Courtney was almost at his table. Her mouth turned up into a smile as she made eye contact with him. Melvin considered hanging up the phone, but who knew how a witch would respond to being hung up on? She might turn him into a frog or something.
"Melvin MacMuffin, what would be the point of turning you into a frog? Now, a monkey maybe. I could teach you to do tricks."
"I gotta go. I don't think your love ju... er... your potion worked, anyway," Melvin whispered, and he reached to press the talk button and hang up the phone.
"It works, Mel. You're about to find out," her voice buzzed in his ear, and then it was gone, his finger mashing the button and shutting off the phone with a shrill beep.
Courtney stood next to the table and slipped Melvin's salad in front of him. He admired her milky white skin, slender fingers, and her nails painted a light pink. It was a sparkly nail polish, something a junior high school girl might use, and it only reinforced her innocent charm.
"Anything else?" she asked after she'd finished putting down his water. A lemon bobbed up and down like a buoy between cubes of melting ice. Melvin licked his lips. Now was his chance. He'd ask her out. Now! Do it!
"No thanks," he said, giving her the biggest and dumbest smile he could muster. The imaginary voice of the witch called him a pussy in his head. Oh well, he'd been a pussy all his life, and he'd lived with it this long. What was another day? Courtney nodded and turned back towards the kitchen.
"Actually, uh, maybe you could help me instead," she said, twisting back around to face Melvin. She held the tray with both hands against her chest, her face glowing a light red around her nose and cheeks, along the area that her freckles populated. It took Melvin a moment to realize that she was blushing.
"Yes?" he asked. Was Courtney really blushing? He figured he must have embarrassed her somehow, by some rude statement or gesture or... what? Still, he'd made two different woman blush in the same day; it had to be some kind of record for him. Feeling self conscious, Melvin straightened his glasses.
"Uh, well. I don't know how to say this, but..." she stammered. She took a few steps back towards his table. Melvin questioned her with a raise of his eyebrows. Her cheeks flushed brighter.
"Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" she said, forcing the words out of her mouth as quickly as she could, her eyes unable to meet his. Melvin sat, flabbergasted. Courtney the waitress, the girl he had been moping after and admiring from afar for three months, had just asked him out.