There's Cake in My Future

by Gruenenfelder, Kim

  Except that none of them are hitting on us.

  “Which is fine,” Nic tells me as I complain to that effect. “You’re trying too hard. Give it a rest.”

  “Of course I’m trying too hard,” I say to Nic as I bite into a perfectly battered piece of tilapia. “You have no idea how much of a crush it is to the ego to realize NO ONE wants to have sex with you. I might as well be a fifteen-year-old boy.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Wish I was. I have tried online dating, blind dating, and one very bad night of speed dating. I have trolled the Home Depot, the farmers’ market, two churches, and a temple.”

  “What do you call that?” Nic asks. “Praying for prey?”

  “Very funny. I set up camp in the frozen food section of Whole Foods and joined a softball league. At one point earlier this week, I even followed a hearse and a caravan of cars into a cemetery because the driver of the third car in the line looked particularly yummy. Seriously, who does a girl have to fuck to get laid around here?”

  Nic shakes her head. She takes a bite of her burger. “Honey, if you really wanted, you could have any guy in this bar. The thing is, you don’t really want any guy. You’re holding out for something better.”

  “Not true,” I insist.

  “True,” Nic counters.

  “No. I can’t hold out for anything better, because I already know they’re all fuckers,” I say. “They will cheat, they will lie, and if I keep them for more than one night, I will regret it.” I take a sip of my girlie beer. “So how’s married life?”

  “Nice segue,” Nic says, dryly.

  “Sorry. How is it going?”

  “For the most part, it’s good,” Nic says, nibbling on a french fry. “Not quite what I thought it would be, but good. Jason is working all the time, because he really wants to move up to head coach somewhere in the next few years. Which is great. He has an amazing job that he loves, and I totally support him in that. And I am in love with the girls. But I’m wondering if I’ve made an active choice of dedicating my life to them for now, which I do think is important, or if I’m only doing it because my career … What are you doing?”

  “Hmm?” I say, jolted back to reality. My mind had wandered. I have just noticed Mr. Perfect is in this bar.

  He’s beautiful. I guess you’re not supposed to call men beautiful, you’re supposed to call them handsome, but he is stunning, exquisite, and exotically beautiful.

  From where I’m standing, he looks half Japanese, half Caucasian. High cheekbones, short black hair, tall, but not too tall. An athletic build, but not obsessively so. Wearing jeans, and a San Francisco 49ers jersey that I’ll bet I could get off of him in two seconds flat.

  He sits with his (male) friend at the bar, looking relaxed, nursing a pint of dark beer and chatting with his friend and Brian, the owner of the bar.

  “You’re not listening to me,” Nic says irritably.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Real quick, do you think he—” and I point right at the guy, “would sleep with me?”

  Nic rolls her eyes.

  “I saw that,” I say to her, accusingly.

  “You were meant to,” Nic tells me. She shakes her head. “And I’ll go on record as saying yes he would. But having sex with a guy is not going to get your mind off of Fred and everything he did to you. Why do you think it’s taken you this long to have sex? Because you know it’s a bad idea, and it’s only going to make you more depressed.”

  “I’m not depressed,” I correct her. “I’m angry. And on a mission. And that guy,” I say, pointing right at him again. “That guy could do a lot for my ego. That is the kind of guy I have never, in my life, had the nerve to approach, much less ask out on a date. That is the kind of man I want to have the guts to go across the room and introduce myself to. That’s the guy I want to have the nerve to lean over flirtatiously and kiss. That man isn’t one of the Freds of the world—a man who was in my range and who still rejected me. That is a guy who is totally out of my league. And for just one night in my life, I want to be totally out of my league.”

  I grab Nic by the arm. “Oh!” I say, my eyes bugging out as I come up with a plan. “His friend! You can go talk to his friend!”

  “What are we? College freshmen?”

  “Seriously, you can be my wing girl!” I say, very excited about my plan.

  “Please don’t use that word in a sentence again,” Nic pleads with me as she shakes her head.

  “Sorry. I’m just trying not to sound like a math teacher.”

  “Doesn’t work,” Nic assures me as she takes a sip of the fifth beer in her sampler. “Remember when you tried to say ‘hookup’ with a straight face? Or ‘Z‘up’?”

  “Fine,” I say, getting irritated. “Just please go over and talk to his friend.”

  “I’m married.”

  “I said to talk to him, don’t offer to cook him breakfast.”

  Nicole looks over at the two guys. The friend is blond, decent looking. Not Jason handsome, but easy enough on the eyes that having a conversation isn’t going to kill her.

  “Okay, fine,” Nic says, sighing loudly. “Maybe once we’re done with our dinners we could get a drink at the bar so they can approach…”

  Her sentence drifts off, because I have already marched over to Mr. Perfection and his Brad Pitt look-alike friend.

  I put my drink down between their two pints, and look right into Asian dude’s eyes. “Hi. I’m Mel,” I say, on a mission, but smiling.

  The guy looks a little surprised. Not startled exactly, just … caught a little off guard. “I’m Danny,” he says, giving me a warm smile.

  As Nic chases after me to the bar, I say to him, “Hey, Danny. Do you want to go somewhere and make out?”

  “Oh God!” Nicole blurts out. “Danger, danger, Will Robinson. Abort mission! Repeat: abort mission!”

  Danny darts his eyes suspiciously around the room. I can tell he’s convinced someone’s playing a joke on him. “Um…”

  His lag time is annoying me. “What? Do you have a better offer on the table?” I challenge.

  Danny looks over to his blond friend, who is starting to crack up at my antics. “Is this some kind of joke?” he asks his friend.

  His friend puts up the palms of his hands to signal, I have nothing to do with this.

  I say very matter-of-factly, “It’s no joke. I was talking to my friend Nicole here—” I point to Nic. “Nic, introduce yourself.”

  “Z’up,” she says dryly to the two men.

  Blondie smiles at Nic, trying to solicit the same offer from her that Danny is getting from me. “Not much. I’m Nick.”

  “Seriously?” Nic says.

  “Why would I lie about that?”

  “You know what? I can think of, like, a gazillion reasons why you’d lie in the middle of a bar…”

  “Gazillion is not a real number,” I say to Nic, warningly. (Really, my tone of voice is telling her to be nice.)

  “Fine. A zillion reasons why you’d lie…”

  “Also not a number!” I say sternly, talking over her.

  Nic squints her eyes at me, then puts out her hand begrudgingly to Nick. “Nice to meet you, Nick.”

  While they shake hands, I set my sights back on Danny. “So here’s the thing, Danny. You are godlike. And I’m sure you eat mead for breakfast out on Mount Olympus. For once, I am throwing caution to the wind and going to try and make out with the best-looking man in the room. That would be you. So … how ’bout it? Wanna go outside and make out?”

  Danny still seems stunned. He blinks several times as he stares at me.

  Which is not an answer.

  Which is pissing me off. “You know what? I’m in a mood, and I’ve got no time for deliberation. You’re either in or you’re out. And I mean that figuratively, not literally. Try anything funny, and I’ll hit you so hard, your children will be born dizzy.”

  Danny smiles. He seems oddly charmed by this strange woman (that wo
uld be me). “If I bought you dinner, could I be in literally?” he jokes.

  I smile. Take him by the hand and gently pull him away from Nic and Nick. “You don’t have to worry about driving me home,” I assure Nic. “Danny will make sure I get back safely.”

  Nic promptly grabs me by the elbow and pulls me back to the table. “I am not letting you go home with some strange guy,” she says under her breath. “He could be a serial killer.”

  Danny leans in to whisper to Nic. “What if I gave you some collateral?” he asks her. “Like … say … Nick.”

  Nic (my Nic) ignores him and pleads her case to me. “Or married. He could be married.”

  “I already thought of that,” I say to Nic as I hold up Danny’s left hand. “No tan line.”

  “I could bring her to my house,” Danny suggests. “That would prove I’m not married.”

  I hit Nic on the arm excitedly. “He’s bringing me to his house!” I say proudly. “I am SO making out with the best-looking man in the room tonight!”

  “How much have you had to drink tonight?” Nic asks.

  “Not enough,” I tell her in all honesty. “Two Diet Monsters, three cups of coffee, and half a beer.” I grab Danny by the hand and drag him away. “Good night! Wish me luck!”

  (Nic later told me that after she watched us leave, she could feel Nick’s finger go under her chin and push her mouth shut. Apparently, her jaw had literally dropped from witnessing my successful pickup.)

  As I drag Danny out of the bar and onto the street he asks me, “So, how do I know you’re not a serial killer?”

  I turn around. “I’m, like, a hundred pounds soaking wet.”

  “You could have a gun or a knife hidden in those jeans.”

  I look down at my jeans. “These are my ‘Trying Too Hard’ jeans. I wouldn’t be able to sneak a Tic Tac into these, much less a weapon.”

  Danny smiles and asks me flirtatiously, “Can you fit underwear in those jeans?”

  And my jaw drops. “You’re flirting with me. Wait, are you flirting with me?”

  “Didn’t you ask me to go make out with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then I’m flirting with you.”

  “Oh. Right. I guess that makes sense,” I say, furrowing my brow. “So, how do we do this? Do I kiss you? Do you kiss me?”

  “I could kiss you,” Danny offers.

  “Okay, that would be good,” I say.

  Danny leans over to me and kisses me sweetly.

  I lift up my hands and intertwine them behind his neck as I kiss back.

  He’s a REALLY good kisser. My lips just felt a spark.

  And then I almost fall to the ground, completely light-headed. He slips his arm around me and catches me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine!” I say quickly. “I just … um…” And I realize as I’m looking down at the cement that “My knees kind of gave out. That’s all.”

  Weak knees. A kiss that gave me weak knees. Wow. It’s been years.

  So maybe that cake charm was right. Maybe I am going to get a night of red hot romance.

  Danny slowly and seductively pulls me into his chest, and hugs me.

  He feels good. Warm, soft, comforting. Secure.

  Secure. That’s a weird feeling. I haven’t felt secure around a man in so long, and I’m feeling more self-assured and confident around this total stranger than I have been with Fred, or any other boyfriend, in years.

  Danny kisses me again, and we make out for a while, instantly becoming the idiot couple on the street you want to yell to “get a room!”

  He’s brushed his teeth, but not so recently that he tastes like Colgate. His tongue moves around nicely—not so much that I feel like he’s trying to find my tonsils, but not so timidly that I feel like I’m in this all by myself.

  I eventually pull away from the kiss. We look deep into each other’s eyes. I realize I’m grinning. And we just stand there, hugging, looking into each other’s eyes, and saying nothing.

  “So are you done now?!” I hear Nic yell from the front door of the bar.

  I turn to look at her pleadingly to go away. She ignores me. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to let you go home with a total stranger. Both of you, get back in here. Danny, buy the girl a drink. Maybe ask her her last name.”

  Danny takes my hand, and we follow Nic back into the bar.

  Okay, so maybe I haven’t gotten laid. But I just kissed the best-looking man I’ve seen in years. And I feel positively triumphant.

  Thirty-nine

  Seema

  The sushi restaurant was fantastic. I don’t actually eat raw fish (I figure a few turns over a heat source does both me and the fish a lot of good), so Scott took me to a small sushi restaurant that served their sushi on a conveyor belt.

  That’s right—a conveyor belt. Like a giant supermarket belt of rubber mechanized to flow around and around the restaurant, carrying on it whatever the chefs are preparing that moment, everything from tuna to octopus, and allowing the patrons to grab whatever they want from their seats. I grabbed three ebi (cooked shrimp) plates right off the bat and didn’t have to endure the chef making snide comments about my limited palate. I was also able to order vegetable tempura and a bottle of sake.

  Which meant I was a bit tanked by the time we hit the bar at the Ritz-Carlton.

  “This place is awesome!” I say to Scott after he orders a glass of cabernet for me and a designer beer for him.

  “I thought you’d like it,” Scott tell me, smiling proudly. “I discovered it last week with…” His voice trails off. “Well, when I was here last.”

  “You can say her name,” I assure him. “It’s not like if you say Britney three times, she’ll magically appear.”

  “I never take that chance with exes,” Scott jokes as the waitress brings us our drinks. He scrunches up his nose a bit. “Actually, we dated for such a short period of time, does she even count as an ex?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit, as I take a sip of my cabernet. “You had sex, right?”

  Scott looks almost insulted. “I always have sex with the women I date.”

  “Charming,” I say dryly.

  He shrugs. “Right, like I’m suddenly offending you. I’m a pig. You know that. Why, Britney just said so herself this week.”

  “You’re not a pig,” I promise him. “You’re the most loyal, honest guy I know. As a matter of fact I’m surprised you’ve gotten as far as you have in your career, considering you have scruples.”

  “Wait, that’s a compliment, right?”

  “Indeed.”

  Scott shrugs as he takes a sip of his beer. “Well, that just shows where having scruples gets me. I’m thirty-one and alone.”

  “You’re not alone, I’m right here.”

  “Not having sex with me,” Scott says jokingly. “Doesn’t count.”

  I drink a bit more wine for courage, then decide to go for broke. “So, how come we’ve never had sex?”

  Scott seems surprised by my question. “You didn’t want to, remember?” he reminds me amicably.

  I’m shocked by that answer. Genuinely shocked. Granted, in a way that comes from half a bottle of champagne before you leave for dinner, and sake with dinner, but still shocked. “What?!” I blurt out. “That’s not true!”

  Scott looks at me, amused. He smiles as he insists, “It is too! I asked you for your card, and you gave me your work number. That meant you weren’t interested.”

  “No, I asked you for your card,” I correct him.

  “No, I asked you for your card,” he assures me with 100 percent certainty.

  I think back for a moment. Did Scott ask me for my card first? Am I remembering the story wrong? Have I been sabotaging myself this whole time? And if so, now what?

  “Well, even if you did ask me first, I gave you my card, didn’t I?”

  “Yee-ah,” Scott says, acknowledging my point, but not conceding the argument. “But if you had wanted a love con
nection, you’d have jotted down your home number, or at least your cell. I had to call your assistant before I could get to you—that’s not a woman letting me past the red velvet rope anytime soon.”

  “I was kind of interested,” I say coyly. (Yeah, kind of—that’s right. As in I kind of like to breathe.)

  “Right,” he says sarcastically. “So ‘kind of interested’ that it took meeting with you in your office, a coffee, then a lunch, before you gave me your home number.”

  It did?

  I got nothing. I take another sip of wine. “Well … just because I’m not as aggressive as some of the women…”

  “Sweetheart, it’s fine. I got over it. You asked a question, so I answered it. You weren’t interested.”

  “Oh,” I say, saddened.

  “And I’m okay with that.”

  “Oh.”

  I have played this all wrong, and now I have passed the point where I can fix it.

  “Of course, Britney thought you wanted to sleep with me,” Scott says, countering his own argument, then taking a sip of beer.

  And so did Sherri, apparently. What the Hell am I supposed to say to that?

  “Well, I’m not saying I would want to now—you know, since we’re such good friends. But I’ll admit there was a time when the thought of making out with you crossed my mind.”

  Scott takes a moment to decipher my statement. He squints his eyes and points to me. “Making out. That’s a girl’s way of saying ‘sleep with a guy,’ right?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” I say, covering my flushed, embarrassed face with my wineglass by taking a big drink.

  Scott nods to himself. “Good to know.” He points to my wineglass. “Now take it easy with that stuff. We want you tipsy when we get home to watch the rest of When Harry Met Sally. We don’t want you slurring and passed out. I plan to continue our debate tonight on male-female relationships.”

  Really?

  An hour later, we cabbed it home to Scott’s apartment. I changed into a pair of Scott’s sweats and his COME TO THE DARK SIDE—WE HAVE COOKIES! T-shirt, Scott went to his kitchen to make us decaf lattes with his espresso machine, and we sat down on the couch to watch the rest of the movie.