Graham and I went to dinner at a restaurant called Relish. I ordered lunch from there once before, right after I voted. There was a sign that offered 10% off if you could show your “I voted” sticker. I had already taken mine off after taking a few pictures and putting one on Instagram. It was still in my purse, folded in half, and I asked the cashier if that would still count. It did, unlike my vote (haha, am I right?). I’d ordered a chicken salad sandwich with cheese grits. The chicken salad was good, but it tasted like it only had chicken, mayo, and dill in it. I prefer chicken salad that has more pieces, like onions or relish. When I make chicken salad at home, I use cream cheese since I don’t like mayo.
We had a few beers before we left and ordered another when we got there. I wanted to get a wrap that had turkey, avocado, and some other stuff that I don’t remember, but I wanted it as a sandwich on bread. I asked Graham if he thought they could do that, then decided of course they could. When I ordered it, the waitress said they couldn’t do that. Graham ordered a burger with bacon jam and I ordered a bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato sandwich with feta. We ordered side salads with our meal and a skillet of macaroni and cheese to split. When the waitress brought the food, she noticed the burger did not have any bacon jam on it. She brought it back with the proper topping almost instantly.
While we ate, Graham read me poems he has been working on for a manuscript. The first one was about a zoo. I realized I wasn’t paying attention when I heard him talking about chimps and tapirs. The poem was about a husband and wife with their child and I wondered if he thought of me when he was building this scenario. It ended with the wife going back to live with her parents – in the plural – and figured he probably didn’t. The next poem, or maybe the one after that, was about me. I tried not to cry and wondered if he noticed.