Six sentence story in response to Keiths Rambling’s and girlieontheedge’s prompt word RESERVE.

Mixed Signals

I waited at the desk of the concierge for such an interminable length of time, I was not sure I wanted to dine here any longer, even if it was billed as the most deliciously posh restaurants on the coast, in decor and ambience as well as mouth-watering entrees. 

The concierge returned to his over-polished, finger-print free lectern, perusing his book of reservations for what felt like the hundredth time, all the while shaking his head apologetically stating he did not have a reservation for this night in my name. 

I provided the credit-card confirmation number again and waited, again, while he sat yet another expensively dressed, twenty-something couple to one of the much advertised private cubicles tucked into alcoves smelling of cedar, salt and whisky, this having been an old mill long ago. 

The non-plussed concierge returned with a piece of paper retrieved from what I assumed, was their administrative office, asking me if any other persons had access to my credit card to which I started to reply of course not, until I remembered my boyfriend, soon to be fiancé, had borrowed my card a time or two, just as I had his. 

 I asked why the concierge wanted to know about another user on my card, to which he replied he had located the confirmation, in fact he had discovered two confirmations for two separate nights in his lovely restaurant and perhaps we, my boyfriend and I had mixed our signals up concerning the night we had chosen to reserve our table. 

I did not believe so and wondered why my boyfriend had made a reservation using my card without telling me, unless, yes of course, he was planning the exact same surprise for me as I had planned for him this evening, then as absently begun to stroke the little blue jewelers box in my pocket, I saw him sitting in a private alcove partially hidden by sweeping palm fronds and he was with someone else, holding her hand, stroking it and that’s when he looked up, our eyes met, I turned, dropped the box into the little waste basket at the foot of the lectern and in answer to the concierge’s query about my reservation, I shook my head and whispered, “Cancel it, apparently there has been a major case of mixed signals.”