My mouth went dry, and I could almost feel my heartbeat grind to a stop in my chest. I sucked in a breath and stared at Matt, who was looking at me with what appeared to be genuine concern. “Wh...what?” I finally choked out.
“Why are you pretending to be a ditzy bartender to get dates on NYSoulmate?” Matt repeated in the same even tone of voice, still looking at me carefully but not, I noticed, in an unfriendly way.
“Um, what do you mean?” I asked, stalling for time by playing dumb. Which, might I add, I had been getting awfully good at lately.
“You’re BlondeBartenderHotti,” he said calmly. “I saw your picture.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not mean.
But I felt attacked. “What were you doing on a dating Web site anyhow?” I blurted out instead of answering him. “What, a guy like you can’t get dates without going online?”
Matt looked a bit wounded but shook his head. “It’s hard to get people to see me for who I am instead of as an actor on a soap opera, you know,” he said. He shrugged and held his hands out helplessly. “Like, for instance, I went to a good school, too. Yale, actually. I did pretty well. I’m pretty smart. I’m not just another dude who stands in front of the camera and recites his lines like a trained monkey. But most girls like you wouldn’t even consider going out with a guy like me.”
I was momentarily stunned. Matt James had gone to Yale? And, more unbelievably, he needed help getting dates?
“What do you mean, girls like me?” I asked softly, after a moment of silence between us.
“Smart girls,” he said, looking a bit pained. “Accomplished girls. Girls who aren’t just looking for a guy to wear on their arm. Or to bankroll their lifestyle. Or to brag about to their friends. Girls who have some substance and take pride in taking care of themselves.”
I gulped and stared at him. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; I had always envisioned Matt James dating stick-thin model types (or at least artificial, sexed-up morons like Alec’s redhead). Isn’t that what actors did? Even C-list soap-opera actors? Why would Matt James be any different? He could have any woman he wanted. I cleared my throat.
“Are you being serious?” I asked, my voice sounding smaller and more timid than I’d intended it to.
Matt nodded slowly, staring intently at me. “You still haven’t answered my question,” he said. When I just looked at him, he added, “About the dating site. Why are you pretending to be a dumb blonde?”
My mind spun through the possibilities of what I would tell him. Maybe I could say that it was research for a patent application of some sort. Or that it was all just a joke. Or that it wasn’t me at all—it was another woman on the site who looked like me.
In the end, I decided to tell the truth. I blinked quickly, suddenly fiercely embarrassed.
“Nobody wants to date me,” I mumbled, feeling pathetic. I hated the loss of power that came with admitting what a loser I was in the dating world. I hated that Matt James, someone I barely knew—and beyond that, someone I was attracted to, despite myself—was seeing me with all my layers stripped away. I hated that in order to admit the reasons behind The Blonde Theory to Matt, I had to admit them fully to myself.
“What do you mean?” Matt asked, looking startled.
“Nobody wants to date me,” I repeated, feeling more miserable and embarrassed with each word that crossed my lips. “Sure, I get dates here and there. But Matt, no one wants to keep dating me once they find out I’m smart. Or that I’m a lawyer. It’s like I have a disease or something. Even with the guys who’ve stuck around for a few months—the few serious relationships I’ve had—it’s always been an issue. I just thought...I just thought that maybe it might be worth trying to see what it’s like to date without scaring people, you know?”
Somehow, the floodgates had opened, and I couldn’t stop. I told him about The Blonde Theory: Meg’s idea, the girls’ enthusiasm, and the elaborate lengths to which we’d gone to pull it off. I told him about the dates I’d had so far and about my sinking feeling that I’d found my answer: that guys would only ever be into me when I acted like a dumb blonde. While I spoke, Matt watched me closely, not saying a word, simply nodding here and there when I finished sentences. I knew he was judging me—and his verdict wasn’t going to be good.
Finally I finished and sat with a dry mouth, awaiting Matt’s reaction. As the seconds ticked by, I began to deeply regret opening up to him. I regretted making the appointment with him, regretted feeling attracted to him, regretted telling him the truth. It had all been a big mistake. A big
stupid
mistake.
Then he spoke. “This Blonde Theory, as you call it...,” he said slowly, pausing as if choosing his next words very carefully. “It doesn’t...it doesn’t make a lot of sense, Harper.”
“Yes it does,” I snapped back immediately, surprising myself with the vehemence of my own defensiveness.
“Harper,” Matt said slowly. He looked down at his lap then back at me with an intensity that set my heart pounding. “Don’t you realize that if you just act like yourself, the right guy will come along?”
I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to be polite.
“While I appreciate the insight, Matt,” I said, my voice thick with sarcasm, which, of course, I was using to mask the intense discomfort I was currently feeling, “I’ve been trying that for the last twenty years or so. And it’s not working yet.”
“Your mind is just closed, then,” he said simply.
I stared, incredulous. Who did he think he was, Dr. Phil coming to save me from myself? What did he know about being me? What did he know about constantly being rejected simply for being yourself? What did he know about having someone you love simply walk out on you because you’ve done a good job at work?
“You don’t know anything about me,” I said coldly, aware in some remote way that the anger that was rising inside me was a bit misdirected.
“I think I do,” Matt replied softly, without missing a beat, which just infuriated me all the more. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “So you’re just looking for someone who will appreciate you for who you are?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said sullenly.
“And you feel like you’re going to accomplish that by pretending to be someone else?” he asked dubiously, cocking his head to the side.
Okay, when he put it that way, it
did
sound illogical. But how could I explain it to him? The Blonde Theory was just because I had to know: Was it my job that was scaring guys, or my personality? How could I explain that without sounding even worse?
The easy answer was that I couldn’t.
“Yes,” I said defensively. “So?”
“Fine, then I have just one more question for you,” Matt said.
I didn’t respond; I just sat there looking at him, hoping that he would know enough to get up and walk away, shutting the door behind him, so I could curl up and die of embarrassment in his absence.
But he didn’t. He just gazed back at me, waiting.
“Fine,” I said, finally coming to the realization that acknowledging him would, at least, speed his exit. “What else could you possibly want to know?”
Perhaps he wanted to ask about the time I’d wet my bed when I was four and sleeping over at my cousin’s house. Or about the time in seventh grade when I’d started my period and didn’t know it until the guy I liked mentioned the spot seeping through my gym shorts. Or the time in my sophomore year of college that I was arrested for underage drinking at a fraternity party. Because it couldn’t get much worse than this.
“My question is...” He hesitated and looked me right in the eye. I squirmed. “Would you go out with me?”
“Huh?” I asked. This was definitely not the humiliating question I had expected.
It was worse.
“Would you go out with me?” Matt repeated.
“Like on a date?” I was quite sure he’d gone insane.
“Like on a date,” Matt confirmed in a thoroughly normal and casual tone.
I thought about it for a moment, but of course I already knew the answer. The only thing worse than a guy knowing that I was intelligent and successful was a guy knowing that I was pathetic and sad and needy. Matt already knew too much. And now he was asking me on a pity date. Again! Why had I spilled my guts to him?
“No,” I said finally, not even caring that I sounded rude.
“But why?” Matt asked, a bit taken aback.
“Because, Matt,” I said wearily. I paused, and in my head, I was saying,
Because I hate that I let you see inside me. Because I know I’m not pretty enough for you. Because you’re just asking me out because you feel sorry for me.
But aloud, I said, “Because I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” he asked, again looking shocked. Yeah, I’ll bet he was shocked. Undesirable lawyers didn’t usually turn down dashing actors, I imagined.
“It’s just not, Matt,” I said with as much finality as I could muster.
“How about tonight?” he asked cheerfully, as if I hadn’t just rejected him quite plainly.
“I already have a date tonight,” I said quickly and then realized, to my surprise, that I actually wasn’t lying. I
did
have a date. With Jack Majors, the political analyst.
“Really?” Matt asked suspiciously, arching an eyebrow as if he didn’t quite believe me. “Where?”
“At Bistro Forty-nine,” I said haughtily, glad to have an actual answer to his question. “With a very nice, good-looking political analyst. So there,” I added petulantly.
“How interesting,” Matt said with a smile. “Well then, if you have a political analyst, what do you need some actor for?”
“Exactly,” I said firmly, a bit disappointed, despite myself, that he was backing down so easily. I mean, no, I didn’t actually
want
to go out with him. But I was worth fighting for at least a little bit. Wasn’t I? Evidently not. I don’t know why this seemed to come as a surprise to me.
“Well then,” Matt said, rising to his feet. “I guess you know what you’re doing after all. I’m glad we had this little talk.”
He was?
“Me, too,” I lied, standing up, too, and extending my hand across my desk in as business-like a manner as humanly possible. After all, if I ended this encounter the way I’d end a business meeting, maybe I could forget it ever happened.
Right.
“Good luck with it,” Matt said cheerfully. “The Blonde Theory, I mean.”
“I appreciate that, Matt,” I said formally. “And good luck to you, too. With your role on the show.”
Okay, that sounded stupid. But Matt was smiling at me.
“I’ll see you around, Harper.”
And with that, he was gone, striding toward my office door and then disappearing out into the hall, closing the door behind him without looking back.
I sat down at my desk wearily after he left, burying my head in my hands and cursing myself and my endless stupidity.
T
hat night, I met Jack Majors for an early dinner at Bistro 49, thoroughly distracted both by thoughts of Jill’s husband, Alec, and by embarrassment over my encounter with Matt that day. Emmie was, as promised, hunkered over a double latte at the twenty-four-hour coffee shop across from Jill’s apartment, and she had promised to text me if and when she saw Alec leave. Until then, I was to go ahead with my date. I tried unsuccessfully to push Matt’s infuriating words from my mind.
Jack arrived just minutes after me, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. As I had bragged, somewhat prematurely, to Matt James, Jack was in fact pretty attractive. He was tall and broad-shouldered with light brown hair, straight white teeth, and wide-spaced eyes that were big and pale green. His nose had an ever-so-slight Owen-Wilson-ish tilt to it, making me think he had broken it at least once. He had a mustache and goatee, and although I normally didn’t like facial hair on men very much, it looked relatively decent on him.
“Shall we get a table?” he asked politely after greeting me with a sweet peck on the cheek and placing his hand on the small of my back to lead me inside. Tonight, I was wearing a neon pink dress that clung to my water-bra-enhanced curves and billowed out just below the hips into a flowy, asymmetrical hem that ended just above the knee. Again, it was something I wouldn’t have been caught dead in as Harper the Attorney-at-Law. But as Harper the Dumb Blonde, it suited me just fine.
Not surprisingly, though, my enthusiasm for The Blonde Theory was waning. There was only so much that my ego could take, and the afternoon’s embarrassing chiding from Matt James wasn’t helping me much. It had taken all the energy I could muster to convince myself that this date with Jack Majors was worth going on.
But now that I was here, giggling through my annoyance at the day’s events, I was rather glad I had come. Jack seemed nice, attentive, interesting. Unlike some of my previous dates, he was doing a good job with the normal give-and-take of conversation. Once again, I was faring much better as Harper the Harebrained than I ever had as Harper the Highly Educated. This thought frightened me more than a little bit.
“So Harper, tell me about yourself,” Jack said kindly after we had ordered drinks. I kept the story condensed, as Emmie would have recommended, and just gave him the same short story I had given the others. I had been raised in Ohio, had come to the city dreaming of bigger things, and was now living the dream as a bartender.
“Fascinating,” Jack said, and he really seemed to mean it.
Over drinks, he told me the story of how he became a political consultant. He had always been interested in politics and economics, and a college internship on Capitol Hill had led to several interesting opportunities. He had returned to Washington after he graduated from college, had worked on several campaigns, and had eventually partnered with a buddy to open a consulting firm.
“So I keep an apartment here and another one in DC,” he concluded. “I’m traveling so much, I don’t get to spend any real time in either city. But it’s nice to have a home in both places. It means that the familiar is never too far away.”
It did sound nice, and I told him so, with the requisite blonde giggles and hair flipping, of course.
“So, Harper,” he asked me as our salads arrived. I tucked daintily into mine, trying to ignore my growling stomach and eat with the delicacy expected of a dumb blonde. “What made you put your profile up on NYSoulmate? I mean, my motivation was that it’s hard to meet single women in my line of work, especially with all the traveling I do. But it seems like you must meet lots of guys all the time.”
“Oh, Jack,” I said in my high-pitched voice, following the words with a dramatic sigh. “You have no idea. I mean, I, like, totally like guys who are, like, successful? Like you? And at my bar? A lot of the guys who hit on me? They’re just, like, kind of losers. So I said to myself,
Self. How can you meet really, like, cool, successful men?
And so I thought,
Okay, I’ll try this dating site.
My friend Meg had to help me, though. I’m not so good with computers. And I’m, like, totally terrible at spelling.”
“Your profile was nice,” Jack said, winking at me.
“Oh, Jack,” I sighed. “That’s, like, so totally sweet.” I paused and smiled innocently at him. “So I have to, like, ask. Other than my killer hair, what made you, like, pick me out of all the girls?”
Jack laughed. “Yes, your hair was—and is—great,” he said. I touched a hand to my Aqua-Netted big bangs and smiled as if it was the most normal, attractive hairstyle in the world. And maybe it had been. In 1985. “But I think what really attracted me was that your profile made me think you’d be a really interesting girl to talk to.”
Hmm. That was hard to believe. After all, everything about BlondeBartenderHotti’s profile screamed empty-headedness. Was this akin to the
I-just-read-it-for-the-articles
explanation guys gave when their girlfriends asked why they still had subscriptions to
Playboy
? I suspected so. I wanted to say that. But I settled for a squealed, “Really? That’s, like, so sweet!”
Jack shrugged modestly. “Well, it’s true, Harper,” he said with a simpering smile. “And so far, so good, right? I’m loving our conversation.”
“Oh Jack,” I said. “Like, me too. Totally.”
I had to know something, though. My afternoon encounter with Matt James had gotten under my skin just a little too much. And I felt the clock ticking on The Blonde Theory. I had less than a week to go, and I hadn’t really learned anything tangible yet.
“Jack, I have, like, a question,” I said after the waiter whisked our salad plates away. He smiled encouragingly, and I continued. “How come you wouldn’t want to go out with someone, like, as educated as you? I mean, I totally know that I’m like, really smart. Don’t get me wrong. But you went to college, and, like, you’ve seen the world and stuff. How come you didn’t look for, like, a smart girl?”
“You’re smart, Harper,” Jack said patronizingly, as if I might just believe him if he used a sweet-enough tone.
“Duh, I know, silly,” I giggled. “But what I mean is, like, why wouldn’t you search the profiles for like a business lady? Or, like, a lady who’s a doctor? Or a lawyer?”
Jack shook his head. “I like a woman who can listen to me,” he said softly. “Women like that just want to talk about themselves.”
“You don’t like women to talk about themselves?” I asked, batting my eyes.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that,” he said quickly. “I’d love it if you want to talk about yourself, Harper. It’s just that women who are really successful . . . well, all they want to talk about is their jobs, how important they are, how much money they make, you know? Like they’re trying to prove something. I barely get a word in edgewise.”
I felt suddenly sad. I forced a vacant smile and tried to think of something amusingly stupid to say.
“Well, I hope I don’t, like, make you feel like that,” I said finally. “I mean, I got, like, the bartender-of-the-month award last month at my job. It came with a free month of tanning at Sunny Ones. I hope you’re okay with that.”
Jack laughed. “I think I can manage,” he said.
“Oh good,” I sighed in relief. “I mean, it’s like totally a good thing I’m not a lawyer or something.”
Jack laughed hard at my little joke. “Yeah, right,” he said between chortles. “You. A lawyer. Ha!”
I laughed along with him, but for utterly different reasons.
M
IDWAY THROUGH
our entrées, with Jack telling me about the latest political campaign he’d worked on and how he’d had to save a senator from accusations of alcoholism that were, in fact, completely correct, I heard someone calling my name.
I recognized the voice immediately, and my heart leapt into my throat. I froze and thought that maybe if I just stayed stock-still, he wouldn’t be able to see me.
No dice.
“Harper. Well, what a coincidence!” Matt James said, sauntering up to our table with a smirk on his face and a slender brunette in a short black dress on his arm. “I had absolutely
no
idea that you’d be here tonight. What are the odds?”
I glared at him. How could I have been so stupid as to tell him where I was going for dinner? Why? Because in a million years, I would never have expected him to turn up here. With a date on his arm. Hours after he had asked
me
out. A sensation of what felt an awful lot like jealousy crept through me as I stole another look at his date, who was infuriatingly pretty.
“Hi, Matt,” I said through gritted teeth. Had it not been enough that I had bared my soul to this man today? Now I also had to act like a ridiculous dumb blonde in front of him, too?
He was looking as gorgeous as ever, I noticed reluctantly. His hair was tamer than it had been this afternoon, but it was still spiked in dark, perfect, sexy peaks. His olive-colored button-up shirt offset his green eyes perfectly, and his teeth gleamed extra-white against a tan that looked suspiciously deeper than it had this afternoon. His broad shoulders were all too evident beneath his designer shirt.
Matt and his date stood there uncomfortably for a moment while I mentally gnashed my teeth, wondering why I couldn’t have had the good fortune to be born a witch so that I could twitch my nose and turn him into a frog or something.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your date, Harper?” Matt asked finally, his eyes sparkling with amusement. I plastered a smile on my face.
“Oh, like, of course,” I chirped like the dumb blonde I was. “Jack Majors? This is Matt James. And his date, um . . .”’
“Lisa,” she supplied helpfully, linking her arm through Matt’s and smiling at Jack and me.
“Well, Matt, it was great to see you,” I said, keeping my voice syrupy sweet. Why had he brought a date? And why did I
care
that he had brought a date? The realization that it was bothering me so much made me very, very uncomfortable. And mad.
“Harper,” said Jack brightly, and I could almost see the lightbulb going on in his head. My heart sank because I knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it. “Why don’t we ask your friends here to join us?”
“We’d love to!” Matt enthused, cutting me off before I had a chance to respond. Before I knew it, Matt has asked the maître d’ to push up another rectangular table for two, to turn my private meal with Jack into a cozy foursome. I only hoped that Matt would sit close enough to me so that I could violently kick him in retribution under the table.
“What is wrong with you?” I hissed at him under my breath once he and Lisa had settled in.
“Whatever do you mean?” he whispered back, grinning, while Lisa and Jack exchanged pleasantries. “It’s such a pleasure to
coincidentally
run into you, Harper
.
”
“You are
such
a jerk,” I hissed, giving him a good, and well-deserved, kick in the shin for emphasis. He winced but continued to grin at me. I wanted to kill him.
“I can’t
imagine
what you mean,” Matt continued in a whisper.
“And you just
had
to bring a date?” I immediately regretted having said this. But it was too late.
“Why,
Harper,
do I sense a little jealousy?” Matt whispered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. I contemplated stabbing him under the table with my dinner fork.
“No,” I said so loudly that both Lisa and Jack looked up from their conversation in surprise, no doubt wondering what on earth I could be yelling at Matt about.
“Don’t mind her,” Matt said dismissively, that infuriating grin still plastered across his perfectly chiseled features. “We were just having a little disagreement about the ingredients needed to make a Sex on the Beach.”
Jack arched an eyebrow at me.
“The cocktail,” I hurried to clarify before anyone at the table got any ideas.
“Oh, I’d take Harper’s word for it,” Jack announced to Matt, nodding at me proudly. “She just told me she won the bartender-of-the-month award last month. Sounds like she knows what she’s doing.”
“Well, Harper, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that,” Matt said, widening his eyes in mock amazement. “What an honor. Please, let me buy you and your friend here a round of drinks to celebrate.”
Matt ordered us a round of cocktails while I quietly simmered, glaring alternately at him and Lisa. She didn’t seem to notice, and Matt simply ignored me.
Soon, I had learned that Lisa was a stockbroker, and Matt and Jack had briefly discussed their careers. Matt explained to the others that he and I had met when he and a friend used to frequent the bar where I worked.
Just when I was wondering whether it might be possible to obtain some arsenic from the kitchen to put in Matt’s gin and tonic, my cell phone vibrated, alerting me that a text message had just arrived.
“Excuse me,” I said in my high-pitched voice, flipping open the phone. Until that moment, I had nearly forgotten that I was expecting to hear about Alec tonight. I could feel the blood drain from my face as I read the message from Emmie.
ALEC JUST LFT APT. I’M FOLLOWING IN TAXI. CALL ME AS SOON AS U GET THIS. I’LL TELL U WHERE TO MEET ME.
“Um, excuse me,” I said hastily, already pushing my chair back from the table and fumbling to remove my napkin from my lap. “I have to make a call.”
Jack looked a bit wounded and Matt seemed to be paying a bit too much attention to the curves that my dress revealed as I stood up, but I didn’t have time to worry about either of them at the moment.
My heart thudding, I hurried toward the back of the restaurant, went down the flight of stairs leading to the restrooms, and called Emmie as soon as I had pushed through the door to the ladies’ room.
“I’m heading downtown in a taxi now,” she said urgently as soon as she picked up. “I saw him leave, so I called Jill and pretended to be making small talk. He told her he was going to the hospital. But Harper, he passed the hospital five minutes ago. He must be going to see that girl. I think we’ve got him.”
“I’ll leave now,” I said instantly. “I’ll start heading downtown. Just call me as soon as you stop somewhere, and I’ll have my cab take me there.”