“Todd Birnham,” he introduces himself as our hands meet. His are rough and calloused, and to my utter dismay, I find myself blushing. I clear my throat.
“It’s Jen,” I say again, my voice catching in a way that’s embarrassing. “Jen Dawson.”
I’m not sure what’s come over me. I’m not usually the type to go all giddy over a cute guy. But then again, I haven’t been single for the last seven years. I don’t know how I react to cute guys as a single person.
Todd follows me up to the front porch. The client isn’t actually here—she’s back at her old office, clearing out and packing up her files—so I let myself in with the key she’s entrusted to me. Generally, I love the idea of the client arriving after the bulk of the work is done. It takes off some of the pressure, plus I get that awesome TV moment of witnessing my client see the “after” space for the first time. Truly, it’s one of the best parts of the job.
“Um, I hate to say this, but you don’t have a lot to do today.” As I’m explaining the deal with the case pieces to Todd, the blue-and-white Munroe’s van pulls up with my window treatments. For the next couple of hours, the bulk of my communications with my subcontractors consist of short, imperative sentences punctuated by grunts and groans as we all lug around the pieces of furniture that actually made it onto the truck today.
Once I have the furniture and rug placed in the waiting room, Todd does his thing while I stand back and watch, chewing a fingernail and thinking that I never micromanaged Carl, our previous art hanger, quite so studiously. But then again, Carl’s in his mid-sixties, with a beer paunch, a comb-over, and two grown daughters.
“That looks great,” I say. “Perfect.”
Todd steps back and eyes the painting critically, then backs up a little more so he’s standing right beside me. I swear my arm hairs raise a little on the side closest to him, as if they’re straining to touch him, or as if he has some sort of static pull. “Yep, spot on,” he agrees. He looks proud of himself and maybe a little…relieved?
We both stand there silently for another minute, staring at the art—or at least, he’s staring at the art. I’m kind of staring at the wall without seeing it because all I can think about is how close his right arm is to my left one.
“It kind of looks like two squirrels fighting over a bowling ball,” he says, throwing me totally off guard. I glance over at him, and his head is cocked to one side, his very blue eyes still trained on the canvas. I’d almost forgotten it was there.
I look up at it and laugh. He’s right, actually, though I feel a little guilty for agreeing with him. I love this artist. Her paintings are full of vibrancy and color, and this one creates a perfect focal point for this space—it’s a spot of bright, happy color in a room that’s otherwise designed in soothing tones and subdued fabrics to reflect the nature of my client’s work. But the scene in this painting does look like two squirrels fighting over a bowling ball.
“I’m never going to be able to look at it again without seeing that,” I say, still chuckling. “Thanks a lot.”
“Well, lucky you don’t live here,” he says back, smiling with one half of his mouth in a way I find unnerving, if not outright sexy. Holy hell, Dawson. Get a grip!
“Just please don’t mention the squirrel thing to Sandra tomorrow,” I say, referring to the fact that I’ve already asked Todd to come back in the morning to help me finish the installation. The main office has one large, framed print and several smaller pieces to hang—awards and degrees, mainly. Honestly I probably could have placed the large piece without the furniture in the room, and I could certainly hang the smaller items myself.
But then I wouldn’t be seeing Todd again tomorrow.
* * *
Later that night, I’m scrolling down Instagram on my phone screen, getting mindless glimpses into other people’s lives. Most of my feed these days is occupied by my friends’ growing numbers of kids. Even Amelia, my writer friend who’s looking for a house in Memphis, is pregnant now, and so is her childhood friend Reese. That’s half of my crew from my twenties, all settled down and knocked up. When did life get so serious? When did we get so old? And most of all, how did all of it seem to pass me by?
I’m supposed to be the one posting engagement photos, I think as I flick through an album of engagement pictures posted earlier today by one of my college friends. Mine were better than this. I feel a wrenching twist of emotion—shame for the ugly thought, heartache for what I’ve lost, and a sort of sick gratification over the fact that I’m right. My photos really were nicer than these, mainly because we’d hired the city’s most sought-after photographer and done the shoot at Memphis’s premier wedding venue. We’d also scheduled it at the ideal time of year, when the city had just launched into full bloom and the gardens overflowed with azaleas, the sun casting its perfect springtime light over our less-than-perfect love.
Nobody cares more about image than my ex-fiancé, so of course something as public-facing as engagement pictures had to be flawless. That thought makes me glad to be rid of him, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
After all, isn’t that why we post things on social media at all…to show off? I mean, honestly, in a “me” culture like ours, nothing is more me-centric than an ever-changing yearbook of life’s Kodak moments, with every person we’ve ever known as our rapt, captive audience. “Likes” are the new yearbook signatures. Who has the most? Who’s the coolest kid in school?
When did I get so damn bitter?
I scroll through more of my feed and see the photos Christine has posted from Jake’s party, and they make me smile. See now, social media isn’t all bad. I love keeping up with my family on Facebook and Instagram, especially with Adam and Braxton so far away. But even as I smile over the pictures from Sunday’s party, I find myself thinking that Christine has done just what I was obsessing about—she’s posted all the smiling, happy moments from the day. But what about the sibling fights? What about the meltdowns? What about Jake falling off the play gym halfway through the party, which gave rise to a panicky half hour when Christine fretted over whether or not they should take him to the emergency room? Or what about when Sadie knocked Ethan’s soda out of his hand in the middle of the kitchen, and it ricocheted off the table, floor, and cabinets and all over Eleanor’s shoes? That took another twenty minutes to clean up.
Nope, Facebook and Instagram aren’t about recording life’s messes. They’re revisionist history. And that’s probably OK.
But it’s just one more memo I guess I never received.
* * *
Twenty minutes later I’m still scrolling, lost down the rabbit hole of my news feed. I’m in Facebook now, and I’ve just finished a BuzzFeed quiz—Who’s your ’80s sitcom doppelgänger? (It’s D.J. Tanner, by the way)—and my second glass of prosecco when a notification pops up at the top of my phone screen. It’s a friend request.
I click, and then I sputter a little as a bit of my bubbly drink finds its way down the wrong pipe. Are you freaking kidding me?
Immediately I text not Carrie, but Allison Swearingen, my high school best friend. Allison and I don’t talk a whole lot these days, but of everybody I know, she’s the one who’ll be most interested in this news.
OMG. U will never guess who just friended me on FB.
She texts back within five minutes, and while waiting, I skim my prospective new friend’s profile, which, it turns out, is public.
OK, I’ll bite. Cole Harmon??
At this I chortle so loud I startle myself—the sound is loud in my house, which is so quiet I can hear myself breathing. I lean forward on the couch to grab the TV remote, and in the process my foot slips off the coffee table and I almost drop the computer from my lap. I catch it just in time and flick on the TV, which goes automatically to HGTV—a channel I have a love-hate relationship with. I’m obsessed with it, honestly, but it’s also infuriating as a designer because it gives people unrealistic expectations. In the real world, you can’t produce a
finished family room from scratch in one weekend on a shoestring budget, at least not unless you have a crew of woodworkers, seamstresses, and artisans working for free in the garage the way home improvement TV shows do. But I digress.
After righting myself and turning down the volume low enough to be background noise, I text back, As if. Try someone from our species.
Just talking to Allison makes me feel like I’m in high school again. I stare at the phone and wait for her response, giggling like a seventeen-year-old hyped up on Starbucks Frappuccinos.
Um… You got me, chica. Who is it??
Brandon. No last name is required—Brandon Royer was my first high school boyfriend and, if I choose to think of him this way, my “one who got away.” I had a crush on him from middle school on, so when he asked me out at the start of tenth grade, I was in heaven. And then he dumped me for no apparent reason in the middle of our junior year. He showed up to prom that year with Missy Tompkins, head cheerleader, class president—basically everything I was not—and they dated through the rest of high school. It still pisses me off to think about it because I was head over heels in love with him, or at least I thought I was.
I haven’t seen Brandon since graduation, in part because I skipped my ten-year class reunion. I haven’t thought about him much since then either. College was an effective anesthetic for high school heartbreak. Why is Brandon friending me? I’m not friends with any exes on Facebook, not counting Jeremy. Jeremy and I haven’t unfriended each other yet, though my finger has hovered over the button on multiple occasions. I wish he’d be the one to pull the plug. Otherwise, I’m not sure what we’re waiting for.
My phone chirps with an incoming text, jolting me out of these thoughts.
No shit? is Allison’s reply.
For real. I wonder what’s up with that? Oddly enough, Missy Tompkins and I are friends on Facebook, so I know she and Brandon didn’t last into adulthood. Missy’s married to a man who’s as beautiful as she is, based on the pictures, and has three daughters who all look exactly like her.
Accept and find out.
Well, that’s logical. I laugh out loud again. Planning to. I’ll keep u posted. I take a deep breath and move the cursor to the Accept icon on Brandon’s friend request. And then I hesitate, deciding to make a quick scan of my wall first to make sure nothing embarrassing shows up in the first few posts, knowing he’ll be ogling my life as soon as he has access to it.
Fifteen minutes later, I’ve scanned my wall as far back as nine months, taking particular care to make sure all evidence of my recent humiliation is deleted from my history and untagging myself from a couple of less-than-flattering photos. Then, feeling exceedingly neurotic, I click Accept.
For the next thirty or forty-five minutes, I check my Facebook notifications compulsively, but nothing changes. I don’t know what I expect—a personal greeting? A private message? Some explanation of why Brandon has chosen to reconnect with me, someone he dicked over and never even apologized to, at this particular moment in time?
I get up after a while to take a shower, shutting down my laptop and turning off the TV. After I’m showered and ready for bed, I check Facebook on my phone, but still nothing. Chances are, I just popped up in Brandon’s “People You Might Know” list since we probably have a bunch of mutual friends. Maybe he’s one of those “friend collector” types—he always was exceedingly social, the life of every party. I click back to his profile and check—and sure enough, he has eight hundred and thirty-three Facebook friends, more than twice my number. I also notice that the years have treated him well. Brandon was cute in high school, but now he’s a bona fide hottie.
“Eh. Whatever,” I say out loud, closing the app and switching over to set my alarm clock. I suddenly remember that I’ll be seeing Todd again tomorrow morning. Who needs cute guys from the past when there are cute guys in the present?
* * *
“This is breathtaking,” says my client, whose name is Sandra Preston-Jonas. I’ve just finished adjusting accessories, removing packing materials, and making sure all the details are just right, and now I’m (finally) doing the big reveal of the finished office suite. “It’s, like, two hundred times more than I expected,” she says, while I stand there with a small, embarrassed smile on my face. “Although I knew you’d make it awesome.”
My smile widens, and I glance around the room, which really does look great, if I say so myself. Sandra’s style is sleek and modern but not minimal, and the custom desk and hutch I ordered have crisp lines and a bright white finish. Along with Sandra’s collection of books and her necessary desktop items, I accessorized her shelves with fun things I found at local antiques stores and a couple of catalog items. A desk chair upholstered in a custom light blue leather pops against the neutral background, and so do the guest chairs, which are covered in a subtle pattern in the same shade, with pale lemon yellow accents. A large, framed abstract painting hung by Todd and a tall plant in one corner provide other patches of color. In the other corner is a game-size table and two chairs, designed for the one-on-one testing Sandra conducts with children. She specializes in emotional and learning disabilities and tests for conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, and autism.
The large room is serene and pretty and pleasant but also functional and customized to her needs. As my eyes roam the room, they finally land on Todd, who’s still here, hanging around in the background and leaning against the door jamb as Sandra completes her walk-through. She tests out her new chair and marvels over the office accessories I’ve arranged on her new desk.
“I didn’t even know an office could look like this. It’s so much nicer and more suitable to my practice than my old office,” Sandra says, her voice expressing wonder and gratitude. I tear my eyes reluctantly from Todd, my heart beating faster at the look on his face—impressed, maybe a little proud.
“I’m happy you’re happy,” I say. It’s my standard line when a client has this reaction. I’ve done my job. I feel an almost fierce sense of pride myself, considering how marginalized I’ve felt at work in recent weeks. Take that, Candace, I can’t help but think.
“I’m recommending you to all my friends,” Sandra continues. “I mean, I already do but seriously. I’m telling everybody I know to call you. You’re amazing.”
I feel my cheeks growing warm as she walks over and pulls me into a hug. Todd has a small smile on his face, and he backs out of the doorway and slips into the waiting area. I’m hoping he hasn’t left as Sandra and I continue discussing the space, and I show her a few features of the desk and filing cabinets.
When I slip out the side doorway onto a small terrace—Sandra has a separate entrance to her home office—and round the corner to the driveway, I’m filled with relief that Todd’s truck is still parked in the drive and confused that I feel so strongly about it. I walk up the brick path, noting that he’s sitting in the truck with the engine not running. When he spots me, he opens his door and gets out.
“Great work in there,” he calls to me in a genial tone.
“Same to you,” I say, shifting my heavy bag from my left shoulder down to my hand.
“Here, let me take that for you.” He speeds up his step and makes a motion toward the bag. I hesitate, then let him have it. It’s heavy, yes, but I lug around heavy items all the time. It’s an occupational hazard.
“Thanks,” I say as we both start walking toward my car, which is parked on the street.
He clears his throat as I reach the rear driver’s side door, and I don’t look up at him, busying myself with opening the door, taking the bag from his outstretched hands, and dropping it onto the back floorboard—keeping myself busy because the moment is growing uncomfortable. Can Todd sense that I’m attracted to him? Is he about to ask me out? Because it sure feels that way—this scenario we’re in has that awkward, boy-meets-girl feeling imprinted all over it.
I want it, and I’m not ready for it. Jeremy and I just broke up. I feel like I need some time to breathe.
“I just want to say thanks for this opportunity,” he says. “I’m not sure if Quinn mentioned this, but I’m new to this game.” Quinn did not mention this, and I’ve been wondering about the other things Quinn didn’t mention when she referred me to Todd. She knows I’m newly single, of course. Is she trying to set me up? And if so, why isn’t she interested in him herself?
I unclench at his statement, feeling relieved and yet strangely disappointed that he didn’t hit on me. And then I snap out of it. What am I thinking? We’ve just met, and this is a professional situation, not a bar. Clearly the sexual tension I’m feeling is entirely one-sided.
“No problem,” I say, trying to sound breezy, which has the effect of making the words seem stilted. I need to get a grip. “I never would have guessed you aren’t experienced. You did a great job.” This, at least, is the truth.
He hesitates, and I’m hit with another surge of nerves. “It was my first time, actually.” The double meaning of these last few phrases are starting to get to me. I feel a blush rise to my cheeks, and I laugh nervously to cover it up.
“Really? I never would have guessed. I’ll definitely call you again.” I’m already reeling through a mental list of projects I might be able to hire him for.
Work projects, mind you.
Todd smiles and runs a hand through his hair, which is just as haphazard and fresh-from-bed sexy today as it was yesterday and isn’t helping me keep my mind out of the gutter. He’s dressed a little more professionally today, wearing snug khaki-colored jeans and a jersey-knit, button-down shirt. I feel a little tingle shoot up my spine as he says, “Awesome. Thanks. Any time.”
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