Something about his over zealousness, like that of a used car sales-man, rubbed Holly the wrong way. Sure, she was flattered that he was anticipating meeting her, but showing up over two hours early to a first date? Who does that?
Strike one.
She texted him back and told him that he needed to wait until six-thirty like they had originally planned. If Marco wanted to throw a fit about it and call the whole thing off, well, it was really no sweat off her back. Fortunately, he did agree to wait without making a fuss about it. When Holly mentioned this little snafu to Emma, she made it seem as though Holly was looking for things.
“You can’t judge a guy just because he showed up a couple hours early to a date, Holly. Come on, that’s ridiculous.”
“It just set off red flags. Now I can’t help but get a strange vibe from him. You know how I am when I get a feeling in my gut about someone or something that’s not right.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Remember, it’s an experiment. There is no need to be so uptight. Just go and have fun.”
At the last minute, Holly was panicky and uncertain if she really wanted to go through with the date. Her nerves felt like strings being stretched further and further apart. Meeting people online just wasn’t her style and she couldn’t help but feel like this experiment was making her out to be some kind of freak show on display. After coaxing herself into it, she arrived at the restaurant where Marco waited at the front door. It shouldn’t have surprised her to see that he looked nothing like his pictures. He wore an unbuttoned plaid shirt that revealed part of a skull and rose tattoo on his chest, along with jeans and grubby sneakers. From the looks of his teeth, which were ridden with calcium deposits and tarnished a dull yellow, it seemed he hadn’t been to a dentist in years.
Strike two.
Marco greeted Holly with a hug and said, “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“Yeah. You too,” Holly replied, feeling herself deflate like a balloon. Well, this was strictly an experiment and any sense of disappointment was totally uncalled for.
Holly trailed behind Marco as they made their way inside. The crowded, tiny restaurant looked dispiritingly institutional with stark lighting and metal tables and chairs.
“So, Darlene… are you hungry?” Marco asked.
“Huh?” For a minute, she had forgotten about her alter ego. “Oh yeah––famished.”
“Would you two like to sit inside or outside?” asked the hostess.
“Um. I don’t know. Darlene, what would you like to do?”
“Outside would be great,” Holly said.
The patio was filled with people drinking, eating—those who were having a grand old time. The hostess seated them under a gas heater that radiated just enough warmth for the both of them. Holly slipped off her jacket as Marco took a seat in front of her.
“So, you’re a writer, huh?” Marco finally asked after some meaningless banter about how his day went at his restaurant. He continued to sip steadily from a long-necked beer bottle. “What kind of writing do you do?”
“Um… I write articles… about stuff.” She hadn’t yet put much thought into this vital detail. Thankfully, the waitress appeared before she could elaborate any further.
“Are you two ready to order yet?” The waitress was a chubby girl with dark curls piled on top of her head. She had somehow managed to squeeze herself into an extra-small blue polo shirt, and tiny black denim skinny jeans.
“I’ll have the Greek burger,” Holly said, choosing something that would take minimal effort to decide on.
Marco glanced at a sheet of paper that allowed him to customize his burger with any topping imaginable. “I’ll have the one pound burger with jalapenos, jack-cheese, chipotle sauce, fried-onions, tomatoes, avocado, and lettuce.”
Holly was near starving by the time the sweet potato fries and burgers had arrived.
Marco took a bite of his burger and scrunched up his face as if he had just eaten a rotten egg. “I’ll tell you one thing about this place. Every time I come here, the meat is always under seasoned,” he griped. “Secondly, the toppings cover up the flavor of the meat, which is usually bland as hell.”
Holly shrugged and bit into her burger, finding it juicy and flavorful. “Well, I like mine.”
The waitress came by to check up on them. “Everything okay over here? Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
Marco plopped the burger back down on his plate. “Can I say something?”
“Sure.” Her smile was fake, almost plastic.
“Why are these burgers always so fucking under-seasoned?”
Strike three—you’re out.
“Oh, I completely agree,” the server said. Her eyes went wide in agreement and she behaved as if this was normal, everyday conversation. “I’ve asked the chefs the same thing on several occasions.”
“I mean, I’m a chef myself, so I fucking know these things,” he said with a smirk.
Holly listened to the two of them banter on about bland meat for a good ten-minutes. All the while, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the gentleman with the good old-fashioned values.
The minute Holly finished the last morsel of her meal, she was ready to call an end to the date. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to get off that easily. Marco wanted to stick around and chat. He was in no hurry to leave.
“So, I’m letting a friend temporarily live with me. He’s been crashing in my living room,” Marco mentioned.
“How’s that going?” Holly asked, far beyond uninterested.
“Not good. The problem is that he keeps bringing home these strange girls at all hours of the night.” Marco leaned back in his chair and sucked down the rest of his fifth beer. “So I had to tell him to go get his fuck on somewhere else.”
Holly became nauseated and could feel bile scaling up her throat and spreading sharp and hot through the lining of her stomach. She needed to devise an immediate escape plan.
“My ex-girlfriend was a real nut case,” Marco continued. “We actually broke up in November. Anyway, sometimes we got so wasted together that we got into these horrible fights. One time, she came at me with a beer bottle and hit me in the face. I pushed her off me and she fell and broke her arm. The cops showed up and everything. It was crazy.”
Holly could barely stomach being in the same room with this man. This date was officially over. An actual physical shudder came over her as she stood up in a panic. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to use the ladies room.”
Holly practically speed walked out the restaurant doors and made it safely to the parking lot with her heart galloping. She sped away, not knowing if she would be able to go through with this experiment as she had once intended to do.
***
A few days after that infamous first date, Holly made a trip to Newport Beach, Orange County, intending to drop in on one of Dr. Cat Adam’s weekly relationship seminars. She figured it was time to pay homage to the doctor since she hadn’t been to one of her sessions in over a year.
On her way there, Holly met up with her friend, Don Zink, a fifty-year old, Dr. Adams enthusiast. He always had people looking at him twice due to his uncanny resemblance to Will Ferrell. Holly originally met the divorcee years ago at one of Dr. Adams’s seminars. Sometimes, Don went a little overboard with all his metaphysical, affirmation preaching, but she enjoyed his quirky, comedic disposition and they tended to get along well.
That evening, they went for a quick bite before the seminar and then headed over to Cat’s office building across the way. Holly hadn’t told the doctor that she was attending. In fact, after thinking it over thoroughly, she planned to tell the doctor that she was backing out of the arrangement entirely. Holly was quite aware that everyone would think she was some kind of idiot to give up a million dollars, but risking her sanity just wasn’t worth it. If the last date was any indication of what a year of experimental dating would be like then she wanted no part of it.
The duo got
to the waiting room just as everyone was starting to shuffle in.
“I’m gonna put you in the hot seat today, Holly,” Don said with a wink.
Holly stared him down incredulously and snapped back, “Like hell you are.”
The hot seat was a chair in front of the audience where Dr. Adams and her assistant would do a deep analyzes on the person who signed up to talk about a specific problem in their love life. Needless to say, there was no way Holly would ever agree to do something like that.
“You go ahead and find us a seat,” Don said. “I’ll be there to join you in a minute.” He tore himself away to go chat with one of the relationship coaches.
Holly entered the small meeting space, a room lined with black chairs facing a large, white, dry-erase board. She was a bit apprehensive as to what her real intension was for being there that evening. After this whole shindig was over, she would stand her ground with Dr. Adams and make it clear to her that she wanted out of the contract indefinitely.
In front of the white board, Gwen, Cat’s assistant, waited for everyone to take their seats so the session could begin. The slim, middle-aged brunette was dressed like a schoolteacher in a long skirt, white cotton blouse, and her hair was pinned up in a bun.
Holly glanced around the room. It never ceased to amaze her how much the eighty-year old doctor had accomplished in her lifetime. Wall-to-wall were plaques of all the awards Cat had won over the years, as well as framed news articles dating back to 1975. In the course of the last twenty-years, Dr. Adams had written several self-help books on marriage and relationships. Each book neatly faced the audience for her marketing pleasure.
Don squeezed through the aisle of chairs and took a seat next to Holly. “I can tell this is going to be a really good session. It’s going to blow you away. Watch.”
“We’ll see,” Holly replied apathetically.
“When we’re done, you’re going to feel so enlightened. I’m telling ya—Cat is one hell of a lady.”
Holly scanned the crowd of faces. Surprisingly, many attractive young women had shown up, along with a few decent looking men.
“Okay, are we ready to begin?” Gwen asked the audience.
Dr. Adams hobbled out of her office, like the old woman that she was, and sat down on a bar stool next to her assistant.
“It’s good to see so many new faces here today,” Cat said, her voice cracking from age and use. She caught sight of someone familiar from the corner of her eye. “Oh, and I see we have a surprise guest with us tonight.”
As though possessed, everyone turned their head and looked to see whom the doctor was referring to.
“Today my good friend––not to mention matchmaker, owner, and CEO of Quality not Quantity–– is in our presence. Please welcome Ms. Holly Sparks.” Dr. Adams gestured toward Holly.
Holly’s cheeks turned as red as her own hair. She stared back at Dr. Adams almost uncomprehendingly.
“Holly’s mother was a dear, close friend of mine,” Cat mentioned. “Anyway, thank you for being here tonight, Holly.”
“Let’s begin, shall we?” Gwen asked as she looked around at the sea of eager faces. “I think we should start off by reviewing the three elements that make up a good relationship.” She gracefully slid off her seat and began writing on the white board as she said, “Chemistry—compatibility––communication.” The people with notebooks in their laps furiously jotted down notes.
Dr. Adams and Gwen talked about the scientific side of love and relationships for the next thirty-minutes, scribbling down diagrams and specific keywords throughout the session. Holly always found this part of the seminar interesting, but the real show began when someone took the hot seat.
Gwen clapped her hands together in the form of a triangle and asked, “Okay, so who’s ready to come up first today?”
A petite woman with long, silky golden-blonde hair and a slightly crooked nose raised her hand. “Me!” the woman announced, shooting her arm up in the air. She made her way to the front and took a seat in a black leather chair.
“So what can we help you with today?” Gwen asked. She sat as poised as a porcelain statuette.
The woman, who looked to be in her mid-thirties, took a deep breath and answered, “Well, ever since I broke up with my boyfriend of five years, I’ve really just been dating and not getting anything out of it. I don’t get the “wow” factor from any of these guys.”
“What do we call this type of behavior?” Dr. Adams asked the audience. “Yes, that’s right, we call it duty dating.”
“Anyway, my very first boyfriend and I reconnected a few weeks ago. I’ve been in love with him since I was a teenager, but I don’t know what to do since he lives in another state.”
“If you’re that in love with him—move there,” Dr. Adams said as blunt as a sailor.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” the blonde said with a shy smile. “I couldn’t possibly pick up my whole life and just move. Besides, if he really wanted to pursue a life with me, then he would move heaven and Earth to be with me, right?”
“Honey, if you love him that much, the first thing you must do is go to him and have some good quality alone time so you can define your feelings,” Dr. Adams explained. “You need to do this so you can get over him either way.”
The girl thought hard about Cat’s words before she responded, “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
Gwen turned to the audience. “You see, many women have this problem. We long for someone so badly that when we actually get what we want, we don’t know what to do and we start having doubts.”
“So are you going to visit him or what?” Dr. Adams asked directly.
“Yeah. I guess I could do that,” the girl said, still unsure of the situation.
“Good and when you do, I want a full report on how it went,” the doctor demanded.
“Definitely. You’ll be the first to know.”
“Let’s give her a round of applause,” Gwen said.
Everyone clapped as though they just witnessed a hole in one in a round of golf.
“Okay, who’s next?” Gwen asked as her eyes swept over the audience.
“Her!” Don pointed at Holly.
Holly swatted his hand away. “Don! Stop it.”
Dr. Adams perked up like a parakeet in the sunshine. “Oh yes. Holly, do come up.”
“No,” Holly said, waving the whole thing off as if it was a joke. “That’s okay. I’m just here to observe.”
“Just do it. It will be fun,” Don urged.
“Holly, please. Don’t be shy,” Gwen said, trying to cajole her with an affable smile.
The pressure was definitely getting to Holly with the way everyone was staring at her and waiting for a response. She finally stood up, feeling like she had no other choice. “I’m going to kill you for this,” she whispered to Don. In angst, she made the short journey to the front and took a seat.
“So Holly, what can we help you with today?” Gwen asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know why I’m up here. I really don’t have any pending issues going on right now. My life is kind of at a standstill.”
“I disagree with that,” Dr. Adams cut in. “Why don’t you talk to us about your relationship with Matthew.”
Holly’s heart beat like a hammer. “What about him?”
“Tell us why he dumped you,” Cat said.
Holly felt her face flame like the head of a matchstick. “We broke up on mutual terms.”
“That’s not what I heard.” Dr. Adams arched an eyebrow in skepticism. “I hear you’re quite the neurotic one.”
“Excuse me?” Holly said with a sneer. “I don’t think so. Matthew’s a very needy man and I don’t have time for needy when I’m running a multi-million dollar company.”
Cat chuckled as though Holly had made some inadvertent joke. “Everyone––Holly’s ex-boyfriend, Matthew, is rich, extremely handsome, loyal to a fault, and what women would consider prince charming. Yet, she decided to forfei
t it all for the sake of her career.”
There were a few gawks and gasps. Holly put up her hand and motioned for the good doctor to stop. “Wait a minute––”
Gwen cut in and asked the audience, “Why do so many women have this problem? They wait their entire lives for Mr. Right and then when he comes along she will completely change her state-of-mind.”
“I don’t think so,” Holly said rather heatedly. This discussion was beginning to be reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. “I never even saw this turn of event coming in our relationship. In fact, he decided to lay it all out on the table and break up with me on Valentine’s Day.”
Some women shook their heads in contempt, others snorted softly.
“Yeah, that’s right. What kind of man does that?” Holly said to the audience.
“One that wants a wife,” Dr. Adams piped in.
“Really? I’d been waiting over four years for that to happen and it never did.”
“Maybe if you had kept your legs closed it would have happened sooner,” Dr. Adams retorted.
A few of the audience members giggled at Holly’s expense.
Holly sat frozen with her mouth agape like an open door on lose hinges. “No, you just did not go there…”
“And you continued to pay more attention to your company instead of him,” Cat explained imperiously.
“What’s the three f’s in a relationship?” Gwen asked the audience.
They chanted, “Feed them, f-them and flirt with them.”
“So tell me what kind of decent man would want to marry a woman like you?” Dr. Adams asked.
“He knew my circumstances.” Holly shook her head in annoyance. She hated showing any kind of weakness in front of the doctor.
The doctor placed a finger underneath her chin and asked, “Let me ask you this. Do you want to get married someday, Holly?”
“Of course,” she jeered.
“Honey, with this attitude you’re going to be alone for the rest of your life,” Dr. Adams brought to her attention.
Holly was completely bemused, like an orchestra that had lost its beat. “What attitude?”
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