Nothing More Beautiful (6 page)

She hugged me tightly, and then spanked me
as I left. “Remember to feel his junk before you throw off your
clothes. You don’t want to be disappointed later on.”

“Thanks,” I said, feigning sincerity. I
drove west toward downtown. My mind wandered, returning to the
daydream. Why had Harry turned into the driver? Did I really desire
him that strongly? Or was it because the incident was so fresh in
my mind that it was just a coincidence? I laughed when I thought
about how silly it was.

Arriving at the coffee shop a few minutes
late, my nerves were starting to control me. My stomach knotted, my
throat constricted, and my clothes felt too small, which made me
fidgety and uncomfortable.

Sitting in the car, I checked my phone.
I’m here,
he had texted me at 5:02. I gathered up my courage
and headed for the entrance. As I opened the door, a woman squeezed
in front of me, pinching my arm. “Hey!” I shouted at her.

She didn’t give me a second glance, running
for the bathroom. I scanned the room, but saw no one who fit the
picture. A gaggle of teenagers sat in the corner, on their phones,
no doubt playing one of those fatuous games against each other.
Sure, I enjoyed a mindless diversion from time to time, but not out
in public—not like that. Lone white women dominated the coffee
house, and men in business suits came in second. None of them were
as fit as Harry’s picture. There were also a few bald, portly men
sprinkled throughout the crowd.

Shuffling out of the way of the door, I
opened the texts between us, my hands shaking, and sent him:
Here, but I don’t see you.
I was probably a little more
proper in my texts than most, but shortening words didn’t help with
filling in crosswords, and I had to keep my mind sharp for
those.

At first I thought one of the chubby men was
heading for the door when I realized he was on a collision course
with me. “Maci?” he said, his throat deep and scratchy, a smoker’s
voice.

“Ha—harry?”

I
couldn’t believe my eyes.
I couldn’t believe I was duped so badly. All my pre-date jitters
vanished in an instant, overtaken by bewilderment.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. He stared
hard into my eyes. “Sorry about my profile picture. I haven’t
upgraded to the digital age so well and it was the only one I could
find on my computer.” He looked nothing like his picture, except
for his blue eyes. His glabrous white head shined under the direct
ceiling light. His toned muscles had turned flabby, and his face
now included a few extra chins. His teeth bore yellow stains and
his breath was worse than mine in the morning. Where the picture
showed rosy cheeks, sun-burnt blotches now marked his face, a deep
purple at their center.

“I got us a table over here,” he said, as
though nothing was out of the ordinary.

In spite of my strong desire to do a
one-eighty, I followed and sat across from him; he had already
ordered a coffee. There could be no doubt my face exhibited my
surprise, but he didn’t seem to mind, not paying any attention to
my scrunched eyebrows and slanted grin. I was holding back laughter
with all my determination, retaining my composure. That didn’t last
long. I had to ask, “So how old were you in the picture?” A few
snorts escaped.

He sipped his coffee, ignoring the noises
slipping out through my tight lips. “Uh, I think I was about 24 or
25. A good twenty years ago, at least.”

“That’s how old you said you were on your
profile,” I pointed out.

“Did I?” he said wryly. “I was trying to say
that’s how old I was in the picture. Again, I’m not too great with
computers. Do you want to order something?”

“But I’m 25,” I burst out. My forward
attitude was kicking in. “Why did you agree to this date?”

“I thought it was strange that you contacted
me at first,” he said, making slurping sounds, “but you always hear
about couples who are decades apart, and I can’t say I mind dating
younger women, especially one as attractive as you. I couldn’t turn
you down.”

The woman that had smashed my arm against
the door appeared beside me from out of nowhere. “Excuse me, I
don’t want to interrupt, but I wanted to apologize for bumping you
on the way in. I was about to explode.”

I’m about to explode
. “Oh, it’s no
problem,” I told her. As she left, I got up. “This—this is too
much.”

“Wait—” He jumped up. “I’m a good guy. I
didn’t mean any dishonesty. Please, give me a chance.”

I paused for a second, but then continued
out the door. Deceived, gullible, stupid, all of those crossed my
mind. Starting up Eddie’s little engine, I swore to myself that I
was done with online dating.

“ONE LOUSY DATE SHOULDN’T
ruin the whole experience,” Danielle said the next night at home.
The night before I’d shut myself in my room, watching season three
of “Friends.” I always found great comfort in the tragic dating
excursions on the show. They were so close to working out but never
did, and I took comfort in the fact that they were like me, so
close . . . but not.

“I think one lousy date is a good enough
reason to quit,” I replied, picking up Colby-Jack as he ran by my
legs. Sitting on the couch, I settled him across my lap. “It was
ridiculous, Danielle. He was 45 pretending to be 25.”

“Yeah, I get the picture.” She flopped down
beside me, putting two plates on the coffee table in front of us.
“You don’t have to keep repeating it. He was not what you
expected.”

“Not what I expected?” I laughed. “All day
long I pictured what would happen, but that—that was not a scenario
I ever envisioned. Forty-five, Danielle. Forty-fucking-five.” I
rubbed my face on Colby-Jack’s soft fur. “Ugh! I’m taking a break.
I need it.”

“God, when did you become so whiny?” She hit
me with a pillow as I sat up.

“When every guy in the world decided to
become an asshole.”

“Well, maybe you should ditch men,” she
teased. “They don’t know what they’re doing down there anyway.”

“Always with the sex,” I said,
exasperated.

“Always putting sex aside,” she contended.
“Maybe you should try putting it first and see what happens.”

“I can tell you what’ll happen,” I said. “If
I took your advice, a wake of emptiness would follow the chain of
meaningless one-night stands.”

“Compared to the wake of happiness you’re
swimming in right now?” She flicked open the Opa Pizzaria box and
grabbed a slice of the pre-cut pizza. One thing Danielle and I
shared was our predilection for pepperoni pizza with black olives.
There was nothing better on a Thursday night after a terrible
day—or days, in this case.

I moved to get a slice and Colby-Jack padded
off, climbing onto the arm of the couch and plopping down once he
found the right spot. “A little harsh, don’t you think?”

“I’m just saying,” she said, chewing. She
often had a plate in front of her but rarely used it, preferring to
eat with a hand under her food to catch falling food particles,
which caught nothing and let everything slip through. “You need to
open up, sexually. You need to explore, you know? I mean, you sound
as if you think anyone who enjoys sex is a whore.”

I gulped down a bite to reply. “I never said
that.”

“But that’s how you come across,” she said,
“and I think men can sense that. Sense your prudeness, if that’s a
word.”

“It’s prudery—and again with calling me a
prude. When are you going to lay off?”

“Well, I’m still waiting for you to say
‘cock.’”

“Then you’re going to be waiting a long
time, because I’m not going to say it,” I said. “Only because you
want me to so badly.”

“A stubborn prude,” Danielle laughed, her
words muffled by bits of pizza.

“As stubborn as they come,” I joked, with a
tinge of truth.

“I’m serious though, you need to expand your
sexual scope,” she said. “Give yourself the opportunity to
understand what I’m talking about. You need to get back out there
and forget about yesterday and one silly date.”

“I already took your advice and look what it
got me—a date with a bald 45-year-old.”

“No one ever said Mr. Right was going to
just drop into your lap, Maci,” she said. “That’s your own romantic
fairy tale that you’ve held onto for too long. Finding the right
guy takes time and effort. All you need to do is commit to the hunt
like you’ve committed to work.”

Laughing, I choked on a piece of pizza. “The
hunt?
You make it sound like I’m going out to kill my own
food.”

“Well, you never know, you might slaughter a
few men along the way to happiness.”

I got up and retreated into the kitchen to
get a napkin. “You’re so weird sometimes.” Wiping off the stream of
grease that trickled down my fingers, I found my laptop and placed
it next to the pizza box. Her rather clumsy argument for me to
persevere did, for some dumb reason, motivate me not to give up so
easily. It was probably more my obstinacy and drive to succeed that
persuaded me. Regardless of the reason, I navigated to my
NorthwestMingle profile and the bookmarked options. “Take a look at
these.”

“Bleak,” she said, after scanning my
choices.

“No good?” I asked, taking back the
computer. She shook her head, scarfing down another slice. I sifted
through the profiles again. “What about this guy?”

“SlakinPlayer85?” She gave me the
are-you-crazy look. “I know you’re screwing with me. Everything
about him sounds fake, and his username—what the hell does that
mean anyway? What’s a ‘slakin player’?”

“I told you, you’re too into usernames. They
don’t mean anything.”

She was about to respond when someone
knocked on the door. A horrible creak told us the door was opening.
“Hello?” came Ashley’s voice. Danielle had given her a key when
they got engaged, but she still knocked before she entered. I guess
she thought I could possibly be with someone and wanted to give a
warning that she was coming in. She appeared behind us, a draft
chilling the small room.

“You’re just in time,” Danielle said,
bouncing off the couch and hugging her fiancée.

“Oh?”

“Not only do we have pizza, we also have the
fine opportunity to help Maci select her next bachelor.”

“Do we give him a red rose?” Ashley asked,
excited, closing the door and throwing her purse next to the
recliner. Though taller than me, Ashley Fuller fell short of
Danielle’s height by three inches. Pear-shaped, her butt stuck out,
a quality Danielle often praised, and she did so loudly. Her
breasts were no bigger than mine, but she was so thin around her
ribs that they appeared huge, another physical attribute Danielle
loved to comment on. She had the same brown sugar hair as Danielle,
which dangled above her chest, and the same sparkling brown eyes,
but her skin was a shade paler.

“I don’t know,” Danielle said, turning to
me. “Maci?”

“Har, har, very funny, guys.” I got up and
hugged my soon-to-be bestie-in-law. “We missed you around last
weekend.”

“The snow was a drag, for sure,” Ashley
said. “I didn’t go anywhere. But I did hear about your little
adventure, rear-ending a Mustang.” She scowled at Danielle. “Now I
know we’re never getting one of those.” The two were perfect for
each other. They had the same sense of humor, the same interests,
the same speak-your-mind attitude, and they both made a handsome
salary. I could never remember where Ashley worked, but she was a
junior executive for a big company in Portland. “So show me the
lucky fellas.”

We all sat, and Danielle snagged the laptop
and displayed the profiles I’d bookmarked. Granted, these ladies
weren’t the most knowledgeable when it came to dating men, but they
were enthusiastic. They were opinionated and wanted to help. After
hours poring over hundreds of profile details, we had a new top ten
list.

“So what should I say?” I asked, opening up
the private message box.

“You sure you want to try BlazerFan88
first?” Danielle asked. “I think you should go for HereForYou.”

I hung my head. “Because of the
username?”

“Hey, it means he’s willing to stand by
you,” she said.

“Personally, I like that he’s a Blazer fan,”
Ashley said. “I could use another person around here battling to
watch sports.” Ryan was a sports enthusiast, but he had never
wanted to hang out with Danielle and Ashley, wanting only to spend
time with me.

“I told you I’d watch the games with you,”
Danielle snapped. That was one area of contention between them:
watching sports. “I even said we should get season tickets this
year, but you laughed at the idea.”

“I know you, Danielle. We’d go to one game
and you’d grumble the entire time,” Ashley asserted. “Now if we had
someone else, then you and Maci could talk about other things while
we watched the game.”

“All right, that’s two to one,” I said. “Now
what should I say?”

“Well, you should forget coffee,” Ashley
suggested. “Go with dinner. Dinner raises the stakes and he’s more
likely to bring his A game. Plus you get a meal out of it—unless
he’s a d-bag.”

With their bickering counsel, I typed up a
message and sent it. I scanned the clock. “It’s nine,” I sighed. “I
gotta get to bed.”

“’Night,” Ashley said.

“Come Saturday, this girl will be thanking
us for all our efforts,” Danielle said, smiling.

“Goodnight,
Ashley,
” I emphasized
while staring at Danielle. “See you tomorrow night.” I tottered
down the hall and collapsed into my bed, zapped. After a half hour
of tossing and turning, I stared up at the projection. The minutes
ticked away at a devastating pace. Each minute felt like it took
twenty.

By ten, my mind had wandered onto Danielle’s
advice about me opening up sexually. Over the years she had
lectured me a dozen times on the subject, but lately she was really
sticking me with the “prude” gibe. One concept that I returned to
again and again was Danielle’s assertion that to know what you
liked, you should experiment on your own. Masturbation never
appealed to me, though. The mood was never right, the intensity
level never there, the desire missing from the equation.