Two Last First Dates

by Kate O'Keeffe

  “Oh, my god,” Josh said.

  I harrumphed. The oldest trick in the book: trying to distract a player when she’s cleaning you up on the pool table. So not good sportsmanship.

  “Is that . . . ? No, it couldn’t be,” he continued.

  Without moving, I stole a glance at him for a second. He was looking intently at something on the other side of the room. I wasn’t falling for it. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “If you say so. Only, it looks a lot like that guy you like.”

  My heart jumped into my mouth. Marcus is here? Then, thankfully, my rational brain kicked in. He wasn’t here. He said he had a thing today, and besides, Josh didn’t even know Marcus. I returned my attention to the table and drew my cue stick back to take the shot.

  “Paige, I’m serious. I really do think that’s Ryan Gosling.”

  Ryan Gosling? I snapped my head up and peered at Josh. His mouth was open, and he was gawping at the other side of the pool hall. Could Ryan Gosling really be here? I swiveled my head to see what Josh was looking at. I searched frantically. Only, there was no Ryan Gosling, there wasn’t even a C-lister from the local soap. Immediately, I lost my balance, wobbling precariously on the edge of the pool table, trying my best to right myself. I fell flat on my face, knocking the balls in all directions across the table.

  How embarrassing.

  “Paige, are you all right?” Josh said, rushing over to the table from his spot by the bar leaner. His voice had an undeniable note of amusement to it.

  I pushed myself up, knocking the balls around the table, a couple pinging off the edges and back at me. I glared at Josh. How dare he play that trick on me! “You did that on purpose.”

  He pressed his lips together, trying to suppress a smile, threatening to turn into a full-blown laugh. “That was very funny.”

  “There’s no Ryan Gosling, is there?”

  He shook his head, chuckling.

  I was so angry with him I almost growled at him. “Help me up.”

  He put his hand out. I took it—only because I needed to get out of this humiliating position as quickly as possible—and he pulled me up into a sitting position.

  “Sorry.” He chuckled, clearly not sorry in the least. “You fell for that one: hook, line, and sinker.”

  From my spot on the table, I shot him a death stare. “Do you think it’s funny to play tricks on people? First the running off ahead of me at the speed of light and now this? Not funny, Josh.”

  He scrunched his nose. “It kind of is.”

  I scooted across the table until my legs were hanging over the edge, then I pushed myself off, landing on the sticky floor with a thud, right in front of Josh. He didn’t move, instead he stood there, grinning at me. We were so close we were almost touching. My heart began to beat faster and my eyes drifted to his lips. I opened my own. I wonder what those lips would be like to kiss?

  I blinked, snapping myself out of . . . whatever this was. I cleared my throat and took a step back from him, pressing myself up against the pool table. Kissing one man last night and thinking about kissing another now? What had gotten into me?

  “We . . . ah . . . need to start the game again.” I slunk along the side of the table for a couple of paces, looking down at the ground. This feeling was too strange, too out of the blue. We needed to focus on something—anything—else.

  “Sure. You get the rack and I’ll gather up all the, ah . . . balls.”

  Was it just me, or did he say that suggestively?

  Instead of answering that question, I busied myself with taking the rack off the wall and placing it on the dot at the end of the table. As Josh arranged the balls inside the rack, I offered him another drink. With his order for another bottle of beer, I leaned across the bar, more than a little relieved to be a good twenty feet away from the confusing situation at our pool table.

  “That was quite a spill,” Sal said once she’d finished serving the two men in front of me.

  “You saw that?” I cringed.

  “Sweetheart, everyone saw that.”

  “Ah.” I chewed the inside of my lip. “Well, Josh tricked me. He said Ryan Gosling was here.”

  “Ryan Gosling? Really?” Her eyes got huge. “How likely do you think it is that a Hollywood A-lister would walk into this pool hall on a Sunday afternoon?”

  “I know. It’s a good point.”

  “And you fell for that old trick?” Sal let out a laugh.

  I shook my head at my own stupidity. I’d been played, well and truly. I glanced over at Josh. I wondered whether the moment we’d just shared was part of the ruse—or something else entirely.

  * * *

  What was it with men and their confusing messages? On the one hand, there was my Mr. Dream Guy Marcus. He was clearly interested in me, and he treated me like a princess on both our dates. But then he didn’t want to come near me with a ten-foot barge pole at the end of our first date, and on the second? He propositioned me like I was a cheap one-night stand.

  And then there was Josh. Not my Mr. Dream Guy, but there was something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That moment at the pool hall where it felt like we could have kissed? I didn’t know what to think of that in the cold light of Monday morning.

  For the rest of the afternoon at the pool hall, Josh had carried on as though nothing had happened between us, as though we hadn’t had the moment that was now rattling around inside my head. In our games of pool, we’d been evenly matched: I won the first game, much to his disgust, and he’d won the next two, with me bringing up the fourth and final game with a famous victory I happily lauded over him. Then, we’d said goodbye, agreed to meet for a run Tuesday, and gone our separate ways.

  In the end, I guessed it was all in my head, something to do with being confused over Marcus and the mixed messages I was getting from him.

  I was standing at the kitchen counter, buttering a piece of toast that bore more than a passing resemblance to a wedge of concrete, when Dad waltzed into the room. He was humming a familiar-sounding song I couldn’t quite put a name to, dressed in his new work-out gear.

  “Good morning, honey! Beautiful day!” He pecked me on the cheek.

  “Hey, Dad.” I smiled at him. Taking a bite of my toast, I looked out at the gray morning outside. Not quite my idea of beautiful, but then I guess I wasn’t smitten with a Paleo-devotee called Gaylene. Absentmindedly, I chewed the toast. And chewed. And chewed. It was like having a lump of silly putty in my mouth—not that I actually knew what that was like, but I think I had a pretty clear idea now.

  “Oh, I see you’re eating the new paleo bread. Good, isn’t it? No grains, just protein and healthy fats.”

  I swallowed, feeling it travel down my esophagus like an elderly snail with a dodgy hip, landing with a thud in my belly. “Mm. It’s delicious.”

  “It’s so good for you. None of those evil grains and additives you get in regular bread. Gaylene made it.”

  I gave him a weak smile. Since when did Dad think grains were “evil”? I tried to think of something positive to say about the lump of horrible-ness on my plate. “I bet it’s full of roughage.”

  “Oh, yes. And protein and vitamins and minerals. Eat that every morning, and you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.”

  I looked down at the concrete slice on my plate. “Okay.”

  Not done with extolling its virtues, Dad added, “Plus, you’ll be full up until lunch. No need to snack on those high-calorie, nutritionally devoid snacks.”

  “Wow, Dad, you’re really into this whole diet thing,” I replied, willing myself to take another bite. I didn’t want to offend Dad, so I picked up the toast, took a mouse-sized nibble, and smiled at him. “Mm, yummy.”

  “Oh, it’s not just a diet, it’s a way of life. Gaylene said . . .”

  I zoned out while he launched into the nutritional value of this food and the sheer evil of that food. He had clearly drunk about a gallon of Gaylene’s Kool-Aid—although, shouldn’t
it be coconut water or hemp juice or something? I was quite certain Kool-Aid should fall under the “evil” category. I suppressed a chuckle.

  “So, you and Gaylene?” I led, keen to talk about something—anything—else. I mean, I hadn’t even had my first coffee of the day!

  Dad got that goofy, happy look people in the flush of new relationships get. “It’s good.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him in expectation.

  He caved in an instant. “Okay, it’s great. But I didn’t want to get your hopes up or anything.”

  “My hopes up? For what, a new mom?” I shook my head. “Dad, we talked about this. And anyway, I’m twenty-eight.”

  “I know, honey. It’s just with your mother and all, I didn’t want you to think I was rushing things.”

  I harrumphed. Like Marcus had wanted to “rush things” with me on Saturday night. “No, it’s good. So? Tell me about it.” I poured a couple of cups of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, the concrete slab masquerading as food left on the counter.

  Dad took the seat opposite me, his face rosy. “Well, Gaylene is . . . incredible, perfect. Well, not perfect, but she’s as close to it as I could imagine. And she’s really helped me. My pants are looser, see?” He stood up and pulled on his elasticate waistband. There was enough room in there to fit a small child. Weird image.

  “Yeah, I do. That’s awesome.”

  Dad eating better, losing weight, and getting healthy were exactly what I’d been trying to get him to do since his diagnosis. This was a good thing, a very good thing. So, why did I feel deflated?

  “And it’s all down to Gaylene.” His eyes shone bright. He put his hand on mine. “Honey? I think I’m in love.”

  My eyes got huge. “In love?”

  He nodded, his grin widening until it almost reached his ears. “I hope you’re okay with that.”

  “Oh, Dad! Of course, I am.” I leaped up and hugged him over the table, knocking my full cup of coffee over, its contents spilling and dripping down onto the floor. “Oh, bummer.”

  I grabbed the kitchen cloth and began sponging up the mess. “At least I didn’t get one of us.”

  Dad gestured toward my skirt. “I think you did.”

  I looked down at the brown splatter marks all over the floral dress I had put on this morning for my Email Marketing Assistant interview later in the day. Great, that’s just what I needed. I let out a defeated sigh.

  “Why don’t you go and change. I’ll clean this up.”

  “Sure, thanks.” I walked toward the staircase, dodging the coffee puddle on my way.

  “And honey?”

  I turned to look at Dad holding the cloth in his hand.

  “Thank you for . . . you know.”

  “Of course,” I replied, shooting him a smile.

  My Dad was in love with a Paleo enthusiast called Gaylene, and what did I have? I thought of Marcus, inviting me up to his hotel room and let out a sigh. Not a whole lot, that’s what.

  Chapter 17

  TODAY WAS THE DAY of the interview with Nettco Electricity “Madi with an i” O’Donnell thought I would “L. O. V. E. love.” Or was it that they would love me? I had forgotten amidst all the “super” and “fabulous” and other over-the-top adjectives Madi had used to describe me and the company. I would classify myself as an enthusiastic person, positive thinking, and happy—or at least, I used to be a lot more than I had been lately—but some people took it just too far, like they swallowed a pep rally for breakfast, or something.

  As I sized myself up in my bedroom mirror—the same brown and orange checked wrap dress I had worn on my last day at AGD—I took a deep breath. That famous nuns’ song from The Sound of Music popped into my head. “How do you solve a problem like Marcus . . .” I chewed the inside of my lip. How indeed? “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?” Was Marcus a cloud? An image of a fluffy white cloud with Marcus’s face floated through my mind.

  Even though I knew it was imperative he contact me first after Saturday night, I’d cracked under the sheer pressure, texting him late last night. I had aimed for a light and breezy tone and had spent at least an hour agonizing over what to say. In the end, all my deliberations and pacing around my room had resulted in “Serious dish abuse occurring. Call immediately,” which I had thought was totally cute and I was certain would bring a smile to his face.

  But had he texted me back? Had he shown any appreciation for the work that went into composing those six words, of hitting the right balance between being cheeky and playful and showing I was still interested in him? That would be a big fat “no.”

  I swept my hair up into a loose ponytail, allowing my dark hair to fall about my face. No, I had to ignore those pesky singing nuns and push the problem that was Marcus out of my mind, at least for the next few hours.

  A quick glance at my phone as I slipped it into my purse showed me there was still no response from him. I locked my jaw. I’d deal with that later, once I’d nailed this job interview and got my life back on track.

  After saying farewell to my happy, loved-up, anti-carb dad, checking my phone at least another hundred times on my way into the city, despite my resolution not to do so, I arrived at Nettco five minutes before my allotted interview time.

  I approached the white, glossy reception desk, where a woman was talking into an earpiece with a clipped, efficient voice that had a very nasal quality to it. She had severe black tattooed eyebrows and dark hair, which was pulled back into such a tight bun her eyes had taken on a cat-like appearance. That had to hurt.

  Her voice reminded me of Janice from Friends. I only hoped she didn’t have a sinus attack while I was here. That would be a sound to behold. I waited for “Janice” to finish her call, perusing the framed photographs on the walls. There were photos of happy families playing in fields, of pretty women laughing together as they shopped, of a group of workers in hard hats smiling as they looked at plans on a large sheet of paper laid out on a table. They were all lovely, positive images, but what they had to do with electricity was a complete mystery to me. Maybe they were all happy their microwaves worked or they got to watch MasterChef on TV?

  I thought of the Cozy Cottage website. We had happy, smiley people on it, enjoying their coffee and food, but the images were completely relevant to the business. After all, a café is a place where happy, smiley people are likely to go, not an electricity company. And the Cozy Cottage had been full to the brim since we’d gone live, with no time to even think, a steady stream of customers toting their coffee coupons.

  Bailey had run the numbers and told me how successful the coupon promo had been and how she was now thinking of employing not one, but two new members of staff to replace me when I left. I’d beamed with pride, knowing what I’d done for her and her special café.

  “Welcome to Nettco Electricity, Auckland’s favorite electricity company. How may I help you today?” “Janice” the receptionist said in her foghorn voice behind me.

  I turned and smiled at her, not one hundred percent certain she was talking to me or into her earpiece. She was smiling back at me in such a way as it looked almost painful for her, like arranging her facial features like that was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

  Still not clear she was talking to me, I took a step closer to the counter. I put my hand on my chest and mouthed “me?” She nodded at me, and I think she knitted her eyebrows together, but it was hard to tell. “Hi there,” I began, putting my hands on the counter in front of her. “I’m Paige Miller. I have an interview with Roger Barnett.”

  “Janice” stood up and pushed an electronic device toward me. She was so skeletal she could be mistaken for a toothpick, the leopard-print shirt and skirt combo she was wearing making her look like a stick insect at a costume party. If I’d had a Cozy Cottage cake in my purse, I’d have pulled it out and made her eat it, there and then. “Write your name here.”

  “Sure.” I picked up the stylus and wrote on the screen. In an instant, a
name tag popped out of the device. I ripped it off, peeled it away from the backing, and stuck it to my top.

  With an audible sniff, “Janice” picked up the paper backing, screwed it up in her hand, and pointed to an uncomfortable-looking red sofa by a glass table. “Take a seat.” It was an instruction, not a request.

  “Sure. Thanks, Ja—” I stopped before I said the name, turned, and did as I was told. The sofa was as uncomfortable as it looked.

  “Roger, I have your ten o’clock here,” I heard her say into her headset. “Yes . . . No . . . She might be.” She peered at me from her seat. I couldn’t help but listen in. What could they have been talking about? “I’m quite sure. Yes.”

  “Janice” finished up their conversation, pressing her earpiece with her finger, like Uhura from Star Trek. She turned her feline eyes on me. “Mr. Barnett will be out shortly.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks a lot.”

  Almost before I’d had a chance to finish my sentence, someone burst through the glass doors to my right. “Paige Miller! How fantastic to meet you!” a booming voice said.

  I stood up and turned to meet him and my hands were instantly grabbed by a short, wide man with a big grin and rosy cheeks. He looked like a bald Santa, and I felt a ping of disappointment that he wasn’t dressed in head-to-toe red.

  “Hi. You’re Mr. Barnett?”

  “I surely am! But you have to call me Roger, or else!” He shook both my hands with such vigor I was in serious fear for my rotator cuffs.

  “Well, it’s great to meet you, too . . . Roger.” My voice reverberated with the hand shaking. I wondered if any of my organs could get dislodged.

  “Madi said such great things, great things!” He still had both my hands in his, still shaking. My palms were starting to sweat, clamped between his warm mitts, my head bobbing up and down with his firm shake.