Fat Tony -- Section Five

    Fat Tony stopped on the way back to the office for a bagel—too many empty calories, but he needed something as a little self-bribe to get him on that phone.  Besides, he’d promised Malcolm, and it was a multigrain with veggies for a topping instead of cream cheese.  The bagel was multigrain, not the phone call.  Fat Tony’s thoughts were getting jumbled in his head.  What was he doing?  He wanted to call her, but really, bribing yourself to go on a date?  Did he hate dating that much?
    He thought back to his conversation with Malcolm about Grandma.  Grandma never does serious, but when was the last time Tony had had a serious conversation?  With anyone?  Must have been about five years.  Last date?  Five years.  Last time he’d been really happy?  No comment.
    He stared at the bagel.  It was like his life: filled with vegetables.  It went around in circles, again and again and again.  It was split in half, no way to fix it.
    Fat Tony decided bagels were a really bad metaphor for his life.  Rather than picking another metaphor, he pulled his phone out of his pocket—almost angrily, since the phone was the cause of all his problems.  The phone and that darn phone call.  He pushed the buttons for the phonebook, scrolled down to Big-Hair Sarah and pushed ‘call.’  He was going to do this.  No bagel was going to decide whether he was happy or not.  If he had any chance, he was going to take it, boiled dough be darned.
    “Hello?” said the voice at the other end.
    Fat Tony’s eyes went wide, his mouth frozen.  His mind hadn’t made it this far.  All the battle had been to simply push the button, and he felt like the a crusader who had conquered Jerusalem by accident.  We own the Holy Land; now what?
    “Hello?” said the voice again.
    “Hey,” said Fat Tony, not sure where he was going, but unwilling to let Jerusalem slip away now that he had it.  “Is this Bi—is this Sarah?”
    “This is Sarah,” she said.  “Who’s this?”
    “This is Anthony.  My friend gave me your number and said I should call.”
    “I’m not sure I know any Anthony’s.”
    “Right.  Most people know me as Fat Tony.”
    “Oh!  You’re Flap Jack’s friend.”  A warmth crept into her voice that hadn’t been there before.  Is that for me or for Flap Jack? wondered Tony.
    “Well,” he said, “half the city knows Flap Jack, so saying I’m his friend narrows the field down to about half-a-million people, but I’m probably the only Fat Tony he knows.”
    “I got that impression,” said Sarah.
    “Which?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Which impression did you get?  That Flap Jack knows lots of people, or that I’m the only Fat Tony he knows?”
    She laughed.  It was a good laugh.  Alto, a hint of music to it, almost a color.  A deep red, like a rose.  He should have bought the flowers.
    “He said you were funny,” said Sarah.
    “Also not much of a recommendation,” said Tony.  “Half the time I don’t know which thing I said that made him laugh.  However, if you ask my grandma, she at least knows when I’m trying to be funny, even if she refuses to laugh.”
    “How often are you trying to be funny?”
    Fat Tony thought about it.  “Most of the time, I guess.”
    “Then maybe Flap Jack understands your humor better than you think.”
    “Do you believe in miracles, Sarah?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Then I suppose, just for the sake of entertaining your wildly outlandish hypothetical—because this is our first conversation ever and I don’t want to be rude, since then you’d never agree to go out with me—I suppose it is possible that Flap Jack understands my humor better than I think.”
     “Wow,” said Sarah.
    Fat Tony was regretting that last sentence.  Sometimes he tried to toss conversational softballs but ended up pitching hardball.  “Was that too much?” he asked.
    “I was just thinking how long it had been since I heard the phrase ‘wildly outlandish hypothetical.’”
    “Long time?”
    “Probably never.”
    “That’s because I have the phrase trademarked.  Anyone who wants to use the phrase ‘wildly outlandish hypothetical’ has to pay my company three cents.  It’s like the Happy Birthday song, but not as profitable.”
    She laughed again.  Good recovery?  He couldn’t tell yet.  There, on the napkin on the table, the bagel taunted him, split in half and filled with vegetables.  He plowed ahead.
    “So—” he said, just as Sarah said, “I was won—”
    “Go ahead,” said Fat Tony.
    “No, you go.  Mine can wait.”
    “You can’t see it,” said Tony, “but I’m zipping my mouth closed now, so you’d better go first.”
    “But mine was a question.  How are you going to answer with a zippered mouth?”
    “Mpf-mm-hmmp-mmf-mmp.”
    “Okay,” she laughed.  “Fine.  What’s your business that has such a catchy trademark?”
    “Hm-mm-mmrf-mm.”
    “Sounds exciting.  A growth industry?”
    “Hmp-mmf.”
    “That’s too bad.  So when that goes under, what are your long-term plans?”
    “Hmm-mmmf-mmm-rrrmf I can’t keep that up.”
    “But you were doing so well,” said Sarah.
    “Computers.  I do tech support for local business and a few private clients.”
    “Tech support to the stars?”
    “Are there stars in Tucson?  Besides the twinkly kind.  No, most people haven’t heard of my clients.  What do you do, Sarah?”
    “I work for the FBI,” she said.
    “That was unexpected,” said Tony.  “Administrative, or the gun-toting type?”  She’s got big hair, he thought.  The real question is, gun-toting or wand-toting?  Not that anyone had really used wands, ever, except for the old-school Vaudeville performers.  If they even used wands.  Fat Tony wasn’t sure.  Something to look up later.
    “I do investigative work, but nothing undercover.  Otherwise I would have told you I was a consultant.”
    “What kind of consultant?”
    “Agriculture.”
    “Why agriculture?  Oh, marijuana fields.  Gotcha.”
    “What were you going to say?” she asked.
    “When?”
    “When our sentences collided.”
    “Oh, right.  I was going to ask if you like Italian food.”
    “Love it.”
    “That’s too bad, because I’m never going on a first date again where I might accidentally order the spaghetti.  I’m terrible at eating spaghetti.”
    “Bad experience?”
    “Horrible.  I went through three napkins just to keep my chin clean, and she laughed like a scornful woodchuck.”
    Sarah laughed, and it sounded nothing like a scornful woodchuck.  “Thanks to you, Tony, I have a new worst nightmare.  Derisive forest animals were nowhere on my list of bad dreams before this conversation.”
    “How about Mexican?” asked Fat Tony.
    “I also enjoy Mexican, but I have a feeling you had an accident with a burrito.”
    “Enchiladas,” said Tony.  “Big ones.  Lots of red sauce.  I think they put the same stuff in that sauce that they put in dye packs to stain stolen money from banks.”
    “I’ll have to look into that,” said Sarah.  “So no Italian and no Mexican.  I’m assuming you had something else in mind?”
    “Are you allergic to curry?”
    “I love curry.”
    “Is there any food you don’t like?”
    “Raw fish.”
    “Then it’s settled.  Would you like to go get Thai food with me some night?”
    “I’d like that very much,” said Sarah.
    “How does tomorrow sound?  Six-ish at the place on Speedway?”
    “I’ll be there six-ish.  I’m glad you called, Tony.  Can I call you Tony?  Do you want me to call you Fat Tony?”
    “‘Fat Tony’ is descriptive, but you can leave off the ‘Fat’ part.  I’ll still know who you mean.”
    “Tomorrow, then.”
    “Bye.”
    Fat Tony lowered the phone from his ear and watched as the call ended.  Take that, you bagel, he thought.  I’m going on a date.