The Courting of Lavender Brown
Chapter One
"Hey, buddy," Piers Polkiss said to Dudley over the phone. "I'm going on a blind date; Elaine Telicott has set me up with this chick she met, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to accompany me, because Elaine said that this girl has a friend who is also in need of a date and she'd be more comfortable in a group date anyway than one-on-one."
"Sure, Piers. I'll go," Dudley said, gruffly.
Dudley hung up the phone. He had not had a date in ages, and he really wanted to spruce up for this one. There was only one girl who had ever gone out with him before, Annabelle Loston, and she only went out with him to make fun of him with her friends for thinking that she was sincere.
Piers inviting him on a double blind date was pretty much the only way he could attract girls. Sure, he was in boxing training and a lot of the other boxers had girlfriends. But Dudley just didn't appeal to girls, for whatever reason.
Dudley slicked his hair back on the night of the date. He wore his best suit, a yellow one that looked like a tuxedo. The bow-tie was green.
"Good gosh, Dudley. You're actually wearing that on a blind date?" Piers asked.
"It was either this or my father's tweed suit."
Piers tsk-tsked. "Good luck with your girl, man. And when you fail to secure a second date, I'm taking you out to buy you a proper suit."
Two girls appeared around the corner of the street. One had curly, brown hair, the other straight blond. The one with brown hair wore a navy blue dress, and the other girl wore a violet one.
"Which one of you is Piers?" the girl with brown hair said.
"I am," Piers said.
"I'm Penelope," she said, flashing him a smile. She ran her hand along his neck. "We'll see if we get along. Elaine said you're a nice enough young man."
"I'm not too nice," said Piers.
"You better not be. I like my men ambitious. Overly ambitious, I might add."
"If we see someone with a bucket seeking money for some crazy, made-up cause, I'll try to pull a little ambition out of the bucket as we walk past, without the scruffy moolah-seeker noticing a thing."
"I like a kidder," Penelope said. She took his hand. "Long lines. Mostly. Except for this one. It's rather short."
"What's that mean?"
"It means that if we end up liking each other tonight, the road ahead of us will be risky and hazardous. I hope you are willing to put forth all the effort it will require, if that be the case."
"I'll try my very best," Piers said. He was grinning like a fool. No girl had ever been this pleasant to him before.
The other girl was just standing there, waiting to be introduced.
"Oh, this is Lavender," said Penelope. "She can't live longer than two days without a man on her shoulder."
"Hey!" Lavender said, slapping Penelope on the back of the arm.
"Just stating things the way I see them," Penelope said.
"This here is Dudley," said Piers.
The girl that Piers' date had brought for Dudley had the grayest eyes he had ever seen. Maybe they were so blue that they appeared gray in certain lights.
"I like your eyes," Dudley said.
"Good, because most men I know despise them."
Dudley wondered why. Who would dislike such wonderful eyes? They were scintillating, breathtaking. He could get lost in them. Really lost. And he was certain that if he did, he wouldn't want to find his way back.
In the restaurant, Lavender finally remarked on Dudley's suit. "Interesting choice for a first blind date."
"I thought I might dazzle you by wearing a suit the color of the sun."
"At least you didn't pick silver," Lavender said.
"What's wrong with silver?"
"I'd rather not say at the moment. If this thing works out, I might tell you some day. I know that's not what you want to heart, but it's a very personal matter."
Dudley figured that if a girl said something was a personal matter, she meant it. And as he did not want to offend this girl who had been so kind of enough to agree to date him, when no other girl would, he'd better not press matters.
On Piers and Penelope's side of the table, they were starting to get comfortable with one another.
"I used to have blond hair," Penelope said. "But I dyed it brown."
"I like it the way it is now," Piers said.
"Thanks. I'm sort of thinking of dying it auburn."
"No. Keep it brown."
"If I end up liking you, maybe I will."
The waiter came to take their order. Piers asked for lobster and scalloped potatoes. Penelope wanted lobster too, but fruit salad rather than potatoes. Dudley asked for a chicken platter with rice.
Lavender ordered raw steak.
"Are you sure you want it raw?" Dudley asked.
"It's the way my…erm, family eats it."
The waiter promised to return with their order.
Lavender ate her food roughly, as though it were going to be her last meal. Dudley stared at her. He did not think he'd ever meet a girl who didn't have the most exquisite table manners, especially a girl as attractive as Lavender was.
She caught him staring. "Sorry. My appetite is on haywire right now," she said.
"I don't mind at all," Dudley said.
Penelope and Piers shared a kiss while they were both still chewing lobster. Dudley wouldn't dare kiss Lavender with her mouth full—not unless she invited him to do so.
Was that why girls didn't want to date him? Because he didn't take risks like that? But that was silly. It was Penelope who had started kissing Piers while they both were chewing. Not the other way around.
And then, as Dudley stood up to let Lavender leave to go to the bathroom to "freshen up" (as she put it), the tablecloth lifted a bit and he saw that Penelope had extricated one of her feet from her sandal and put in Piers' lap.
Dudley hoped that Lavender wouldn't expect him to move that fast. He wanted a relationship with a girl, not a brief fling. He was certainly that Piers and Penelope wouldn't even make it to a second date at the rate they were moving, and not because Penelope didn't like Piers, as she so obviously did, but because she was likely to agree to the deed before a second date could be established.
Dudley choked on his tea at the thought. And when Lavender returned, Piers and Penelope were making out as though either of them were about to be shot by a firing squad and they needed one last lip encounter before that woeful event took place.
Lavender resumed her seat, and for the rest of the time in the restaurant, Lavender and Dudley pointedly looked anywhere but at each other or the couple sitting across from them. Dudley watched the train circling the restaurant on a rack around the booths. It made small train noises like chug-a-chug and such, even emitting little puffs of smoke.
"I've never ridden a train," Dudley said as they left the restaurant.
"I've been on one several times," Lavender said. "You really ought to try riding one sometime."
"I'd only like to ride one if you were there beside me."
She blushed. "I suppose you're going to want a second date, then."
"Will you go on another date with me?"
"Of course."
"Another double," Piers said, cutting in between them.
Lavender moved toward Penelope, who was walking away. The former waved once at Dudley before disappearing around a corner.
"You're going to wait to pounce on her?"
"I don't pounce on girls," Piers said. "I wait for them to come to me."
"She was coming all over you in the restaurant."
"It's the lemon aftershave. Girls love it."
Dudley made a mental note of that. He would try it on Lavender on their second date.
"Though I didn't notice you and Lavender making any sort of contact."
"We had conversation. That is contact enough."
"No wonder you can't get a date on your own, Big D. You've got to make girls feel wanted. Not touching them doesn't accomplish that."
"She agreed to a second date," Dudley said.
"Yes, because she felt sorry for you. Did you not see it in her gray eyes?"
"That sorrow wasn't for me. I bet she's just known a little hardship, that's all."
"Yeah, hardship from guys not touching her."
"You're sick, you know that?"
Dudley reached over to box him on the ears, but Piers dodged him.
"Now, now, don't hit the guy who set you up with the girl of your dreams."
"I don't even know anything her. She may not be the girl of my dreams."
"Trust me, Big D. I know when a guy is crazy about a girl, even if he doesn't touch her. You've got it bad for Lavender. Will probably even buy lavender mascara just so that you can have something with her name in it on your bedside table to help you sleep at night."
"I don't have trouble sleeping at night."
"You will now. Because all you'll think about will be your sweet, precious Lavender," Piers said, saying the last three words in a baby voice.
"I will not," Dudley said, making another half-hearted lunge at Piers. But when he got home, Lavender was all he could think about, even as he tried to focus on what he needed to do the next day. Even watching Die Hard made him think of Lavender. Her scent, her teeth, her gray eyes that Dudley wanted to drown in. She sure was amazing.
When he turned on his radio to find a song to lure him to sleep, he somehow heard a song with some strange lyrics, something about a cauldron full of love. He wondered about that. Was there an American singer who had a witch gimmick or something? But the singer didn't sound American; she sounded British. How odd.
What was even more peculiar was that when he changed the station, it still blasted that song. Same for the third, fourth, and fifth stations. It must be really popular. Funny he never heard it before, and didn't know the singer. He wasn't exactly a music aficionado. It didn't bother him too much to be in the dark over this.
The radio finally went silent, and he drifted off to sleep.