Match Me (9 page)

But that was gone now. And I realized that I did care about this date. I wanted to make a good first impression. And, even with knowing absolutely nothing about the guy Jill had set me up with, I wanted it to go well.

I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to steady my breathing. Maybe I should have consulted the tarot before the date. Asked what to expect. Too late now.

I glanced at the time on my phone. It was almost 7:00. And I didn’t want to be late. I grabbed my purse from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. I was as ready as I was ever going to be.

I walked across the parking lot to the patio area. Jill had told me to sit outside. A lot of the tables were already occupied and I scanned them for a man sitting alone. I didn’t find one.

So he wasn’t there yet. I found a tiny table tucked in the corner next to one of the tiki statues. I tried positioning the chair so that I could see the entrance but the statute was too big and I didn’t have enough room to navigate. Resigned, I sat down with my back to the entrance and waited to be surprised.

“Hey, Bonnie.”

I whirled around. “Paul!”

My surprise was genuine. What on earth was he doing in Minneapolis? Everywhere I went, he seemed to pop up. And I was never disappointed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He smiled. “A date.”

For some reason, my heart plummeted. “Oh. With Meg?” I tried not to scowl as I pictured the cute chef from Champs.

“Nah, someone else.”

Please don’t let it be Jenna, I thought. The last thing I needed was to see her smug face and hear her snide comments as I waded through my first phase-two recovery date.

I worked up the nerve to ask. “Jenna?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Good God, no. Give me a little credit.”

“You were out with her the other night,” I reminded him.

“I go out with a lot of people,” he said. “And she asked me. I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting there, but I needed to make sure for myself. I was right.”

A little sigh escaped me. He really was a nice guy. A good human, as Jill put it.

“Oh, OK.” I smiled. “Well, it was good seeing you.”

“You’re just dismissing me?” he said, more amused than annoyed.

“Well, I don't want to keep you. You know, from your date.” 

I also knew Rule #1 for blind dates: don’t pass the time waiting for your blind date with a really nice-looking guy who is not your date.

He looked around. “Hmmm. Maybe,” he said. “But don’t you want to know who I’m here with tonight?”

My brow furrowed. No, I really didn’t want to know. Because I figured it might be someone else I didn’t approve of for him. But he clearly wanted me to ask.

“Uh, sure. Who?”

He smiled. “You.”

TWENTY-THREE

“Me?” I’m pretty sure my voice squeaked.

He slid into the seat next to me. “Yes. You.”

Had he followed me down? Did he think I was just driving to Minneapolis for an evening out by myself? That had to be it. Perfect Paul to the rescue, always at the ready to take care of me.

I panicked. “You can’t be. I mean, it would be fun to have dinner with you but I'm actually meeting someone.”

He looked around. “Oh. Who?”

I hesitated. “Um, I don’t really know.”

“What?”

“It’s sort of a date,” I said lamely. “A blind date.”

He grinned. “Oh, really? Another stellar specimen from Match Me?”

I’d told him about the disastrous dates in the Dairy Queen parking lot. After I’d told him about Chase’s proposition.

“No. Someone Jill set me up with.”

He played with the silverware that was on the table. “A friend of hers, then?”

I shrugged. “I don’t really know. I don’t know much of anything about him.”

Except that he was going to be there any minute. And I was sitting at a table with another guy, who under any other circumstance, I would’ve chosen to sit with.

“I’m surprised you agreed to it,” he said. “You know, considering your recent track record.”

“Well, Jill can be pretty persuasive.” I smiled. “And she did say he would be perfect for me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I trust her judgment. I think.”

He picked up the knife and twirled it between his fingers.

“So,” I said. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. But you really need to go. I don’t want to be rude to whoever this guy is.”

He nodded. “OK. But I have a feeling Jill is going to be a little disappointed.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not perfect.”

“What?”

He hesitated. “The person she set you up with is me.”

Color flooded my cheeks as I processed what he’d just said. What he’d been trying to tell me for the last ten minutes.

“You?” I squeaked again.

Paul nodded again. “Uh-huh.”

“But…” I stammered. “But why?”

A waitress showed up, some chick with pink hair and a barbell through her lip, and handed us menus.

“What do you mean why?”

I looked at the menu but the words blurred together. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Or of what was happening with Paul.

“I mean, why you?” I shook my head. “You don’t like me. You feel sorry for me.”

“And you are utterly clueless.”

“What?”

Paul shifted in his seat, moving closer. “I’m a nice guy, right?”

I nodded. He was the nicest guy I knew.

“And I don’t mind helping people out, you know?”

Again, I nodded.

“But do you think any guy would do the things I’ve done for you, for a girl he just feels sorry for?”  He smiled, shook his head. “I bought, like, a year’s worth of tampons for you.”

The waitress returned with two glasses of water. I gulped half of mine down in one swallow.

“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “You’ve never once expressed interest in me. Ever.”

“Well, duh. You were with Chase. And when you weren’t with him, you were wanting to be with him. Doesn’t exactly bode well for the guy waiting backstage, hoping for a shot. But I figured if I hung around enough, you might get the idea. I didn’t realize I needed to hang a sign in front of you.”

“But, other girls…” I thought back to high school, back to all of the times I’d seen him over the years since we’d graduated. “You’re always with someone, Paul. Always.”

“Hey, I go out. Absolutely.” He played with the menu, folding it and unfolding it. “I dated a ton of girls. Dozens.”

For some reason, I flinched. I didn’t want him to quantify.

“But it’s only because I couldn’t find what I was looking for.” I looked at him and he offered me a smile. “I couldn’t find someone like you.”

“So you’re telling me that all this time, you’ve been hung up on me? The way I’ve been hung up on Chase?”

“Well, no.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I didn’t crash your wedding.”

“I’m not getting married.”

He chuckled. “Damn right, you’re not.”

“But, if I had been?”

“Let’s just say, I wouldn’t have thrown a shoe at you to get your attention.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “No. I would’ve thrown something heavier. Like an anvil.”

I couldn't stop the smile that bloomed.

And then something wet hit my nose. And another. I looked up at the sky. It was steel gray, balloon-like clouds threatening to burst.

“It’s gonna pour any second,” Paul said, grabbing me and pulling me up.

The skies opened and the downpour flooded us. I buried my face against his neck and breathed in. He smelled clean and warm, like spicy vanilla. His arms tightened around my waist.

I turned my head to look up at him. His lips were a fraction of an inch away. And, like usual, I didn’t think. I just stood on my tiptoes and touched my lips to his.

He didn’t taste like Chase and he didn’t kiss like Chase.

He kissed like Paul. Tender. Thorough. And infinitely better.

Reluctantly, I pulled away. My hair was plastered to my head and I was sure my mascara was running like a river down both cheeks.

Paul didn’t seem to care. He planted a kiss on top of my head.

“We should move inside,” he said. “You with me?”

I nodded and held out my hand.

“Yep. I’m with you.”

THE END

Save Me

by Liz Appel

ONE

Seeing my parents siting on my couch was never a good sign. I could count the number of times it had happened since I'd officially moved from my bedroom upstairs into the basement apartment. None.  None was a number I liked. One was a number that made me suspicious.

I dropped my backpack on the round bistro table that served as my dining table.

“Uh. Hi,” I said.

My parents sat close together, their knees touching. Mom had her hands folded in her lap, a bright smile pasted on her face. My dad was thumbing through the latest issue of Cosmo, his eyebrows furrowed. In horror, I wondered if he was reading the cover article:
His Burning Sex Need: Satisfy the Craving Your Man Won't Admit To
.

I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottled water. “What are you guys doing here?”

There were firm rules in place to our living arrangements. I'd graduated from high school three years ago. To save money, we'd agreed for me to live in the basement as opposed to the dorms or my own apartment. The rules were simple: it was to be treated like my own place. They'd call before they came down. They'd knock. They'd respect my privacy. In return, I agreed to offer the same courtesy for going upstairs. Oh, and I'd also agreed to no all-night parties and to not turn my level into a brothel. Dad's requests. No brothel meant less income, but I figured it was a fair compromise.

“We have some news,” Mom said. Her smile moved from bright to beatific.

I hadn't seen her this happy since my junior year, when they'd decided to adopt a baby from El Salvador. We'd just sat down to dinner, a Mexican feast of burritos and enchiladas.

“A what?” I'd asked as my fork clanged on the wooden table.

“A baby,” my mom repeated. She speared an enchilada off the platter and transferred it to her plate.

“Why?” I asked.

I was sixteen. They were done with kids. Diapers. Toddlers. All of it. At least that's what I thought.

“There are so many children in need, dear,” Mom said. She slathered sour cream on top of a burrito.

“Aren't there some a little closer?  Like in, say, North America?”

“Your dad and I have researched this,” she said. “The adoption rate in El Salvador is so low. And those poor children! They live on the streets if they're not adopted, you know.”

We'd just finished discussing poverty in my Global Connections class and I wanted to point out that millions of the world's children lived on the streets. And I was pretty sure they weren't all located in El Salvador.

“Okayyyy.” I grabbed a handful of tortilla chips from the opened bag on the table. “So, when is this going to happen?”

“Soon,” she promised. “Right, Hank?”

My dad looked up from his newspaper. “What?”

“The baby. From El Salvador.”

His expression cleared. “Yes. The El Salvadoran child. What about it?”

Mom waved her fork in the air. “I was just telling Katie our big news.”

He nodded. “Oh, good. Yes. Very exciting.” He buried his nose back in the paper.

For the next six months, we ate Mexican food four times a week. Mom and Dad bought Rosetta Stone and spent their evenings learning Spanish. Mom started a scrapbook titled Baby Es. When I asked if they'd found out the identity of the baby they were adopting, she'd said no.

“Baby Es is Baby El Salvador,” she explained as she pasted in pictures of a maraca-themed layette she'd found and printed from some web site. “I was tired of calling it It.”

“You just did,” I pointed out.

“Well, forever more, the baby will be called Es. Until we find out what it—I mean, what his or her name is.”

And we did. We called the baby Es. And we waited for over a year before their application was rejected and my mom's hopes were dashed.

They'd been deemed too old to be viable candidates for adoption.

But maybe a different country had different rules.

I sat on the edge of the armchair and took a sip of water. “Adopting another baby?  Maybe an entire family this time?”

“No. Better.” I thought my mom's face was going to split in two, her smile stretched so wide.

“Better than a baby or entire El Salvadoran family?”

I couldn't think of anything that would qualify. She loved babies. She'd already started hinting that Ben and I should get married. Not that she liked him very much. She didn't. But she did like babies. And I was pretty sure she was ready for me to start providing them.  I just wasn’t sure I was ready for that. And I was more than sure Ben wasn't.

“Yes.”

“OK. I give. Tell me.”

She scooted closer, her butt cheeks barely on the sofa cushion. “Hank, put that down,” she said, swatting the magazine. Dad reluctantly lowered it and tossed it back on the coffee table.

She turned to me. “We're moving.”

I gaped at her. “You're what?”

“Moving!”

I shook my head. “What?”

Maybe I hadn't heard her correctly. Ben and I had gone for a quick dip at the lake yesterday—a  warm late April day pretty much demanded a lake visit since they'd only just unfrozen a few weeks ago—so maybe there was water in my ears. Or brain-eating amoebas.

“Remember the Paulson's?” she asked.

I nodded. Mitch Paulson worked with my dad at the accounting firm. He'd retired a few years ago and moved to Florida.

“Well, Mitch has started a second career. He's a motivational speaker.”

“Mr. Paulson?” I squinted, trying to picture it. Small man with a receding hairline and a paunchy stomach. Pencil-thin mustache, a beak of a nose. Fondness for Hawaiian shirts.

“Yes. Isn't that wonderful?”

“Sure,” I said. I must have misheard her. I didn't know how Mr. Paulson becoming a motivational speaker translated into hearing my mom say that they were moving.