now was he? Nah, that was his night job.

He opened his menu again with a flap, crossed one knee over another again, and leaned back in his chair. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you, Ursula -- can I call you Ursula? How does one nickname Ursula -- but I teach at Meadowview, and I've been doing for five years. Guess I have that bright-and-shiny gloss to me. I'll tell you a secret. It's lacquer." He eyed his chopsticks with suspicion and decided he would ask for a good old all-American fork when their server came around. "Are you thinking pad thai? I'm thinking pad thai."

For his part Ray folded his napkin over his lap and rested his elbows on his table, a concession to the table manners his momma taught him and a signal that he paid them little heed now, respectively. He stirred the ice in his drink with the translucent red straw and eyed the mango dessert on the menu with a contemplative look. "Split the mango with you if you like," he offered, glancing at her over his glasses. "Usually the pad thai's enough to tucker me right out, but I could probably stand for half the sticky rice. Unless you've got a policy against sharing desserts with strangers," he said brightly. "You could. I wouldn't know. I might not be a teacher after all. Maybe I'm homeless! Or an assassin. Or a homeless assassin. You never know."

He toyed with the straw in his drink a bit more as he formulated his description of his girlfriend. How did one describe Stephanie Jaworski? There was still the off chance she'd walk right in and do the describing herself, but it was growing slimmer and slimmer -- at this rate she'd probably come in arm in arm with the truant Mr. Killingworth. Killingworth, what a dreadful name. You really had to love someone to marry the name Killingworth. "Oh, you know. This is our -- sixth? -- month dating. She teaches music at Crystal Academy," he said eventually, "and we were both in theater, which is how we met: one of those interschool intramural programs. Beautiful alto, in both senses of the term. Exiles me to guitar every time we play Rock Band together -- the harpy -- and turns off my TV anytime Lifetime's on it."

Ray checked his watch. "And she's never late, so I'm guessing she's unhappy with me. For some reason or other. So what about the mistah, sistah?"

She was a nice girl, was Ursula Killingworth. Too young to marry, in Ray's opinion, but he kept that to himself. He'd tried many times to be openminded to young marriages. Truth be told, he didn't think most anyone under 30 was ready to marry: truth be told, he didn't think most anyone was ready to marry. He wasn't of the opinion that the human race was cut out for marriage. He wasn't of the opinion that the human race was cut out, honestly, for anything that lasted. But that was one rainstorm he had no intent of calling down upon Ursula Killingworth's parade, and hey, what did you know, she sounded like she loved the guy, for now. Let her have her spot of sunshine. It was one nice day, one afternoon at TGI Thaidays, and one pretty smile there was no use in spoiling.

One month? Nothing gold can stay, Ursula, he thought. "I think Steph would prefer an apologetic phone call," he said, half-smiling. "V-Day's over and gestures aren't really her thing. Communication, on the other hand. Communication's her favorite word. I've never met another person who liked the word 'communication' so much and wasn't a telecommunications company." He made a face suddenly. "Oy, Valentine's. Do you know what's a bad idea? Giving kids a carnation-gram service."

"With all the charms of a woman," he sang under his breath, stirring the ice in his drink again. One of the servers glanced at him walking by. "You've kept the secret of your youth." Ray took a sip of his water and raised his eyebrows over his glasses, which had slid down his nose again, at Ursula blinking at him. "I did a bit of musical theater in college. And Glee did a mash-up of that song with 'Don't Stand So Close To Me,' which I should stop expecting everyone to know. Guilty pleasure, guilty pleasure, and I am guilty," he raised his hands as if ordered by an invisible policeman. "Mea culpa. No, you're right, you're on the mark. I'm afraid I'm much more popular in high school now than I ever was in high school." He grinned at her. "It's all in good fun, don't you think? No harm done. They're kids."

They were kids, all. Of which he was endlessly reminded. He thought briefly of Jenny, of Tallulah -- of Charys disappearing into the Murphys' home. Of fourteen-year-old Usagi Tsukino, crying.

Ray glanced up when a plate of spring rolls was set in front of him. Without shame he snatched a half up between two fingers as Ursula piloted her chopsticks. "But it was a lot of carnations," he said. "I'm not sure it sends the right message about the environment. Trouble with cut flowers in general, I suppose."

Who did Bye Bye Birdie do anything for? "Into the Woods is good," he acknowledged, though in reality Into the Woods bored the living s**t out of him, and he was of the opinion that Sondheim could do much better, "but I'm more of an Assassins person myself. And Sweeney Todd, who doesn't like Sweeney Todd? Can't exactly put it on at Meadowview -- Billjo don't take too kindly to student actors taking it all off onstage, I imagine -- but them's, as they say, the breaks." Ray paused as he took a sip of his drink. "Billjo's my boss Bill Johanssen. Principal over at Meadowview." He left it at that: teaching was a small world and he wasn't about to (further) endanger his job by having a big(ger) mouth. "Sounds like your boss was a little more laid-back. I presume that was a position before Hillworth?"