Blind Date
Gracie had been really nervous all day. Blind date. It was funny, she guessed. She was twenty-eight, now, had been going on blind dates for as long as she could remember. In school her friends had set her up on blind dates, afterwards when she started at the arts and crafts centre the volunteers and staff and even the other students had set her up for blind dates. Ever since she'd started going to night courses at the university her new friends there had started setting her up for blind dates too.
There had been a lot of blind dates over the years, but Gracie still got nervous. Some were short - they took one look at her and left, which she guessed must happen to a lot of furs trying to date humans - some were longer. Sometimes they got awkward when her date got all sympathetic and she had to explain, no, the cane was because she had some trouble walking - her legs were a little weak - and no, she was fine, really. She was just like any other furry, at the end of the day. Cloned, mass produced... well, not exactly. The younger furs were that, people knew about the younger ones. Gracie was a little older, from the third production generation. From before they'd really started mass production, and from before they'd gotten the medical issues worked out. But she was okay, really, and when she had to explain that a dozen times the blind dates felt far, far too long.
She ran her hands over her face, making sure her fur was really combed down straight, and then patted down her clothes, just to make sure she hadn't forgotten any buttons. No, it was alright. Everything was alright, and if people were going to stare she just wasn't going to notice. So that solved that problem. Though she was sure people would stare at her. It was natural, furries, presumably, looked very strange to human eyes.
Would she look strange to the eyes of whoever her date was tonight? She didn't know. All Bobby and Leyda at the university had said was that his name was Turin, and that he was very nice, and he'd be the perfect blind date. They found it all very funny, and giggled.
Gracie just smiled and had to shrug - what else could she do? If people got a little enjoyment out of sending her on blind dates, she really didn't want to take that from them. Besides, it made her laugh a little too. Still going on blind dates after all these years. It wasn't as though she got her hopes up, of course. She'd just enjoy what came.
She gathered up her GPS, to tell her where to go, and her cane, and walked out into the warm, warm sunshine. She smiled. It felt like a good day.
"Left," her GPS told her, and so left she went.
It took her via the tram, and she obviously hadn't seen the little girl - obviously she hadn't - who she'd accidently brushed against on the tram. It was packed, as always, and Gracie had some trouble with it - what with her cane - but really, the poor girl had probably taken the worst of it, even if it was just a brush of the arm. She'd leapt in fright and squealed mama mama and clung to her mother, the poor thing. She'd probably just been surprised - perhaps the little girl hadn't seen Gracie either. Perhaps that was it, but how was Gracie to know?
Just another little moment to shrug off and smile. Perhaps the little girl could tell her friends about it, and they could laugh, and in the end everyone could laugh, and smile, and shrug it off.
The restaurant still worried her, though. A Tyrel's outlet, and they were all different, which might be confusing in itself, but then Gracie also had trouble finding her blind dates in these places... or were they her dates, and she was their blind date? She'd never really figured that one out, but it made her laugh. Better to laugh.
It was easy enough, though. In the message she'd traded with Turin she'd asked if he'd sit by the entrance if he got there before her.
She cleared her throat. "Turin?"
Yes, easy as that. He scraped his chair as he stood up. "Uhm. Hi," he said. His voice was gentle. She liked that. "You must be Gracie?" He dry swallowed, his throat going gloing nervously. She liked that too - it was a lot easier to deal with nerves if the date had them too.
"Hi." She smiled at him.
He was a real gentleman, this Turin. He even held her chair for her. She settled her cane against the chair's side carefully, so she could get at it easily later, and leaned her arms on the table. She had slightly weird hands, four fingers and a thumb like everyone else but her fingertips were a little strange, what with the fingernails. If he needed to stare it'd be easier to let him get acclimatized, after all.
He licked his lips nervously, settled his own hands on the table with a thump and worried his fingers against each other. "Uhm. Yeah. Wow."
Gracie smiled a little less enthusiastically. He was very nervous. More than her, by far. "I guess you weren't expecting me, huh?" She shrugged, smiled. Got ready to laugh it off.
Turin cleared his throat nervously. "Uhm. Well I guess that's the, uhm. The uhm, point. Of a bli-, er, uhm. A this."
She laughed. What else could you do? "I guess Bobby and Leyda didn't tell you much about me, huh?"
"Uhm. No. Not really, I, uhm. I guess." He cleared his throat again, dry swallowed. Poor boy. He really hadn't been expecting a fur like Gracie. "They said you're, uhm. Studying history of music? At nights?"
"Yup." She nodded. "That's all they said?"
Turin hesitated for a moment. "Yeah. I uhm. I guess they thought telling me that would help. I wouldn't usually go on, an, uhm, date like this if, I, uhm. I'm just bookish and nervous, you know? I guess they thought it'd help if you were studying something."
"Yeah." She smiled a little at him, again.
"What, uhm." He shifted in his chair loudly. "What, uhm. What'd they tell you about me?"
"Oh, uhm. Just that you're nice, I think." She grinned, a little. Just a little. she imagined her teeth would look pretty weird to him, too, let alone her face. "I think they met you at this thing? A conference?"
"Yeah, uhm. Seepy, the, uhm. I mean, uhm. The San Iadras Electrical Engineer's Precision Instruments Exposition." He tapped his fingers nervously on the tabletop. "Leyda does some neat stuff with ultrasonic acoustics."
Gracie let her jaw hang for a moment in astonishment. "Seepy?"
"Well I guess you could call it Sai-yeepy, but..."
"What an absurd name for such a technical sounding event. Seepy." She rolled it around in her mouth. It didn't match her idea of whatever a precision instruments exposition must have been like.
He laughed a little, just a nervous kind of titter that he cut off as soon as he heard himself. "Uhm. Yeah." But the smile was even in his voice, so at least he was loosening up. But that didn't last. "So, uhm. Seen anything on the, uhm. The menu, uhm. Is there anything?" He coughed, spectacularly, throat-clearing having gone overboard. Turin tried again. "Is there anything you'd like?"
"Ah, hm." She bit her lip contemplatively. "Maybe just a regular filter coffee? I guess we should keep things a little light. I mean, it is a blind date." She grinned, hoping to get him laughing again, but it didn't work.
"Uhm. Yeah. Uhm." Turin just wasn't dealing with it. Probably a short blind date, then. Pity. "I, uhm. I guess I'll have a coffee too, then." He called over the waiter, ordered, "Just, uhm. Just two coffees? Regulars, like, uhm. Yeah."
Gracie thought about it for a moment, whether or not to cut it short. She waited for the waiter to get clear before resuming conversation. "So what do you do for a living, Turin?"
"It's really just, like. It makes this whole b-blind date thing, like, uhm." He gulped down air. "Extra ironic, I guess? I'm in optics. Like, light research and stuff, which is also ironic because of, uhm. But, like, uhm." Turin cut himself short. Cleared his throat, ever nervous. "I do image resolution research at the university."
Gracie smiled, shrugged a little. "I guess that does make a blind date extra ironic." Laughed.
"Uhm." He wasn't quite so easy to get laughing. "Yeah. I guess. So, uhm. What about you?"
Gracie shrugged again. There was a lot for her to shrug off in life. "This and that? I weave baskets and sell them. Work at home stuff."
"That's, uhm. that's good, I guess?" He really wasn't doing well with the talking to a furry thing. Poor boy, so nervous.
"You know, if this isn't working for you, we can just finish our coffee and go. It's just a blind date." Gracie smiled, shrugged. Hoped to laugh it off.
"Uhm. What?" He sounded wounded.
She'd just have to shrug it off without laughter then. "The furry thing. A lot of guys have trouble with it. I go on a lot of blind dates, it's pretty, uhm. Normal."
Shock in his voice, now. "You think I've got a problem with you because you're furry?" God, she'd wounded his pride...
"Well, not like that, I'm sure you're a great person but, I know it's a little intimidating and-"
He grabbed her hand, and dragged it to his face.
She got hold of his nose, first. His long, long nose, snout, really, a muzzle that went on and on and was covered in short fur.
"Oh," she yelped. "Oh my God. You're a furry."
"Uhm. Yeah. So I guess you're, like. A mole?"
"Golden mole," she agreed. Then she reached out, blindly. Obviously. The vestigial little nubs of eyes she had were under an inch of skin, after all. "Do you mind? If I'm going to guess what you are I need something to go on."
He gingerly pulled her hand back to his face. His ears were big. Round, but big. Snout not quite as long as she'd thought, but pretty long. Rat, maybe? Didn't feel like a dog or anything else she knew.
He squirmed, cleared his throat nervously.
"So, how come you're so nervous if you're a furry too? And a... brave lion to boot." She grinned, letting her hand fall.
"Mouse, actually." There was that smile in his voice, again. "Uhm. I'm really, uhm. I'm really nervous because you're blind," he blurted. "And I'm wearing a really inappropriate shirt."
She pulled her hand away gingerly. "A shirt?"
"It, uhm. It's a joke thing, kind of. It says, uhm. It says 'In the land of the blind the one eyed man is King.'"
"Wow." She sagged back in her seat. "That is a little-"
"It's funny because I've only got, like. One eye." He cleared his throat again. "Well I've got an implant and a nerve bridge now, but, like, for most of my teenage years I just had the one eye and that's why me being in optics is ironic on top of, uhm..."
Gracie laughed. She couldn't help it. "Oh, well. Don't worry. It's perfectly alright."
"Uhm?"
She grinned. "I haven't seen your shirt."
That got him laughing too. Good start.