The Date | Flora Leask Arizpe
The Date is a short story by English Literature and Philosophy student, Flora Leask Arizpe. The story is about a terrible date that takes place in Mexico City. It highlights societal pressures that are enacted on women to attain a certain femininity, that Flora feels is especially present in parts of Latin America.
A photo taken by Flora in her grandparents garden in Mexico.
“Empty your mind of all your worldly concerns…” the tanned yoga instructor drawled into her ear. “Empty yourself of all needs and desires – leave your obsessions behind.”
Maria Fernanda tried her hardest to empty her mind - really, and truly. But she just couldn’t stop thinking about her brain, and how it was inside her head, and how her mind was inside her brain, and then it all became very confusing. She felt a cold drop of sweat travel from her eyebrows to the tip of her nose.
Maria Fernanda, in fact, could not afford to empty her mind of all her needs, desires, and obsessions. She was meeting Santiago Bernal for the first time today – as a potential love interest, no less - and so had to ensure that everything was perfect. She had to be in tip-top condition entirely or Santiago would take one look at her and go, and she couldn’t ruin this one chance she had in his complete utter and undivided attention. She was doing some pre-breakfast yoga, to tone her body and mind. That was step one. Step two was to have a light breakfast, some yoghurt and berries, something suitably light and feminine to set the bar for the rest of the day. Something to fill her up enough, but not bloat her. Maria Fernanda hated bloating with a passion, although it unfortunately seemed to plague her every single day of her life. It was her nemesis, a betrayal of her body in Judas-like terms. She hated the thought that people might notice an unsightly bulge in her figure, reminiscent of gas; she hated her belly’s constant demand to be filled, its reserves of fat; she hated the reminder that the body consumes and excretes uncontrollably, including hers. The last twist of the knife was that the more she thought about it, the more stressed she would get, inducing bloating. She closed her eyes in exasperation.
“Empty… empty… empty…” She chanted. It was to be her mantra, this morning, her vision for the day. To be empty so that Santiago could come and fill up her body like a car in an empty spot. Not sexually, of course – not yet anyway. Maria wanted to toe the line between good Catholic girl but also the ideal girlfriend who was down for it ‘whenever’ but she would deal with that matter further down the line. No – today, she was ready to receive it all: his opinions, to store for future reference his likes and dislikes perfectly; his every indication of feeling, which she would squirrel away to study later; his appraisals of her dress and body, which she would keep note of to maintain for next time. If there was a next time. She was a chalice; he was a sword. She had to be vigilant to his every movement and flow according to it, how water flows and takes the perfect shape of an empty glass. That was why it was so difficult to choose between the fitted, thigh length dress and boots, and the more flirtatious shorts and blouse.
“…And flow… You are water, you are air. Incorporeal and light, move with grace and don’t take up unnecessary space. Chaturanga… upward dog, to downward dog now. Take five deep breaths and stay present.”
A half-hour later, with muscles trembling, Maria headed back to her room to shower.
The reflection which looked back at her from the mirror was that of a very nearly perfect female body. She checked each portion and proportion of it with a mental checklist: legs good arms a little too muscular perhaps tits very good ass could be bigger stomach could be smaller face wish there wasn’t that beauty mark there waist could be smaller wish I could get a rib removed like that girl on that show. She had given herself a Brazilian the other day, relished each dirty wax strip peeling off her imperfections – the dark hair that looked so nauseating stuck to the flesh-covered goo, like mosquitoes drowning in candle wax.
It was very nearly perfect, but there was still some work to do. Maria Fernanda, avoiding her own gaze in the full-length mirror, looked instead at the slightly soiled and cracked white tiles that constituted her shower. Ever since the divorce, the house had fallen into less-than-perfect condition. Her mother had had to fire all but one maid, the old housekeeper Doña Victoria, who could no longer clean much due to a bad hip, because her parents seemed intent on emptying each other’s bank accounts in a pointless lawsuit. Santiago Bernal didn’t have cracked and dirty tiles in his bathroom, Maria was entirely sure, because his father worked in the Mexican government and made a lot of money - possibly endless amounts which allowed Santiago to have a flat in Mexico City as a first-year student, instead of staying at home like others his age. To someone in preparatoria, her last year of high school, Santiago seemed the coolest and most grown up person in the world with his own flat, which was why the stress was returning. Maria Fernanda did some yogic chanting again - “Empty… empty… empty…” - as she stepped into the shower.
Santiago seemed to be in a bit of a rush when he came to pick up his date in his black BMW. He was an hour and a half late, for one thing, causing Maria’s nerves to fray to such an extent that she had nearly begun to chew her expensively manicured nails. She had watched the hot sun move overhead, breathlessly, mopping up the beads of sweat which formed on her upper lip for what seemed like forever, while her stomach rumbled anxiously. When his large car finally, and noisily, trundled up outside her house she took a deep breath. This was it, everything in her life had been practice for this moment, research into the study of how to be the perfect woman for a man like Santiago. A true gentleman, she had heard, now studying Economics at the UNAM. He was being set up to work in the government too, like his father, apparently. A man like that could make a lot of money, would be dependable, and respectable. She had to catch him, magnetize herself and become irresistible, make him stick to her like he didn’t have a choice. Then she would be set for life.
Maria Fernanda stepped out in her short black dress and long boots. Santiago waved at her from inside of his car, cigarette in his hand. She could feel his eyes on her body and sucked in her stomach so that he wouldn’t be able to detect anything unsightly. Feeling a wave of nausea lap at her periphery, she wondered why he wasn’t coming out of his car to open the door for her like what was proper. This moment of hesitance was noticed by the young man, who smirked a little and then ducked out of his seat. As he walked towards her, the sun bounced off of his apologetic white smile and Maria Fernanda forgave him for all the stress he had caused her up until this moment – he was very handsome. His clean-shaven chin and slicked-back hair reminded her of that handsome actor in Hollywood – Tom Cruise, that was his name. He reminded her of a Mexican Tom Cruise.
“Morning, guapa. Sorry I’m a little late, I forgot I had football practice.” Santiago opened the car door for her with a flourish and ushered her in, giving her the customary peck on each cheek. What wasn’t customary, however, was how he lingered after each kiss, how she could feel his rough skin against her smooth cheek – and how he looked down her dress for a second, and then flashed her a guilty, endearing smile. He smelled of tobacco, something she didn’t particularly care for. But then again this was the Santiago Bernal smiling at her, helping her into his car, looking down her top. He could do anything, and she wouldn’t mind, because she didn’t have a mind when it came to him.
Santiago talked the whole drive to the restaurant, for which Maria was grateful. It meant she didn’t even have time to mess it up for herself by giving some opinion which he might disagree with. He talked incessantly about cars, music, football, the club he was at last night and how much money he had spent there. In the meantime, Maria Fernanda looked around the interior of his car with dismay. There was rubbish everywhere – cigarette packets were strewn around the floor along with McDonald wrappers, with empty Coca-Cola cans completing the trifecta. Maria Fernanda had never had McDonald’s, her mother always said it was too unhealthy. And she didn’t like coke because it had too many calories in it for a drink.
There was also a smell – Maria had to look around a bit to try and discover the source. The smell had hit her immediately when climbing into his expensive car, an unavoidable cocktail of unwashed clothes, bonfire, and alcohol. She finally located the source for each of these individual scents – there was a large pile of laundry in the backseat, presumably unwashed. Santiago noticed her anxious expression upon seeing the mountain of clothing, crusty-looking socks included, and mentioned quite openly that he never did his own washing, and that his father’s maid took care his laundry once a week. It was in his plan to stop off at the family house on the way to lunch and drop it off, if that was okay with her. Maria Fernanda was very okay with the idea of getting away from that pungent scent as quickly as possible. The bonfire, she noted while Santiago was telling her about his dad’s latest appearance in the news, came from Santiago himself. He must have been sitting out by a fire with his friends last night, and not bothered to change his clothes. Or shower. Maria felt a blush rise up her neck when she thought about the painstaking ritual she had undergone this morning to choose an outfit, or the day before when she had spent a lot of money buying a home waxing kit. Still – these things had to be done if you were a woman, and not if you were a man. And that was why they paid for the bill, she thought, and felt her blush recede slightly. The faint alcohol smell she tried to ignore as best she could.
The last fly in the ointment was when Santiago pulled into an Argentinian Steakhouse. Maria Fernanda was a militant vegetarian, she liked the way that word tripped from her tongue with all of its connotations – she maybe didn’t eat much, subsisting on nibbled crudites like a gazelle; that she was a caring person, for animals and the environment, with caring instincts. It also gave her an excuse to be fussy with food when she didn’t feel like eating. She had mentioned her vegetarianism to Santiago during their many text exchanges, and so such proof of his forgetfulness when it came to her, or suggestion that he maybe didn’t care as much as she did, burned her eyes with a feeling, an un-empty and very real one. Sat side-by-side in his uncomfortably hot BMW, she blinked away her noiseless emotion and said, without looking at him:
“Oh – Santiago, this place looks really great, but it’s just that, um, I’m a vegetarian.” She tried to make her voice as soothing as possible, so that he wouldn’t get offended or think that she was angry at him.
Santiago was unbuckling the seatbelt. He seemed not to notice any of the controlled storm of emotions that was going on next to him, but maybe, Maria Fernanda thought, she was just hiding it well.
“Ah, such a shame, Maria, you should have said before! They do some amazing steaks here and I was craving one all day yesterday.” He looked at her over the top of his sunglasses and smiled again. “But we’re here now – and if I ask them, they’ll make some sort of little carrot sticks and lettuce for you, conejita.”
The nickname, little bunny, provoked such a rush of endorphins in Maria Fernanda that she almost fell trying to leave the car.
A second image taken by Flora in her grandparents garden in Mexico City.
As they walked into the restaurant, Maria’s stomach rumbled hungrily at the site of plates of chips and avocado and sour cream. She let Santiago order for her, though, and looked at her plate of crudites with a mixture of hatred and satisfaction. Perfect. Now she just had to keep this up every time her and Santiago saw each other. At the end of meal, she walked out with her stomach rumbling just as much as when it came in. She flopped less-than-gracefully into the car, feeling tired and weak. Santiago seemed not to notice, he was lighting another cigarette and had bumped into some from of his from university, to which he was talking in undertones. Maria didn’t care what he was saying, she was just glad to have a break in which he wasn’t talking endlessly at her. It was high noon, and the frame of the car was burning to the touch, the air laden with smells from the restaurant which at the same time made the girl feel queasy and hungry. The sky was empty of all clouds, leaving no respite from the harsh sunlight. Maria had a moment - waiting for Santiago - where she felt like her body was as pink and weeping as the inside of a steak, that she might melt any second because she was empty of bones, and her entrails might spill out into the concrete of the car park. At the same time she wished that Santiago, that anyone, would come and save her from this horrible reverie which had taken hold of her, this hot despair which crashed like waves again and again. But Santiago was still talking to his friend. He wasn’t the prince charming who was going to save her, evidently. But he was Santiago, and he was older, and he was rich, and more importantly he seemed to like her from the way he looked at her. Slowly, Maria Fernanda dragged herself away from what was going on inside her head and checked her phone. It was filled with messages from her friends asking how the date went. Her lips trembled slightly, and then she smiled. She applied lip gloss – Santiago was coming towards her. Maria was alert once more, like how a rabbit twitches when it hears any noise.
The smell of cigarettes and sweat invaded her nose once again. Because she had made herself so empty, she felt it fill her up like an unwanted liquid. Santiago was getting really close to her now, she noticed, but felt uncharacteristically relaxed about it. Maria, in fact, felt like she was watching what was happening from a good ten inches away from her head. Santiago was cupping Maria’s chin in his large, rough hands, saying something to her that she didn’t understand. He stooped slightly, and Maria knew what was going to happen before it did. She watched, unimpassioned, the front of his shirt gape wide like a hungry mouth as he bent towards her, and the hairy chest contained within. She watched as his two lips meet hers in a wet crush, an imposition of his grand persona onto her empty and frail one. It was awkward to watch – such a large man lean over her like that, pin her against the car - reminiscent of a dog chewing on a bone. Maria Fernanda, however, didn’t feel disgust at the scene. She didn’t feel jubilant either that she had successfully complete what she set out to do, at least for now, for this moment - although, however faintly, a ghost of victory hung a limpid banner in her chest. Instead, Maria Fernanda felt the absence of all worldly concerns, obsessions, and desires. In short, she felt empty.
About Flora
She/her
Flora Leask Arizpe is a Scottish/Mexican writer of short stories and poetry from Glasgow. She is studying English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. A link to her published and unpublished writing can be found on her website below.
Instagram: @floraleask / https://attackofthepaperwizards.wordpress.com/
