“I’m thinking about it,” Bill said, which was true; he sometimes was, but he didn’t do more than that.
Although Stan knew what the answer was going to be, because he had made the suggestion before, he ventured to say, “Why don’t you try online dating again?”
“That’s just a bunch of emails back and forth,” Bill grumbled with disdain, “that tapers off to nothing. Once I did meet someone through a dating site. But she didn’t look anything like her pictures. She must have been ten years older than her photos. At least ten years older. I didn’t recognize her at all in person.”
Stan had heard that story before. “I read that seventy-five percent of people over the age of forty-five find dates online,” he remarked.
“Don’t remind me of my age. You know I don’t like that. How’s your food?” Bill’s plate was picked clean of every rice grain, and he was acting restless.
“OK,” Stan replied. “It’s edible. It’s worth five dollars, maybe even six dollars.” Despite his effort to consume quickly, he had eaten only half of his lunch. He kept on eating. “I think you should try online dating again,” he said.
Bill didn’t like the idea. When he had tried it before, he had received no responses from most women he had emailed. This was probably because they had the most beautiful pictures he could find, and they were all much younger than him. But still the results had been very disappointing, and he wasn’t eager to be ignored by more women. The old computer he owned also made online dating very tiresome, because it operated so slowly and often froze. When that happened, his passion for finding someone was interrupted, and it didn’t always return after rebooting. However, Bill knew that Stan was trying to be helpful, and he had heard of happy couples, who had met online, so he replied without any enthusiasm, “Maybe I will. I know Linda is doing it. Her profile says she only wants to meet guys making at least twice what I do.”
“You’ll find someone before she will,” Stan assured him. “Just say you’ll be glad to hear from any woman, even someone earning nothing at all and loaded with debt. You’ll have women falling all over you.” Stan laughed loudly at his joke, while Bill grimaced. Bill then switched the conversation topic and inquired about Stan’s children. They talked about the kids and other less personal things, before returning to their offices for the afternoon.
Chapter 5
On the way back to his office, Bill pondered his dating situation with all the honesty he could muster.
When he was still a teenager, he had begun to date. Since then he had never been without a steady girlfriend for more than a couple of weeks, but now the road of relationships he had traveled seemed to have come to an end. With Linda, he felt he had left the paved road of his past, as bumpy and swerving as that had become, for a narrow, rocky, dirty byway, where he had been stuck in the mud again and again and nearly shaken to pieces. Now a path for two-person vehicles had entirely disappeared, and he was on foot in a wilderness where he did not know in which direction to go to reach a road again. He felt lost and alone, but he had sense enough to know that turning around and looking for Linda was not the way forward.
He needed to meet new women. That was a certainty. But as he looked around on the crowded sidewalks of Midtown, where many women were passing, none of whom caught his eye, he said to himself, “They have to be the type for me.” Bill was trying to be honest with himself. Although he was no Adonis, he thought that his happiness depended on finding an Aphrodite. Linda, his ex-wife, and all the women he had dated had been remarkably good-looking and much younger. They were the type of women that other men would stop and stare at. That was the reason he had dated them. No matter how much inner beauty a woman possessed, unless she had that something extra on the outside, a young extra something, Bill sighed, she wasn’t meant for him. His ideal woman, he thought, would have the kindness, generosity, and patience of a saint. And she would look like a sinner, a young sinner, with a body that made him want to sin and sin again. He preferred to find a woman with both qualities—a heart of gold and the shape of a super model—but he would settle for someone who came close to meeting the second criterion. He knew he had to be somewhat flexible, if he really wanted to find a replacement for Linda.
He had met Linda, and several other dates before her, through a matchmaking agency, but he wasn’t eager to return there. None of the women, whom the agency had paired him with, had ever worked out, and the cost of the service was much too high for such misfires. He didn’t want to remember what he had paid. At that agency, he thought, he was at a disadvantage, too, because he lived in a rental studio. One of the matchmakers had once said, looking at him as if he was a homeless person, “Most of our women prefer to find men who own houses,” which he felt was insulting, because his studio was big enough for two people. He could even make room in the closets, he thought, for a woman to have one-third of the space. As much as he disliked online dating, Bill thought that he might have more and better prospects there than with an agency. He didn’t have to immediately tell any woman, whom he met online, where he lived.
By the time Bill entered the building in which his office was located, he had completed the honest appraisal of his situation and reached a plan of action.
A half hour after he returned from lunch, he put into execution the first step of his plan. He left his seat and strolled over to the office manager’s desk. Katie, the office manager, was busy chatting with friends and exchanging photos over the Internet, as she normally did for at least three business hours every day. A young woman in her early twenties, she instinctively knew that her personal life was more important than her professional activity. She kept a low profile in the office and never did more than she was asked or required to do. Even her clothes and looks blended in with the office furnishings.
“Katie, are you busy?” Bill asked nonchalantly, as if he was going to ask her to fax something or make some copies.
“Just a moment. I have to wrap something up,” she replied, continuing to finish a posting to her friends full of smiley faces and exclamation points and hardly any subject at all. Bill waited patiently. The other three employees in the marketing agency were ostensibly busy at their desks. Bill could see all of them, because the office had no cubicles or walls. It was one big room.
“OK. What is it?” she said, after hitting the send button.
“Do you have time to take my picture with the office camera?” Bill asked.
“We already have business pics on the server. I can send you the link,” she replied. Bill often had trouble finding files on the shared drives, Katie knew. She had seen that his own files were a mass of disorganization.
“For the proposal I’m working on, I’d like something a bit more casual,” Bill explained. Since he was the office’s new businessperson, he was frequently preparing proposals for new business. The rare success of his proposals probably stemmed from his philosophy of sales, which he explained to his coworkers from time to time. A new client would join them for two reasons, he would say. First, the client recognizes that we have the necessary skills. Second, and more importantly, the client feels that we are a good emotional match. In accordance with his philosophical strategy, Bill spent most of his time wining, dining, and shooting the breeze with potential clients, especially if they were men. Consequently, it appeared to both his contacts and his coworkers that Bill worked harder at having a good time than selling his company’s services.
Claire, the office boss, immediately looked up from her desk when she heard Bill. She thought his sales philosophy made some sense, but at the moment he didn’t seem to be engaged in company business to her. “Doesn’t sound like a business proposal to me,” she remarked cleverly. “Whom are you proposing to?” A stylish dresser in her late thirties, Claire was full of conceit over the professional success she had achieved and how good she still looked. To Bill, however, she had never looked good enough.
The copywriter, Debbie, also in her late thirties, who was heavily overweight and
self-absorbed, stopped nibbling on a cookie to chime in, “Are you finally going to make the big leap from Linda?” Everyone in the office knew of Bill’s stop-and-start dating with Linda. He shared more details when it was going well, but he said enough when it wasn’t for all of his coworkers to get the big picture.
“She must have stuck too many needles in you,” Claire added.
Shaking with laughter at that joke, Debbie said, “It’s about time. She poked you more than a pincushion.” Despite her uncontrolled laughing, Debbie would have liked someone to poke her once in a while. She was a victim of the chronic single syndrome.
Matt leaned back in his chair. Thirty-four years old and a graphic designer, he was the image of downtown cool with messy hair, unshaven face, ripped jeans, wrinkled shirt, and scuffed tennis shoes. Outside of New York City, someone might have thought he was a poor farm hand, but New Yorkers knew better. He couldn’t let Claire and Debbie have all the fun at Bill’s expense without getting in a wise crack, too. He confidently proclaimed, “Fifty dollars he boomerangs back to her within a week. Anyone want to lay some money down?”
“No way,” Debbie shot back. “He’s a masochist. And she’s a sadist. They were only apart for a full week once before, that I ever heard about. Most of the time they run back to each other within a couple of days, tops.”
Bill stood his ground, not reacting to what his coworkers said. To no one in particular he remarked, “She’s been emailing me all day, but I haven’t responded.”
With that bit of information, all of the women assumed that the breach between the broken hearts of Bill and Linda would soon be patched up with a Band-Aid. They knew there were no other women trying to get his attention. Bill would have said so, if there was such a person. Such joyous news he couldn’t keep a secret. It was also highly unlikely, they all thought, that another of their sex would appear in the near or far future with the level of personal interest in him that Linda showed at times. So they figured that Bill would be making his trembling way back to her soon. None of them replied when Matt said, “My fifty dollars says they’re back together before the end of today. Any takers? Anyone want to part with their money? Here’s my money.” He took out his wallet and waved fifty dollars in the air.
“Do you have time to take my picture?” Bill asked Katie.
“Sure,” she replied. “Where do you want to take it?”
“Go to the terrace on the seventeenth floor,” Claire said, trying to be helpful, although she thought he was wasting his time. “The city skyline will be in the background. That’ll catch women’s attention.”
“And make them think you’re a sugar daddy with a sweet set-up,” Debbie added, embellishing Claire’s idea. “They’ll think you’re the owner of a stunning multi-million-dollar penthouse.”
“Won’t they be disappointed,” remarked Matt.
Debbie’s imagination was ever expanding at the thought of Bill in a penthouse. “Women from around the world will be emailing you. They’ll be begging for a date. Pleading for a response. Swearing they’ll do anything, anything for you. And the most persistent, beautiful, young beggar for your love...”
“Will be dear doctor Linda,” Matt suggested. Debbie, Claire, and he burst into laughter. Katie didn’t join in, but that wasn’t due to any consideration for Bill’s feelings. She was thinking of all the personal emails she had yet to send and wished to do whatever Bill wanted quickly, so he would go away.
“The lobby is a good place,” Bill said to Katie. “The one on this floor.”
“There’s no window there,” she said.
“That doesn’t matter,” he replied.
“OK. Let’s go,” she said. She pulled out a digital camera from a drawer in her desk. Then she left with Bill for the lobby.
“I have to see this,” Claire announced, standing up.
“Me too,” Matt seconded.
Debbie had to finish some writing and her cookies, so she remained in her seat. “I’ll expect a full report when you return at an emergency meeting in the conference room,” she told Claire and Matt.
“It’ll be a laugh storm, not a brainstorm,” Claire promised.
“Who could care for him,” Debbie replied, “unless it’s another sadist?”
“You’re so right,” was Claire’s response, as she hurried with Matt toward the lobby, both eager to watch the photo shoot.
Debbie devoured a cookie, as soon as they were gone. Then she passionately began to type.
Chapter 6
The lobby down the hall from the marketing office and across from the elevators wasn’t a place to impress anyone, at least in a favorable way. Two of the walls were white, and the third was electric blue. Standing in this lobby, visitors felt as if they had been dropped into a slice of frigid ocean between two icebergs. The funky furniture made out of geometric shapes in bright primary colors provided some visual warmth, enlivening the space. But it heightened the sense of displacement visitors experienced, and to a few it suggested global warming and the tasteless consumerism polluting the globe. Crude paintings of nightmarish city landscapes for sale on the walls seemed to confirm that the decorating style was pro-environmental. Those paintings gave the place a threatening aspect. They appeared to be the visual ravings of a psychopathic hermit with apocalyptic opinions, which probably explained why they had been on the walls for a while, without anyone expressing any interest in buying them. Because there were no windows, the two ordinary office plants in separate corners of the lobby were weak and wilting from lack of sunlight. Their appearance seemed to strengthen the message of world destruction that the lobby conveyed. If anyone stayed in that lobby for long, they seemed to wilt, too.
After leaving the office with Katie, Bill had made a trip to the bathroom to comb his hair and check his appearance in the mirror, sprucing up what he could. He arrived in the lobby at the same time as Claire and Matt. While all four were there during the photo shoot, other workers on the floor would pass by from time to time and stare at them, curious at what was going on. Frequently, the other office tenants would smile at what they saw or heard.
“Do you want to sit or stand?” Katie asked Bill.
“I’ll sit,” he said.
“Wouldn’t you look thinner, standing?” Claire wondered.
“His posture isn’t good,” Matt pointed out.
“I’ll sit,” repeated Bill, more firmly than before. He then sat down on the couch where bright red-, blue-, and orange-colored square cushions, connected by white metal tubes, pulsated around and underneath him.
“Not there,” warned Claire, pointing to the wall behind Bill, where there was a painting of skyscrapers, which resembled a bouquet of bloody knives under a sooty sky. “Scary picture.”
Bill looked behind him at the picture, shrugged his shoulders, and moved to a chair made of blinding yellow discs that looked like a display of super-large lemons. Striking a rather sour pose, he looked at Katie, who was ready with the camera.
“Are you going to smile?” she asked without showing one herself, indifferent to what he did with his face.
“A mug shot isn’t attractive to most women,” Claire noted. She was a born leader and perceived that she had to manage the picture taking. Since she bossed Bill about in his professional life, and everyone knew he lacked such assistance in his private life, she clearly thought that she was doing him a favor.
Bill smiled a little.
Matt had been surveying the scene, and his eye for design was coming into focus. “Sit up straighter,” he said. “Maybe you should put an arm around the back of the chair, like this. It’ll push your chest out. Make it seem as if you actually have a chest. Now you look like a Buddha statue.”
Matt went to show Bill what he meant, taking his arm and positioning it until it looked right. At one point, he pushed hard on Bill’s shoulder to see if Bill’s deflated chest would rise more, which caused Bill to jerk back in pain. “Ow. That’s my bad shoulder,” he said.
“So
rry,” Matt said, continuing to position him, now turning his head to different angles. “Perfectionism hurts sometimes.” Bill submitted as best he could. “Sit up. Suck your belly in,” Matt ordered.
Unable to tolerate how she had been sidelined, Claire stepped in to take over twisting Bill’s limbs and prodding him. “Let me fix him,” Claire told Matt, who moved to the side.
With more force than Matt had used, she pulled and squeezed Bill’s body, as if he was a creature made of clay. After trying a number of new poses, she came back to the one Matt had left him in. “That’ll look manly,” she said. “You look like you want to squeeze her shoulders.”
But after a moment’s deliberation, she still wasn’t satisfied. She told him to stand up. She took him through some yoga poses to loosen his limbs and spine in an attempt to straighten out his shoulders and posture. Bill was put through considerable discomfort, because the last time he had done so much stretching was fifteen years ago when he had dated someone who competed in triathlons. That romance was very short-lived, because she insisted that he train with her, if he wanted to see her. While Claire led him through yoga moves, Bill’s body recalled long-forgotten aches that had occurred during that brief season of athletic love, but the benefit was negligible. When he sat down again, he was tired. Instead of sitting up as straight as he could, he drooped like one of the lobby plants and wanted to take a nap.
Cheapskate in Love Page 4