The Night That Was

Thank you in advance for reading! Scroll to "***" to skip over the exposition to the climax, and have a great day :-)

Betty and I first met when we were paired together as election volunteers to make ballot box runs on election night some years ago. The volume of ballots received was such that ballot boxes around the county were becoming full with several hours still left to go until the polls closed, so the county clerk's office needed additional pairs of volunteers with different party affiliations to seal and deliver spare empty ballot boxes out to sites, then retrieve the full ones and return them to the tabulation center. It was routine, unexciting work and most of the volunteers were retirees, so I prepared to be randomly paired with someone greeting me with, "oh, you remind me of my grandson."

This night, I was paired with a volunteer closer to my age and introduced to me as Betty. After we had the initial pleasantries out of the way, seals for the empty ballot boxes verified, and chain-of-custody logs signed for each, the next task for Betty and me was to drive together to the most remote polling place in the county and work our way to a dozen or so stops on the way back to the tabulation center. I offered to drive, we loaded the gear into my car, and set off on the long outbound first leg of our journey.

"Pardon me a moment," Betty said as she took out her phone and dialed someone. "Hey, it's me," she said to whomever was on the other end of the line. "Yeah, I'll be back late tonight. I'm out on a late ballot box run and we'll have a lot of logging and signing to do when we get back."

It sounded to me like she was checking in with her significant other, which would have made sense.

"Yeah, me and this other election worker. Sam, I think." She turned to me, mouthing "right?"

I nodded. It definitely sounded like a significant other. I guessed Betty was pretty close in age to me which would have made checking in with parents quite the stretch.

"Yeah. No, I just wanted to call and update you rather than waiting until the election workers are let go for the evening, which will be late. Okay, love you. Bye."

My doubts were extinguished. I wasn't disappointed, but it helped me to know that I was to spend the evening working with a woman my age who was neither available nor interested in any dynamic between us. It was just as well - she seemed shy - but at least now I wasn't likely to be a chauffeur in silence for someone who would be on their phone all evening.

"That was my half-sister," Betty said frankly as she put her phone away.

"Oh?" I said, suddenly reversed in my assumptions. In the moment, I was more excited at the prospect of some pleasant conversation than anything else.

"Yeah," she said, "I just moved in with her, so new house rules including letting her know if I'm going to be out late."

"Ah, welcome," I replied. "Where did you move from?"

This seed of small talk was apparently agreeably planted. Betty appreciated my interest enough to open up from demure and polite and became altogether witty and charming. Despite our being scarcely more than strangers at this point, she told me all about herself and her circuitous path to the evening's ballot box run.

Betty had moved from Florida, where her Jamaican father and Minnesota Chippewa mother were needing to consolidate houses and had given their adult daughter Betty the option of sharing her room with a cousin, moving in with her half-sister out of state, or moving out on her own. I learned that Betty wasn't her legal name, but a family nickname she'd gone by primarily since the move in order to change more than just the scenery. She had finished high school but followed her hippie guidance counselor's advice of taking a gap year instead of applying for college right away.

"I love this about working elections," I got a word in, "you get to meet interesting people with experiences and perspectives that you wouldn't come across normally."

Betty nodded, agreeing. "How about you?"

Crap, I thought. I was content to just listen, but I was suddenly aware of how comparatively boring my story would be to recount. "Well, I'm probably a bad example. I was born here, grew up here, and right after high school I went to college just down the road. I know what your parents mean by a rough economy, so I'd been working retail and food service until I got a data entry job for the county, which let me to election volunteering, and here we are."

Betty laughed, "well, when you tell it that way." She paused, thinking. "It sounds like the abridged version that leaves out a lot of interesting details."

"Yeah, we have a way to go until this first stop out in Burnley," I said, "plenty of time for a detail or two, I guess." I was buying myself time to think of anything interesting yet appropriate to bring to the table.

"Yeah?" Betty's interest was piqued.

"Sure," I said, still pondering. "Uh, anything you're uh, curious about?" At the time, this struck me as the wrong question to ask, especially since it caused Betty to grin widely in my peripheral vision. I turned toward her to offer an encouraging smirk in return.

Even in the dimming evening, her grin illuminated her beauty. Her cheeks dimpled adorably and channeled a vivacity to her eyes, which I noticed for the first time were a deep hazel. I almost swerved the car, quickly breaking eye contact to return my gaze to the road.

My question hung in the air a moment, causing me to wonder whether Betty was coming up with a question for me or whether the very brief moment of eye contact had stirred anything in her.

"Hmm," she put a finger to her chin. "This is going to be like truth-or-dare but only with truth."

I laughed. "Oh, good, we're taking turns then?"

"Well, I'll take three in a row to start with," Betty said, "that seems fair to even things out."

"Sounds good," I replied, "and dares are out of the question because...?"

I led, "because I'm driving?"

"Because we're on duty," Betty laughed, "but right this minute, yes, duty includes the fact that you're driving." Her laugh had a musical undertone and trailed off with a "hmmm" that I found subtly seductive.

"Okay," I gathered myself. "Truth number one. Fire away."

"Have you ever been married or engaged?" Betty asked.

"No." I answered, resisting to add that I had been close once. "Wow, a big one right off the bat, eh?"

"Yeah," Betty considered, "I figured basic ones with yes or no answers to start with."

"Okay," I nodded, "truth number two."

"Have you ever been to a foreign country?" Betty asked.

"Yes," I replied, offering some detail, "Mexico once, Canada once, and the UK once. Truth number three."

"Ah, interesting," Betty returned the finger to her chin. "What ethnicity are you?" She worded this question thoughtfully but simply.

"Well, I'm also mixed race - Korean on my dad's side and German on my mom's side." I wasn't sure why that was one of her top three questions for me, but it opened up a conversation on family histories and genealogy which was fertile subject for us to get to know each other on the long ride. Before long, we reached the town limits of Burnley.

"Shucks," I said as we pulled into the voting site, "here we are and I didn't get at turn-or-truth."

"Oh," Betty chuckled, "well, if you can think of one really quick."

For some reason, I decided to take a calculated risk without very much calculation. "That's though, but I can think of a dare really quick."

"Oh?" Betty's chuckle deflated uneasily as the car rolled to a stop.

"Yeah, I dare you to grab that folder with the seals and chain-of-custody logs while I grab the empty ballot boxes."

Betty's chuckle returned heartily and she slugged me in the arm. "Alright, come on."

We continued along the route, trading truths-or-truths of ever deeper insight into each other between stops until we were on the last leg back to the tabulation center.

"I'm not ready to be back yet," Betty said out of the blue.

"Yeah, me neither," I said, acknowledging the mutual feeling despite the fact that it was almost 11:00 PM. "I'm glad we haven't been in any major hurry." I turned to look at her as we came to a stop light.

Her dimpled smile was less cordial and more inviting, and I sensed that I could have reached down to hold her hand in that moment. I smiled back at Betty when another thought occurred to me. I didn't want to rush anything because I wanted to savor her charm and attractiveness. I needed to throttle back the exhilaration.

I suddenly realized that the light was green, and a flutter of embarrassment shot through me as I sheepishly accelerated forward.

"Nice," Betty teased, turning forward and sinking down into the seat relaxedly. I took it for teasing, but it could have been when the flirting officially became so.

We pulled into the tabulation center and I backed my car up to the loading dock. Being back among other election volunteers and staff, we made efficient, professional work of unloading the boxes onto carts, verifying the seals, signing the chain-of-custody logs, and wheeling the carts down the hall to room where teams of other election workers received them for the next steps in the process.

It was almost 12:30 in the morning by the time we were done, and with the confirmation that bipartisan pairs of workers weren't needed anywhere else that night, Betty and I high-fived and clocked out.

"You're okay to drive home?" I asked, walking her to her car.

"Yep," she yawned, as if on cue.

"You sure?" I laughed.

"Truth." She quipped. We both chuckled.

"Yes, I did have fun tonight," I said as we approached her car.

"Dare." Betty played along. Her voice was confident but the faintest, most distant tremble. It technically wasn't her turn, but I couldn't have planned for a better opening to make a move.

It crossed my mind to dare her to let me kiss her right then and there, but it seemed too forward - only slightly less forward then daring her to come home with me. The chemistry was definitely there, but the parking lot of a government building at 12:30 in the morning didn't feel like the place to expend the feeling between us.

I stepped toward her. "I dare you to come on a date with me."

She inhaled, not knowing what to anticipate. "Yeah, definitely."

"It's late tonight, obviously," I said, "but I'll give you my number and you can text me an evening you're free."

"Awesome," she pulled out her phone.

I gave her my number, we hugged cursorily and said goodbye, and I made sure her car started and got into gear before I waved and turned to walk back to my own car. Before I got there, my phone buzzed with a new message from Betty who was barely around the corner.

"Thanks again, I'll let you know tomorrow when I'm free ;-)"

The wink sent shudder of primal excitement through me. From her riding in my car, or perhaps from our brief hug, her smell was faintly about me, and I drank in all the places that the pheromones took my mind on the drive home. I confess that I allowed myself to imagine her smiling and laughing...in various states of nakedness and entangled with me in various ways. Daydreaming while driving is better than nodding off at 12:30 in the morning, I suppose.

I was back to my desk job at the regular time the next morning, but Betty must have slept in because it was almost my lunch break before I heard from her.

"My half-sister and I have plans together this weekend, but I'm free next Friday after 3:00 if you are ;-)"

"Friday is perfect! I'll come up with some options for dinner and afterwards," I replied.

It was a few days before Betty texted, "good morning! Will I need to wear anything fancy or outdoorsy for Friday?"

"Something outdoorsy, but not off-road." Attempting to temper my excitement and expectations, I hadn't let myself plan much further than that. "I'll wear a collared shirt and jeans." I thought to temper her expectations, too.

"We're not doing another ballot box run, are we? ;-)," she quipped with another wink.

"No. Pleasure, not business this time ;-)" I offered a wink of my own.

Another few days passed before Friday morning, when Betty texted, "good morning! I hope you have a good day. How's this for tonight?" She had attached a mirror selfie.

In it, she was wearing a maroon-and-cream patterned dress with calf-high black boots a green ribbon in her voluminous, curly brown hair. She knew how to set off her eyes, but her pert, athletic figure was on stunning display.

I could only text a jaw-dropped emoji in reply. I figured she would add leggings, a jacket, and hat to the outfit by the time I saw her, but the picture had me levitating the rest of the afternoon.

I took a late lunch that day so I could shave and tidy up before meeting Betty at 4:30, just before sunset that time of year. I picked the botanical gardens as the meeting place, where I figured we could park and then walk to dinner someplace with a view of the west and then stroll around the gardens lit up for the holidays to end the evening.

Betty was late, which wasn't a huge deal at first, but when fifteen minutes became twenty and then thirty, I was concerned that something had happened or something had come up. To my relief, she pulled into the parking lot just as I was about call her.

She pulled into the empty space next to me and rolled down the window, hurriedly gathering her things. "I'm so sorry," she said, flustered. "Some drama getting out the door, and then the traffic. Oh my god."

"No worries on my end. I'm glad you're here safe." I waited until she was ready before I opened the door for her. "Shall we?" I offered to hold her purse and gloves so she could get out of the car and put on her coat.

In the instant that she handed them to me and started to lean out of the car, I inadvertently glimpsed down the front of the maroon-and-cream patterned dress. The collar was low enough that I could tell without any doubt that she was not wearing a bra. I averted my eyes quickly and collected myself, but it was as if the universe was thwarting my determination to take things slowly with Betty and not let my loins get too far ahead of me.

Betty put on her jacket and hugged me as I held her purse and gloves. She held on for a relieved exhale before letting go.

"Are you hungry?" I asked her as I handed her the purse and gloves.

"Fucking starving, pardon me." She said as we started walking.

"Well, if you're down for sushi, I know a place," I said.

"Ooh," She said, looping her arm around mine. "I've only had sushi a couple times and I've been scared to try it here, so far from the ocean."

I launched into a dorky diatribe about how airplanes fly fresh fish in from the ocean every day and that restaurants have a special market at the airport where they buy it even before it needs to be put on ice, but that the best sushi isn't necessarily the freshest fish just like the freshest wine isn't the best and the freshest cheese is technically milk. Betty humored me on this and other topics and it was a pleasant stroll in the chilling night air.

We arrived at Ohka Sushi too late for sunset, but we were nonetheless seated with a decent view over the city park. The server arrived and asked for our drink orders.

"We'll do a purple haze, please," I said. "Have you ever had one?" I asked Betty.

"No, is that alcohol?" She replied?

"Yeah, it's sake and plum wine together." I replied as the server prompted for our IDs.

"Oh, no, I can't." Betty said.

Uh oh, I thought. "The purple haze for me then, please," I said, handing my ID to the server.

"Green tea, please," Betty said.

The server nodded, returned my ID, and walked away.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to presume," I said to Betty. "Are you, I mean, do you?"

"No, no, don't worry," she said. "I'm not twenty-one yet."

Betty, for all her poise and for all the variety of her life experience, was still twenty years old. I had just turned twenty-nine, and somewhere along the way I picked up the "half-your-age-plus-seven" rule of thumb which in my surprise at her age I quickly calculated in my head. She was out of this range, but only just barely. Still, were my intentions appropriate? She was her own person, and whatever intentions I may have had were subject to her intentions, anyway.

"I...I just turned twenty-nine." I leveled with her.

"That's cool," she replied without missing a beat.

"Twenty was cooler," I said eventually. "I wasn't cooler, but twenty-nine is kind of 'meh.'"

Betty laughed. "You seem to be doing all right."

The evening proceeded, and I was able to sprinkle tidbits about sushi preparations and flavors in amongst Betty's anecdotes and opinions on various things, and all the while I sipped purple haze and indulged in the bewitching hazel eyes looking back at me. Here and there, I had to redouble my focus on what she was saying in part because of her allure but in part because within our deepening connection I sensed some faint distraction or preoccupation in her. I tried not to let myself think that she was feeling reservations about my being almost a decade older than her, or that she was humoring me for sushi on a first date. And I tried not to think about her incredible body, but my struggles were only just beginning in that regard.

I paid the tab and Betty insisted on covering the tip, and we donned our jackets to head back into the clear, chilly night. It was a new moon, so even in the city lights the stars were a lovely canopy for our walk along the city park back to the botanical gardens. It made for spectacular holiday lights viewing and it was early enough in the season that there weren't too many people.

"Hold on a moment," I said as we approached the garden entrance. I pulled out a couple pairs of holiday lights viewing glasses - the cheap paper ones that look like 3D movie glasses but in which bright points are superimposed with candy canes or snowflakes - and I handed one to Betty.

"Awesome!" She chirped. She looked around at all the lights we could see from outside the gate and then looked back at me.

We shared a chuckle as we looked at each other with our paper glasses on, and when we fell silent, she took hers off and looked at me deeply. I took mine off to see her expression more clearly and she moved toward me slightly. I moved in slightly also, and she smirked for the briefest moment before looking down at our feet. When her eyes returned, we shared the unspoken thought that it was too soon to kiss. The night was still young, and we were perhaps unsure it was a good idea. At length, I stooped down, pecked her on the cheek, and took her by the hand.

"Come on," I led her into the gardens.

The circuitous path through the botanical gardens was adorned with holiday lights which formed themed outdoor rooms of color, adorned with illuminated garden sculptures and pergolas. As we meandered along, we traded glasses and pointed out little hidden gems to each other until we came to a bench cleverly situated in a nook between two ornamental fir trees.

I had thought to sit for a spell and perhaps share another deep, teasing gaze with Betty, but she suddenly leapt onto the bench, landing on the ball of one foot and twirling one full turn before coming to a stop where she stretched into a glorious arabesque pose.

"Whoa!" I blurted like a little boy. "That is amazing!"

Betty smiled knowingly at me, changed arm positions, tilted her head back, and kicked into a twirling dismount. She landed on the ground in front of the bench.

I was speechless. "Wh...how...?" I stammered as I staggered over her.

"Ballet and gymnastics," she beamed. "And karate."

Well that explains her figure, I thought to myself.

"You never mentioned you did any of that," I said. She had told me all about her upbringing, and in some detail, but she had neglected to mention how talented she was.