A Girl Like You Read online

  I was on my way to regaining my fitness, for god’s sake.

  I scooped up Penny for bed and was just dozing off when Ian came in and turned on the hall light.

  “How was the play?”

  “It was good,” he said, stroking Penny’s belly. “It was a musical.”

  “You don’t like musicals.”

  “This one I did, because there wasn’t a lot of dancing.”

  “So, when are you guys going back out?”

  Ian stood up. “I don’t think we are meant to be anything more than friends. She’s great, but there wasn’t that spark. And that’s OK.”

  “So, what’s your plan now?”

  Ian grinned. “I’m just going to see what comes along and go with it. Try to stop looking so hard. There’s a girl out there somewhere looking for me—and who knows, she may just find me first.”

  When he took the stairs two at a time to go up to his room, I could hear him humming.

  58

  I had high hopes in February for LaughingLarry, the maple syrup mogul. His profile picture showed a smiling guy in front of an enormous vat bubbling with sugary syrup. He was holding a huge wooden spoon as if ready to give it all a stir, and he had such muscular arms he probably could do it, too.

  “So, you make maple syrup?” I asked Larry, who had carefully clipped salt-and-pepper hair and an unfortunate cologne choice. We were having chicken Caesar salad and iced tea in an Ashton bistro.

  “Family business,” he said. “Oh, I have something for you,” he said and searched his blazer pocket and produced a glass bottle shaped like a maple leaf, filled with amber liquid. “Our best seller. We’re in specialty stores across the Northeast, expanding soon down the coast.”

  “Thank you,” I said, tucking the bottle into my purse.

  Larry had pulled up in front of the restaurant in a Mercedes, talked about his barn and horses, and I realized he’d made his fortune in syrup.

  I pictured myself at Laughing Larry’s syrup production barn, lining up glass bottles, putting on the amber labels, then retiring up to the big house for a bottle of good wine and some grilled salmon, maybe prepared by a house chef.

  “I like your earrings,” he said as we ate our salads. He looked far wearier and more worn-out than his online photo, but made up for this with sincerity.

  “So, how long have you been on Fish?” I asked Larry.

  “About three months this time. I keep quitting, then signing back up.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been ready to throw in the towel lots of times. Lots of desperate men on there.”

  “And women,” Larry said, stirring sugar into his iced tea. “They should come with warning signs.”

  “Yeah, ha-ha.”

  “So you’re divorced?” Larry said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

  “Yup.” I poked at my salad, shaking my head a little to make my feather earrings move in a way I hoped was seductive. “You?”

  “I’m still married.”

  I choked on a crouton. “Excuse me?”

  To my horror, Larry’s eyes welled up with tears. “Well, my wife, she left me.”

  “I’m so sorry. How long ago?

  “Thirty weeks,” Larry said. “That’s not the worst of it.”

  “No?”

  Laughing Larry was a misnomer. He put down his fork and sat back in a way I knew meant he was going to tell me the whole story. I looked around for the waiter, hoping he’d arrive with the check.

  Larry produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Left me for our son’s best friend. Just up and left.”

  “How old is your son?”

  “Twenty-four.” He began to sob.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said weakly.

  “I think they went to Long Island,” Larry said. “Some days I can’t even get out of bed; syrup production slowed down drastically these last six months. One of these days, I’m going down there to look for her.”

  “I am really sorry,” I said, coming up blank with anything else to offer in the way of sympathy.

  The waiter zoomed in with the check and Larry sat back up to pay with a gold Visa card.

  On the sidewalk after lunch, he leaned in—probably for a peck on the cheek, but I wasn’t prepared and didn’t have time to turn my face, so his lips landed on mine.

  “Oh,” I said awkwardly. “OK, well there, now. There you go.”

  “Thanks for being a good listener,” Larry said, the crumpled handkerchief still sticking out of the lapel pocket on his blazer.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I said, feeling like that wasn’t quite the right thing to say, but again, I came up empty. “And good luck with that syrup production!”

  We parted ways, and when I looked back, Larry had the posture of someone exhausted and beaten down. Poor guy.

  The kids and I doused pancakes with the amber syrup for days. It was overly sweet and delicious.

  “He had a Mercedes and horses?” Ian asked, chewing and pouring more syrup on his pancakes. “Geez, you kind of struck out there.”

  * * *

  GoodSoul’s photo on Fish showed a cute, buttoned-up type with scholarly-looking glasses. His profile paragraph had flawless grammar and spelling, a major plus in my book.

  “Let’s go feed the ducks at Kelly Park on Saturday,” Mr.GoodSoul messaged me. “I’ll bring the bread.”

  It was mid-February, but the cold had given us a reprieve. Temps were in the mid-40s and winds had lost their ferocity. We met at a park bench. I liked Mr.GoodSoul’s bookish vibe, sort of college prof mixed with lab scientist. His real name was Gordon, and he brought gluten-free, organic Ancient Grains bread that he tore into small, perfectly square pieces before dropping them at the ducks’ feet. It looked as if he’d been doing it all his life. I imagined him meeting a different woman every weekend, tossing pumpernickel with PleasantlyPlump, seedless rye with TinyandTrim, baguette with BigandBeautiful.

  “I used to take my kids here when they were young,” I said, remembering them chasing and trying to catch the ducks.

  “Kids? You have kids?”

  “Yeah, well, they’re adults now. Madison’s twenty-four and Ian is twenty-one.”

  “Hm. I don’t have children.” Gordon frowned at his handful of bread. “I don’t recall seeing that detail in your profile.”

  “Well, you must have nieces and nephews that you spoil,” I said, blowing on my hands because I’d been optimistic about the weather and hadn’t brought my gloves.

  “None, actually. Kids were never a priority.”

  The conversation pretty much went flat after that, and soon the bread was reduced to tiny crumbs. The ducks were pissed. They started squawking, waddling their way out of the pond toward us. They looked aggressive and determined, as if we were deliberately withholding bread scraps. I was laughing, but Gordon turned and started striding quickly away.

  The angry ducks chased us, right on our heels, using their crazy flapping wings as weapons. You never know the wrath of a duck until you’ve been flapped by one. I started laughing so hard I almost peed, but Gordon wasn’t pleased.

  “It was nice meeting you, Jessica,” he said, holding out his hand stiffly.

  “You too, Gordy,” I said, just to see how he’d react to not being called his formal name.

  He shuddered, then put on sunglasses. “Right-oh,” he said before turning away, not even bothering to walk me to my car.

  * * *

  StarPlayer’s photo on the dating site was so fuzzy I could only tell he was wearing hockey skates and waving at someone. With my expectations as low as they could get, I agreed to meet Mr. Star for morning bagels. When I got to the coffee shop, a short man I didn’t recognize stood up and waved his arms to catch my attention.

  StarPlayer, real name Eric, was at least ten years older than the Fish hockey photo (if the photo was even him), and the hair he’d described as “thinning” was bald on the top, long and stringy in the back. I�
��ll take a good shaved head any day. This guy hadn’t seen shampoo in a week.

  We stood in line silently to order coffee. I got a plain bagel and a small chai tea. Eric ordered basically everything in the display case: an oversized cinnamon bun, a huge chunk of coffee cake, a cheese Danish, and a bran muffin.

  “Hungry?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, a little,” he said, counting out exact change at the register. “I’m going running later and I need my carbs. Training for a marathon, actually.”

  “Really? Which one?”

  “Ah, not sure yet,” Eric’s face reddened visibly. “Gotta start small.”

  “Oh yeah, sure.”

  We carried our tray to a small round table and pulled up wicker chairs.

  Then I felt something brush up against my ankle. Through the glass-topped table, I could see that Eric had slipped off his moccasin (no running shoes for him), and was stroking me with his foot, wearing white tube socks that had seen better days. I jerked my leg away, spilling my tea.

  “Whoa there, clumsy,” Eric said, patting at the table with his napkin. “Don’t get too excited; there’s no rush.”

  “What?” I choked a little.

  “I mean don’t be so antsy. We’ve got plenty of time. Let me dig into my food and then we can get outta here.”

  “Are you thinking I liked your little game of footsie?”

  “I know women like you,” Eric said calmly, bits of cheese Danish stuck to the sides of his mouth. “You haven’t been touched in a very, very long time, so when a man makes a move, you really dig it.”

  “Have a nice day,” I said, standing quickly and moving to the door.

  “Hey, what about your bagel?” Eric called after me.

  “Help yourself!”

  As I ran by the window outside, I saw him lean over and take the bagel off my plate.

  “This isn’t going well,” I texted Eddie. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Give it some time.”

  “I’ve given it lots of time! Enough for me to see how random this all is. Some of the profiles sound great, but when you see them in person, no thank you. Worse, the ghosting makes me feel ridiculous and rejected.”

  “How can they reject you when they don’t even know you?”

  “Yeah, that’s what Ian says, but when you message for a week then he drops off the face of the earth, it’s not exactly a confidence-builder.”

  “Ya gotta just keep trying.”

  “I don’t think you understand how awful it is, Eddie. One guy messaged me sixteen times in two hours! Another one said he wanted to name his cat after me. Another guy asked if he could bring his ex-wife to meet me, because he values her opinion!”

  “OK, so you’re getting some of the frogs out of the way. Keep your chin up.”

  “I’ll try. Gotta go now. I have an important date with my vibrator.”

  “Have you set a personal record yet?”

  “Still working on that,” I texted. “Night.”

  59

  It was time for the late winter continuing ed classes at the high school, and Eddie signed us up for a doozie: “Cascade of Color: Aura Drawing.”

  “Geez, Eddie, I was never good at art—you know that. You always got straight A’s,” I protested. “I couldn’t even make a square paperweight in ceramics, remember? The teacher thought it was supposed to be a donut?”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “It did look a lot like a chocolate glazed.”

  I threw a dish towel at him. Penny looked up, then settled her chin on her front paws to snooze again.

  Tuesday night’s aura class was in the same high school art room where I met Eddie and he took an artistically challenged freshman under his wing. I’d been worried we were expected to draw auras with crayons, but the room’s largest table was covered with sticks of pastel chalk, from subtle pink to shocking chartreuse.

  One of the smallest women I’d ever seen was standing with her back to us, humming and swaying her hips, when we walked in.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Oh sweet Jesus, you scared me,” the tiny woman said, fanning herself with a sheet of construction paper. “It’s not nice to sneak up on people like that.”

  “Sorry,” I said, trying to judge the woman’s height compared to mine. She was easily under five feet tall. “We’re here for the aura class?”

  “Of course you are! I’m Giovanna—call me Gigi.” She held out a hand covered in turquoise rings and bracelets, some of them silver, some beaded, all of them making her wrist look fragile. But her grip was like steel when she shook my hand. I tried not to wince. When she let go, my fingers felt numb.

  “Brenda!” Gigi called. “Come over and meet two new friendly faces!”

  A sullen teenager looked up blankly from her cell phone, made no eye contact whatsoever, and went back to texting.

  “Yours?” Eddie asked.

  Gigi sighed. “My youngest. Your aura’s looking mighty dark,” she yelled to her daughter. “We’re expecting another student, but it’s almost 7:00, so let’s dig in,” Gigi said, unwinding an orange gauze scarf from her neck to reveal a third-eye pendant.

  Eddie and I sat down on stools next to each other.

  “No, no—don’t sit so close; you must give your auras room to breathe!” Gigi was scolding us now.

  Obediently, because we were, after all, in school, we sat a few seats apart. My stool was tippy, but I was afraid complaining would make my aura darken.

  “When you go deep into yourself and face who you truly are, colors will reveal themselves,” Gigi whispered.

  Eddie and I leaned in to hear better.

  “What colors do you think you see?” We waited, thinking the question was rhetorical. “What do you see??” Gigi sounded impatient.

  “Ah…rainbows?” I guessed.

  “No,” she said sternly. “That’s what amateurs see. Try harder.”

  Across the room, Gigi’s daughter was making circling motions around her head and pointing to her mom.

  “Let’s try something else to break this glacier that’s getting in the way,” Gigi said. “Close your eyes and pick up a pastel stick. Pick the one that calls to you.”

  I reached as far as I could, and when I opened my eyes, I was holding dark gray chalk. Eddie had a bright, sunny yellow.

  “And so, we begin,” Gigi whispered. “We see the light, and we see the dark.”

  I wished I saw an easy exit so I could make a run for the parking lot.

  Gigi swept aside the chalk and rolled out an enormous swath of butcher paper, covering the art table from end to end. “See where your color takes you,” she instructed.

  Eddie immediately began drawing stark geometrics, shading with his one chalk stick as if he had the whole box. I drew a smiley face.

  “Sorry I’m late.” A woman with a blonde ponytail and a fringed leather purse rushed in. “Traffic.”

  “Yes, well, how do you think we got here?” Gigi asked in a voice so loud it echoed around the art room. “There’s always traffic, but your classmates made it here on time. You must be Nadine. Take a seat.”

  All three of us sat up straight on our art stools. Gigi clearly meant business.

  “Pick up a mirror and gaze into it,” Gigi whispered. “Look beyond your own face and watch for rolling hills of color.”

  There were small hand mirrors on the table. When I gazed into mine, all I saw was a zit cropping up on my chin, and that my waterproof mascara hadn’t lived up to its claim to last 24 hours.

  Across the table from me, Nadine was using her mirror to touch up her burgundy matte lipstick. Luckily, Gigi was focusing on Eddie.

  “You have gorgeous light around you, Edward,” she whispered. “Can you see it?”

  Eddie’s face turned pink, but he nodded gravely into his mirror. “Well, the lighting in here must be kind; no fluorescents.”

  “OK,” Gigi said, using her outside voice. “Edward is getting it, but you two—” She looked stern
ly over the tops of her leopard cat-eye glasses. “You two need to open yourselves up to the nuances of color.”

  Nadine and I looked at each other. I tapped my front tooth to let her know her lipstick was smeared. She smiled, and I hoped I had cleared my own dark aura by being nice.

  “Let’s pair up,” Gigi said briskly. “You ladies work together.”

  I always hated when teachers told us to choose partners in gym class, because I was frequently the odd person out and had to do the drill with the teacher as a partner. Aside from a brief burst of potential in gymnastics, I’d never been a high achiever in anything athletic.

  Ignoring us completely, Gigi turned Eddie’s stool to face her and began scribbling furiously on the white butcher paper with deep gold chalk.

  “I guess it’s up to us to figure this out,” I said quietly to Nadine.

  “No whispering!” Gigi snapped, still drawing.

  Nadine and I giggled.

  “And no laughing! If you can’t be serious, I will ask you to leave!” And send us…where? Detention? The principal’s office?

  “So, we’re supposed to draw each other’s auras?” Nadine said. “I’m not much of an artist. Is it supposed to look like a rainbow?”

  “That’s what I thought!” I said, dangerously close to eliciting the wrath of Gigi. “But she said no. The colors are supposed to call out to us.”

  “Hmm,” Nadine said, pursing her burgundy lips. “Did I miss the part where she gave instructions?”

  “That’s the thing about these night classes…the teachers don’t actually teach. They make us figure it out ourselves.”

  Nadine looked thoroughly confused.

  “Let me take a stab at this,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

  “Do you need to see my eyes, or can I close them?” she asked nervously.

  “Eh, close them.”

  I heard Gigi say softly to Eddie, “Your colors are alive; they’re calling me closer.”

  I glanced at Eddie and he shrugged, still faintly blushing.

  For the next twenty minutes, I chose chalk sticks randomly and scribbled on the white paper, forming deep purple circles, red waves, stripes of forest green, and in one corner, a small square of brown. When it felt complete, I stopped and sprayed my work with a bottle of hairspray Gigi had brought to keep the colors from smearing.