by Lisa Daily
“It’s cool,” he says. “The clan we’re playing tonight kinda sucks, so there’s nothing to worry about. We’ve got this.”
I tentatively put on the headset as he powers up the other TV.
“You look cute,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling like I’m back in high school.
“First thing you need is a gamer tag,” he says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Your screen name,” he answers, looking at me expectantly. “Mine is QB_SNiiP3R,” he says proudly as he selects it on screen. “No pressure, though, yours doesn’t have to be as cool.”
“Lucky me.” I laugh. He’s staring at me, waiting for me to answer; my mind blanks out and I can’t think of anything funny or witty. Actually, I can’t seem to think of anything at all. “Uh…”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” he says. “You can always change it after tonight if you don’t like it.” That’s rich, like I’m ever going to need a gamer tag after tonight.
“Uh.…” Jeez. I can’t think of anything. Anything at all. Dane shifts in his seat; he’s clearly getting impatient.
“SparklePony?” I say tentatively. An inside joke with Michael, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I’m terrible at remembering usernames, so Michael made everything from Netflix to our cell phone account SparklePony so I wouldn’t forget.
Dane rolls his eyes, but looks amused. “Okay, SparklePony it is.”
He enters my username, picks a generic avatar, and then hands me the controller, explaining rapid-fire how the thing is supposed to work. “This stick is how you move your camera—if you click it, it will do your melee attack or zoom; right stick click is melee so you can beat someone with your gun instead of shooting them in the face. Left stick is move. If you click it you can sprint. If you’re in sniper mode, it holds your breath. A is double jump to give yourself a little rocket boost, B is crouch, X is the critically important reload button, Y lets you switch your weapon. Left bumper is your exo-ability, right bumper is your lethal equipment. Left trigger is ‘aim down the sight,’ right trigger is the most important button of all, ‘fire weapon.’ Those are the basics.”
The basics? He’s practically speaking in tongues. Right button to fire is pretty much all I got out of that. And something about holding my breath.
He points to the top TV screen. “That’s us, D34TH2C@MPERS.” A video feed of Dane’s face is on one side of the screen, the game is in the center.
He points to the other TV below “That’s you.”
“Death to campers?” I laugh. “I mean, I hate camping as much as the next person—especially the sleeping outside part—but I don’t wish a zombie apocalypse on them or anything.”
Dane responds without taking his eyes off the top screen, “Not that kind of camping. ‘Campers’ hide in one spot trying to kill you when you respawn. Or they’re in a shitty spot where you can’t get to them, and they kill you a bunch of times. Not cool.”
The game hasn’t started yet, but comments start scrolling on the right side of the screen, mostly in jibberish. Except one.
ꞄũpernaturaḹPȃragoņ: SparklePony? What kind of lameass brony name is that? OMFG QB_SNiiP3R you brought a CHICK
*ȀtomįcChimera*: sparklepony???? lmao is she gonna make us sandwiches at intermission? WTF?
I’m hearing stereo, Dane next to me, and Dane through the headset, “Be cool, you guys. You can’t be talking about my special lady like that, you douchebags. Matty’s out with carpal, we need a warm body. You wanna cancel the stream tonight?”
Dane is defending my honor against these sexist little monkeys, which is kind of sweet. Except he did it by calling somebody a douchebag, which is pretty awful. I’ve only been here ten minutes and it already feels like the longest date of my life.
*ȀtomįcChimera*: Move the camera, lets see how warm she is.
BaⓓFrenzy: Shut up and play
“Just ignore them. They’re a bunch of immature assholes. Ready?” asks Dane.
“Ready or not,” I say.
“Just stick with me.”
The action starts. And it does not go well.
It looks like we’re in a jungle or something, but full of sand and overturned trucks and bombed-out buildings. All I can see is the end of the gun my character is carrying. In the headset, all the guys are talking to each other, talking smack, telling each other what to do, swearing up a storm, which makes it even harder to remember which buttons to push to make myself move or shoot. At first I can’t figure out how to move my character at all, and then once I do I just keep running around, trying to follow Dane’s character, which isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“Fire, fire,” yells Dane, looking directly at me. I indiscriminately mash a bunch of buttons, unsure of which one is supposed to fire my weapon. Suddenly a grenade goes off, taking out our entire team. I can’t even see who fired it.
“What the fuck, Dane?” yells somebody in the headset. Dane starts swearing and the first round is over.
“You’re not supposed to take out your own guys,” he says to me tersely.
“Wait, what … that was me?” I ask.
“Yeah, that was you. Just be more careful,” he says.
“Sorry, guys,” I say into the microphone. “Sorry, my bad.” For the first time in the game, everyone is silent.
The next round isn’t much better. I’m stuck in a corner and I can’t seem to make my way out. We’re inside and I keep going around and around what looks like an endless room with no doors or windows. I’m starting to feel dizzy.
“Get outta there!” yells Dane.
“There’s no door,” I say. “I’m trapped! I think I’m trapped in a circular room! There’s no way out.” And then boom! I’m dead. This time it only took me about fifteen seconds to get myself killed. The comment section goes wild.
Dane stands up, dragging his cast and pointing to the upper TV screen, which shows his character’s point of view. There’s my character crumpled in a heap, apparently trapped in a corner. No circular room. Just a corner. Lots of windows, at least two different doorways, and a bombed-out wall. Not trapped.
“Look straight ahead,” Dane admonishes me. “If you look straight up at the ceiling you can’t see where the hell you’re going.”
My untimely death is probably the best thing to happen to D34TH2C@MPERS, because without my help they manage to blow up a bunch of stuff, kill a lot of bad guys, and make some serious progress in completing their mission. I sit on the couch beside Dane while he plays, pretending like I’m interested. I’m trying to watch to see what he does so that I won’t get myself killed in, like, three seconds next time, but his fingers move with lightning speed on the controller.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Will ya get that, babe?” Dane asks, never taking his eyes off the screen or his hands off the controller.
I stand up and answer the door. Pizza delivery. Dane is engrossed in the game, so I take forty dollars out of my purse and pay the guy. He looks thrilled at a ten-dollar tip, he’s clearly used to delivering to college students.
I bring the pizzas over to the coffee table and set down the boxes. I search the kitchen for plates and napkins, but come up short. I probably have wet wipes in my purse, but feel weird about the idea of whipping them out.
“Thanks,” says Dane, still glued to the screen. I sit there watching him, smelling the pizza, for another twenty minutes until Dane’s character gets killed. He pushes open the box and grabs a slice.
“Do you have napkins or paper towels?” I ask.
“Nah,” he responds, licking some sauce off his finger. He’s watching the action on screen, and swears as the rest of his team gets killed off a second time.
The final round goes a bit better. Dane shows me once again how to make my character run and jump and change direction, and suggests that I avoid shooting or bombing anyone, for the safety of the team. This is the best idea I’ve heard all night.
“Okay,” I agree, trying not to let myself read the mean stuff people are saying about me in the comments section. Who knew people could be so cruel with just punctuation marks and emoticons?
“Eyes straight ahead,” he says, making a weird signal with his hands like he’s special ops or something, and not just some gamer guy sitting on some dead relative’s horrid old couch.
“Eyes straight ahead,” I repeat, following closely behind Dane. The herky-jerky movement of the game is starting to make me feel seasick, but I keep trotting behind him like we really are saving the world from evildoers.
Dane, and the other guys on our team, GuerillaBlảdẻ, and *IronȞolySin*, are clustered together behind a wall of rubble when we’re suddenly surprise-attacked by snipers.
“Run!” yells Dane, and I take off backward. The three of them are shooting and swearing, and I keep scrambling along the side of a long building, trying not to look up.
Two things happen almost simultaneously: at the end of the long building, I suddenly find myself face-to-face with one of the bad guys—Dane, GuerillaBlảdẻ, and *IronȞolySin* are screaming something about a bomb carrier … and then all three of them are wiped out in rapid succession by the sniper.
“Fuck!”
“Jesus, you’ve got him at point-blank range!” screeches one of the voices in the headset. “We’ve got him!”
“Shoot him!” Dane yells at me. “The guy right in front of you, kill him! Kill him and we win!”
I look down at the controller, trying to remember what to do.
“Shoot him!!!!!” yells Dane, as I aim my weapon and mash the FIRE button. A spray of bullets peppers the sky. Two seconds later the bomb goes off and I’m dead.
A string of expletives burns through my headset, and over on the other end of the couch, Dane’s head is in his hands.
“I’m really sorry,” I say.
He looks crestfallen. We sit there in silence for a few seconds, and then he reaches over and pulls the controller from my hands.
“I don’t think this is going to work out,” he says.
40
My best date so far was a fix-up jointly orchestrated by my neighbor Zelda and my grandma Leona, who arranged a night out with Leonardo, the thirty-two-year-old Brazilian grandson of a lady in their scuba diving class. Or maybe it was their country-and-western line dancing class. Or their sensual cookery class.
Anyway, we met for dinner and drinks at a club downtown, followed by samba dancing, and a moonlight stroll down around St. Armands Circle, all the way to Lido Key. We connected immediately, talked about everything under the sun, and laughed like we’d known each other for years. He was smart and funny and romantic, not to mention his broad shoulders and gorgeous brown eyes that reminded me of melted chocolate.
Leonardo’s English was solid, his accent was dreamy, and unlike me, he was a skilled dancer, imbibed with both confidence and natural rhythm. He was also on his way back to Rio in less than twenty-four hours. Naturally, the best date I’d had since this whole mess began was leaving the country with no plans to return to the U.S. anytime in the foreseeable future. We shared stories and laughed all night, watched the sun come up from the beach, and spent every waking minute together we could before it was time for him to go to the airport. He looked deep into my eyes as he swept me into his arms at the DEPARTURES curb, gently brushing my lips with the most slobbery, frothy, drooling kiss I’ve ever experienced. Even counting toddlers. And Saint Bernards.
And then he was gone.
It’s funny how going out with someone who is so close to what you’re searching for, but not quite right, makes you yearn for something meaningful.
41
Nate hasn’t called. I haven’t called. It got weird.
I’ve avoided the psych job site and Nate the tool-belt supermodel drywaller for eight days. The job is practically finished, and if I don’t show up soon, Joe and the rest of my crew are going to think I’ve joined a cult or something.
I didn’t want to go to the job site until Nate called me. And he never did.
Eventually, I just had to suck up my pride and do my job.
The key, I’ve decided, is to be totally professional. Get in, get out, just focus on the work. And at all costs, avoid looking Nate in the eyes. His animal magnetism is Medusa-like—if I gaze upon him even once, I’ll be a goner.
I pull in to the job site and I’m thrilled to see that Nicky has already completed the landscaping outside. It’s gorgeous, just what I hoped for—peaceful and tropical, like the grounds of an elegant hotel. Checking my face in the mirror one last time before I go inside, I smooth my hair and add a dot of lip stain. Stalling a bit longer, I smile wide at myself in the rearview mirror: nothing stuck in my teeth. All predictable embarrassments avoided, I grab my bag, step out of the car, and go inside.
“Hey, Doc, it’s looking good, right?” Joe says to me as I enter the lobby.
“It’s looking great,” I say. The entryway is finished and the furniture has been delivered, covered in plastic wrap and stacked in a precarious-looking tower, out of the way on the far side of the room. I can’t wait to put the room together today—it’s always one of my favorite parts of any job. It’s also the last part. Joe escorts me through the rest of the offices. The ceiling height has been corrected, and the therapy offices are cozy and inviting. We head back to the therapy gardens and I begin to wonder why I haven’t seen Nate yet. Not that I’m going to ask. There’s a big part of me that hopes I won’t see him at all, avoiding the potential for utter humiliation in front of my favorite contractor and his entire crew.
But there’s another part of me, albeit a tiny one, that’s hoping to accidentally run into Nate. The fact that he hasn’t called me after we had sex is too humiliating for words. Maybe he’ll see me and suddenly realize he wants to be with me. Not that I have a burning desire to be with him or anything—it would just be nice if he called, you know? It’s probably best to avoid him.
Nicky is in the outdoor therapy rooms, finishing up the last of the plantings. Like the landscaping out front, it’s stunning and serene, the perfect place to spill the contents of your heart. Nicky has installed an extensive drip system for the plants, moderated for the particular needs of each plant so that the areas would require less intrusion for maintenance of the foliage. It was Joe’s idea, and I think it’s brilliant.
Joe leads me through the rest of the therapy rooms and work areas. I’m almost all the way through the building when I see him, standing on a stepladder, prepping the last bit of plaster for paint.
“Looking good, Nate,” says Joe. Nate turns at the sound of Joe’s voice, and grins when he sees me.
“How’s it going?” Nate says to me, raising an eyebrow flirtatiously. I feel my skin flush, and stare straight ahead, hoping Joe hasn’t caught the scent of my humiliation. Oh God, this is the worst. Nate might as well have just boisterously announced to the entire crew that we screwed around. Really, it couldn’t have been more obvious unless he’d beaten on his chest from high atop the ladder, and then squirted spermicide in my hair.
“Just doing a walk-through,” says Joe. “Looks good.”
“Really good,” I mumble. My skin burns scarlet in disgrace. Just a few more hours, and I’ll never have to see Nate again.
Joe confirms with me that all the painting at the rear of the building will be completed in an hour or so, and dry enough to move in the furniture in a couple of hours. The rest of the rooms are now done. I head back up to the lobby to oversee the staging of the office. Handing out extra copies of my floor plans to the crew, I direct them to set up furniture in the individual offices.
As I’m arranging the seating groupings in the lobby, I mentally lecture myself to never have a one-night stand again. Sure, there are women who are totally cool with it, own their own sexuality and all that—and more power to them. It just isn’t me. Obviousl
y, I need some kind of emotional connection to go along with the physical one. I’m still far too vulnerable for nostrings sex. I’ve just gotten out of a nostrings marriage.
I no longer care about being a thirty-one-year-old woman previously afflicted with gay-husband virginity, or the fact that the one straight guy I had sex with isn’t even interested enough for a second date (or, if I’m being completely honest with myself, a first date,) or even a courtesy call. And I no longer care that Darcy and Michael think my number of sexual partners is too low—I’m done with Operation Naughty Nine. I’m not going to modify my past, my life story, or pad my sexual résumé just so some guy-to-be-named-later won’t run screaming from my shortcomings. If I’m going to date, have sex, or even fall in love again with a man, any man, he’s just going to have to accept me for all my weirdnesses.
42
Over the next few months, I throw myself into my work. Olivia Vanderbilt Kensington, my socialite client running the Wildlife Foundation benefit, is an endless pit of neediness. She calls me at all hours of the day, every day. We meet twice a week, sometimes three times, and she requires far more hand-holding than all of my other clients combined. She changes details, like the specific accent flowers she wants in the centerpieces, and then changes them back, and then changes them back again, updating me constantly on the endless minutiae of her day and her thought processes. She’s not a happy person; eventually I start wondering if maybe she’s just lonely, and complaining is her way of connecting with the world.
I feel sorry for her in some ways, but it doesn’t make her endless demands any less taxing.
My favorite client, Daniel Boudreaux, and his fanciful floating restaurant, is something else entirely. I stop by at least two or three times a week, and Daniel always treats me with some sample of whatever new menu item he’s trying out for the restaurant. I’m endlessly inspired by the space and the chef himself, and find myself sketching variations for his restaurant in nearly every free moment. It’s exciting to work with someone so creative and passionate, a counter to the emotional drain of clients like Olivia Vanderbilt Kensington. I try to focus on the outcome with her, rather than the experience. If the Wildlife Foundation benefit is a big success and meets its goal of a 20 percent fundraising bump, it will open the floodgates for more high-end fundraising business for me, which in turn will bring me more corporate business. The job is murder, but the potential payoff is worth it.