Mixed Signals (16 page)

“He was already talking about me before the tennis match.”

“No,” Ben says. “He arranged a contest for Nico and mentioned that you used to date him.”

The anger in his voice surprises and confuses me. “I can't change what I did.” I stir the ice in my drink with the swizzle stick.

Lenny and his friends at the bar count backward, shouting, “Three, two, one.” They all throw back a shot.

“No, but you can apologize,” Ben says. “End this whole thing.”

“Why do you sound so mad at me?”

“It's been almost four months, Jill. You should be ready to move on with your life.”

I read somewhere that the time it takes to get over someone is two weeks for every year you spent together, which I guess means that Ben is right and I should be over Nico by now.

I drop my hand to Ben's leg and take a deep breath. “I was hoping you could help me move on tonight?” I'm deviating from Ellie's plan; she told me I should wait for Ben to come on to me, but things are spiraling out of control.

He glances down at my hand. “What are you talking about?”

I muster my best seductive look while I slide my hand up his thigh. Just as I reach my intended destination, he jerks away from me.

“Jill, what the hell are you doing?”

“You don't like it?”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you actually trying to get me to sleep with you as a way to get over Nico?”

“I'm ready to move on,” I say defiantly.

“Yeah, well, I'm not going to be your rebound guy.”

“I promise you'd have a good time.” I reach for him again.

He stands. “I was really looking forward to tonight. I used to have the biggest crush on you,” he says while shaking his head. “You really need to get yourself together.”

I order another drink, thinking I may have just reached rock bottom. Damn, I played that wrong.

Back at the table, the waitstaff is serving strawberry cheesecake. Jennifer leans over to me. “Sorry that all came up,” she says. “It must be hard.”

I nod.

“It looks like you've moved on just fine,” she says, smiling appreciatively at Ben, who folds his arms over his chest.

“We're not together,” I clarify. “We're friends.” Or we used to be.

As we eat dessert, the band changes the background music from soft instrumentals to a rendition of Taylor Dayne's “I'll Always Love You,” which the lead singer announces was Renee and Lenny's wedding song back in 1991. The guests all watch while Renee and Lenny dance.

When the song ends, the music gets faster. Several people get up to dance, but Ben and I remain sitting.

“Do you mind if I borrow him?” Darlene asks, pulling Ben by the arm. She drags him out to the dance floor.

I slump in my chair as I sit at the table alone. Ben and Darlene laugh as they try to outdo one another with crazy moves. I pull my phone out of my purse to text Ellie for an emergency consultation: “Not going well.” Ben glances over at me. He takes Darlene's hand and spins her around in circles. My message doesn't go through because there is no signal.

When the song ends, the music gets slower. Ben and Darlene leave the dance floor. Darlene heads for the bar where her husband is, and Ben returns to his seat next to me. “Who are you texting?” he asks.

“No one.”

His jaw tightens.

“Ben, Jillian,” Renee calls from the dance floor. “Get out here.”

Neither of us moves.

“Don't make me come over there and get you,” Renee yells.

“We better,” Ben says. He stands and heads toward her without waiting for me.

When I catch up to him, he places one hand on my hip and the other on my shoulder and holds me loosely. Remembering the last time we slow-danced together, I step closer to him, trying to spark something. He immediately steps backward, taking another piece of my self-esteem with him. What was I thinking?

* * *

Ben and I don't say much to each other on the drive back to my apartment. He stares through the windshield at the road in front of him with a clenched jaw, while I look out the passenger window at the dark houses we pass. The silence in the car screams at me, so I switch on the radio. He has it tuned to the sports station, which is airing a promotion for Monday's morning show. I immediately change the station, flipping until I come to Beyoncé singing about being a boy. I sing along.

Ben glances at me. I can tell he's trying to fight it, but he smiles. “God, you're awful.” He takes his hands off the steering wheel to cover his ears. “Please stop,” he says. “You're tone deaf and you don't know the words.”

In response, I sing louder.

“Seriously, Jillian, stop.”

“Let me hear you do better.”

He shakes his head.

“I'm going to keep singing until you do.” I belt out the chorus.

“Okay,” Ben says. “You win.” He clears his throat and sings the chorus with me.

We both laugh because he's worse than me. He turns onto my street and pulls into my driveway. The motion lights snap on. The curtains in Mr. O'Brien's living room window move. The old man is probably surprised to see me home so early. It's just after ten. Renee's party was still raging when we left.

Ben's seat belt clicks, surprising me. I turn toward him. “Are you going to come in?” I hate how hopeful I sound.

“I'm going to walk you to the door,” he says.

“I'm all set,” I say. “I've made it across the porch plenty of times before.”

He ignores me and steps out of the car, leaving it running. He silently follows me up the walkway. As we get closer to the house, I see a shock of Mr. O'Brien's white hair in the window. By the time we pass it, he's no longer standing there. On my side of the duplex, Ben holds the storm door open while I turn my key in the lock.

Before I step inside, I turn to face him. “I'm sorry about earlier. It was a bad idea.”

“I can't even believe you thought I'd go along with it.”

“Ellie said you would.”

“Ellie,” he mutters.

I think about bringing up the dance at the holiday party and what he said to me, but he'd probably tell me I misunderstood him. I've had enough humiliation tonight. “Good night.”

I turn away from him, but he grabs my shoulder and spins me back toward him. “It's not that I don't want to, but the time is definitely not right.” He leans toward me, his lips heading for mine. Wrong. He kisses my cheek. “Good night,” he whispers, and hurries back across the porch.

I wait in the doorway until he gets back to his car. He gives me a small wave before driving off.

I touch my face where his lips brushed against it, thinking
I wore the uncomfortable underwear for that?

M
y phone rings at eight o'clock the next morning, waking me from a restless sleep. I reach toward the nightstand to grab it, knocking over my bottle of water. I curse under my breath as I say hello.

“Did you have a good time last night?” Ellie asks. I imagine she's been up for hours, staring at the clock waiting for a time she thought wasn't too early to call me.

I try to think about how to answer, the best way to describe the colossal failure that last night was.

“Oh my God,” Ellie says, rushing to fill the silence. “Are you still with him?”

“No!”

“Oh.” The two-letter word is punctuated with disappointment. I don't know who feels it more, me or her.

“Well, you sound distracted.”

“You woke me up!”

“Fine. Go back to sleep.”

* * *

I've been waiting for close to fifteen minutes when I receive Ellie's text telling me she's on her way. We're meeting to walk around the pond. Snowbanks still flank the paved path that winds around it, making it narrower than usual. Runners and walkers dodge a large puddle of melting snow as they pass me. I turn my face toward the sky and revel in the feel of the sun on my face. A jogger pauses and raises her foot up onto the bench next to me to tie her sneaker. “It's like a summer day,” she says before taking off again.

Bored from waiting, I pull out my phone again. I take my turn in the latest game of Words with Friends I'm playing with my brother, scroll through Twitter, and then check Facebook. Renee wasted no time posting pictures from last night. She even tagged Ben and me in one. It was taken before I suggested he sleep with me to help me get over Nico. We're sitting at the table and he's smiling at me, not aware that we're being photographed. I, on the other hand, am looking straight into the camera with a huge grin.

The picture has 147 likes and two comments. The first is from Ellie:
Looking good, you two.
The second is from my mother:
Handsome. Is he the “friend” Christian told us about?
Her use of quotation marks makes me want to die.

In the distance, a group of kids on scooters make their way toward me. Ellie is behind them. She sees me and waves, a huge grin on her face as if I invited her here to share good news. When she reaches me, she squeezes my wrist, a playful light in her eyes. “Tell me everything that happened.”

“There's nothing to tell. It was a disaster.”

Her eyes dim like the lights in a movie theater just before the show starts. “What happened?”

As we walk, I explain how things got off to a good start with Ben bringing me flowers, but then steadily declined with the first glass of wine in my apartment.

“By the time the band was playing, he didn't even want to dance with me.”

“It makes no sense,” Ellie says. “I saw a picture Renee posted. He looks so into you.”

“He was really insulted.” I kick a rock and watch it skid across the pavement, bouncing off the shoe of a man walking a few feet in front of us. He turns to look at me, so I mutter an apology.

“What do you mean, he was insulted? I would think he would have been flattered.”

“He said he used to have a crush on me, but now he basically thinks I'm pathetic.”

Ellie stops to unzip her sweatshirt and tie it around her waist. “What exactly did you say to him?”

“He was giving me a hard time for not being over Nico, so I suggested he help me move on.”

“By having sex with you?”

The man in front of us looks back at us over his shoulder. Ellie and I both glare at him until he turns away from us.

“Well, I didn't come right out and say it, but he got my gist.”

“Oh, Jillian. You weren't supposed to tell him the reason you wanted to sleep with him. You were supposed to have fun, flirt with him. One thing would lead to the other.”

My face burns in embarrassment. “When he dropped me off he said it's not that he didn't want to, but that the timing wasn't right. What does that mean?”

“It means he was trying to let you down easy.”

We walk in silence as we pass a group of children feeding the geese in the pond. Once we get by them, Ellie asks, “Were you drunk?”

“I'm done talking about this. Time to move to plan B.”

“What's that?” Ellie asks. “Or should I say, who's that? Lucas?”

“Very funny, wise guy. Sleeping with Ben was your idea,” I remind her.

“That's because I was secretly hoping something would come of it.”

Her words cause a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'm not sure why.

P
lan B is online dating, and I can't believe I'm resorting to it. The whole drive home I had to talk myself into it. I finally convinced myself it's no different than shopping on Zappos, Rue La La, or Amazon. Instead of buying shoes, clothes, or books, I'm looking for a boyfriend, or at least a date—or someone to help me move on with my life.

Back in my apartment, I log in to the site and guide my cursor to the activate profile button. My finger hovers over the mouse. I count backward from three and click. My profile goes live. I stare at the computer, waiting for something to happen. Nothing does. Well, what did I expect, a bunch of hunky men to burst through my screen?

A button at the top of the screen that says Design Your Ideal Mate catches my attention. Who wouldn't be intrigued by that? I click on it.
Answer these questions to describe the person you most want to date.
Two buttons appear under the text:
Male
or
Female
. I click on male. A long questionnaire appears, beginning with
Choose an age range for your ideal mate
. While the directive seems harmless enough, it depresses the hell out of me because it reminds me of how old I am. In less than a month, I'll be closer to fifty than twenty. How can that be? I select thirty-five to forty-four, only because there isn't an option that allows me to choose thirty-five to thirty-nine. I don't want to date a forty-year-old.

Before I move on to the next question, my computer dings. A picture of a man with chubby cheeks and a dark crew cut pops up, filling half my screen. Next to it, an instant message appears:
You have beautiful eyes.

Whoa! Can he see me?
I roll my chair away from the computer.
Relax, Jillian. He's looking at your picture
. Still, I'm creeped out and leave the room. Thirty minutes later when I return, the message is still there, but now under it in smaller text it says Passion Pete has signed off. Passion Pete. Who's going to contact me next, Horny Hank? Maybe this isn't such a good idea.

More wary now, I resume creating my ideal mate. I answer a dozen questions about physical appearance. As I review my answers—light brown hair, green eyes, taller than five ten—I start to feel twitchy, realizing the ideal mate I'm creating looks nothing like Nico but exactly like Ben. I get the same sinking feeling in my stomach that I had at the pond with Ellie this morning and wonder if the reason I want to sleep with Ben has more to do with the fact that I'm attracted to him than getting over Nico.

I go downstairs for an ice-cold glass of water to help me clear my mind. Over the past few months, Nico's coat hanging over the back of the chair has become as familiar a sight as the gray vinyl tile on my kitchen floor. I don't even notice it anymore. Today it jumps out at me the same way a broken egg on the tiles would. I think about how Ben reacted when he saw it last night, how that stupid jacket ruined the good vibe we had going when he first arrived. Perhaps it is time to get rid of it. I can't throw it away though. It's a perfectly good jacket. I promise myself I will donate it to a charity's coat drive. In the meantime, I hang it in the back of the hallway closet.

I return to my desk, ready to move on. Twenty minutes later, I have completed all the preferences for my ideal mate. If only I could press a button and have him shoot out of my printer. Now that would be something. Instead I press
Search
and a list of the closest matches appears.

Before I can read through it, my doorbell rings. By the time I make it downstairs, I hear footsteps outside walking away. I throw open the door. Mr. O'Brien is halfway across the porch to his place. He walks back to my side of the house.

“What took you so long?” he asks.

I was soliciting strangers on the Internet for a date.
“I was upstairs.”

“I have to get in there,” he says. He pulls the storm door open and steps forward.

I block his path because I hate that he never gives me any notice before doing work on my apartment. When Nico lived here, Mr. O'Brien always called before coming over. “Why?”

He clears his throat and points up. “The ice dams. I have to make sure they didn't do any damage, check for leaks.”

“There aren't any.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I haven't noticed any.”

“I'm coming in,” he says, brushing past me and heading for the stairway.

“You don't have to go up there.” I exhale loudly as he traipses through my apartment, leaving his usual trail of sandy wet footsteps behind him. “I would have noticed if the ceiling is leaking.”

He pauses on the third step, turns around, and looks at me through narrowed eyes. He clears his throat again. “Am I interrupting something? Is there someone up there?”

“What? No!”
I wish!

He eyes the top of the stairs suspiciously.

“There's no one up there.” For crying out loud, he saw Ben drive away last night.

I follow him up the stairs, noticing the brown age spots on the back of his hand sliding along the railing as he slowly makes his ascent. At the top of the staircase, he pauses to look upward. Nothing there but a pristine white ceiling. He proceeds down the hall to my bedroom. I cringe as he enters because it's a mess. The dress, nylons, and shoes I wore to Renee's party are piled in a heap at the foot of my unmade bed, along with the dress I didn't wear. A laundry basket overflowing with clothes that need to be folded or ironed sits in the middle of the room. A collection of half-empty water bottles lines my nightstand, and the curtains are still closed tight. “Cleaning lady's day off?” he asks.

“There are no stains,” I say.

“What are those?” he asks, pointing to the smattering of glow-in-the-dark star decals stuck to the ceiling.

Nico put them there to surprise me. We had planned a week away, camping in Acadia National Park, but I got sick, the flu. In July. Even my doctor couldn't believe it.
It's not something we usually see this time of year
, she said. So while I was sacked out on the couch huddled under an electric blanket to fight off the chills while spiking a fever with a 102 temperature, he was upstairs turning our bedroom ceiling into a night sky so I could pretend I was sleeping outdoors. The memory makes me smile.

“I like to sleep under the stars,” I say.

Mr. O'Brien shakes his head. “Then sleep outside. Don't destroy my ceilings.”

As we make our way down the hall, he keeps his eyes up, but there is no water damage. I wait in the hallway while he checks the bathroom. “What stinks in here?” he asks.

For the love of God. I lean into the room. “Nothing!”

“It's this!” He picks up my mulberry and thyme diffuser.

“It's an air freshener. It smells good.”

He returns it to the vanity. “I prefer to light a match.”

Great. Now an image of him sitting on the toilet pops into my head. His tan pants are bunched around his ankles, exposing his skinny pale legs and thick black socks. He's reading a newspaper, and there's a book of matches on the hopper's tank, waiting to be lit.

He follows me to my office. From the doorway, I see the Ideal-Mate website filling up the twenty-seven inches of my iMac's screen. I freeze. Mr. O'Brien bumps into me. “What are you doing stopping like that,” he grumbles.

“Nothing to see in here either,” I say.

He nudges his way past me. Of course, he heads straight for my desk. His eyes narrow as he looks toward the computer. I think about diving across the room and ripping the plug out of the outlet.

Mr. O'Brien leans closer to the screen. The website's slogan,
Meet Your Ideal Mate
, fills the top half. “What's this?” he asks.

There's no way I'm explaining this to him.

He clears his throat. “Are you doing Internet dating?”

“What's wrong with that?” I ask, surprised that he knows about it
.
“It's how single people meet other single people these days.” I hate myself for feeling the need to defend myself.

“I've heard about these sites on the news,” he says. “It's how young women get themselves killed.” His mouth twists. “Meeting strangers on the computer, getting in the car with them or going to their houses. Why do you want to do something like that?” He's still facing my monitor, his eyes traveling up and down, looking at the pictures of my ideal matches.

“How else am I going to meet someone?”

“Meet them in real life. Like we did before these newfangled devices became so popular.” He motions with his hand like he's trying to shoo away my computer. “Grocery stores, church, the laundry mat.”

“The key is that you have to keep your eyes open,” he says.

I step around him and minimize the screen. “Where did you meet Carol?”

He flinches at the mention of his dead wife's name. “At work. She was the boss's daughter. Came in to help with the phones one day when the regular girl was out sick.” He actually smiles as he speaks. I picture him younger, chatting up a secretary while she ignores the ringing telephone behind her. It's one of those old-fashioned ones with the rotary dial. “There must be single men in your office,” he says.

Ben's face flashes through my mind. “No one I can date,” I say. “That was risky, asking out the boss's daughter.”

“Pshh. Dating someone you meet on the computer is risky,” he says. “Especially when you're too distracted to notice what's right in front of you.” He points to a large yellow stain on the ceiling above my desk. “It's practically dripping on your head. I don't know how you missed it.”