A Girl Like You Page 17

  What the fuck? I wondered.

  I started to go, then turned back to Curt. “Here’s some advice. Don’t order hot crab dip and wings on a date. Don’t rant about your divorce that was five years ago. And for god’s sake, never tell that dog suicide story again.”

  “Bitch,” he yelled as I hurried away.

  I’d been emotionally catfished, thinking there was a connection that turned out to be a complete shit show. Then I squared my shoulders and marched to my car, quite proud of myself for knowing a loser when I had dinner with one. And for—almost—having the last word.

  I was starting to learn how to recognize a really bad date when I was having one, and best of all, I learned how to get away with my dignity intact.

  Something had changed in my months trying to successfully online date. I’d learned that people are extremely unpredictable and carried so much baggage it was a wonder they could stand up. I’d learned that every encounter carried a lesson. They were getting me one step closer to figuring out what I wanted, like Eddie had said when he’d sounded like an Oxygen channel movie. I’d learned to never give up.

  But even if the universe didn’t send me whatever I was looking for, I was OK; I was good.

  51

  Well, go figure. One day, a guy walked right into the doctor’s office where Madison worked.

  “Tell me everything,” I said as we settled at my kitchen table a week later.

  I pushed my newest Amazon delivery box, a six-pack of florescent gym socks, under the table so she wouldn’t razz me about it.

  “Mom, he’s so great,” Maddy gushed. “He’s twenty-four. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Really nice smile.”

  “Does he have a name?” I poured us iced tea.

  “Billy. His name is Billy.” Maddy stirred her tea. “Don’t you love it when people use their nicknames instead of formal names?”

  “I do. I love being called Jessie.”

  The back door slammed and Ian came in from the gym, tossing his backpack in the laundry room and going immediately to open the fridge.

  We were silent.

  “Sorry.” Ian’s head appeared above the fridge door to look at us. “Am I interrupting some mother-daughter thing?”

  “Not at all, doodoo,” Madison said. “Pull up a chair.”

  Ian grabbed a Chobani and settled down at the table.

  “So Madison met someone,” I said, eager to catch him up.

  “Really? Good for you!” He high-fived his sister. “Is he The One?”

  Maddy flushed and she looked down at her hands. “I don’t even want to think about that. We just have a lot of fun together.”

  Over iced tea and grilled cheese sandwiches, Madd told us all about Billy. They both liked kayaking, classic movies, ice skating, autumn, white chocolate, seafood, and the color green. He was the older of two boys, had grown up in Rochester, and wanted to be a doctor.

  He was healthy, just going to see the doc for a physical for a rugby team.

  “He was so nervous when he came in, he stumbled over the carpet and almost fell.” Maddy laughed. “He told me later it wasn’t going to see the doctor that had him all worked up, it was seeing me behind the reception desk.”

  “Aww,” Ian and I said in unison.

  “Where does he live?” I asked, clearing off the sandwich plates.

  “An apartment in downtown Ashton.”

  “You haven’t been there yet, right?” Ian said, suddenly serious.

  “What? Yeah, I’ve been there. We’ve been dating a week, dumbo.”

  “Oh no,” Ian sighed. “Tell me you haven’t had sex with him yet.”

  Madison stared at him blankly. “We’ve been together practically every night for a week, Ian. What do you think?”

  I honestly couldn’t tell either way what she meant, so I said nothing.

  “God, Madd, you can’t give it up that early in a relationship! Now he has the upper hand!”

  “How does he have the upper hand?” Madison said incredulously.

  “Yeah, how does he?” I chimed in.

  “He got what he wanted; now he has the power,” Ian said. “It’s up to him where things go from here.”

  “I totally disagree,” Madison said flatly.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said.

  “Fine,” Ian said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Just be careful.”

  “Ian, you were catfished, like, months ago. You need to let it go and stop being so cynical,” Madison said.

  “Are you still upset about that?” I asked Ian with genuine concern. “You know it was OK what you did, right?”

  “And that little bitch Destini didn’t deserve you—you know that too, right?” Madd said.

  “Yeah, yeah, guys—don’t let this turn into a conversation about me.” Ian laughed. “I want to hear more from Madd so we can all jump on the happy train.”

  We talked another hour, and by the time we were done, we were all aboard Maddy’s happy train.

  52

  I drew the line: I was done spending my weekends scrolling through the familiar line-up of men on Fish, staying home on my front porch, or cleaning my already sparkling kitchen. I decided to launch a new strategy. I made myself a promise to go out every Friday night during the month of December. People still met in bars, right?

  Eddie and Don sometimes joined me, and Madison and Billy frequently showed up to keep me company, but the idea was to force myself to do things on my own, out of my comfort zone. It was my quest to become a confident, outgoing single woman who knew what she wanted. To grow organically, or “grass roots,” as Ian succinctly stated.

  Sometimes, I walked into a bar, found it nearly empty, looked around as if I were meeting friends, then left and tried someplace else. It could be exhausting and overwhelmingly intimidating, but hey, I was out of sweatpants and there was no Chex Mix being consumed.

  As if it were a secret club, I never seemed to find the hang-out place for older singles, like myself. I had a roster of places I rotated through, following the bands that played music that didn’t hurt my ears or remind me of my college years.

  Friday night, as part of my pre-planning, I called On Tap Grill and asked the bartender who was playing.

  “It’s Street Junction,” she told me.

  “What kind of music do they play?”

  “Kind of country rock with an edge.”

  “OK. Well, my girlfriends and I are looking for a place to go that’s really, you know, hoppin’,” I said, wincing for using such a ridiculous phrase.

  “Right now, there aren’t any seats at the bar, but it’s really hit or miss.”

  I grabbed the jean jacket and rumpled Penny’s furry back on my way out.

  “Wish me luck.”

  When I got to On Tap, the lot was half empty. Not a good sign. When I went in, there was only a handful of people, all of them couples.

  But it was only 10:00—early by some standards. The band was in full force. I took a seat at the bar on the far side and had to yell my order to the bartender, a blonde girl with a scoop-necked black top that showed way too much cleavage.

  “Pinot and a glass of club soda with ice, please.”

  She nodded like maybe she remembered me, or at least my odd drink order.

  I was the only person in the bar that wasn’t part of a couple. But instead of running, I forced myself to stick it out. Street Junction played an hour-long set of cover songs, “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Take It to the Limit,” and “Don’t Stop Believing,” among them. The bar gradually filled up with more couples and groups of friends.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  I turned to find a mid-fortyish man with a blue blazer and jeans, leaning in with blessedly wintergreen breath.

  “No, please, go ahead.”

  The guy signaled to a pretty woman near the door, who came right over to sit in the bar stool. I sighed heavily. That’s it, I thought. Time to run.

  Salamander’s was only a few miles up the road. The white
lights draped in the trees and neon signs in the windows made it look like a restaurant you’d go to on vacation, even though summer was long past. I went in past the red booths full of couples digging into big ceramic bowls of jambalaya and pulled pork.

  The band was an ’80s cover band, absolutely nothing original. I settled into a black bar stool as far from the music as possible.

  “Hey, haven’t seen you in a while,” said the bartender with the huge gauges in his earlobes. “Pinot and club, right?”

  “Right!”

  I sipped my drink.

  A cute guy with salt-and-pepper hair across the bar smiled in my direction. I smiled back, but as he lifted his beer in a toast, I saw the glint of a gold wedding band on his left hand. I shook my head and looked away, pretending to love the music.

  A few minutes later, Wedding Ring Guy got up to leave, and when he pushed his empty beer glass toward the bartender, I saw that the gold ring was a wider men’s dress ring, and it wasn’t even on his wedding ring finger.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  After a poor rendition of “Walk Like an Egyptian,” and an even worse “Footloose,” I noticed a guy in a baseball cap slumped over the bar, looking at me through half-closed eyes.

  Must be tired, I thought.

  The minute he saw me looking, he grabbed his drink and ran, I mean ran, to take the empty seat next to mine.

  “Heyyyyy,” he slurred. “Saw you lookin’ and had to come over.”

  “How old are you?” I yelled over the music.

  “Forty-eight.” He tipped back his beer glass to get the last dregs of foam.

  “Really? Forty-eight?”

  He thought about it long and hard for a moment before telling me with beer breath, “No, thirty-eight.”

  Okaaaay.

  “Want another drink?” the youngster asked.

  “I’m fine—thanks, though.”

  He banged his glass on the bar to get the server’s attention.

  “So what do you do?” I hollered into his ear.

  “Pipe fitter,” he said, flipping his baseball cap backwards, which made him look more like twenty-eight. “Live right down the road.”

  “Uh-huh.” I took a sip of my spritzer. “I hope you’re walking, not driving.”

  I didn’t ask his name and he didn’t ask for mine, which I figured was just as well, since he wouldn’t remember it the next day.

  “Bartender!” the kid hollered. “A beer and another round for the lady.”

  I wasn’t quite finished with my wine, but when another glass arrived, I paid with a $10 and left the $2 change on the bar.

  Baseball Cap, however, was having trouble.

  “Put it on my tab,” he said.

  “You don’t have a tab,” the bartender said patiently. She had a string of spiders tattooed across her throat.

  “Yesh, I do.”

  “Look, I’ll have to see a credit card. Or you gotta pay cash.”

  I slid carefully in my seat as far away as I could from Baseball Cap, hoping no one had seen him talking to me and think I was with him. He was still searching his empty wallet when the bartender came out from behind the bar and went to find the bouncer.

  “You better go,” I said. “They’re going to throw you out of here.”

  Baseball Cap was chugging his beer, shaking his head. “I ain’t leaving.”

  The bouncer came out of the back and strode over to us, tapping Baseball Cap’s shoulder.

  “Time to go, bud.”

  I nearly left the bar myself, but instead pretended to study the huge TV screen on the MMA channel. I watched a guy in a yellow leotard pick up his opponent and slam him onto the floor of the ring. The bouncer took Baseball Cap by the back of his shirt and hauled him up with one easy move. I think his feet were actually off the floor.

  “He still owes me six bucks for the drink!” the spidery bartender yelled, then shook her head and swept the empty beer glass off the bar into the sudsy sink.

  Meanwhile, I was watching MMA as if nothing unusual had happened in the seat directly next to mine.

  I looked at my cell. It was only 11:15, but I felt like I’d been there for hours.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” said a man with black hair and a puffy bomber jacket, startling me.

  “No, go ahead.” I waved my hand and looked away.

  “Thanks. How’s the music?”

  I turned to Bomber Jacket Man and saw the second seat had been taken by a brown-eyed man with a neatly trimmed beard, who was smiling at me.

  “Good, if you like ’80s pop.” I nodded my head to the cluster of twentysomethings jumping around to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

  “I’m Al,” Bomber Jacket said, “and this is Jeremy.”

  “Jessica.” I shook their hands, which were a little cold. “Have you been outside?”

  “Yeah, at a bonfire, at our age, believe it or not.”

  I tried to guess their ages. Al was gray at the temples and looked in his early fifties, but Jeremy could be anywhere from mid-forties to fifty. But at least not thirty-eight, and he looked at me with fully functional eyes rather than droopy lids.

  Blessedly, Al and Jeremy weren’t drunk, and as they nursed their beers slowly, it was clear they weren’t trying to get plastered.

  “Got kids?” Al asked.

  “Two. You?”

  “Four daughters,” Al said proudly, showing me pictures on his cell. “Two grandbabies already.”

  Jeremy was quieter, but when Al excused himself for the bathroom, he slid into the seat closer to me.

  “I like your sneakers,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I was nervous. I was also a bit buzzed from drinking three wine/club sodas over the course of the night.

  “So, what do you do, Jess?” he asked, stroking his chin and watching me intently.

  “Oh, I have a boring day job, but hey, it pays the bills,” I said, laughing in a way that sounded giddy to my own ears. “But I write at night.”

  “Fiction?”

  “Ad copy,” I said, feeling apologetic. “What do you do?”

  “Photography.” He smiled. “You know, newborns, weddings, engagement parties, I’m working on a calendar….”

  “Sounds awesome,” I said, kicking myself for using that word. “Do you work out of your house?”

  “I have a studio in a duplex I rent out on Campbell Lake.”

  “Cool,” I said. Campbell Lake was known for its luxury homes.

  “You have any pets?” Jeremy asked out of nowhere.

  “A little dog, Penny—she’s a little tomboy,” I said. “You?”

  “I rescue greyhounds. Right now, I have a brother and sister whose legs are in pretty rough shape. I brought them for X-rays yesterday and their femurs show tiny hairline fractures,” he said, his brown eyes somber.

  “That’s so sad!”

  “I try to carry them around as much as I can. I think they kinda like it, being lazy and relying on me.”

  Al came back and waited for Jeremy to get out of his seat, but he didn’t budge. The bar stool on the other side was empty, so he sat down there, and suddenly, I was monkey-in-the-middle.

  “So, where are your friends?” Al asked, looking around.

  “Um, I’m here alone.”

  “Really? Why?” Al looked genuinely confused.

  “It’s actually easier to meet people this way,” I said, as if I’d been successful at any attempts to mingle.

  “Well, you know, it is hard to approach a bunch of women all in a circle,” Al said, stretching his arms wide, stifling a yawn. “There’s always that one that’s married or something and she’s always like, ‘Let’s go home,’ as soon as you start talking to the cute one.”

  “Al doesn’t have much luck with women, as you can tell,” Jeremy laughed. “Can I buy you another drink?”

  “I’m fine—thanks, though.”

  “C’mon, don’t be one of those ‘I’m fine’ women,” Al said. “What are you drinking, a
nyway? What is that, water?”

  I looked at my glass of club soda, white wine, and melted ice. It was completely clear and looked more like water than water itself.

  “She said she’s fine,” Jeremy interjected.

  “Whatevs,” Al said, looking around the room. “Oh, man, is that Ricky?” He got up and bounded away.

  When I turned back to Jeremy, he was watching me closely. “Ignore him. He’s a big kid in a man’s body.”

  “How long have you known each other?”

  “I used to date his sister, in another life,” Jeremy said, tapping the beer glass with his long fingers. “He took me under his wing after she broke my heart. Kind of like an older brother.”

  “Sweet,” I said, kicking myself. Why was I trying so hard to sound like I was younger?

  “Yeah, I was a mess for a while, but I’ve found now that I’m in my forties, things don’t seem so epic, you know? I can survive just about anything now.”

  I closed my eyes briefly. Forties.

  “You’ve never been married?” I was wishing I’d taken Al up on that offer for another drink.

  “Nope,” Jeremy smiled. “Came close plenty of times, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  From across the bar, which was starting to empty out now as it neared 1:30 a.m., we heard Al whooping it up with a crowd of younger guys.

  “Hey, are you on Facebook?” Jeremy asked suddenly.

  I was instantly glad I’d changed my online status to single.

  Al came back out to the bar for another beer, and Jeremy excused himself, sparing me an answer.

  “So he used to date your sister?” I asked Al as he swigged his beer.

  “Yeah, my little sister; they almost got married. They were young, though, too young. That was almost twenty years ago.”

  I tried to do the math but failed.

  “How old is he now?”

  “Jeremy? He just turned forty-three.”

  I shuddered visibly. My wine-filled stomach lurched. Fourteen years younger. I would have figured it out in fractions or percentages, but again, I hated math.

  “I’m fifty-eight—you must be closer to my age. How old are you?” Al asked me pointedly.

  “A woman never reveals her age,” Jeremy said, sliding back into his seat.