Eight Weeks to Mr. Right (10 page)

“Sure, let’s do it,” I said.
 

“Great! I’ll drive. See if Ben can come.”

“Soph, you know I can’t be seen with him again,” I protested. Unfortunately. I reimagined the scene, this time with Ben, and the image my brain conjured was of us holding hands, walking through the vineyard.
Stop it!
I chastised myself.
 

“No, you just can’t be seen on anything that might look like a date,” she corrected me. “Wine tasting with your sister could hardly be considered a date.”

“I guess.”

“Besides,” she continued, “anyone who cares about that stuff knows you live in San Francisco. They won’t expect you in Sonoma. And they’ll be too buzzed to notice anyway.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll ask him,” I promised. Knowing what the consequences could be, the idea still made me nervous. He’d have to work anyway, though, so it wouldn’t matter.

But to my surprise, when I told Ben about Sophie’s plan, he was enthusiastic.
 

“I have a ton of vacation days saved up,” he said. “This’ll be fun!”

“Great!” I said, giddy at the thought of him coming along despite my fears, and then added, only half joking, “But if anyone pulls out a camera in our vicinity, we have to hide.”

On Monday morning, Sophie picked us up at our apartment and we headed north to the wine country. It was a beautiful, clear day, warm with a cool breeze, perfect for forgetting our troubles and enjoying what Northern California had to offer.
 

When we pulled into the first winery, I was nervous at first, glancing around me every few moments to make sure no one was staring. But soon I realized that Sophie was right: no one was paying any attention to us; they were just here for the wine.
 

I was glad Ben had been able to come along, even if I was nervous about what could potentially happen. The sommelier poured us a series of crisp chardonnays and fruity pinot noirs, and with each sip I got more relaxed, less worried about being recognized or photographed.
 

“Many people taste buttered popcorn in this wine,” the somme commented. “With a hint of caramel.” We sipped and nodded. Yes, there it was.

Ben turned to me. “You must be really good at wine tasting,” he said.

I laughed. “Good at it? I didn’t realize drinking was a skill.”

“I mean because you’re good at recognizing scents,” he clarified.
 

I swirled my glass and took a deep sniff of the white wine. “Nah,” I said. “It’s all so subjective. With perfume, it’s made up of all these specific compounds, and I’m pretty good at figuring out what’s what. But wine?” I shrugged. “It’s all just made of grapes. I don’t know the first thing about wine, but I know that when someone says a wine tastes like tar and leather and black pepper, there’s none of that actually in there.”

Ben sniffed his wine, feigning seriousness. “I don’t know, I think someone dropped a leather boot in this one.”

“Do you not like the wine?” the sommelier asked, coming over to us, and I tried hard to suppress my giggles as Ben rushed to assure him he did.

After our tasting, we walked around on the beautiful grounds, staring out over the fields of grapes and hills beyond.
 

“I love coming out here,” Sophie said, then sighed. “I only wish Matt liked wine. I couldn’t get him to come to Sonoma if I paid him.”

I looked at her. “Sophie, should I be worried about you two?” I asked.
 

But she shook her head emphatically. “Not at all. We just have different interests. And that means I get to come out here with both of you!”

I locked my arm through hers. “And I’m glad we did,” I said, and stared up at the bright blue sky, feeling light and happy.

At the next winery, we were the only customers in the place. It was a nice surprise, and allowed me to relax even more. Sophie asked for small tastes since she was driving, but I let the warm feeling spread through my body, not drinking too much but enough to let down my guard.
 

As we finished our tasting at this winery, Sophie asked about the wine club, and Ben and I took our last sips outside to sit in the breeze overlooking the vineyard while she got the info and made her choices. We found a seat side by side on the edge of a fountain, feeling the occasional stray droplets hit our arms.
 

I was feeling bold, I supposed, from the wine, and I couldn’t hold back the question that had been nagging at my brain.

“Ben,” I said. “I need to know…why did you break up with me? Back in high school? I never really knew.”

He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “You’re right, I wasn’t very good at talking about my feelings. Maybe I’m still not.” He turned his body to face me slightly. “I think I just got scared. My dad had left, and for a long time I just kept hoping he’d come back. I think my mom hoped so too. But after a while, when it became obvious he wasn’t going to. I realized that you never really know what’s going on in someone else’s head.”

I nodded. Andrew, Brandi, Ben himself…it had become clear recently that there was a lot I didn’t know about others’ inner lives. I imagined how scared and angry the teenage Ben must’ve been when he realized he dad was never coming home.

“January, I was falling in love with you. And that scared the shit out of me. I realized that you could leave too, just like he had. With no warning. And break my heart all over again. I didn’t want to let that happen. So I broke up with you first.”

I sat there, trying to absorb this information. Ben had loved me? At the time, all those years ago, I had felt like I was falling in love with him too, and had been too scared to admit it. Then when he’d broken up with me, I’d been so glad I hadn’t, and had convinced myself that it wasn’t really love after all.
 

“It really hurt,” I said quietly, looking down at the reflection the wineglass made on the pavement beneath us.
 

“I know,” he said. “It hurt me too. I’m so sorry. I was just a dumb kid who was trying to run away rather than face things that were hard.”

“I wish you’d told me,” I said. “I spent months wondering what I’d done wrong.”

He shook his head. “You never did anything wrong. It was me. I was scared.”

We sat there in silence for a moment, and then Ben asked, “Do you think you can ever forgive me?”

I laughed out loud then. I couldn’t help it. “Ben…I forgave you years ago,” I told him, and the relief was evident on his face.
 

“Really? I always felt so bad about it. I always worried you must think horribly of me,” he said. “When I first saw you in that bar…my first thought was that I had a second opportunity to make it up to you. Make things right.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him, the same way he always did to me when I said something ridiculous. “And yet you left it up to me to ask what happened?”
 

He smiled and looked down at his shoes. “Well, I’m still not perfect,” he said.
 

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “You’ve made it up to me plenty. You’ve been there for me during a hard time. I would be lost without your support, without you helping me respond to people online, without knowing that at least you still think I’m a good person.”

He smiled at me. “I’m really glad I saw you again,” he said. “I’m glad you wanted to move in.”

And then our bodies closed the few scant inches between us, and I couldn’t tell whether it was the wine or the desire to be closer to one another, but suddenly my arm was pressing into his, and then he reached around my waist and drew me in closer, kissing my forehead lightly. My heart sped up, and my knees felt weak.
 

“We’re all set if you’re ready,” Sophie said, appearing around the corner, and Ben and I jumped apart, though not before she’d caught my eye and grinned.

We had lunch at a quaint cafe with high ceilings, lots of fresh bread and local vegetables, and then went to one more winery before heading home. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Ben had said. So when he’d avoided me after we’d broken up, that last year of high school, it hadn’t been because I’d done something wrong. It hadn’t been because he didn’t like me anymore.
 

It had been because he liked me too much.
 

Even all these years later, knowing what had really being going through his mind during that time was a relief. As we headed back toward San Francisco at the end of the day, I lay back against Sophie’s leather seats and closed my eyes. I felt content.
 

It was Wednesday night again, and I was dreading the upcoming episode. Every week now felt like a new opportunity for humiliation, and I no longer knew what to expect.
 

This week’s episode was about hobbies and interests, and each of the five remaining women had taken Andrew to do something we enjoyed. My segment was first this episode, and I was glad to get it over with.
 

I’d chosen to go to a theme park because I loved roller coasters, and Andrew had seemed surprised by the choice.
 

“You don’t seem like the roller coaster type,” he commented to me as we walked along, hand in hand, sharing a sticky mound of pink cotton candy. I glanced uncomfortably at Ben, but he didn’t react to the hand-holding.

“I don’t?” TV-me responded. “What about you — do you like them?”

He hesitated. “Not so much, but I’m willing to take one for the team,” he said, tossing his head so that his sun-streaked hair caught the light.
 

The sideways grin I’d thrown at him betrayed how I was feeling in that moment: I was almost giddy with excitement that Andrew was willing to do something with me that I enjoyed, even though he didn’t enjoy it. He had referred to us as a team.
 

Now, though, months later, I thought,
How long would that have lasted?
On the show, he’d been trying to impress us all, to present himself to the women and the nation as Mr. Right. But what would our relationship have been like afterward?

On an impulse, I turned to Ben. “Do you like roller coasters?” I asked.
 

He grinned. “Love them.”

I smiled back, imagining the two of us going to a theme park together and taking on the most terrifying roller coasters in the whole park. Together. Side by side.
 

“And just for the record,” Ben added, “I do think you seem like the roller coaster type.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.
 

“Because you’re adventurous. You put yourself on a roller coaster by agreeing to go on this show. You take risks.”

“Huh.” I thought about it, nodding slowly. “I like that.”

Then there were a few snarky comments from the women back at the house about what we might be doing on our date, which I’d come to expect now. There was Brandi, saying, “I don’t know what the hell she thinks she’s doing. But she shouldn’t be here.” I remembered the moment from the promo I’d seen in the bar before the very first episode, when I’d languidly wondered who the object of derision was. How laughable now — I hadn’t even considered it might be me.
 

Otherwise, though, my segment wasn’t so bad, and I breathed out a sigh of relief when it was over. I relaxed as I watched Abby take Andrew country dancing, Brandi take him to sing karaoke (she was decent, he was awful), and a woman named Maribel take him to ride horses.
 

Last was Isabella. She made the bizarre choice of taking Andrew to get a pedicure for their date, but he took it in stride, even seeming to enjoy himself.

“So have you been married before?” Isabella asked as they sat back in their plush chairs, feet soaking in warm water.
What an odd question
, I thought. I guess I assumed we all would’ve known already if he had.
 

But to my surprise, Andrew said, “Yes, I was. But it wasn’t meant to be. We had a kid together. But we were young, and…I don’t know. I needed to do what was best for me, you know?”

Isabella nodded solemnly, blinking at him. She cocked her head to the side. “So do you still see your kid?”

Andrew shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, I mean, I try to when I can. Work keeps me pretty busy.”

Beside me, Ben stiffened. “He abandoned his child?”

I froze. “I had no idea,” I said. Andrew had done exactly what Ben’s father had, leaving his family, not looking back. And now he was trying to hide it, talking around it with noncommittal words like “I try to,” not even owning up to what he’d done.
 

On the screen, Isabella just nodded, but I felt myself hardening toward Andrew. Especially now, after hearing Ben’s story about his own dad. Would it have changed how I felt about Andrew if I’d known at the time?

“Fuck Andrew,” Ben said. I looked at him. This was the first time he’d expressed a strong opinion on Mr. Right one way or the other. “I’m glad you didn’t win. You deserve better than a guy like that.”

I was surprised to discover that I agreed with him. Watching the episodes back, while I was watching myself fall for Andrew on the screen, I was losing interest in him in real life. The facade had cracked, and between all of the dates, all of the ways Andrew tried to sculpt his image with each of us individually, a picture was emerging of who he was as a whole.
 

It still hurt how he had rejected me. It still hurt a lot. And there was a big part of me that still wanted to be with him. But with every episode that we watched, it got easier and easier.
 

Thanks to Ben. He helped me see past my own nose, see more than just how I was being portrayed to the nation, but how Andrew was being portrayed too. And while I didn’t like what the producers had done to paint me as a fake, manipulative person that I didn’t believe I was, the way they’d shown Andrew seemed to reveal something about him that he was trying to hide.

After the episode ended, I pulled out my laptop and moved to the kitchen, sitting at the table to read through the tweets about #MrRight.
 

“Not so bad today,” I commented. “People are more concerned with the way he dumped Maribel than with anything I did.”