""Number one,"" Lucy read. ""Accept any fix-up or date you"re offered.""
Miranda smiled. "Ha! Already doing that! Roxy and I will be soon be the dating queens of New York. Our personal ads will be printed in Wednesday"s Natterer."
"Good for the both of you!" Lucy said.
"Ugh, no way am I ever dating," I said. "Last night is a perfectly good example of why dating spells disaster."
"That wasn"t a date," Lucy said. "That was an ambush."
I let out the breath I"d been holding all morning.
"What about you, Lucy?" Roxy asked.
She mock-shivered. "I haven"t had a date since my junior year of college. I"ll hold off a little bit."
"What"s number two on Bri"s list?" Miranda asked.
"List five things about your ex that you didn"t like," Lucy said. "I"ll go first. Let"s see, I didn"t like Larry"s..." She gnawed her lower lip. "That"s weird. Now that I actually have to think of something I didn"t like, I can"t."
"How about his obsession with paper plates?" Miranda suggested. "NoI have a better onehis habit of pushing turkeys off tables on major holidays!"
Lucy laughed. "I didn"t like that at all. Either one."
We spent the next hour topping each other with the stupid things we didn"t like about our exes, from the way Jodie made scrambled eggs (she never scrambled them enough), to the way Gabriel never said "bless you" when Miranda sneezed, to the way Robbie had to have a three-course meal every night of his life. And then we traded bacon for sausage and rye for a slice of wheat toast and the sun was going down before I even realized we"d been talking for hours.
Chapter twelve.
Roxy I had dates! Only two set up so far, but two shining new possibilities to show me a brand-new world (and a world that didn"t involve getting stood up). The personal ad had come out two days ago. So far I had twelve responses, most of them from toads. Miranda had fifty-six. It seemed guys wanted a blond bombsh.e.l.l more than they wanted a sophisticated writer.
Eight of my respondees had also responded to Miranda"s ad, and when we compared their voice mail messages, we found they had completely different things to say to a woman they thought was a serious author and to a woman they thought was a blond bombsh.e.l.l. Of the four I had left on my list, one spoke with so heavy an accent I couldn"t make out the last three digits of the telephone number he left. Another spent his entire two-minute voice mail allotment telling me how nervous he was, then got cut off before even mentioning his name, let alone leaving his phone number.
And then there were two: Didier (who mentioned he wasn"t remotely French), a television news producer who lived in Soho. He liked "bad TV and bad girls, but good books and good jokes." The "bad girls" part struck me as a little iffy, but Miranda said a runaway bridenot that I"d mentioned that to Didiermade me an instant bad girl. In other words, she"d said, it was a synonym for interesting.
"Interesting?" I"d repeated, wrinkling my face. "The word is confused."
Miranda insisted the "good books" made up for the "bad girls." I thought they canceled each other out, but I was willing to meet him for coffee. He was intelligent and funny on the phone, told me a couple of crazy stories about his job (he worked on the eleven-o"clock news), and he sounded adorable. Plus, he wasn"t blond or green-eyed like Robbie. Dark haired and dark eyed was a plus. Dark was different. So was Kansas, where he was from. Didier was a long way from home. Robbie had never left home. Well, except to move around the corner with his girlfriend of twenty years who came complete with his mother"s recipes for lasagna and pot roast.
Date Number Two was Nathanial. Twenty-eight. Six-one. One seventy. Brown/Blue. Wall Street. Stockbroker. Upper West Side with a roommate, his cousin. Loved sports, Mexican food, smart people, nice people, traveling. Hoped to hear from me soon.
And he had, right away. He didn"t sound especially interesting, the way Didier had, but we spoke so easilyabout everything and nothingfor a half hour on the phone, until Miranda swiped across her neck with her hand. Apparently, you were supposed to leave something to talk about on the actual date.
Tonight, a cold and flurrying Friday, was Didier. Sunday night was Nathanial. After work, Miranda poked her head into my room with two outfits on each arm, but this time I wanted to dress myself. Be myselfwhoever that was starting to be. A nice sweater, nice pants, nice shoes. Nothing tight. Nothing fancy. Just comfortable. Clothes that made me feel good.
Didier and I were meeting for coffee at Starbucks at seven-thirty. I arrived on time but didn"t see anyone matching his description. I hopped up on a stool at the long counter against the floor-to-ceiling window and waited. And waited. Five minutes late. Ten minutes late. Deep sigh. Another no-show? Was this what dating was going to be like?
No. There he was. And very cute! Tall, dark and deliciously cute, with a mop of silky brown hair and intense dark eyes. I recognized him by the red tie he"d said he"d wear. He eyed the women lining the counterhis gaze stopping on a long-haired blonde for a little too long considering I"d said I was the opposite of blondeand then he spotted me. He smiled instantly, revealing too-white teeth.
"Roxy?" he asked.
I nodded. "Didier?"
He nodded and extended his hand. "Nice to meet you. You"re everything I imagined you were from our conversation."
Off to a good start! "You too," I said. "So, how about we go order something to drink and maybe split a really gooey treat."
He shook his head. "Nothing for me, thanks. The prices in here are crazy." He pulled a small silver travel cup from his knapsack. "Office coffee"s free."
"Very economical of you," I muttered. "I"ll be right back."
Okay, so he was saving money for a downpayment on an apartment. Or for a vacation to Alaska. Don"t judge too fast, Rox.
But wasn"t there such a thing as good first-date behavior? I might not have had a date since show-and-tell in first grade, but I had a clue.
I returned with my latte and a fudge brownie with two forks. He practically scarfed down the entire thing before I even stirred Sweet "n Low into my coffee.
"So you said you were from Bay Ridge, right?" Didier asked. "I have to tell you, I was a little worried. But you hide it well. I"d never guess you were B&T."
An insult five minutes into our date wasn"t a good sign. B&T stood for "bridge and tunnel." It"s what people like the new me called people who lived in the "outer" boroughs of New York City (the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island) or parts of New Jersey, "tacky" types (to use the sn.o.bs" word) who had to commute to Manhattan via bridges and tunnels for work or entertainment.
"Not everyone in Brooklyn looks like they just walked off the set of Sat.u.r.day Night Fever," I said, stabbing the last bite of brownie before he could eat that too. "Not that there"s anything wrong with looking like that." My entire family looked like that, and Sat.u.r.day Night Fever was made almost thirty years ago.
He smiled. "Ah, you"re a sensitive one. Good to know. I"ll watch what I say."
Instead of watching what you say, how about if you don"t have insulting thoughts in the first place?
He held up his Thermos. Did he want me to get him a free refill? "How about a toast?" he asked.
I held up my latte. "To?"
"To getting to know each other," he said.
Okay. Better. Maybe the guy had simply walked in nervous. Miranda had cautioned me to allow leeway for boy-nerves.
"To getting to know each other," I repeated, and clinked the thermos.
He shifted his stool closer to mine so that our thighs were touching. A hand suddenly rested on my thigh. I was never so aware of a hand before.
"You look so hot in that sweater," he said, eyeing my cream-colored turtleneck, which was hardly s.e.xy. "I"d much rather eat you than a brownie," he whispered, shoving his hand between my legs and grabbing my "Hey!" I said, jumping up. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing? We"re in Starbucks, for G.o.d"s sake!" As if grabbing someone"s crotch was appropriate anywhere.
The too-white teeth gleamed at me. "I knowisn"t it hot?"
What was hot was my coffee, which I wanted to throw in his face. "Have a nice life," I said, and got the h.e.l.l out of there. What a pig!
Five blocks later, I managed to calm down. I took myself to a different Starbucks, ordered a double espresso and the brownie I hadn"t gotten to enjoy and I gobbled it up.
Sigh. I was zero for two at this dating thing. I"d gotten stood up and I"d gotten felt up. But hopefully, up was the key word. Surely dating couldn"t go downhill from here.
The next morning, buoyed by Miranda"s, "Forget that slime! You"re writing a book proposal! And you have a hot date with a really nice-sounding guy tomorrow night," I took the train to Bay Ridge. The last thing I wanted was to show up in the old neighborhood looking miserable. So I got happy fast. I thought of the book proposal. I thought of the interviews I"d set up with my mother and my cousin Daria, a married mom of twin two-year-olds. All the questions I had about my family"s marriages would now be answered. And I had carte blanche to be as nosy as I wanted. My mother had been thrilled when I told her about the book. "A book about us! We"ll definitely make the Guinness Book of World Records now!" Within a half hour, she"d called everyone she"d ever met to tell them that not only was there going to be a book about the family, but her daughter was writing it. At least I hadn"t had to worry about being pelted with tomatoes when I stepped out of the subway station. I might have left Robbie at the altar, but I"d done so to become a famous writer.
I was meeting Patty, former maid of honor and one of my oldest friends, for brunch before my interview with my mom. How good it would feel to hang out with Patty. It would be like old timeswell, almost like old times. During the past couple of months, we"d barely spoken, except to have awkward small-talk. She couldn"t understand how I could walk away from a great guy like Robbie, walk away from what she thought was a perfect life. And I couldn"t understand how she couldn"t understand.
As the train rumbled and shook underground, carrying me back to Brooklyn, I felt so disconnected from Bay Ridge and the people and places who"d made up my life. This was the very train, the number four, albeit going in the opposite direction, that I"d taken to Manhattan the day I"d run away from my wedding. And here I was, going back for the first time since Thanksgiving weekend.
The train lurched to a stop, and so did my heart at the familiarity. The signs. The kiosks. The regulars. There was something very soothing about coming home after a long time away, even if I didn"t want to live there.
As I walked the four blocks to the coffee lounge where I was meeting Patty, I pa.s.sed Robbie"s law office. He was very likely working there right now. I glanced up at the windows and thought about stopping in for just a moment, then checked myself fast. What I needed was a hug. And I"d get that from Patty.
"Your mother won"t return any of the wedding presents," Patty said after the waitress set down our omelets and two more mugs of steaming and much-needed coffee. "She says she knows you"ll come crawling back with your tail between your legs."
"Now that"s faith," I said.
"It"s why you"re here, though, right?" she asked, pushing her long red hair behind her shoulders.
"Actually, Patty, I"m here because I"ve been offered the opportunity to write a book about my family, and I"m going to interview my mom and my cousin Daria to include in the proposal I need to turn in."
"I heard. You writing a book. How la-di-da," she said, sipping her coffee. Patty was a lot like my mother: she liked things to stay the same. "So that"s the only reason you"re here?"
"Not you too, Patty. Don"t tell me you"re disappointed I didn"t say I was here to get back together with Robbie."
"My problem isn"t the reason you"re here, Roxy. It"s that you"re here."
Huh?
She stared at me. "Roxy, is it really over between you and Robbie? For good?"
"Why, do you want him?" I joked.
She looked away and turned red.
I sat up in my seat. "Patty?"
She poked at her omelet. "I"ve always thought he was so cute. And he"s such a great guy."
Patty and Robbie? I couldn"t see it. Then again, I couldn"t see Robbie with anyone but me. It had been me and him for too long.
She pushed her plate away. "Now that you"ll be hanging around interviewing your family, you"ll be back in his face. With you in Manhattan, I thought I had a chance. But now, forget it."
Would Robbie go for Patty? She was the queen of traditional. I stuffed my mouth with a bite of my omelet to give me a reprieve from answering. I had no idea how I felt about this. Is Robbie up for grabs? Of course he was. He had to be. I"d let him go. One no-show and one crotch-grabber and I"m suddenly unwilling to let someone else have Robbie? Is that what"s going on?
"Patty, is this some sort of ploy to get me all jealous and running back to him? Are you in cahoots with my mother? With Robbie?"
"Wow, you really think the entire world revolves around you," she snapped. "I told you this because I"m crazy about Robbie and always have been. I repressed it for years, but once it was clear you weren"t coming back, it all came up and out."
I stared at her. "I didn"t know," I said. "I never knew." Had I been a Bridezilla like Miranda"s friend Emmalee? My entire life? Without realizing it? How could I not notice a good friend of mine was in love with my boyfriend? With my fiance?
"Well, now you do," she said. "Don"t look at me like that. Like I"ve been keeping a big secret from you during our entire friendship. You"ve been doing the same thing, keeping it a secret from me and Robbie. You were always waiting to make your great escape."
"Patty, first of all, that"s not true."
"And second of all?" she asked.
"I don"t know."
Her eyebrow shot up. "So Robbie"s off-limits?"
"I"m not saying that. I have no rights to him. In fact, I"ve started dating. I placed a personal ad in the New York Natterer."
Be my friend and don"t go after him. How about that?
She looked at me as though I sprouted a second nose. "Well, Robbie"s so broken up about you that I doubt I even have a chance, but if I don"t try I"ll never know."
Unfortunately, that was my motto.
"Why are you ringing the bell?" my mother asked when I arrived at her house. "You don"t have to ring the doorbell. Do you think I ring the doorbell when I go visit Grandma and Grandpa?"
"I won"t ring the doorbell the next time. Okay?"
I peered behind her, afraid that the living room would be stuck in time and that my wedding gown would still be hanging in plastic on the back of the closet door. But the room was as it always was, tidy and smelling faintly of Lysol.
"Did you run into Robbie?" she asked as she set down a tray of cut vegetables and dip and two gla.s.ses of soda.
"Nope."
"Well that"s too bad." She sat down across from me on the easy chair and folded her hands in her lap. "Let"s start the interview."
I pulled out my mini tape recorder, set it on the table, and pressed Record.
She burst into tears. Oh, Lord. Enough was enough.
"Mom"
"What are you doing?" she asked, dabbing under her eyes with a tissue. "You"re living in a corner of a room with a folding screen for a door and dating G.o.d knows who, and who knows what will happen to you?"
"Mom"
She held up a hand. "I don"t know what"s out there, Rox. I don"t know what"s going to happen to you. With Robbie, I know. I won"t have to worry for a second. I know exactly what your life will be. But with you out there, living somewhere else, dating who knows who, falling for this one and that one." She shook her head. "I don"t know what"s going to happen to you."
Ah. I was beginning to understand where she was coming from. She was just scared for me.
I sat down next to her and took her hand in mine. "Mom, first of all, I love how much you care about me. And I know this might not be much help, but I"m glad I don"t know what"s going to happen."
"But you"re not safe, Roxy."