I thought about writing a Honey Note about getting fired for acting like a total idiot at a work event, but that struck so close to home that I just couldn’t do it.
At two o’clock I walked out of my building into the bright November sun. It was a cold day, but the sky was blue and clear. I pulled my hair into my standard low ponytail as I walked down the street to Dino’s Pizza to meet McKenna and Andie.
Andie waved me over. “Hey, woman, sit down and have a beer and some pizza.” She blew a huge bubble and popped it. “I’ll pour you a cold one.” They were seated at our regular booth with a frosty pitcher of Bud Light and a large pepperoni pizza between them.
I shook my head as I sat down and reached for a glass of water. “Believe me, a beer is the last thing I need right now.”
“Big party week? Did you stalk any figure skaters?” McKenna said. At the Super Show the previous year, I’d taken a picture of Michelle Kwan at the food court with my phone and texted it to her and Andie. They had yet to let me live it down.
“Not this year,” I said, my sour mood raining all over their good one.
Andie took her gum out of her mouth and stuck it on the side of her plate. “So I’m guessing Aaron hasn’t called you yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Are you serious? I can’t believe that,” McKenna said. “Do you think he ever will?”
“Who knows?” I said. “If he hasn’t already, I’m guessing he’s not going to.”
“Has the news sunk in yet?” McKenna said.
I bit my lip and tried to smile. “It’s still sinking, along with my self-esteem.”
She leaned over and squeezed my shoulder. “Hang in there, Wave, you’ll get through this.”
“So, did you have fun in Atlanta?” Andie said.
I leaned back in the booth. “Fun? No, I really couldn’t say that. Well, I almost had fun, but it didn’t work out.”
“Because of Aaron?” McKenna said.
“Not really.”
“Not really? What kind of half-ass answer is that?” Andie dipped her pizza in ranch dressing. “Details, please.”
“Well, I sort of met a very cute boy at a party, but then nothing happened.”
“A cute boy?” Andie said.
“What do you mean ‘sort of ’?” McKenna said.
“What do you mean ‘nothing happened’?” Andie said.
“What party?”
“Did he ask for your phone number?”
“Why didn’t it work out?”
“What was his name?”
“How old?”
“Was he hot?”
“Single?”
“Married?”
“Divorced?”
“Straight?”
I put my hands up in front of my face. “Hold on! Hold on … let me speak! Talking to you two is like being strapped to the wall in front of a tennis ball machine.”
“Well?” they said in unison.
I took a sip of my water and slowly put it down on the table. “Okay, ladies, since you asked so nicely, I will tell you.”
And I did.
When I’d finished divulging the details, I took a bite of pizza and looked at them.
“Well?” I said.
“Hot damn,” Andie said.
“You really threw up?” McKenna said.
I nodded. “Yep, and I can’t even remember how I got back to my hotel. For all I know, the CEO of JAG carried me there.”
“Ouch,” Andie said.
“Well at least you were attracted to someone new, right? That’s huge,” McKenna said.
I frowned. “I guess so, but I’m not sure how much consolation that’ll be if I get fired.”
“I highly doubt that’ll happen. You think this guy Jake will try to contact you?” McKenna said.
I put my finger on my chin. “Hmm … given that I literally sprinted away from him to go barf up my dinner, I’m guessing … no.”
“Ouch,” Andie said again. It was the first time I’d ever seen her relatively speechless. But then she quickly recovered. “Well, I have a story that might cheer you up,” she said.
I tried to smile. “I doubt even one of your stories could cheer me up today, but go ahead.”
She put her hands on the table. “Okay, here goes. My sister’s friend Lena called me last week and said she wanted to set me up with this banker friend of hers named Jeff. She said he was tall, successful, and kinda cute, so I figured, why not?”
I nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”
“I thought so too,” she said. “So he and I talked one time briefly on the phone, and it went fine, so he asked me to sushi. And I made the mistake of looking forward to it.”
“You looked forward to a blind date?” McKenna said.
Andie rolled her eyes. “I know, I know—you’d think I’d learn. Anyhow, when he picked me up, right off the bat I was a little disappointed, because I wouldn’t exactly classify him as good-looking. But he wasn’t totally butt, so I was determined to give him a chance. We walked a few blocks down the street to this sushi place on Fillmore, and the hostess said there was a wait for a table, but if we wanted to, we could eat at the bar.”
“Wait, back up.” I said. “He didn’t make a reservation anywhere?”
“Nope.”
“Strike one,” McKenna said.
Andie took a sip of her beer and shook her head. “No reservation, and then he said he didn’t want to wait for a table. So the hostess walked us over to the bar, which was way too brightly lit and definitely the sort of place you’d sit for lunch alone, not on a first date for dinner. But oh well. We sat down on these low swivel stools, which are really uncomfortable for trying to talk to someone next to you. And Jeff had long legs, so he didn’t really fit that well. So he swiveled toward me and basically straddled my stool.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s quite a visual.”
She pointed at me. “Bingo. And not a good one. Then the waiter came by and gave us each a hot towel to clean our hands, and Jeff used it to totally scrub his face and neck! And when he finished, he looked at me and said, ‘Aaaaah.’”
“He said, ‘Aaaaah’?” I said.
“He said, ‘Aaaaah,’” she said.
“Ick,” I said.
“Exactly,” she said. “And it gets better. So then we ordered, and we started chit-chatting a little, and my neck was killing me from having to look over at him from my stool. But even more painful was the conversation itself. Throughout the whole meal he kept name-dropping and talking about how much money he has and how successful he is and blah blah blah blah blah. It was way boring. Plus, he didn’t ask me anything about myself. By the end of the meal I pretty much hated him.”
I took a sip of my water. “Go on.”
“When we finished dinner, we walked out of the restaurant, and as we passed the hostess, we noticed she had a tattoo on the small of her back that was barely visible between her top and her skirt.”
“And?” I said.
“And then Jeff put his hand on the small of my back.”
“He did not put his hand on the small of your back,” McKenna said.
She nodded. “Oh, yes he did. And he then said, ‘Do you have a tattoo like that for me to see later?’”
“Oh God, please tell me he didn’t say that.” I covered my mouth with my hand.
“Oh, yes he did,” Andie said. “So I politely moved away from him and lied that I was tattoo-free. I wanted to run screaming down the street, but it was still super early, and I just didn’t know how to gracefully get out of the date. He wanted to hang out some more but had nothing planned, so I figured the best thing to do was to take him to Solstice, you know that cute tapas bar on California and Divisadero? A friend of mine was cocktailing there, and I knew a handful of her friends would be there, so I wouldn’t have to be alone with him anymore.”
“Good call,” I said.
“So Solstice was literally five blocks away, but he said he want
ed to drive, and I knew it was probably because he wanted to show off his car. So we got to his car, and of course it was a fancy Porsche. Oh, and he also bragged that he had paid twenty dollars to the attendant at the gas station to park there illegally. So we got into the six-figure car to drive five stupid blocks, and I was counting the minutes until I could go home.”
“I would be too,” I said. “What happened next?”
“Well, my thoughts of escaping the date were interrupted by a putrid stench.”
“A putrid stench?” McKenna said.
“He farted,” Andie said.
McKenna lost it and put her face down on the table.
“No way!” Now I was totally laughing too.
“Way. It was totally silent, but so obvious and so heinous, and he didn’t say anything about it. We just sat there in awkward stinky silence, and I was wondering if it would be rude to roll down the window.”
“A silent but violent? That’s unbelievable!” I said.
“Oh, believe it. And parking is a total bitch in that area, as you know, so I breathed through my mouth as we circled and circled for a spot. He thought he saw one on the other side of the street, but I could tell it was a handicapped spot and told him not to bother, but he didn’t believe me and made a crazy illegal U-turn to get it. And of course when we pulled up, he saw it was indeed a handicapped space. And you know what he said?”
I picked up a piece of pizza. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“He said, ‘Goddamned handicapped people. They have too many parking spots in this city.’”
“No way,” I said. McKenna was still facedown, laughing.
“Way. So finally, after fifteen minutes of circling, we got lucky and found an open spot right across the street from Solstice. And get this: when we got out and started to cross the street, he reached his hand back to grab mine.”
“He tried to hold your hand after he ripped one in the car like that?” I said.
She nodded. “Yep. And I would have rather put my hand into a bowl of hot vomit, so I just pretended not to notice. Then we went into the bar, and about five of my friends were sitting down at a table, so we sat down next to them. And believe me, I made a point of sitting on the opposite side of the table from him.”
“I would have too,” I said.
“So then he went to the bar with this girl Bev I know and bought us all a round, which was nice enough, but I had no intention of ever being close enough to him where I might risk any sort of actual contact. After about fifteen minutes, he got up to go to the restroom, and my friends asked me the scoop on him. I told them that it was a blind date from hell and quickly listed the highlights.”
“What did they say?” McKenna said, coming up for air.
“Bev said that he had farted AGAIN when they were standing next to each other at the bar.”
“Oh God, tell me you got the hell out of there before he came back,” I said.
She shook her head. “I know I can be mean, but I just couldn’t be that mean, even though I was totally grossed out. Plus I was afraid of dating karma coming back to bite me in the ass. So after he got back from the restroom, I waited about fifteen more minutes and then told him I had an early swim session in the morning and had to go to bed. I said I was training for a triathlon.”
“A triathlon? Classic,” I said. Andie hated all forms of exercise and never got up before eleven o’clock on the weekends.
She laughed. “I know. The chances of my training for a triathlon are about as good as the chances of the Olsen twins’ spearheading a reunion show of Full House.”
I took another sip of water. “Did he drive you home?”
“Yep, and I don’t think the car had come to a full stop when I jumped out. I didn’t even give him a chance to speak. I just thanked him for dinner and bolted.”
“Do you think he’ll call you again?” McKenna said.
“Oh God, I hope not. And do you know what the kicker is?”
“There’s more?” I said.
She nodded. “Yep, get this: I told my sister the story today, and she said that Lena had tried to set her up with Jeff a few years ago, but that he didn’t call for a year and a half after Lena gave him my sister’s phone number!”
“A year and a half?” I said. “Are you serious?”
“Yep, a year and a half. So when he finally called my sister to ask her out, she was like, Uh, I’m engaged, you moron.”
“Oh, man, what a loser. Did you tell Lena?” McKenna said.
Andie put her gum back in her mouth. “Not yet. But believe me, she’s gonna hear about it.”
“Good God, that is quite a story,” I said.
“It might even crack my top ten for the year,” she said.
“So after hearing that, do you feel better?” McKenna said to me.
I smiled. “You know, I actually do. It’s sad to admit, but hearing other people’s horror stories always cheers me up. It’s like for a brief moment my life doesn’t suck as much as I thought it did.”
Andie laughed. “That’s why reality TV shows are so popular.”
After lunch, the three of us wandered about our neighborhood and window-shopped. McKenna and Andie both lived around the corner from me in Pacific Heights, which was filled with picturesque Victorian houses and quiet, tree-lined streets. I loved it because it had everything I could ever want within two blocks: great restaurants, three coffee houses, a bank, a supermarket, a bagel shop, a combo coffee house/laundromat, a bunch of cute boutiques whose clothes I could never afford but liked to look at, a video store, Dino’s Pizza, and the Kilkenny, our favorite neighborhood pub. Plus the people who lived there were friendly and always picked up after their dogs. So despite the creepy movie of the same name from the late ’80s, I felt really safe there. And I had rent control, so I wasn’t going anywhere. Thank God I hadn’t given up my apartment before the “wedding,” although I'd realized afterward that Aaron had never officially asked me to move in with him.
“Hey, there’s Brad Cantor.” McKenna pointed across the street to a tall, lanky jogger.
“A Brad Cantor sighting? How unusual,” I said. Brad had gone to college with us, and he was nice enough, but for some reason we saw him all the time. All the time.
Andie put her hand on my arm. “Oh, I forgot to tell you guys. I had a sighting the other day before work.”
“Did he invite you to one of his theme parties?” I said. Brad Cantor was the master over-Eviter.
She shook her head. “He didn’t see me. He was on the other side of the street from the Jamba Juice by my office. I ducked in there to hide and crouched behind a tall potted plant.”
I laughed. “Aren’t there, like, eight hundred thousand people who live in San Francisco?”
“So they say,” McKenna said.
“So doesn’t the frequency of our sightings defy some law of probability?” I said.
“Probably,” Andie said.
I counted on my fingers. “Parties, street fairs, coffee shops, bars, restaurants, bus stops, on and on and on. How come we don’t run into anyone else that often? Why Brad?”
“You’ve got me,” McKenna said.
“At least you’re not running into Aaron all the time,” Andie said.
“Very good point,” I said. “Remember that time we were at Pasta Pomodoro on Union Street?”
Andie bit her lip. “Oh God, how could I forget?”
“That one was by far my favorite,” I said.
A couple years earlier, Andie had literally been crying in her pasta one night over a recent breakup, and Brad walked by. He saw us through the window, waved, came in, and walked right up to our table to say hello. He asked us what we were talking about, and we told him we were having a very serious GIRL talk about very serious boy problems. And, no kidding, he said with a smile, “Can I join you?” And then he sat down and ordered a glass of wine.
Andie shook her head. “I still can’t believe he asked if he could sit down with us.”
“I know. Hello? Could I be more everywhere? is what he should have asked,” I said.
When Andie and McKenna waved goodbye an hour later, I yelled after them, “I’ll let you know if I get canned tomorrow.”
“Shut up!” they yelled back.
Monday morning I sat down at my desk and opened my e-mail account. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting, but there was nothing from Davey. I looked at my watch. It was 8:25. Davey rarely got into the JAG office before nine o’clock.
I decided to beat him to it.
To: David Mason
cc: Kent Tanner
From: Waverly Bryson
Subject: Super Show wrap-up
Good morning, Davey. I hope you had a nice flight home from Atlanta. Looks like the show was a huge success. We’ll get working on the report this morning and will send it over to you by the end of the day.
Regards,
Waverly
All I could do for the time being was pray that Davey, or anyone else for that matter, didn’t know what had happened at the party.
A half-hour later, I walked into the conference room and sat down. Kent wasn’t there yet. Everyone was chatting about their respective weekends. I smiled and nodded and pretended to be listening to the various conversations going on around me, but my head was floating somewhere above them. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was.
At nine o’clock sharp, Jess walked in, followed by Kent and our admin Nicole, who was carrying a big pink box of donuts. Everyone immediately jumped up to grab one. Bear claw in hand, Kent came over and sat down next to me.
“Hi, Waverly. Traffic was a bitch this morning. How’s it going?”
I fidgeted in my seat. “I’m good, thanks. You?” If he knew anything, he wasn’t letting on.
“As good as can be for a Monday, especially after such a long week. Hey, did you have a good flight home?”
“Yeah, uneventful. I slept most of the way. How was golf on Saturday?”
“Awesome. JAG hooked me and Dave up with a tee time at Augusta. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t make a putt to save my life, but I didn’t care. I mean, it was Augusta!”
“What does it cost to play there?” I said.
Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson Page 8