by Sarah Title
“That’s what I want to hear.” Chad turned to the bridge and let out a cloud-splitting whoop. “Let’s do it.”
“No small talk first?”
“We can talk while we run. That’s how we know we’re at an optimum heart rate.”
“Wow, we’re really running, huh?”
He just gave her a toothy grin.
“I have to warn you, Chad, I’m not much of a runner.”
“That’s what everybody says. Then they get a little time with Chad.”
“And then they really want to run?” she said with a laugh. Chad smiled, but he looked puzzled.
She turned to give Colin a wide-eyed look, to let him know he was a dead man, because not only was he making her go on a date that was really a workout, but also with a guy who did not appreciate her lame jokes. One of those things she could handle, but two? All she saw was Colin walking away. Probably to take a car to Sausalito. Where he would meet them at the restaurant. If she didn’t fall off the bridge.
“Have you stretched?” Chad asked.
“Oh, uh. No.” Because I thought we’d just be taking an athleisurely walk, not training for a marathon.
“Gotta stretch, get good and limber. Let me help you.”
And before she could say anything, she was in Chad’s arms, being bent and twisted in ways that were a little alarming. Truth be told, it didn’t feel terrible. She did feel good and limber when he was done. Almost like she could run two miles (less than two miles, really) with a guy who didn’t laugh at her lame jokes.
“Ready?”
She was not ready. But she didn’t think she had much of a choice. Especially when Chad pressed a button on his watch, then grabbed her hand and started jogging for the bridge.
Chapter Twenty-Three
COLIN WATCHED BERNIE HOBBLE off the bus and up the sidewalk to the café the next evening. He felt a little bad, putting her through that running date. In his defense, he’d thought Chad would be a catch.
That wasn’t true. He’d thought Chad seemed nice and very enthusiastic and the complete polar opposite of Bernie. He knew Pia had picked him out because she had some sabotage in mind. That just proved to Colin that Pia didn’t know anything about finding a good story. Two people who got along okay but didn’t have any kind of spark was boring. Two people who had nothing in common and were forced into an uncomfortable situation together: that’s where stuff got interesting.
Unfortunately, Bernie did not fall madly in love with Chad on their trot across the bridge. She did admit that his tips on proper running form made the activity less immediately terrible than she expected it to be. Any good will earned on the Golden Gate Bridge, though, was ruined when Chad threw a fit that the bar didn’t have low-carb beer on tap.
It had ended up being a great story.
Still, Colin felt a little bad as Bernie winced every time she bent her legs. She should have stretched afterward, like Chad told her to.
After Chad left in his carb-induced huff, Bernie insisted on Colin buying her a beer. She’d earned it, she said, and Colin agreed. It ended up being a really quick beer, because almost as soon as she started drinking it, her eyes began drifting closed. Colin ended up having to practically carry her to the car to take her home. He offered to take her inside and help her get to bed, but she punched him (weakly) in the arm and muttered some very unladylike curses that made him laugh. Then her neighbors came out—the cute old couple—and brought her inside and promised to feed her, so Colin felt he’d done his best by her.
Of course, today she was a little stiff.
“Shut up,” she said, when she got close enough to see him. “I hate you.”
“Not feeling too great?”
“I feel fine, thanks. Just as long as I don’t have to move.” She flopped heavily into the seat across from his.
“Good thing I didn’t schedule a dancing date tonight.”
“I would kill you.”
“You’d have to move to kill me.”
“I’d find a way.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have anger issues?”
“Yes, and that person is dead now.”
Colin tried not to smile. “This date is much more low-key.”
“Then how come I couldn’t wear sweatpants?”
She was wearing an outfit Colin suspected Makeda had picked out for her—ankle-length pants with a funky paisley pattern that were even more appealing than the leggings yesterday, not that he would tell her that—a cream-colored blouse, and a big chunky necklace. “You look good,” he told her. “I like your necklace.”
“It’s a statement necklace,” she informed him. “I feel very trendy.”
“Are those shoes on trend?” He looked down at her feet, which were shod in her crappy old clogs.
“You’re lucky I changed out of my bedroom slippers. I could barely get these pants on. Do you know how many muscles it takes to put on a pair of pants?”
He admitted that he did not.
“I should send you a bill for Epsom salts. And my water bill. I’ve taken three baths so far today.”
His mind immediately went to what he now knew were her great legs barely covered by a thin layer of bubble bath.
He’d definitely keep that to himself.
“So what fresh hell do you have for me tonight?” she asked, leaning against the brick wall of the café.
“You’ll like it. It’s boring.”
“Can’t wait.”
Since she’d been such a good sport—mostly—about the jock date, he’d decided to reward her with the kind of date that he himself would rather slit his wrists than participate in. In other words, the perfect date for Bernie. “Poetry reading.”
She didn’t say anything, so he looked up from his phone, where he was pulling up the info on her date for the evening. She didn’t look happy. Not mad, precisely—nothing like she looked when he’d mentioned running across the Golden Gate Bridge—just sort of . . . neutral. It made him nervous.
“Do you like poetry?” he asked, hesitantly. Not that they could do anything about it now. This was the date. The guy was on his way.
“I do.”
“Good, right?”
“I know we’ve only had four dates together, but I already don’t trust you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not going to be naked pudding poetry or something, is it?”
“Now that’s an idea. But no, alas. Just regular old poetry.”
She looked relieved. Nerd.
“And your date is a poet,” he added.
“I can do a poet.”
“That’s the goal.”
“I’m ignoring you.”
“Good, because your poet’s here.”
The poet, Alex, nodded at him, then kissed Bernie on the cheek. Colin did his fade-into-the-background thing, and watched the date unfold.
* * *
She could kiss Colin.
When she’d woken up this morning, barely able to move, her first thoughts were of the quickest way to dispose of his body. Then, like an idiot, she logged onto Glaze.com and read his article about yesterday’s date, and decided that a quick death was way too good for him. Clearly she’d been set up with Chad because she was bound to have a bad time. Bad time, good story.
Poor Chad, she thought, as she read through Colin’s gentle skewering of her date’s fitness obsession.
But really. Low-carb beer? That was like low-fat cheese. What was the point?
Now she was sitting in a dimly lit café next to a very handsome guy who was smart and interesting and seemed genuinely interested in her life. She was actually talking to him. It was like Parker all over again, but with the added spark of desire. Alex had a square jaw and strong shoulders and long, dark hair pulled together at the back of his neck. He was even making a scarf work. She was starting to understand why people liked dating.
“So, what have you been reading lately?” he asked. If she hadn’t been so sore, she
would have jumped across the table onto his lap.
Instead, she talked about the novel sitting on her bedside table that she had been staying up way too late to read because she could not imagine how the characters were going to overcome the insurmountable odds the author laid out in front of them, but she also could not imagine them not overcoming those odds.
“I hope you don’t take professional offense at this,” Alex said, “but I’ve thrown books across the room before, when an ending really upset me.”
Now she wanted to jump across the table and rip his clothes off.
Instead, she smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ve done it, too. Not with this book, though. I think this book is definitely going to give me a book hangover.”
“Book hangover?”
“Yeah, where you finish reading something so good and so engrossing that you can’t really handle being back in the real world.”
“Nice. I’ve had that before. I didn’t know there was a word for it.”
“Librarians have a word for everything.”
“Well, I’m glad I caught you prehangover.”
“I guess there’s still a chance this could be a wall-thrower. There’s a possibility the author will tear them apart and keep them apart just because she can.”
“Ah, so you’re a sucker for a happy ending.”
She took a sip of her drink. “I just think these two have earned it after all they’ve been through.”
“So you’re a romantic, huh?”
“What? No. Definitely not.” She snorted. Definitely not.
“Then why would you get upset if the characters don’t get the happy ending you think they deserve?”
“Because they’re characters. I want them to be happy.”
“Face it. You’re a secret sucker for a happy ending.”
“Am not,” she said, but she smiled when she said it.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” he said, and crossed his fingers over his heart.
She melted a little. Dating. Who knew?
Well, everyone else in the world knew. And now she was starting to know.
“Poets and poetesses, welcome!” The woman on the stage introduced herself as Elvira, the hostess for the evening, and explained that she’d call the poets up one by one. Then she closed her eyes and went into a riff about the ocean and birds and heartache and Bernie thought she might cry. This was so much better than running.
Then Elvira produced a fishbowl full of scraps of paper. With a flourish of her wrist, she picked out a scrap and read it. “Hold on to your seats, ladies. Our first poet is Alex Bacon!”
That was her date! She looked over at Alex, surprised, and he gave her a crooked smile that made her a little more melty. “I’m glad I’m going first so I can focus on you the rest of the night.”
If their earlier conversation had not involved his entire focus, she was in for . . . something. She’d never felt like this on a first date. Maybe she’d take him home with her, see what kind of focus he could lay on her there.
As he threaded his way through the crowd, she clapped with the rest of the audience, throwing in a whistle at the end. This was her date. He winked at her from the stage, and she smiled back. He pulled a pair of reading glasses out of his pocket, and she smiled even wider. Hot and smart and cute. She could definitely kiss Colin. As soon as she was done kissing Alex.
He pulled a tiny moleskin notebook from his back pocket and started to read.
And totally burst Bernie’s bubble of attraction.
Clearly, Alex was a man who had been burned by past girlfriends. Or else the vicious women he described who were all attempting to stomp down his creative spirit were metaphors for something else. But then there were metaphors about poison flowers and teeth and Medusa and she was pretty sure he was talking about an ex. Then his tone and his posture changed and he seemed to be reminiscing about a beautiful woman; she radiated peace and light and Bernie thought, Hey, that’s sweet, until she realized that he was talking about his mother in a way that could be interpreted as not entirely platonic. Which. Um.
She looked around the room for Colin, hoping to throw him some sort of distress signal, but the romantic atmosphere made it too dim to see. Besides, he wouldn’t save her. He’d let her run across a bridge yesterday. Anyway, even if he wanted to rescue her, she didn’t think she could get up and leave, her muscles were still so sore.
Then the room was clapping, and Bernie turned toward the stage and added her own polite applause. But good gosh, she was ready to be done with this date. As Alex walked back to the table, giving hugs and high fives to the audience, she couldn’t help but notice that everything looked affected—his posture, his smile, his ridiculous scarf. She’d been under his spell. Now that she knew how he felt about women, the spell was off.
And this was why she did not like dating. The disappointment. Although at least Alex had been efficient about it. Usually it took weeks to reach this level of disappointment in a man.
“You okay?” he asked when he finally made it back to her.
She realized that she had her face on. Her Disapproving Face. She schooled her features into a smile. “Wow, that was really brave,” she said. Which was not a lie. She imagined it took a lot to get up in front of an audience to read something really personal like that. Especially if it was really, really personal. Like, too personal.
“Thanks,” he said, skootching his chair closer to hers. “Fortunately I get a lot of material from my exes.”
And your ponytail looks stupid too, she wanted to say, but instead she just smiled politely until it was not unforgivably rude to leave, insisted that he should stay and talk poetry with his friends, and hobbled to the bus stop. Alone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
DATING DISASTROUSLY (SPOILER ALERT: THIS TIME, IT’S NOT HER FAULT)
____________________
By Colin Rodriguez, Staff Writer
You shave your legs, do your hair, take time with your makeup. You pick your outfit with care, discarding piles of rejects on the bed that you think, if things go well, you’ll be using later. You send pictures to your friends, asking for emergency opinions. You put on uncomfortable shoes. You try to time it so you arrive not too early, so you don’t look eager, but not too late, so you don’t look rude.
And then the guy’s a total dud.
As a guy, hearing sentiments like these used to make me defensive on behalf of men everywhere.
Then I started Dating with the Librarian.
Since I know our readership is primarily female, I’m going to make a list that I want you all to share with the men in your life. It’ll be real simple so they can understand.
Men:
When you’re dating, do not:
—Show up wearing a shirt that looks like it was the cleanest thing on your dirty laundry pile.
—Monopolize the conversation. If you end the evening knowing nothing about your partner, you don’t deserve the kiss you probably didn’t get.
—Talk about your ex. Or your ex’s new boyfriend. Or your mother. For the love of God, do not talk about your mother.
These things seem like common decency. And they are. So, please. Post and share. For the sake of all the single ladies out there: Fellas, step up your damn game.
THE PROBLEM WITH THIRTY DATES in thirty days was that she had to actually go on thirty dates in thirty days. It was only date ten, and already Bernie was exhausted.
“Think of it like a volume discount,” Marcie said to her over the bubbling of the water in the pedicure machine. “The more dates you go on, the greater chance of having a good date.”
“I’m still waiting for the good ones,” Bernie said.
“Everyone is, honey,” Dave said. “You’re just playing catch-up.”
She leaned back into the neck massagers on her chair and groaned. She was tense. Dating stressed her out.
For example, instead of spending a lazy Sunday puttering around her apartment or taking S
tarr on a leisurely walk or lounging in the park with a book, she was making beauty preparations.
At least Dave and Marcie had agreed to join her for the mani-pedi. Jeanaeane had set her up with an appointment at a very chic spa in the Marina, and when Bernie told her she’d like to include her friends, Jeanaeane had exclaimed, “A girls’ day?” like a proud mother and agreed to pay for all three of them. Well, to have Glaze.com pay for all three of them.
So she was getting a new wardrobe, a cabinet full of makeup she’d probably never wear again, and unheard-of access to beauty procedures, which, so far, were turning out to be pretty amazing. All she had to do was spend every night of her life with someone she wasn’t interested in.
Did that make her a whore?
No. At least whores got laid.
“They haven’t all been bad,” Marcie said. “Some were just boring, right?”
“Boring is bad,” Dave chimed in.
“No, but not aggressively bad.”
“Nobody was aggressively bad,” Bernie said.
“What about the poet with mommy issues?” Dave asked.
“Or the teacher who cried?”
“Or the guy who made artisanal Worcester sauce?”
“That guy wasn’t bad. Just a little weird.”
“What about the model/actor who wanted you to use him for his body?” Marcie asked.
“Wait, I didn’t hear about this one,” Dave said.
“Bernie has his headshot. He gave it to her.”
“Oooh, what about the guy who got sick at Dim Sum?”
“He didn’t get sick. He just refused to eat anything he hadn’t eaten before.”
“Never trust a man who won’t stick unfamiliar things in his mouth,” Marcie warned.
“That’s my line, baby,” Dave said.
Bernie burst out laughing. This was what she needed. Some time away from the pressure of dating. Some time away from Colin. She was starting to forget who she was.
“Lift,” said the woman at her feet scraping years of dead skin off her heels.
“So what are you doing tonight?” Dave asked.