The Salad Girl's on RedBull

Last Thursday Maggie and I met for dinner with our pal Josh at an Italian restaurant called Vinny T's. We had a waiter who was extremely cute in both personality and features. His name is Lucas. He had a hint of an accent; forgot all the specials; and at the end of the meal threatened to chase us down and tackle us if we stole the pen he had provided to sign the receipt.

("Steal the pen! Steal the pen!" I whisper-yelled at Maggie.)

"Assaulting the customers probably goes against the waiter's handbook, though," Lucas said with a Lucasy grin.

Lucas's ambiguous sexuality could favor neither of us, given that Maggie and I are both practically married, but that didn't stop us both from being smitten. Josh, meanwhile, was happy enough with a cannoli.

Last night Maggie gave me an impromptu phonecall: she was in the city for a class and wanted to know if I wanted to go back to Vinny T's to stalk Lucas. Did I even have to think?

At the restaurant, Maggie requested us a table in Lucas's area. The hostess asked if Maggie knew Lucas -- for lack of anything better to say, Maggie blurted, "I have a crush on him."

We sat down and it was immediately awkward. These kinds of episodes always seem like a good idea until the person is there in front of you and you feel at best like a groupie and at worst like a stalker.

Lucas said, "I heard you asked for me?" He seemed confused. He didn't know us. We tried to play it nonchalant.

"Oh, we had you before and thought you were good," Maggie said, casually brushing the air as though to wave away any implication or significance.

"That's funny that I don't remember you," Lucas said. "I usually remember people. I was that good?"

We were scrambling. How could this be played? We saw Joseph, the waiter who'd served us at our Christmas dinner. Joseph provided an out.

"Well, we've requested Joseph a few times too," Maggie said, "but we didn't know he was here today."

"When was this that you came in last?" Lucas said.

Maggie said, "Oh a while ago."

"About two weeks," I added after wrestling with an appropriate timeframe.

I felt my face heating up. We didn't know whether the hostess had also told Lucas that Maggie had a crush on him. We didn't know what he thought of us at all. Was I Maggie's boyfriend, encouraging her crush? Was I just very open-minded? Were we trying to get Lucas involved in a threesome?

We ordered salads as an appetizer, which were brought in about thirty seconds. "The salad girl's on RedBull," Lucas said. "Have you decided?"

We hadn't decided. For Maggie the words on the menu were a blur. I was scarfing my salad but not tasting it. Finally we ordered, and except during some discreet checking-out of Lucas's butt, we were able to move to other topics of conversation.

All in all, it was a fanstatic dinner. But one thing's for sure: we can never go back.