The Art of Kissing Frogs

by Shéa R. MacLeod

  “Do you think it’s weird?” I asked Deb as we relaxed in the pub around the corner from work. It was one of those quaint old places that had been around since before the dawn of civilization, the walls dark with age and antique smoke rather than artifice. The tourists hadn’t gotten to it yet, so it was charming without being kitschy.

  Deb nibbled thoughtfully at her fish and chips before taking a long swallow of her beer. That was one of the cool things about London. Nobody cared if you drank during your lunch break as long as you didn’t come back pissed (as in blind drunk). Fridays that rule was a little loose.

  “It’s odd,” she finally admitted. “If he’s truly interested, he should be making an effort. I don’t believe this is a particularly good sign. Are you going to cancel?”

  “No,” I said with a sigh, pushing around my hot pot with a fork. “I’ll still go out with him.”

  “Because he’s handsome.” She eyed me over the rim of her pint glass.

  “I guess. But I’m curious, too. I mean, he was interested enough to ask me out, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  I sent Jeremiah a text Saturday morning to make sure we were still on. The response came quickly.

  Still on. Looking forward to it.

  “Weird,” I said to myself as I stared at the message. Wouldn’t a guy who was looking forward to a date with a girl want to, I don’t know, talk to the girl? Maybe he just wasn’t a big talker.

  We met at Holborn Station, practically around the corner from the British Museum, at eight on Saturday evening. He was cute, just like his picture, but I realized something was off almost immediately. His profile stated he was five foot eight. Pretty average for a British guy, and still over my five foot five, which meant I could wear heels. Except the guy I met at the station wasn’t five eight. He was actually about five three. I had to look down to make eye contact. That didn't happen very often, and I wasn’t particularly thrilled with it. Not so much because I had an issue with him being shorter, but I was irked because he’d lied about it. Did he think I wouldn’t notice? If he was willing to lie about something as blatantly obvious as his height, what else was he lying about?

  He greeted me with the usual cheek kiss, eyes darting around as if he was looking for someone. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

  For a moment I was baffled. He hadn’t planned anything? “Well, I’m hungry.”

  It was a little awkward standing there in the middle of the sidewalk like a couple of tourists who didn’t know where they were going. Why had he bothered asking me on a date if he wasn’t interested enough to make a decision about what we were doing?

  “Where do you want to eat?” His eyes were still darting around as if he was completely uninterested in my answer.

  I scrambled for an idea. I wasn’t familiar with the restaurants around the Holborn area. “There are a lot of restaurants in Covent Garden,” I suggested. “It’s not far from here. I’m sure we can find something there.” Not to mention it had kind of a cool vibe, and there were usually plenty of street performers to entertain the crowd. I figured it would give us something to talk about.

  “Fine,” he said and took off at a brisk walk.

  I had to hustle to keep up with him, the heels of my boots clopping on the uneven paving stones. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to fall on my ass. London women seemed to have no problem mixing heels and cobblestones, but I still hadn’t figured out the trick.

  By the time we reached the cobbled courtyard of Covent Garden, I was out of breath, my feet hurt like hell, and I was sweaty and gross. It was a warm night, and all I wanted was to sit down with a cold drink. My stomach let out a loud grumble I hoped my date hadn’t heard.

  A crowd of people hovered around a street magician who was pulling strings of playing cards out of a top hat. Across the courtyard a group of musicians played a rocking version of something classical on their stringed instruments. The violinist dashed into the crowd and dropped on his knees before a female tourist, still playing wildly. She giggled and blushed, and with a bow, he spun around and rejoined the rest of the quintet. I grinned at his antics, but Jeremiah didn’t even notice.

  “How about Covent Garden Cafe?” I suggested.

  “Too busy.”

  He was right. It was busy. But this was Covent Garden on a warm Saturday evening. Busy was the operative word. Everywhere there was people. “There,” I said, pointing to one of the other myriad restaurants that surrounded the square that made up Covent Garden. “That looks good.”

  “I don’t like Italian.”

  I stared at him. I’d never heard of anyone who didn’t like Italian. It was like a universal staple food. “Okay, how about the brasserie? It looks like a nice place.” I nodded toward a cute red brick building with a black sign painted in swirling gold letters, half in English and half in French.

  “There’s a line. I’m not that hungry. Let’s walk around.”

  I sighed. He may not have been hungry, but I was beyond starving. In fact, I was starting to feel a little queasy from hunger but instead of saying something, I went along with it. “Okay.”

  As we walked around Covent Garden, I decided to inquire about the lack of communication in the week between setting up the date and the date itself. I felt uncomfortable asking, but I felt I deserved to know because it really was kind of weird.

  “I didn’t see the point,” he said bluntly.

  “You didn’t see the point in getting to know me before the date?”

  “No. That’s what the date is for. I’m not interested in talking until the date.”

  I stared at him blankly. All righty then. Seemed like he wasn’t much interested in talking during the date either.

  We ended up wandering around for an over hour trying to find somewhere to eat that he didn't find too hot and stuffy or overcrowded or worthy of his custom. In Covent Garden. On a warm Saturday night. Yeah. Good luck with that.

  Worse, it wasn't an interesting hour. It was an hour of me awkwardly trying to make conversation while he focused completely on finding somewhere for a drink, almost completely ignoring me in the process. I was starting to wonder why I was even there. After a while I gave up trying to get him to talk and focused instead on people-watching. I wished I was out there with the rest of them, enjoying the evening and the street entertainment instead of stuck with a freaking bump on a log.

  We finally found a restaurant he deemed suitable: the very first place I’d pointed out, Covent Garden Cafe. They seated us outside, which was nice. Good weather in London was something you needed to take advantage of. When the waiter came, Jeremiah ordered a glass of tap water with ice and lemon. The waiter turned to get our drinks and Jeremiah snapped, “I’m not done.”

  I blinked. Was he serious? How many drinks did one person need?

  “Sorry, sir.” The waiter seemed more harried than embarrassed. “What else would you like?”

  Mr. Options perused the drinks list as one might study Grey’s Anatomy before a surgery. “I’ll have a Tanqueray and Tonic,” he said finally. The waiter quickly scratched down the order and turned to go. “And a Bacardi and Coke.”

  The waiter stopped, and after a baffled look at me, wrote down Mr. Option’s second drink. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “I’ll tell you when I’m done.” Mr. Options’ tone was sharp and more than bordering on rude. It was clear over in rude’s living room on the couch watching EastEnders. “Grey Goose martini. Dirty.”

  The waiter stood there, looking awkward.

  “And...a Patron martini.” Mr. Options finally handed the drinks menu to the waiter, and the poor man scurried off to the bar.

  I stared at Mr. Options. I knew it was rude, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d never seen anyone order so many drinks at once.

  “What?” he practically snarled. “I like to have options.”

  Okay, then. I guess that explained all his looking around while we were supposedly on a date. Maybe he like
d to have options in women, too. I gave myself a mental thrashing and told myself not to be so judgmental. But it was hard when it was becoming clear that he really had zero interest in me.

  Once our food arrived—pizza for him and warm goat cheese salad for me—he finally started to talk. He was actually quite funny with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. We laughed a lot and things started to look up. Maybe he’d just been nervous or something. It happens. Clearly the alcohol was loosening him up.

  “Sometime I should take you out on my boat.”

  “You have a boat?” It didn’t seem to me like something affordable on a personal trainer’s salary.

  “My family does,” he said, slugging back half his gin and tonic. “You’d love it.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “You been to Morocco?”

  “No, but I’d love to go one day.” It was high on my “To Be Visited” list. I was desperate to shop in the bazars and take in the historical sites and architecture. I dreamed of decorating my tiny room with real Moroccan lamps and carpets, of sipping mint tea beneath a striped awning and indulging in spicy lamb tagine beneath the stars.

  “I’ll take you. It’ll be great. I can show you around.” He slugged back the rest of his gin and tonic before sliding one of the martinis closer. “I’ve been a few times. It’s pretty amazing.”

  I had my doubts as to whether or not he’d ever keep his promise to show me around Morocco. In fact, I had become overly suspicious of men who made grand promises, thanks to my almost-ex-husband, but we chatted for a while about travel in general. Every time we talked about a new country or city I wanted to see, he’d tell me how great it was and promise to take me some day.

  “This is fun. We should go dancing,” he suggested.

  It was fun now that we were actually talking, but we’d already discussed the dancing issue. It was something we had in common that we both enjoyed, but I had told him I didn't like going dancing on the first date because you can't get to know a person. That is the whole point of a first date. Sure it's to have fun but also to figure out if you like that person and might want to see them again, and you can't really do that in some club with pounding music and a guy trying to grind himself on you. Besides, half the Tube lines were closed for maintenance, and if I didn’t want to get stuck with a three-hour ride on the night bus, I had to catch my Tube by eleven.

  “I’d love to do that. But like I said before, I would like to get to know you better tonight. Another night we can go dancing.”

  “Fine,” he said, his tone begrudging. I don’t know if it was my refusal or his nature, but the complaining started soon after.

  “This pizza isn’t good. I think they made it yesterday.”

  I studied his pizza. It was freshly baked and looked and smelled delicious. “I doubt that. I don’t think they can sell day-old pizza.”

  He took a sip of one of his martinis. “This is disgusting. I think the Patron has gone off. Try it.”

  He shoved his glass at me. I so did not want to drink it, so I took a sniff. It smelled like a normal martini to me. “Smells fine to me. I don’t think tequila goes bad, does it?”

  “My water is too cold.”

  I sighed. “That’s what happens when you order it with ice.”

  “The Coke is flat.”

  “Mine’s fine.”

  “Yeah, but yours is diet so it came out of a different canister. Bet they need to change canisters.”

  And it went on like that the rest of the meal. Then we got the bill.

  “Seventy pounds?” he practically screeched, startling several of the nearby diners. “There is nothing on that bill worth seventy pounds. What did you order that was so expensive? Here”—he thrust the bill at me—“check this. I bet they’re trying to cheat me.”

  I couldn’t believe him. The amount seemed reasonable based on how much top-shelf liquor he’d been drinking. I quickly scanned the bill. “Well, my salad was seven pounds, and I drank diet Coke for three pounds, so the rest is yours.”

  “All I had was pizza. That can’t be more than six pounds.”

  I eyed him. “Try fourteen pounds.”

  “They’re ripping people off!”

  “No they’re not. That’s typical for a pizza in Covent Garden.”

  “Fine. So I owe fourteen bucks for the pizza. But I hardly had anything else.”

  “Try four top-shelf drinks...”

  He glared at me. “Those things couldn’t have been that much.”

  “The Grey Goose thing was twelve pounds.”

  “For one drink?”

  I gave him a look. “That’s the going rate, yes. The tequila martini was also twelve pounds.”

  He let out another outraged sound. It went on like that through the entire bill until I had convinced him that, yes, it really was seventy pounds. He reached into his pocket, still mumbling about the “outrage” that was our bill and the fact that the waiter was “cheating” him. Then he stopped, hand still in his pocket, and gave me a look that could only be described as sheepish. Crap. I had a bad feeling.

  “I seem to have forgotten my wallet.”

  “Of course you did.”

  I pulled out my emergency credit card with its pathetically small balance and handed it to the waiter, who gave me a look of sympathy. Despite the rather painful hit to my already dwindling credit balance, I added a generous tip. It wasn’t the waiter’s fault my date was not only a jackass but had “forgotten” his wallet, nor was it his fault I had no idea how I was going to pay it off.

  It was nearing eleven at this point, and Mr. Options suggested dancing again. I found it rather irritating that he kept banging on about that. We’d talked about it more than once, and in light of what had just happened, did he really think I wanted to dance with him? My last Tube was at 11:14 instead of the usual midnight, as I had told him before the date. I didn't want to miss it and have to wait until 2 a.m. for the night bus. He said there wasn't anything we could do in an hour. I suggested we could walk around or something. I don’t know why I bothered. I wanted to give myself a smack in the head. Why was I always so damn nice to assholes?

  "Oh, no.” Jeremiah stared at a woman in a short skirt with a generous amount of cleavage showing. He didn’t even look at me. “We already did that.”

  Right. I didn't dare suggest getting a drink since he'd bitched so much about the cost of the ones at the restaurant. Not to mention he hadn’t even paid for them. Plus he was looking kind of tipsy already. He took me directly to the nearest station, never mind that it wasn't a terribly convenient one for me, pretty much dumped me there, and took off. As he left he informed me he was going dancing and he’d find a woman there. I didn’t bother asking how he planned to get in without his wallet. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed off or amused.

  Chapter 5

  I PAUSED AT THE TOP of the escalator and took a deep breath. I was a whole hour earlier than usual, though it had been surprisingly easy to get up since I hadn’t had a lick of sleep.

  I adjusted my black pencil skirt and smoothed down the simple blue silk blouse. I’d even worn my favorite purple heels today. It was a bit fancier than I usually wore to work, but today was special.

  The weekend had been interminably long. I’d gone on a date Saturday, which I barely remembered. I hadn’t wanted to be there. All I could think of was my impending date with Adam.

  “It’s not a date,” I reminded myself under my breath. He was just being a nice guy. Buying a coffee to replace the one that had been spilled, even though it was my fault. Guys like Adam didn’t date girls like me. I had to keep reminding myself of that before I got lost in some stupid fantasy and got my heart broken. Again.

  Gavin leaving had broken me in fundamental ways I couldn’t even begin to explain. It had taken me a long time to regain my self-confidence. In fact, if I were entirely honest, it wasn’t back. Not fully. Sometimes I worried it never would be.

  Realizing it was as good as it was going t
o get, I stepped outside the station into the morning sunshine. It was still cool, the tall buildings along Oxford Street casting long shadows. I almost wished I’d brought a sweater, but by the time I went home that evening, it would be unbearably hot and sticky.

  “Kate.”

  He was standing against the side of the building, waiting for me. He was dressed more casually than me in a black button-up shirt snug enough to show off his toned chest and a pair of dark jeans that hugged his legs like a lover. The sun kissed his hair, shimmering gold and red. If I could have dreamed up the perfect fantasy man, Adam would have been it. From the leanly muscled body to the green eyes and devastating smile, he was physically perfect. My heart kicked into high gear and a flock of pterodactyls took up residence in my stomach.

  “Adam.” It came out a little breathier than I intended. “Hi.”

  He sauntered toward me, a sexy smile on his face. “Hi.” His voice was low and husky and sent shivers down my spine. Definitely the good kind. He leaned in and kissed first my left cheek then my right. I sucked in a deep breath.

  I had to remind myself it didn’t mean anything. That’s how men in England greeted the women in their lives: sisters, mothers, friends, lovers. Well, usually it was just the single left cheek kiss, but some had adopted the European double kiss. Still, I could have sworn his lips lingered a little longer than strictly necessary. His warm breath teased my ear. Maybe it was more than friendly.

  And maybe I’d be the next Queen of England. I told myself not to be a damned fool. Men like Adam went for size zeros with perfect hair and designer clothes, not slightly plump office drones with more baggage than the whole of Heathrow.

  Then I stopped and told myself not to be such a downer. I was in positive thinking mode. I was pretty. I was funny. Adam was going to think I was awesome. Even if just as a friend. I pulled my shoulders back and straightened my spine. Yes. Positive thinking was the way to go.

  “Shall we go,” he said, lightly touching my back to guide me toward the coffee shop. I didn’t mind. Chivalry may be dead in the good old USA, but it was alive and well in London town.