Part 2:

So here I was, back in the present, with no clue to where exactly I had veered this relationship off course. Shirley sat down at the table across from me smiling as she reached for her glass of white wine. I inadvertently looked away into the corner of the restaurant to keep from quickly confessing that I had been looking at her phone, knowing that if our eyes met I would blurt out the question in regards to what the fuck that text message meant. She started saying something, but it became static in the background as I ignored it and tried figuring out what all this between us was. Meanwhile, that question began to gain mass and substance as it weighed upon my heart. Honestly, things might have been okay as I calmed myself and just tried to play the hand being dealt, but that's when her phone started to vibrate again, snapping me into attention and putting my focus onto her entirely.

She picked it up, reading the message as a slight gasp escaped her lips. She muttered under her breath, "I thought I had more time. "

Looking her dead in the face and waiting for her eyes to meet mine I found myself blurting out, “Shirley what the hell is a portal? Where in the hell do you have to go? Again what the hell does a portal got to do with anything? Are you an alien or something?" 

The first question got her attention, but the last one got her to snicker and her laughter combined with the ridiculousness of the whole situation nearly got me into a laughing fit as well. I had to be careful in this situation, remembering suddenly the rather large edible I had taken before this date to calm my nerves for the time when i needed to commit to my  big reveal at the end of the dinner where I would tell her that I was broke and living out of a storage garage. 

Tilting her head ever so slightly, quizzically, she asked, "Did you read my text messages?"

With too much work having been put in between dates one and four, it was time for this woman to explain to me more about these text messages. It wasn’t time for me to explain my one small indiscretion and invasion of privacy. I mean, come on, someone was texting her to help bail her out of what she considered a date awful enough to use some ridiculous Science Fiction excuse on, or maybe she was looking to have a nice dinner and then stiff me with an expensive bill. Well, no way, no how, I wouldn’t be the one shamed in this whole sordid affair. 

Taking a deep breath I said, "Shirley, listen. I didn't look at your phone.” She squinted ever so slightly in response to what I had just said causing me to backtrack, “All right, all right, that was a lie. I did look at your phone and I am sorry but it was going off and it was like an earthquake at this table as it jiggled all the silverware, and cups, and plates, and everything. People began staring. And it just kept going off! When I saw that message I didn’t know what to think. A portal? Do you think so low of me that you're just gonna skip out of here? You know if you don't wanna be here just tell me.” With each word the fight seemed to drain from me.

 A small smile formed in the corner of her lips as she stared intently at me, probing me, looking for some sort of information. "Travis, would you want to maybe accomplish your dream of becoming a travel rider?"

I looked at her, taking in and processing what she just asked me. I did really want to become a travel writer, it really was a dream that I held in very high regards, but at this point in my life I really had no clue how I was going to travel anywhere let alone even get on the correct bus home after this edible fully took ahold of me. I decided I would go with the half-truth. "Yes, I would love to travel and write all about my experiences, but it just doesn't really seem like it's in the cards for me right now. I'm just kind of between things right now. Very busy with—"

Shirley’s eyes bugged out of her head and she spit the wine she had been sipping out onto the table at the start of what became a roaring laughter. Some of the tables began staring at her. Placing her hands over mouth she stifled her laughter and apologized through her fingers to me and those craning their necks to listen in. Getting her composure back she looked at me again and said, "Travis, you and I both know that you probably haven't written a word since high school, and even then you probably couldn’t have written anything to save your life, let alone save your grades. Not to beat a dead horse that currently resides in a storage shed near the bus stop behind Lucky’s Lotto & Liquor, but you’re a real loser. You don’t work at all, and any money you do get ahold of you spend on weed and jerky. We went on how many dates and you paid for none of them, nor even had the decency to tell me the truth and ask to see if I wanted to help pay for us going out.” 

My heart sank into my gut as I sat listening to her words. Then she went further and my gut seemed to sink into my ass pulling my gaze and posture down with it in defeat and embarrassment. I tried to say something in my defense but she wouldn’t give me space to do so and continued on. “Look I'm going to give it to you straight. I am from a different plane, a different frequency if you will. I needed to find someone to help make a family with. I thought I had a lot more time, but time in this plane doesn’t exactly move at a one-to-one ratio with my plane, and I have been on more dates with more people than I planned for and completely lost track of time. But honestly, and you need to hear this Travis,  you're the best one I have found. You are the most loyal man, for all your faults, I have come across.” She reached for the last bit of her wine and gulped it back as if it were a shot, then gently setting the glass down with her left she reached out with her right and took my hand in hers and squeezed it reassuringly. “Travis I know you don't understand what exactly is happening, I'll explain it all to you eventually, but I do need an answer. Would you want to join me when I go through that portal into my plane, my world if that concept makes more sense to you?”

I suddenly saw red, her words toying with my emotions, I hissed, “What the holy hot fuck Shirley? You just want me to get up from the table and go to some other world with you? First of all I don't even believe you and I think you're insane! You told me you were a doctor. We both know you can’t be a doctor when you’re actually living in an imaginary life where you can walk between worlds.” My train of thought got lost, forcing me to stop in the middle of my tirade as the edible hit me in waves in and out of full couch lock mode. 

“You’re right, I am not a doctor.  But here your doctors don’t require much education to become a doctor. In my plane, six year olds could figure out in minutes what your best and brightest doctors couldn’t figure out in a lifetime. Don’t take offense though. Our plane made a decision to see intelligence as a guiding light, whereas yours focused on resource control and the best ways to snuff out life quicker and easier. We may seem alien, but we aren’t. We do have tails sort of like monkeys though, which I know might be weird to you when you get over there, so I have to warn you now.”