by Lindsey Kelk
And so to Craigslist.
‘What am I supposed to write?’ I asked the computer. It whirred a little in response but, really, it didn’t have anything helpful to say. It never did. Instead of putting up my ad, I read a couple of others. Everyone had a relaxing, cosy room to rent. Which my bullshit translator read as dark and small. This was too hard. And besides, if I left it long enough, Angie would totally do it for me. She was the writer, after all. I was the do-er. The planner. The action gal. I was much better at browsing the Bergdorf’s website than I was at finding a roommate. Man, Brian Atwood made some nice shoes. I did miss styling. Shopping for free? Amazing. Even if it was shopping for other people.
‘Speaking of shopping for people … ’ I muttered. Online dating. Everyone was doing it, right? It was no big deal? I pulled up OK Cupid, the site I’d heard most of my friends talk about and entered in my search criteria. There was no box for ‘not an asshole’ so I was on my own with that filter. Huh. Just from the photographs, I could tell why they didn’t offer the ‘no asshole’ checkbox. Because every guy on here was a douche. Any second now I was going to come across Brian Williams’s picture.
‘Asshole … ugly … short … ugly and short,’ I said out loud, scrolling through profiles. ‘Short ugly asshole … OK … OK … dumb looking … can’t spell.’
It was like shopping online for guys but with zero quality control. If you wanted designer duds, you went to the Barneys website, not Forever 21. But online dating? There was everything in here, from Prada to Payless. How were you supposed to choose? But still, it was better than doing what actually needed doing …
Twenty minutes later, oprahlopez2011 had a live profile. The photos were cute, my answers to the dumb-ass questions were brief but fun (‘on a Friday night I am mostly … ’ – surely anyone who could answer that without sounding like a total loser wouldn’t be using an online dating site) and now, to wait. Only, waiting wasn’t something I was good at.
‘How hard can this be?’ The computer still didn’t answer. Ass-hat. ‘I just message them and they message me back?’ I really had to get a goldfish or something, just so I had a living entity to direct my banter at.
‘Height, six feet minimum.’ It was time to take destiny into my own hands. Let’s see what this baby had hiding away. ‘Hair, blond. Age, thirty to thirty-seven. No kids, likes kids, athletic build, sign, Aquarius, and income, one hundred thousand dollars minimum.’
Like OK Cupid was going to have anyone who matched these criteria.
Oh. Oh my God. Sweet baby Jesus in the manger.
Suddenly, my dream man appeared on screen. Just one look into his baby blues and I was lost in a fantasy of Hamptons summer houses, candy-striped pinafores and two cute kids, gambolling around the garden. Did kids gambol or was that just lambs? Whatever, it was instant. I was in love.
I had met my future husband. And his name was AJJ78. A brief perusal of his profile suggested he wasn’t a psycho, he had a healthy distaste for the whole online dating thing and he didn’t have any douche-bag flags flying, i.e. he didn’t at any point suggest that Ayn Rand had changed his life. This guy had to be worth a message. Or a wink. Just because the idea of someone winking at me in the street would make me run and hide didn’t mean I couldn’t bust one out here, right? I mean, if it was a valid option? And so, with one very fast, before I regretted it, click of a mouse, it was done. I, Jenny Lopez, had virtually winked at a man.
There was no going back.
A few hours, a short nap and two tacos later, my phone trilled on the kitchen counter.
‘Hey, Erin,’ I tried to keep the sleep out of my voice. ‘What’s up?’
‘I’m calling about tomorrow,’ Erin did not sound even faintly fatigued. Erin sounded all business. ‘I’ve emailed over the call sheet for the event and the number of your driver?’
‘I have a driver?’ This whole gig was sounding better and better.
‘Sadie Nixon has a driver,’ she replied. ‘And you have Sadie Nixon.’
Oh yeah. The demonic supermodel spawn of Satan. Allegedly.
‘And I’m to do what? Pick her up, get her to the show, get her out of the show and ditch her again?’
‘Precisely.’
I really couldn’t see what the big deal was.
‘And just invoice me your day rate when you’re done,’ she said. ‘And any expenses. Sadie doesn’t usually carry cash.’
‘Who does she think she is? The queen?’
‘Pretty much,’ Erin confirmed. ‘Listen, Jenny, I know you can do this, I know you’re not dumb but I cannot, cannot emphasize enough how important it is to me to have this walking clothes hanger in the right place at the right time, do you hear me?’
Jesus, she was more on edge than she’d been at her first wedding. Way more chilled out than at the third, though.
‘I hear ya, chief.’
Yeah, I might have saluted into the mirror.
‘It’s a new client for me and it’s a client I need to keep. They’re not going to stick with me if I lose their top attraction, are they?’
‘Erin, relax,’ I wanted to reassure her, but she was past it. ‘This is important to you, I get it. I won’t fuck it up.’
‘She’s just … ’ Erin searched for the right words. ‘I’ve worked with her before and Jenny, I can’t tell you. She was such a difficult bitch. And that was pre-supermodel Sadie. There’s no way fame and money have made her a better person.’
So, this wasn’t looking quite so appealing all of a sudden. But still, a driver.
‘I worked with tons of tough clients in LA,’ I lied. ‘Honestly, honey, you think it’s easy being a stylist in the carb-free land of the size zero? We’re gonna be just fine. I’ll pick her up, I’ll tell her how great she looks, we’ll do wheatgrass shots, I’ll keep her off the coke and deliver her in one piece.’
‘Don’t joke about the coke.’
‘Keeping her off it or making sure she’s got it?’ I wasn’t sure what the protocol was with supermodels right now. Personally, I didn’t need to pay a hundred bucks for an inflated sense of self-esteem and crashing misery the next day. I could just knock back a couple of dirty martinis and then check Jeff’s Facebook page for the exact same effect, but the models? Sometimes, they expect you to look the other way. And I’d lived with a hooker. I was an expert at looking the other way, even if I didn’t like it.
‘If she even alludes to taking anything stronger than a Red Bull, you stop her,’ Erin ordered. ‘In fact, I don’t even want her on a Red Bull. I don’t want her on anything harder than green tea. You hear me?’
‘Green tea, got it.’
‘On your head be it, Jennifer Lopez.’ Erin resigned herself to her fate. And not a minute too soon, my ‘call waiting’ buzzed in my ear. ‘I’ll see you at the venue tomorrow.’
‘Y’ello,’ I flicked from Erin’s call to the call waiting. ‘Jenny speaking.’
‘Hey, it’s me,’ Angela replied. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Oh, the kitchen’s on fire and my leg is hanging off but apart from that? Sure.’
‘JENNY.’
‘Fine, I burned some toast and cut my leg shaving. But you keep freaking asking.’
‘Whatever.’ Angela sounded just as resigned to her fate as Erin. ‘What are you doing tonight?’
‘It’s three p.m. and I’m about to eat a grilled cheese.’ I looked over at the slightly dubious two-week-old loaf of Wonder Bread on the counter. ‘And I already ate two tacos. I’m going to be a heifer.’
‘Step away from the sandwich, we’re going out.’ Angie didn’t sound nearly as excited as she should. ‘Alex got you a date.’
‘And it’s you?’ I was understandably confused by the ‘we’ part of her last sentence. ‘And he’s OK with that?’
‘It’s not me, you arse. It’s a boy.’
‘What boy?’
‘What happened to you not being picky?’
‘Touché.’
That statement was of
course made before I met my online prince charming.
‘Just be at Hotel Delmano at eight.’
Ooh, nice. I liked Hotel Delmano.
‘And don’t wear stupidly high heels, we probably won’t stay there.’
Oh.
‘It’s like fifteen dollars for a cocktail,’ Angela defended herself against my silence. ‘I’m unemployed and dating an impoverished musician.’
‘You’re freelance and he’s loaded,’ I argued. ‘Fine, whatever. I’ll meet you there. This guy’d better be awesome.’
‘He’s a music producer.’ She sounded quite proud of herself. ‘Alex met him while he was doing that soundtrack stuff for James Jacobs’s new movie and they’re apparently best friends now. He’s just moved back to New York from LA, like you. I thought you’d be a good match.’
‘Sounds good,’ I admitted. ‘OK honey, I’ll see you there.’
‘See you later,’ she signed off.
Five hours to make myself fabulous. I flopped back down on the sofa. There was so time for another nap.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘What is this?’ I stood in the bar of Hotel Delmano, Williamsburg’s swankiest, overpriced cocktail jaunt and pointed at the man in the chair next to Angela. ‘Is this supposed to be funny?’
‘You look hot, dollface.’ The guy, who blatantly was not a music producer just flown in from LA, stood up and gave me an offensively big hug. Ah, Axe body spray, Febreze and just a hint of BO. ‘I am so glad you asked me out.’
Angela dropped her head onto her forearms. ‘I’m so fucking sorry.’ She mumbled, face down. ‘He cancelled. This was the best we could do.’
‘This’ was someone I’d had the misfortune of meeting before. ‘This’ was Alex’s bandmate, amateur bass player and professional asshole, Craig. Cute, yes, blond, yes, potentially carrying the herpes virus, absolutely. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted my Robert Rodriguez LBD on this guy. And I couldn’t believe Angela would do this to me.
‘Hey, Jenny, let me get you a drink.’ Angie’s boyfriend, Alex, unfolded himself from his seat, further illustrating Craig’s shortcomings. Alex was skinny, sure, but he pulled it off by having actual biceps and broad shoulders. Craig was a good five or six inches shorter and just an out-and-out runt. How he was so popular with the ladies, I would never know. Hanging out with Alex couldn’t possibly be helping him. I’d never admit it to Angie, but the first night she’d taken me out to vet the dude, I’d nearly tripped over my own tongue. He was so ridiculously super-hot. But he was still on BFF probation with me after dicking her around on vacation in Paris. Long story short, even though she said everything was OK, as the best friend I was still duty-bound to be on his back until he proved himself. Plus he’d stolen my best-ever roomie, and for that I would never really forgive him.
Not knowing what else to do, I took Alex’s empty seat opposite Craig. There was no way I was sitting within touching distance of that guy. Angela gave me her big apologetic eyes and while I was impressed by her make-up application, I still wasn’t impressed by her choice of last-minute date.
‘I don’t know why you look so pissed.’ Craig settled back into his seat, not looking too pleased with proceedings himself. ‘You’re the one who can’t get a date. I’m doing you a favour.’
‘OK, I’m out of here.’ I stood again but Angela placed her hand over mine and gave me the look one more time.
‘Just one drink,’ she said quietly. ‘Craig’s just joking.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘No he isn’t.’
I wasn’t sure which of us answered first.
This was going to be the longest one drink of my life.
‘And then, and then,’ Craig waved his arms around manically, ‘he tripped on his guitar lead and totally face-planted onto the stage. It was awesome. Right, Alex?’
It turned out that if you were to drink three cocktails, real quick, Craig wasn’t nearly such a bad date. Through my gin-flavoured fug, he was funnier than I remembered. Maybe I was just giving him a bad rap. It was Angela that was always telling me what an asshole he was, but it wasn’t as though dating a band boy had gone badly for her. If you overlooked the fact that he was thinner than one of my thighs, he was cute.
‘Yeah, and I dislocated my shoulder and we had to cancel three shows,’ Alex replied. I noticed he and Angie were drinking way slower than Craig and I. Lightweights. ‘It was hilarious.’
‘So tell me about this job tomorrow.’ Angela changed the subject without much subtlety. As was her way. ‘This super-important job that is an epic responsibility and carries one of your best friend’s careers on its shoulders.’
‘It’s nothing.’ I waved her concerns away, almost waving my drink off the table in the process. ‘It’s babysitting. Fancy babysitting.’
‘Babysitting with a hangover is always a good idea,’ she commented, sipping her cocktail. ‘Do you want to get something to eat? We could go over to Café Colette?’
‘No way,’ Craig slammed his beer and banged the empty glass on the counter. ‘Eating’s cheating. Let’s move this party on.’
‘Yeah,’ I pushed myself up to my feet. Maybe I should have had that grilled cheese earlier. Eating might be cheating, but throwing up in the street was not OK. Not even in Williamsburg, As far as I was concerned. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Manhattan Inn?’ he suggested. I was impressed. Yes, the bar was in Greenpoint, but it was also kind of classy for Craig. There was a live jazz pianist and actual candles on the tables despite the risk of hipster-induced arson. ‘I know a guy there.’
‘He knows a guy everywhere,’ Alex replied, nodding to the girl behind the bar for the check. ‘It’s only usually a problem if their girlfriend knows too.’
I was genuinely surprised. After the rocky start, Craig had been a perfect gentleman. He picked up my drinks, held the door open and even asked if he could hold my hand on the way to the next bar. It couldn’t just be booze that was making my head swim. This was sort of sweet. Wandering through McCarren Park, holding hands with a cute boy at twilight was so nice. I’d almost forgotten how nice.
‘You know, I don’t really know all that much about you,’ Craig said, slowing his pace a little to let Angie and Alex get a head start. ‘Like, where are you from, originally I mean?’
‘I grew up upstate.’ I took in the groups of kids sitting on blankets in the park, almost every single one of them with some tiny instrument or other. Oh, Williamsburg. ‘Moved here for college.’
‘They’re still upstate? Still married?’ he asked.
‘Binghamton and yeah, thirty-five years and counting,’ I nodded. ‘My dad runs a construction company up there. My mom runs my dad.’
‘That’s awesome. My parents divorced when I was three. I never really knew my dad.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I immediately felt guilty for having a functional family. Something that happened more often than I’d like. ‘Did your mom remarry?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘It was just me and her. She’s amazing, you know? Strongest woman I ever met. I owe her everything.’
‘Doesn’t seem like you’ve suffered for the lack of a male role model,’ I smiled and rubbed his arm.
‘You’re funny,’ Craig said, squeezing my hand.
It wasn’t often that I was lost for words, but in this instance I just didn’t know what to say. I mean, sure, I was as funny as the next girl, but it wasn’t something guys often threw into the middle of a conversation. Not when they could be looking at my boobs.
‘Thanks?’
‘You don’t know how to take a compliment, do you?’ He slowed down until we were standing in the middle of the park, all alone.
Now that was not true. I loved compliments. I actively encouraged them at all times. But for some reason, my mouth was glued shut. I could feel myself blushing under Craig’s steady gaze, his half-closed eyes, his slightly too long hair. Even his weird smell was growing on me – less BO, more man-scent. Yeah, I’
d had too much to drink.
‘Jenny,’ he said in a low voice, leaning in towards me. ‘Would it be OK if I kissed you?’
‘Yes?’ I squeaked. It came out as a question because I really, really wasn’t sure.
But to a guy, a yes is a yes. Even one with a very clear inflection. I stood on my tiptoes, both my hands in both of his and let him kiss me. Even half wasted, I could tell it was a good kiss. This boy was no amateur; he had laid one on many a ladyface before me. Breaking away, I saw the sun sinking behind the Empire State Building over Craig’s shoulder and sighed happily at my romcom moment.
‘Wow,’ he squeezed my hand and stroked my cheek. ‘That was kind of amazing, Jenny.’
‘Yuh-huh,’ I agreed, squeezing back and breaking his hold. For some reason, the way he kept saying my name was making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and not in a ‘sexy times’ way. I just had a feeling that he needed to keep saying it for fear of forgetting who I was. ‘Let’s get to the bar.’
Because another drink was just what I needed.
When we finally caught up with Angie and Alex, they were already at Manhattan Inn and had a booth, drinks, and faces like thunder.
‘Nice walk?’ Angie asked. I nodded silently, slipping into the seat across from her. How could she be mad at me? This whole date was her fault. Wasn’t the fact that we were getting along a good thing?
‘I’ll get you a drink, sweet thing,’ Craig said into my hair, making me shiver. Although, again, not really in a good way.
‘Did you kiss him?’ Angela demanded, the second Craig was out of the room.