Great.
Not that looks are the most important thing, of course! Even if he were fat and bald with bizarre growths protruding from his face, I would give him a chance. One day I’d probably look that way myself! It would just be easier to give him a chance, if he were, of course, hot.
I determined he wasn’t there yet (no solo, dirty-blond, dorky-looking guys to be seen), so I got a seat and immediately ordered a glass of Merlot. I wasn’t nervous, exactly. Just apprehensive. This was the first blind date I’d been on in years. And familial expectations were running high. He was an Ivy League doctor, after all, the kind of guy I’d been programmed since birth to marry!
The whole family had been thrilled, at first, when I started dating Loser—my first real Jewish boyfriend. We weren’t a religious family, but we nonetheless had the inborn snobbery of the Chosen People. “Jewish men make the best husbands, you know,” my mom (who’d never even been bat mitzvahed) had told me I don’t know how many times in the last ten years.
About six months into my relationship with Loser, though, she stopped saying it. Occasionally I’d say, “Hey, Mom, isn’t it great I’m finally dating someone Jewish? That means we’ll definitely have a Jewish wedding!” But she would just look off into the middle distance when I asked this question and say “uh-huh” in a distracted way that precluded all further conversation.
Little did I know then, that she, like everyone else except me, saw Loser for the loser he was. She, like everyone else, was just too polite to say it.
But when I’d told her about my upcoming date with The Doctor, she’d gone into a swoon on the other end of the phone, emitting a sound that was part sigh, part moan, and which signaled to me that all her hopes for a good match were instantly revived. She pictured chuppas and challahs. She pictured kippahs and ketubahs! Dark-haired grandchildren and doctors in the family! “Oh,” she’d said. “Wow!”
The stakes, in other words, were high. At least for my mother. And for The Doctor, who, tonight, single-handedly had the opportunity to redeem all Jewish men for Loser’s sins.
As I waited for my wine, I looked around the restaurant. Pasta Bella was annually voted one of the “most romantic” restaurants in Seattle, but it was “romantic” in a very Seattle way, which is to say it was boring. Yes, it had candlelight, scarlet walls, and green glass lamps that bathed each group of diners in a pool of sea green light, but there was so little energy, so little sexiness amid the sea of plaid and Timberland boots, it was hard to feel romantic. At least in this particular “romantic” establishment.
There were several couples of the early middle-aged Seattle variety swimming in the sea green pools. One couple looked nearly identical with their metal-framed glasses, gray-streaked dark hair, and matching REI fleece jackets. If there was one thing that disturbed me about Seattle, it was that fleece was the uniform of choice. Fleece at fancy restaurants. Fleece at the theater. Fleece at the opera! It was a citywide illness, REI the ever-breeding host! I myself owned at least six fleece jackets and tops in different colors, styles, and weights (as well as a pair of fleece pants), but I had the sense to know they were for outdoor activities and outdoor activities only. No doubt, when I went to New York City in a week to visit old friends, I would not have to put up with people wearing fleece in fine dining establishments.
As Chet Baker played in the background, I looked at my watch. Eight minutes after eight. Where was The Doctor? Was it possible I was being stood up? I was starting to feel self-conscious, sitting alone. I took a sip of wine that was really more of a gulp. Then I remembered. I had a book with me. Aha. The perfect thing to keep me looking cool and composed. I pulled Blogger Nation out of my purse and started to read.
A minute later, I heard the door to the restaurant open. A gust of cool air blew in. I looked up. An incredibly handsome man had just walked in. Tall, with closely cropped hair. Beautiful olive complexion. Big brown eyes. Could it be? But why would a man like that need a blind date?
No. It couldn’t. I looked back down at my book, but the words swam in front of my eyes. And even on the off chance that he WAS my date, I could pretend to be totally absorbed in my book, completely indifferent to the fact that he was ten minutes late.
“R.?” I looked up. The beautiful man was standing at my table.
“Are you D.?” I said. Duh.
“Yep, that’s me.” He put out his hand and we shook. His handshake was firm, his hands strong yet graceful, the kind of hands you could imagine performing delicate surgery or cradling a beautiful olive-skinned baby destined for Yale. Under a fashionably cracked leather jacket (no fleece to be seen!), he wore a white oxford shirt that set off his lovely complexion. A ridiculous thought flashed through my head. This man is my destiny.
My destiny apologized for being late and sat down, smiling at me a little stupidly, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing either. The waiter approached.
“Can I get you something to drink while you’re deciding?”
Without taking his eyes off me, The Doctor said, “I’ll have what she’s having.” And the starting gun went off.
The morning after my date with the doctor, I was back at Victrola, having decided that Drooly Couples were better than Distracting Rock Stars. Besides, Drooly Couples made their appearances mostly on weekends, and this was a weekday morning. Which also meant—bingo!—the cute barista was here, which only added to my sparkly mood.
Though he wasn’t working the register when I walked in, he was farther down the counter making espresso. And just as I could immediately sense his presence when I walked in, he sensed mine. I tried not to look over, but I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the way he looked up as soon as I entered Victrola. The way his eyes stayed on me as he continued making espresso. So, after half a beat, I looked up at him, and Oh. My. God. I had never seen him looking so fine. He’d recently cut his dark hair so that he now had a very clean-cut look, but those funky orange glasses gave him just the right touch of hip. I was such a sucker for a guy in glasses.
He smiled at me, but this time his smile was different. It was more confident than it had been in the past, like, Hey, I know you like me; I like you too! The brightness of his smile surprised me—he had been so furtive before—but it thrilled me too. I smiled back, one of my bigger smiles—a seven out of ten on the Dazzle-O-Meter. I had to save some weaponry for later.
Now, half an hour later as I came up for a gulp of air from the blog, I would not let myself look at him again. Not yet. I may have been someone’s deluded girlfriend for a long time, but I still knew how to play this game. Besides, suddenly I had more than enough men to keep me occupied. Thank God. The more men I had to distract myself with, the less I dwelled on Loser. Still, I would restrain myself from flirting with the cute barista again until I left the premises. Instead, I watched the excitable gay barista high-five a customer at the register. Then I took a sip of my double-tall-split-shot-caramel macchiato and kept writing.
Forty-five minutes later, however, Destiny was getting the hell on my nerves. So far I’d plied The Doctor with the usual questions—Where are you from? What do you do for fun? How do you like Seattle—to which he’d responded at great length, articulately, wittily. But after each response, instead of asking me a question about my life, he would look at me eagerly, waiting for the next chance to tell me all about his life—again. I felt a sense of déjà vu.
Is there a man in Seattle who knows how to talk about someone or something besides himself? I wondered, watching The Doctor as he dug with gusto into his Linguine Con Salsa Di Carne Di Vitello.
The Doctor droned on. I noticed that he had a little lock of hair in the front that curled upward. It made him look a little bit like…Who did it remind me of? As I focused on that lock of hair, wondering if he could have possibly styled it like that on purpose, my thoughts drifted to the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy. I hadn’t told him about this date. Maybe if I got home by ten, I could give him a call.
Ironic, I thoug
ht, watching The Doctor’s lock of hair bob up and down as he ate, how I’d gone from imagining our darling Yale-bound baby asleep in its Pottery Barn crib to a late-night booty call to the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy. A prick of despair flared in my gut. Or maybe it was indigestion. My Manicotti Al Forro was a bit on the heavy side.
“And so,” The Doctor was wrapping up another grandiose statement about his career as an orthopedic surgeon who operated on victims of horrifying accidents, “it’s all about saving lives. For me.”
I looked up at him. Searched his exquisite face for a trace of irony. There were times during our conversation that I thought I detected a tone of self-mockery, a flicker of a smile, as if he knew how egotistical he was being. Then it would quickly disappear. This was one of those moments.
Then it hit me. The lock of hair. Tintin—that’s who it reminded me of! The beloved Belgian cartoon character!
I’d started on my second glass of wine by now. My date was a lost cause anyway, so why not have a little fun here while I could?
“Really?” I said, in a mock-enthusiastic voice. “Well,” I continued, holding my Merlot aloft, “it’s all about selling software. For ME.” I took a swig of my drink then set it down just a little too hard on the table, where it sloshed onto the funky pink and green tablecloth.
Then I looked at him and smiled. Oh, how my cynical, cutting father would have been proud. I was channeling him at that very moment.
Tintin stared at me. I wondered if he might just get up and walk out. Instead, after two seconds that seemed to go on forever, a grin started to spread across his face. One of the widest, most dazzling grins I had ever seen. His straight, white teeth gleamed in the lamplight, a product, no doubt like mine, of expensive orthodontics from age eleven to fourteen.
He nodded his head slightly in approval, his stare now an affectionate gaze, the grin still on his face. Then he hoisted his own glass of wine and held it toward me.
“Eggggsxelent,” he said. “Now tell me more about this—this selling software business.” And with the way he kept looking at me, that inhumanly sexy grin on his face, those mocha brown eyes boring into mine, the excitement stirred—dangerously—in my stomach again. The Tintin image disappeared.
I held out my glass of wine to his for a toast, then proceeded to talk—at length—about myself.
The Doctor listened, too, and with every passing second, the combination of alcohol, jazz, and candlelight worked its magic on me. (Fleece aside, Pasta Bella was a romantic restaurant after all!) By the end, I was almost convinced he was my destiny again. After dinner, he walked me to my car, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Let’s do that again soon, shall we?”
Then he waltzed off into the night, forelock flapping, leaving me excited yet uncertain, lustful yet leery.
Because this match would be so insanely perfect on the surface—the kind of match both sets of parents would have arranged if they could—it’s too good to be true. I will probably end up with some pot-smoking, rock-climbing, construction-working psycho who doesn’t read books and who I won’t even be able to introduce to my family, but at least he’ll be good in bed!
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I chuckled at my own wittiness. Oh Lord, I was funny. I was also high on caffeine and the attention of three different men. How could I have ever thought being the girlfriend of a wet blanket like Loser was “fun”? This was fun!
As I packed up my laptop and prepared myself for a final flirtatious look at the cute barista, I felt a twinge of worry. The “pot-smoking, rock-climbing, construction-working psycho” reference had been to Ziggy, the hellion I’d dated right before Loser, who was partial to setting himself on fire and climbing forbidden municipal structures like bridges, radio towers, and baseball stadiums. I knew Ziggy and I didn’t have a future, but I’d been carried along by our steamy sex and outdoor adventures.
Now, of course, I wanted to think of myself as more “serious” and “mature.” But here I was dating a rock climber again, one who was ten years younger than me and who commuted by skateboard! For someone my age, who, theoretically, wanted to “settle down,” shouldn’t I be out there trolling for better prospects? Maybe I should dump the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy right now. Focus on reeling in the doctor.
Then again, I’d dumped the “inappropriate” Ziggy for the “oh-so-appropriate” Loser and look where it had gotten me! Well down the road to spinsterdom!
Whatever. I didn’t have time to think about it right now. It was 10:35 and I had a meeting at 11. I had to get to Empire in twenty minutes. If there was no traffic going over Lake Washington, it would be just doable. I fluffed my hair then turned toward the counter, prepared to flash a smile that was an eight on the Dazzle-O-Meter.
And there he was talking animatedly to Beret Chick. Who was, of course, wearing a beret, because clearly she had a pointy, misshapen head that could at no cost be revealed lest her deluded love slaves realize that she was an alien from the planet Bitch. Unfortunately, the rest of her was quite stunning in a Gwyneth Paltrowesque inbred aristocrat sort of way—complete with silky blond tresses, a lithe body, and expensive clothes that emphasized her petite yet perky breasts and narrow hips.
The smile fell off my face, dropping from an eight to a minus two on the Dazzle-O-Meter in less than a second. Suddenly I felt like an oaf. A chunky brunette of peasant stock, one of the commoners who picked potatoes in Poland, while Miss Paltrow over there ruled Latvia from a bejeweled throne. I tore my eyes away, but not before I saw her hand him something small and white. A piece of paper? Her number? Her card?!
I hurried out, eyes firmly on the ground. As I swept past her, a delicious-smelling floral perfume enveloped me. A few scattered words fell on my ears unbidden. “Call, yes! Tomorrow, later!”
I rushed toward the safety of my car. I was not coming back to Victrola next time, or maybe EVER.
POST A COMMENT
The doctor sounds like most of the women I date. Narcissism is not restricted to gender I guess…But isn’t it funny how we get as involved watching their reflection in the water as they do?
Sigh.
El Politico | Homepage | 10/11/02—2:19 P.M.
This doctor person sounds obnoxious. I say dump him before you get in trouble.
Concerned | 10/11/02—5:03 P.M.
I bet there’s even more fleece down here in Portland than up in Seattle. If you went on a blind date with a guy and he was wearing fleece, would you walk out then and there?
Jake | 10/12/02—1:41 A.M.
Chapter Thirteen
A week later, I was bored with all the other coffee shops in Capitol Hill, and ready to hit Victrola again—this time as a Frosty Ice Princess Who Flirteth Not With the Help. Mr. Cute Barista would have to pay for his treachery before he got another dazzling smile from the likes of me!
I’d yet to hear from the doctor since our date. But that was fine. Two could play at the playing-it-cool game. I’d gotten a whole lot better at playing it cool after Sexy Boy. Meanwhile, things with the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy were plenty hot. We’d “hung out” several times, meaning we’d had several marathon make-out sessions on the Red Couch o’ Love. I’d hung on to my chastity so far, but it was getting harder every day, the more time we spent rolling around on my bed, doing everything but. It was so exciting to be with someone new, someone young, someone with so much energy and such hard…muscles!
Outside the bedroom, we didn’t exactly have much to talk about. This made it especially hard to delude myself that we had a future. Theoretically we had a lot in common; we were both into music, writing, and the outdoors. But a definite conversational void yawned between us. On the other hand, he made me feel like a sex goddess. And after The Great Unpleasantness, that sex goddess feeling was just too gratifying. I had to hold on to it for a while.
At least I had plenty of other options. Just to reassure myself of this fact, on a mind-numbingly boring Tuesday afternoon at Empire, I perused my Nervy in-box, discoverin
g overly clever tripe such as the following:
“So, how do you want the world to end? If you saw some variety of Transcendent White Light beckoning to you while you were getting your appendix out, what would keep you from joining it?” (SuperTasticGuy)
And tantalizing promises such as the following, which just made me laugh:
“I will massage you from your head to your feet all nite long.” (OysterMan)
Out of work-induced boredom, I toyed with answering some of my suitors. I had yet to reply to a single one. But maybe it was time. Who knew if the doctor would ever come through for me? I reviewed my options. SuperTasticGuy was trying a bit too hard, but on the other hand he was a journalist with good taste in books and music. OysterMan was definitely out. Motorcyle_Man looked pretty hot, but how long would he last with his “chopper fetish” before he became just another organ donor? Then again, I wasn’t limited to just responding to the people who’d written to me. I could go out there and troll, too. There were thousands of men with ads posted on Nervy!
Just as I started to browse all the men of Seattle, ages thirty to forty, my anxiety growing with each click-through (Was he the right one? Or him?! What about that one?!!), Jane IMed me.
Jane says: Whatchya doin’?
Rachel says: Looking for a husband online.
Jane says: Now why would you go and do a thing like that?
Rachel says: I guess so I can have kids before I’m seventy-five.
Jane says: Well, last night one of my kids threw up all over the new couch, then kept me up till 2 A.M. with a fever. The other kid woke me up at 4:30 A.M. and I never went back to sleep. How much sleep did YOU get last night?
Rachel says: Ten hours.
Jane says: Now, back away from the personal ads with your hands where I can see them!
Since IMing with Jane provided more comic relief than the personals, I did as she instructed. Besides, I didn’t need an online date. YET. So, for the next couple hours I edited documentation and intermittently IMed with Jane, who was poring over the results of a study on a protein called CD48.
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