Chat Love

by Justine Faeth

  Gabriella rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Lu, you don’t want to be on that site. People will laugh at you and think that you’re pathetic and desperate. Everybody will laugh at us.”

  Leave it to Gabby to be blunt. I groan in frustration, “You do realize that this is about me and not about you or anyone else?”

  “Yes, I do. Don’t you think people will look at you as desperate and pathetic? I’m trying to help you out, Lu. What will you do when you go to your high school reunion and everybody knows that you are desperately seeking companionship on Chat Love?”

  I snap back, “Maybe I’ll have a date for my reunion, and maybe we’ll have met on Chat Love.”

  As my sister and I glare at one another, the tension in the room is making everyone else uncomfortable. To break it, my mother tries changing the subject. “Maybe at the reunion you and Matt will get back together. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

  I turn to her, not even trying to conceal my exasperation. “Mom, Matt is married. In what way would breaking up a marriage be romantic?”

  Gabriella pipes in, “I think Angelo is going to be perfect for you.”

  I shake my head and get up from the table, giving my sister a purposeful and angry look. “I said I don’t want to date him. Leave my dating life alone, please.”

  “You have a dating life?” Gabriella asks, her words dripping with sarcasm.

  As I walk out of the room I hear Tony whisper to Gabby to leave me alone. I grab my coat and walk outside to the patio, taking a seat. If only my family knew that I’ve been considering trying online dating for a while. It’s just so hard to meet anyone of quality that I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been looking in the wrong places. Maybe I just don’t know where to meet the right man, and maybe I’ll find him on Chat Love. What if I meet a man on this site that I would have never met otherwise, simply because we didn’t go to the same places or we did but just didn’t go at the same time?

  Still, I’ve never been very fond of the idea of online dating. I know how to be flirty and fun when talking to someone in person, but when I try to be sexy through e-mail or texting, I just sound stupid.

  I hear the front door open, and my father comes outside. He takes a seat next to me, and we spend a while just staring at the house across the street; the house is practically identical to my sister’s, except for the two little boys playing in the snow. After a few minutes of watching the children playing, my father turns to me with a sad look in his eyes. I recognize it immediately; it’s the same look he gave me when I entered the kitchen earlier.

  “Don’t you want that for yourself, Lucia?” He nods toward the boys playing and laughing in the neighbor’s yard.

  “Of course I do, Dad.”

  My father looks back at me. “Then why is it taking you so long? It almost seems as if you don’t want to meet anyone.”

  I choke out, “I do want to meet someone, and I’ve been trying to, but it’s hard. It’s not like Mr. Right is just knocking on my door.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I have plenty of time to get married and have kids.”

  My father shakes his head. “It gets harder for women to have a baby when they are older.”

  “Yeah, Dad, when the woman is in her forties.”

  My father grumpily replies, “I just wonder how much longer I’ll have to wait till you get married and give me a grandchild.”

  I stand up, bothered by his statement. “Well, Gabby is giving you one, so maybe that will hold you over and I can have some peace without you, Mom, Gabby, Grandma, or anybody else asking me about marriage and kids!”

  I walk back into the house and throw my coat on the couch. I hear the sounds of voices and my mother crying. I stomp up the stairs to find my mother, Gabriella, and Tony all sitting in an empty room; Tony waves, encouraging me to come in and join them. I step in and see my mother crying, but with a smile on her face.

  Tony senses my confusion and explains, “Hey, Lucia, we were just telling your mom about our plans for this room. We’re going to make it the baby’s room.”

  Gabriella waves her hand wildly, excited by the opportunity to talk about herself. “Behind me we are going to put the crib, and I’ve already got a big one picked out—you know, like the one that all the celebrities have for their babies.

  Tony puts his hand on top of Gabriella’s, which is casually rubbing her stomach. “Only the best for our baby, mia bella,” he says. The sappiness just makes me to roll my eyes once again. Still, a part of me wishes I was in the same position.

  My mother excitedly jumps into the conversation, “Your father and I will buy you the crib. We want our grandchild to have the best, too!”

  I sit and lean against the bare wall as the three of them continue chattering on about their plans for the room, wanting just to return home to my own apartment.

  Chapter 4

  After returning to the city, I rush back to my apartment, eager to be home and away from nagging questions about romance. My friends and I are planning to go to Cellar Bar tonight to have a few drinks; after today’s events, there’s nothing I’d like to do more.

  As I finish getting dressed I hear the buzzer, indicating that Danni has arrived. Pretending that I don’t know who it is, I ask, “Hello?”

  “Bitch, it’s me and I’m freezing my ass off so let me in!” Danni hisses.

  I laugh and press the button to let her in. I unlock the front door so she can let herself in while I’m getting dressed. I walk toward the kitchen to make drinks for us, and I’m met by Danni walking into the apartment, wrapped up in a purple coat, black scarf, and black gloves. She takes everything off, revealing a low-cut red dress with black tights and heels. I raise my eyebrows and nod toward her cleavage.

  Danni winks and shrugs. “Whatever, I need a man’s attention tonight,” I laugh and hand her a glass of chardonnay; she quickly takes a large swallow. She looks around and asks me, “Where’s Autumn?”

  “Still on her date,” I reply.

  Danni sits on the couch, reclining back. “So, Chat Love is working for Autumn? Personally, I would never do that, but good for her. Maybe she can stop her whining and actually marry someone already.” I sit on the couch next to her and take a sip from my glass, ready for another one of her rants about why married life sucks. “You know, I don’t even know why everyone is in such a rush to get married. It’s not that great. She should worry about getting married when she’s in her thirties. Right now she should be having fun.” She turns to me quickly and grabs my arm. “Speaking of, guess who’s coming tonight?”

  I check my mental list of Danni’s boy toys, trying to guess which one she might be bringing this time.

  “Let me guess: Jared?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Neil?” She grins and shakes her head. “Tommy?” She shakes her head again. I give up, shrug my shoulders, and take another sip from my glass.

  “Elijah!” she says, giving me a light slap on the arm. “You know, the guy at work that I have been obsessing about for two weeks. He finally agreed to come out.”

  Danni works as a bitchy, snide, powerful publicist for some of the rich and famous. Essentially, she gets paid to be herself. She helps me book a lot of talent for the show I work on.

  Always the voice of reason, I ask, “Do you really think it’s a good idea to be dating someone from work?”

  Danni waves her hand in dismissal. “Elijah has been flirting with me. He started it—his fault. Anyway, I’m sure he can keep his pretty little mouth closed about whatever may happen between us.” She winks; I roll my eyes.

  Knowing Danni, she will have a fling with this guy until she gets tired of him or finds someone else; it’s what she does with every man she meets.

  “So how was lunch with the family?” I groan and shake my head while Danni laughs. “That bad, huh?”

  I get up from the couch to pour myself another glass of wine. “They want me to date Tony’s friend Angelo, who gets on my nerves from the moment he says hello.” I bring the bottle back with
me to the couch to fill Danni’s glass. Then I continue, talking about how I’d discussed Autumn and Skyler meeting their men on Chat Love, only to have Tony and Gabby laugh and poke fun at me.

  “Wait,” she puts her hand in the air, signaling me to stop talking. “You would join Chat Love? Why?”

  Exasperated, I say, “Not you too! What do people have against online dating?”

  “It’s simple: you’re pretty, and online dating is for ugly people.”

  I argue, “Autumn is on Chat Love, and she’s pretty.”

  “Yes, but Autumn is desperate to get married and willing to try anything.” Danni takes a sip of her drink. “You don’t need Chat Love; I’ll set you up with someone.”

  Still grumpy, I answer, “Oh, you mean another guy who likes to pick his nose and eat it?”

  Awhile later we get out of the cab and go into the Bryant Park Hotel, where the Cellar Bar is located. Throughout the whole cab ride, Danni had tried to convince me to let her set me up with another guy, but every guy she named she had either slept with, been wanting to sleep with, or had a strong desire not to sleep with. The latter bothered me, because if someone like Danni didn’t want to sleep with a particular guy, why would I?

  We check our coats and walk down the stairs leading to the bar. It’s packed, as usual—full of yuppie stockbrokers and lawyers, tourists, and girls who think that it’s sexy to dress in summer attire year-round. It’s dimly lit, with a DJ playing and mixing the most popular songs in the background. On either side of the bar are tables and couches reserved for people who like to spend ridiculous amounts of money on bottles of alcohol, and in the middle is a dance floor. The actual bar itself is filled with beautiful bartenders serving overpriced drinks in front of a backdrop of dancing models wearing next to nothing.

  I see our friends sitting at a table covered with bottles of vodka, juice, soda, and champagne. Ian Smuckler, Wayne Bennet, and Corey Wood are friends from high school. Ian has dark brown hair, which is always styled to perfection, brown eyes, a tall stature, and a cocky grin. He is a ladies’ man, a player, and an asshole, but he’s also my friend. Ian makes his money as a divorce lawyer, so he doesn’t believe in love and relationships. He is the embodiment of the man that you don’t want your sister, daughter, or best friend to date.

  Wayne has a somewhat nerdy appearance, with messy red hair and a pair of black, framed glasses. In high school, he was in all of the advanced classes, and had an obsession with comic books that still survives today. However, he will do anything for a woman he loves. At one point, Wayne had been engaged to a woman named Laurie, known now amongst our group of friends as “bitch-face.” Wayne is a complete romantic, and is the type of man that women read about in romance novels. He’d met Laurie at Harvard, at a sorority party. They were complete opposites: Wayne’s favorite book is War and Peace while Laurie’s was the Twilight series. Wayne can speak three languages, while Laurie could barely handle English. Wayne loves wine and Laurie would rather have a pint of beer. Nobody understood how or why they’d gotten together, but it hadn’t surprised us when Wayne had caught Laurie cheating on him a few months ago. It had been rough, but Wayne was working at moving on, evident by the fact that he was out with us tonight.

  Corey is usually Ian’s wingman and can be equally as flirtatious. He has light mocha-colored skin, blue eyes, a shaved head, and a very toned body. Corey is a high school history teacher and loves his job, mainly because he gets to stare at teenagers’ asses all day. If the school—not to mention the law—would allow it, Corey would probably have an affair with every cheerleader. Because his parents are interracial, Corey takes it upon himself to try and sleep with a member of every race. All three of the men are single, but dating is so much easier for them. It seems as if all they have to do is wink at a woman and she’ll be all over them in a minute.

  We walk up to the table and notice that they must have just arrived because they aren’t surrounded by a group of ladies. Ian notices us and throws his hands up in the air, a grin on his face. “Ladies,” he yells over the music, “don’t we look ravishing? Want to be our hot dates?”

  Danni smirks proudly. “Actually, I have a friend coming to meet me, so don’t be assholes to him.”

  Wayne pours us some drinks. “Who’s the friend?”

  Corey chimes in to answer for Danni, “One of her boy toys, probably.”

  “Oh, but it’s OK that you and Ian sleep with a different girl every night?” Danni fires back while rolling her eyes.

  Ian coyly puts his arm around Danni. “Whoa, sugar—no one is saying anything bad. We’re just teasing you, Danni. Just relax, all right?”

  Danni downs her drink, “You’re right. I’m sorry; I just haven’t had any in a while so I’m pretty jumpy.”

  I grab my drink and down it quickly. I’m ready to let go and just have some fun with my friends.

  An hour and a half later, after many drinks, I’m dancing with Danni. I can tell that she’s upset, so I motion for her to come to one of the couches with me. We sit on a couch near the table where the boys are drinking.

  Danni puts her head on my shoulder and whines, “Elijah’s late.”

  I drunkenly wave my hand in the air. “Who cares? He’s a loser if he’s going to miss out on having sex with you. Just look at how many cute guys are here. I bet all of them would love to be with you.”

  Danni smiles and lifts her head off of my shoulder. “What about you? Anybody in here you’d like to get with?”

  I shake my head and make myself a shot with vodka and cranberry juice. “Nope. I have given up on meeting anyone at a bar, especially when I am drinking.”

  “I’m not talking about a relationship, Lu. I’m talking about raw, passionate sex—using a man for the one thing that he is good for. Relieve some of that stress that’s been building up in your body!” Danni yells the last sentence, making sure that the boys hear. They all turn to us with smirks and raised eyebrows. I make a face and turn back to Danni.

  Ian, his ears pricked at the mention of sex, motions for us to join them back at the table. “Would you ladies like to join our conversation? We were just talking about the same thing.”

  Danni and I join them, sitting close to the guys so we can hear them over the loud music.

  Ian continues his story, “This girl was wild. We did it in every position: missionary, cowgirl, doggie-style, even standing.”

  I groan out, “Enough, Ian.” It’s typical for Ian to be bragging about sex: when he’s not having it, he’s talking about it.

  “Did you do the shocker?” Corey asks Ian, completely ignoring me.

  I throw my hands up in the air. “I don’t want to know!”

  Oblivious, Corey continues, “You know, she was flirting with me too. Maybe I should give her a call.”

  I ask, “You don’t mind sharing the same girl? Isn’t there some guy code against that? ‘Don’t stick your dick where your friend’s has been?’ I thought I heard Ian say that once.”

  Danni chimes in, patting Corey on the back. “I guess not, because that’s how Corey gets laid.”

  I look up and see Autumn pushing her way through the crowded floor and I wave my hand to get her attention. She shoves a couple of women who are busy staring at Ian and Corey and sits down at the table. “Sorry I’m late; John didn’t want me to leave him.”

  Danni replies, “You know, you could have bought John here. We’d all like to meet this mystery man.”

  Autumn blushes and shakes her head. “No, it’s too soon for him to meet my friends. I’ve only been on two dates with him.”

  “But you talk to him all the time,” I remind her.

  She changes the subject, “Anyway, how was your date last night, Lu?”

  Everyone stops drinking and looks at me curiously. Damn it, Autumn, I think to myself.

  Danni laughs, “He picks real winners.” I narrow my eyes at her. She’s the one that made me go on that stupid blind date in the first place. Because of her, I kissed a
snot-eater.

  I hear Wayne ask Danni why she’s laughing.

  Ian snaps his fingers as if he knows the answer and I turn to him. “You slept with him,” he proudly announces.

  Autumn looks at me with disappointment. “You had sex with him already? Now he will never take you seriously.”

  “I didn’t have sex with him,” I mumble.

  Now Autumn looks confused. “OK, so what happened?”

  Sheepishly, I tell the truth. “I saw him pick his nose and eat it.” I cringe and take another swig of my drink.

  Corey starts laughing in the middle of a sip and spits out some of his drink. The rest of the group joins in as I sit quietly.

  Wayne leans in and quietly asks me, “Are you sure he wasn’t just scratching his nose?”

  I look up at him and feel my face flush from the embarrassment. “No, I saw him pick his nose, examine whatever he’d found, and then eat it.” Just explaining what I’d seen makes me nauseous again.

  Giggling, Ian says, “Maybe he was having dessert.”

  Autumn shakes her head and with complete seriousness says, “If someone is going to do something like that then they should at least wait till they are at home. I would have had the same reaction, Lu.”

  After another minute of them laughing and poking fun at me, Danni suddenly announces, “I once dated a guy who wanted to pee on me.”

  Everyone goes silent, just staring at Danni with shocked expressions. After a few seconds, Corey asks, “Where did that come from?”

  “We were talking about gross things people do,” Danni says without shame.

  Not wanting this conversation to get any worse, especially considering some of the contributions I imagine Ian and Corey could make, I say, “Anyway, he called me two times today and I’m not going to call him back.”