Eating Alone: Because I felt left out! LOL

As the hostess walks me through a maze of tables bustling with family, friends, lovers, and acquaintences, I look straight ahaead avoiding all eye contact. Yes this is an uncommon event, but why is it such a spectacle? I can eat alone if I feel like it! I think to myself feeling eye all over me. They are summing me up now. Why is she by herself? Is there a young man coming to see her? Is he late? Doesn't she have friends, family, anyone? Maybe she has an aweful disposition, in which case that's good for her that she has no one. The questions would be endless at least in my own mind if I had let it all in. But, I choose against it. This is my favorite restaurant and I deserve to come here whenever I feel like it. I refuse to let anyone make me feel bad about that. I think to myself again. I wish I could just shake this feeling that someone is staring at me. The waitress aproaches my table. I'm about to tell her what my order is when she sets down another place setting. My face gets warm and I feel my eyes moistening. I don't want to have to say this out loud. "Excuse me, this is a party of one." "Oh I remember you said that, but the gentlemen said it would be alright with you." "What gentlemen?" He has a slow, almost methodical stride as he walks toward my table. His gaze glides across the room as he passes. A king letting all know he had arrived, and that they should act accordingly. He had to be 6'3 with broad shoulders and skin the color of dark chocolate. Everything he had on from the Burberry glasses to his Stacy Adams Shoes was pristine. When I looked at him I could only think of a Jamaican term that I hadn't used in ages, "Criss". My thoughts, which were lingering somewhere in between 'ooo' and 'ahh', were broken by the waitress whispering, "Do you want me to tell him to find another table?"

© Unveiling (2006)