“You have the most charming way of eating,” I cooed on my way past her table. “I don’t mean for that to sound creepy or anything,” I stopped to clarify. “You just caught my eye and I couldn’t look away until you were done with your spaghetti.”
She smiled and dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin: “Thank you.”
She said nothing further so I exited the café.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling and watched her eat her plate of spaghetti. “Is she as dainty when she eats a medium rare hamburger,” I wondered, “or oysters on the half shell?” I closed my eyes and dreamed of the woman.
Every night thereafter she infiltrated my dreams, always seated at a table with a white tablecloth and always eating.
After a week, I grew concerned that she was growing fat.
I returned to the café. “Has the woman who eats spaghetti in a womanly way been in recently,” I asked the maître d.
“You’re the eighteenth man to ask of her today,” he scoffed before gesturing to the dining room, which was occupied by single men all waiting for the woman who ate spaghetti.