Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson

by Maria Murnane

  “I hate to interrupt,” he said, “but my friends and I couldn’t help but overhear what you just said about not needing men. Can we buy you a round of drinks to try to change your minds?”

  Andie and I looked at him and then over at his friends. Three tall, cute boys. Then we looked at each other and smiled. Why not?

  The next morning I woke up at eleven with a hangover and a craving for scrambled eggs with cheese. I dragged myself out of bed and walked a half block to Noah’s Bagels. I smiled at the cashier. “Large coffee and a poppyseed egg mitt with cheese, please.” An egg mitt was a scrambled egg on a toasted bagel. YUM.

  “Coming right up.” He handed me my change, and as I waited for my order, I looked at the other people in line and nodded. Yep, they pretty much all fit the profile. On weekend mornings, Noah’s had two shifts of customers. Before ten o’clock, it was filled with early birds eager to take on the day: spandex-clad bikers fresh from a fifty-mile ride in the Marin Headlands; yuppie couples dressed in matching khaki pants and white sweaters, baby stroller in tow, on their way to the farmer’s market; the overly enthusiastic Team in Training pack after a ten-mile run. And after that, the sloths rolled in: sleepy, dressed in baseball hats and sweats, and looking for a hangover cure. It never failed. When I was with Aaron, I’d usually been part of the early shift, but on my own I was more likely to be pulling up the rear. I looked down at my sweatpants and put my hand on the baseball hat I was wearing and chuckled. Today was no exception.

  When I got back to my apartment, I kicked off my shoes, sat down on the couch, and unwrapped my egg mitt. Then I opened the newspaper and immediately flipped to the comics. I’d noticed that the best way to read the newspaper is to start with the comics, because everything else is so depressing.

  After breakfast, I called McKenna. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey,” she said

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Sorry I missed you guys last night. How was the big night out?” she said.

  “I’d give it a seven and a half, although I’d give my hangover a solid eight. We missed you though. How was dinner?”

  “Delayed. I waited for Hunter for nearly two hours at the hospital.”

  Just then I noticed a business card lying on the coffee table. I picked it up and turned it over. “Darren Anderson? Who the hell is that?” I said.

  “What?” McKenna said.

  I put my hand on my forehead. “Oh Jesus, Darren. I totally forgot.”

  “Wave, what are you talking about?”

  “Oh, sorry. I just found this business card from a guy I met last night.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I’m not sure who it is.”

  “What?”

  “I mean we met two Darrens, one early on and one really late, and I’m pretty sure I kissed the late one.”

  “Excellent. What does he look like?”

  “Which one?”

  “Hello? The one you macked?”

  “Uh, I sort of don’t remember. Brown hair maybe?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Nope. Many margaritas were consumed.”

  “Excellent. And the other Darren?”

  “He was very cute.”

  “But you don’t know which one’s card you have?”

  “Nope. I thought I’d exchanged cards with both of them, but there’s just one sitting here.”

  “Excellent. Now that’s the Waverly I know and love. Okay, I’m on my way out the door to run some errands, so I’ll catch you later.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  I put Darren’s card down and leaned back on the couch, where I spent the next half-hour leafing through the newspaper. Then I did a nose dive into my bed and slept for the rest of the day.

  Andie called me at work Tuesday morning.

  “We’re going to the Warriors game tomorrow night,” she said.

  “The Warriors? As in basketball?” I said. “But we hate basketball.”

  “Should you say that out loud while you’re at work?” she said. “I mean, isn’t that, like, your job?”

  “But we hate basketball,” I whispered.

  “Well, the Warriors play the Hawks tomorrow, so we’re going. Maybe seeing that trainer guy Jake again will help take your mind off running into Aaron.”

  “Take my mind off who?” I said.

  “Waverly …”

  “Hey, do you think it’s going to rain tomorrow?” I said.

  “Waverly,” she said. “Enough of the act. I know you’re hurting right now.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “It’s just easier to change the subject.”

  “I’m on the Warriors’ Web site right now,” she said. “No arguing.”

  I bit my lip. Maybe seeing Jake again would help. Those blue eyes … God, he was so cute.

  “All right, let’s do it.”

  A few minutes later we had tickets to the game. They were semi-nosebleeds, but we were going.

  The next afternoon I was getting ready to leave work early so I could go home before the game. I knew my chances of seeing Jake there were smaller than the chances of Barry Bonds coming back to San Francisco to take the press on a tour of his chemistry lab, but I was still looking forward to going.

  I was walking out the door of my office when my phone rang. I set my coat down and walked back to my desk.

  “Waverly Bryson,” I said.

  “Hi, Waverly. It’s Darren.”

  I froze.

  “Uh, from the other night?” he said. “How are you?”

  All I could do was run with it. I sat down in my chair and faked a smile in my voice.

  “Hi, Darren. I’m good. How are you?”

  “I’m good too, thanks.”

  Awkward silence.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, it was really nice meeting you, and I, um, was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me on Friday.”

  Hmm.

  Was it too late to ask him an identifying question? Like, perhaps, Did we swap spit?”

  I took a deep breath.

  What the hell. Why not?

  “Okay, sure, that sounds nice,” I said.

  “Great, great. There’s a new restaurant in Russian Hill that I’ve been wanting to try. Have you been to Lola’s?”

  “No, not yet, but I’ve heard it’s good,” I said. At least mystery Darren was up on the hip new places to eat.

  “Yeah, me too. How about I make a reservation there?”

  “Okay, sure, that sounds fine.”

  We made plans to meet up on Friday night at the Kilkenny for a drink before dinner. Then we said goodbye and hung up.

  I stood up, put on my coat, and turned off the lights. Oh well, at least I wouldn’t be sitting home alone on Friday night.

  At six thirty that evening, I walked out of my apartment wearing a pair of charcoal grey flare trousers with a sleeveless black sweater, a thick pink silk scarf as a headband, and a jean jacket. The outfit wasn’t entirely weather-appropriate, but what cute outfit was weather-appropriate anyway?

  As I headed for my car, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t moved it that morning. Damn it. When I approached the old green Saab, I immediately saw the parking ticket under the windshield wiper. I don’t think I’d ever gone a full month without getting a ticket for not moving my car during street cleaning. It was just too complicated to keep track of which days those trucks were going to come by and on which side of the street and at which hours.

  I pulled the ticket off the windshield and tossed it between the seats. Then I turned the key in the ignition and drove over to pick up Andie. Hers was my favorite building on the block—a dark red brick with bright white shutters that always looked recently painted. I pulled up in front and called her from my cell phone.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, I’m outside.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Two minutes later, she came outside and jumped in the car.

  “Hey, h
ot stuff, how’s it going?” she said.

  “Good. Hey, have you ever noticed that no one in San Francisco actually rings anyone’s doorbell anymore?” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “We always call outside from the cell phone. Why?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just easier to stay in a warm car than double-park.”

  “But doesn’t it seem weird that no one finds this rude?”

  “I guess I never really thought about it.”

  “Oh well, whatever. Anyhow, I like your outfit.” She was wearing a long brown corduroy skirt, knee-length brown boots, and a bright yellow denim jacket over a yellow Tweety-Bird baby T-shirt. “I don’t know how you pull it off, but you can wear the craziest stuff and make it look fashionable.”

  She looked down at her outfit. “This thing? Totally old.”

  “Well, it’s super cute. I can’t wear yellow. Makes me look too pasty.”

  “I guess that’s one benefit of being a blonde, even if I have to pay a hundred and fifty dollars a month for it.”

  I laughed. “I think McKenna’s the only blonde I know who doesn’t pay her hairdresser for the privilege of having more fun.”

  “That bitch,” she said, taking off her jacket. Then she picked up the parking ticket and looked at it. “Street cleaning, huh?”

  “Of course.”

  “Ya know, it’s really not that complicated to figure out when you have to move your car,” she said.

  “I know, I know. But I just can’t be bothered to pay attention. And besides, sometimes it’s easier to pay forty bucks than give up a good parking spot.”

  “Good point. I’ve got some friends in North Beach who pay almost as much in parking tickets each month as they do in rent,” she said.

  “That’s what they get for living in North Beach. Have you ever noticed that it’s easier to go to China than it is to find a parking spot anywhere near Chinatown?”

  She nodded. “That, my friend, I’ve noticed.”

  It turned out that our seats to the game weren’t semi-nosebleeds at all. They were full-on nosebleeds, and I was pissed.

  I took my coat off as we walked up and up and up toward our “midlevel” seats in outer space. “All right, I’m writing a letter to the VP of marketing,” I said.

  Andie looked at me. “The VP of marketing? Why not customer service?”

  I shook my head. “Nope, gotta go with marketing. I’ve noticed that it’s the marketing people who actually care about the image of their company. Plus, they’re the ones who have the most power to give you free stuff to keep you happy. Maybe I can score us some courtside seats to a future Warriors game.”

  She patted me on the shoulder. “Let me know how that works out.”

  We finally reached what was nearly the very last row and put our coats down. “We should have brought a sherpa,” I said. “All right, I’m heading back down to earth for peanuts and a beer. You want something?”

  She gave me an Are you crazy? look. “You’re going back down already?”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m hungry.”

  I clomped back down the steps, and fifteen minutes later I was loaded up with a cardboard tray of snacks for us, fighting my way through the crowded circular hallway of Oracle Arena to start the steep hike back up the stands. When I entered the main dome, I looked down toward the court. The players from both teams had emerged from the locker rooms and were doing warm-up drills to a hip-hop song I was clearly not cool enough to recognize. I scanned the court until my eyes stopped, and I froze.

  Jake was standing on the sideline, talking with a player.

  He was even better looking than I remembered.

  “Hi, Jake,” I whispered.

  I was only about ten rows up from the floor level, so I thought I'd wait there for a little while just in case he happened to look up. As the crowd pushed past me, I kept my eyes on him and tried not to spill any of the food on my tray.

  After nearly five minutes, he still hadn’t looked up, so I decided to throw in the towel and head back up to my seat. Maybe I would try again at halftime. I turned around to face the stairs and looked up to make sure I was in the right aisle. I took my first step, then turned my head back toward the court once more. In that exact moment, Jake glanced up, and our eyes locked for just a second.

  He smiled, and my heart stopped beating.

  I wanted to smile back, but my stupid body was still moving up the stairs, and before I could do anything at all, I bumped smack into a group of little kids, lost my balance, and fell down. No kidding. I literally fell on the ground, and two beers, a mustard-covered pretzel, a bag of salted peanuts, and a carton of garlic fries came raining down on top of me.

  Holy crap.

  “Are you okay?” The father of one of the little kids jumped out of his seat to help me up.

  I picked about twenty-five garlic fries from my chest. “Uh, yes, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  The man helped me stand, and on the way up I grabbed a couple of napkins from the dropped tray to help clean the mess off my pants and sweater. “Look, no broken bones,” I said, trying to laugh.

  “My son and his friends need to be more careful. I’m really sorry about that.”

  I shook my head and patted a napkin on my right shoulder to sop up the beer. “Oh no, no, it was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Really, I’m fine. I think I’m just going to head to the restroom for a few minutes to clean up.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right? My wife can go with you if you like.” He turned toward where he had been sitting. “Pumpkin, can you help this young lady to the restroom?”

  A short, stocky woman with a blonde beehive in a blue-and-yellow Warriors sweatshirt leapt to my side and took me by the elbow. “You okay, sugar? Can I help you get cleaned up?”

  “No, really, I’m fine.” I tried to smile. “Thanks so much, but I’ll be okay, really.” I didn’t want to make a scene, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  “Okay, sweetheart, but you be careful. If you need anything, we’ll be right here.”

  “Thanks, you’re very kind.” I touched her lightly on the shoulder and turned back toward the circular hallway surrounding the arena. I looked down to see if Jake was still there, but the court was empty, save for an army of silicone-enhanced cheerleaders.

  I walked back toward the concession area, and the bright arena lights dimmed. I heard the booming voice of the announcer introducing the players from both teams. The game was about to start, so fortunately the restroom was empty. I stood in front of the mirror and pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser. I held them under the running water and took a good look at myself in the mirror. I had beer, peanut dust, and garlic salt all over me, plus a ton of mustard, some of which was even in my hair. Mustard highlights. Nice.

  By the time I made it back up to Andie with a fresh tray of snacks, I had spent more than fifty dollars, and the game had already started.

  “What happened to you? I was getting ready to put out an APB,” she said.

  I put the tray of food down and pointed to my sweater and pants. “Slight accident.”

  “Ouch, looks like you really bit it. What happened?” She took a bite of a garlic fry.

  “Hand me a cold beer first,” I said. Then I told her the story.

  When I was done, she took a sip of her beer. “Ya know, you’re really clumsy, have you ever noticed that?”

  I punched her in the shoulder. “Ya think?”

  “Do you want to try to head down there after the game to talk to him?” she said.

  I looked down at the basketball court, then at the small meal mashed into my chest and hair. “God, he’s so cute, but seriously, would you want to talk to me like this?”

  She laughed. “Maybe we should come up with another plan.”

  “I suck,” I said.

  She laughed again. “You said it, not me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

 
; The following morning I was sitting at my computer writing a launch plan for a line of JAG hockey sticks. About halfway through I hit a wall, so I stood up to stretch. I put my arms over my head and closed my eyes. Then I put my hands on my hips and decided that a snack was in order, and I headed toward the lobby.

  “Hey, Waverly, how’s the launch plan going?” Mandy Edwards was walking down the hall right at me.

  “Fine, Mandy. Everything’s going according to schedule.”

  “Glad to hear it. Clients can be so demanding, don’t you think?”

  I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  She smiled. “Just that even when you think they’re happy, sometimes they’re not. At least that’s been my experience. Gotta stay one step ahead of them, ya know? That’s what I was just telling Jess at lunch yesterday.”

  I told myself not to bite.

  But then I immediately caved.

  “You went to lunch with Jess?” I said.

  “Yes, yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to chat.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “And?”

  “I told him I’m happy to help out with the JAG account if you guys need it. You never know when a fresh perspective might come in handy.”

  “Uh, okay, thanks, Mandy. But I think we’re doing fine.”

  “Well, I’m here if you need me. I’m always looking for ways to be a team player.”

  Team player. Yet another Mandy-style euphemism for suck-up.

  “Okay, thanks, Mandy. See ya later,” I said.

  “No problem. Bye, Waverly.”

  She walked away, and I pretended to shoot her in the back.

  When I sat back down at my desk, I checked my e-mail and recent meeting notes to see if there was anything important I needed to deal with on any of my accounts. Stupid tattletale Mandy.

  I looked at my computer screen. At the top of my in-box was a message from an old coworker I hadn’t seen in, like, five years. The subject line was “Traveling man update.” As I clicked on it, I realized that it was a mass e-mail. Great … I was on another vacation spam e-mail list. I just couldn’t understand why people sent around long, rambling e-mails about their travels to apparently everyone they’d met in their entire life. And don’t even get me STARTED on inane status updates on Facebook.