News Item

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

-- Dorothy Parker

He convinces her to go out for dinner and drinks after work in an attempt to cheer her up. He has to take her hand and lead her through the restaurant to their table, then watches as she blindly grabs for the menu and pushes it so close to her face he's sure she'll put her head right through the thing.

He sighs and snatches the menu away from her.

"I was reading that!" she protests. She tries to reach across the table to grab the menu back from him, but instead only manages to knock over the salt and pepper shakers.

"Settle down there, Mr. Magoo," he says playfully and reaches out to hold her hand. "I wouldn't call what you were doing reading."

"I was reading it," she insists. "I was doing fine. I really think I'm getting over this whole... blindness thing. I don't really need my glasses anymore."

"Okay," he says and nods. He tries to imagine what he looks like as a blurry mass (because he's confident that's all she can see him as). "I will believe that and give you this menu back if you can tell me what restaurant we're at."

She is silent for a long while and he can tell she's trying to discern their location using her other senses - the ones that work properly.

"No fair using context clues," he says. "Will you just put on your glasses, please? For me?"

She sighs and blindly digs through her purse until she finds her glasses. She puts the glasses on and blinks at him from behind the lenses. She pouts and says, "There. Happy?"

"You're beautiful," he tells her, then hands her the menu. "Are you really going to let the people we work with bother you that much about your glasses?"

"No," she says. She sets the menu down. "It's just... I don't know. Hearing it all day and... well, it's like being in high school all over again. Today just brought me back to feeling awkward about myself, I guess. I look ridiculous."

He considers this for a moment then reaches out and gently takes the glasses from her face. He ignores her questions and takes his cell phone from his pocket and takes a picture of himself. He smiles then puts the glasses back on her, gently pushing her hair behind her ears as he does.

"What was that about?" she asks and adjusts the frames so they're sitting straight on her nose.

He turns his phone so that she can see the picture of him. "That's how you look ridiculous in those glasses. You, however, with or without the glasses, look beautiful."

She smiles softly then picks up the menu and begins to read it (really read it).