Why I Love Singlehood: (10 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said in the present moment. “I didn’t mean to listen in, but she is.”

I wasn’t offended. In fact, in that moment I felt the impulse to hug Kenny and not let go. Something about this scared me, though, and I tried to mentally shake it off. Still, I could not escape from the truth in his eyes.

“I know,” I said. “And she knows I know.”

With that, I went back behind the counter and into the kitchen.

Possibilities

“THE TOPIC OF
the Day is speed dating,” I announced to the café, filled mostly with Originals and Regulars, on an uncharacteristically mild Monday afternoon.

The idea had consumed me ever since I gave up on Lovematch.com. I’d always wanted to try speed dating; I likened it to a game of
Twister
or Musical Chairs, only the winner winds up picking out china patterns and reserving an expensive catering hall two years down the road.

“What about it?” asked Jan.

“Anyone ever done it?” I asked.

“I did!” said Tracy.

“Me too,” added Jan.

“Really?” Dean asked. “When?”

“Years ago, during my
Sex and the City
–wannabe days,” she replied to both Dean and us.

“What’d you think?” I asked.

“It’s more fun if you have a couple of cosmopolitans in you,” said Jan.

“I did it once.”

Heads turned to meet the tall, tan, sun-bleached blond, twentysomething stranger at the counter dressed in Dockers shorts and a polo shirt from which this admission came. I guessed him to be a windsurfer in town for the summer.

“And?” I asked, handing him a strawberry smoothie in exchange for a twenty-dollar bill.

“It was fun, but I didn’t like the women I met,” he said, accepting his change and stuffing it into his front pocket.

“What kind of women?” Norman asked, sounding especially curious.

“Superficial,” the guy said. “Shallow. Kept asking me how much money I made or what I did for a living, but not in a small-talk kind of way. Just to mess with ’em I started telling ’em I was a garbage man.”

A couple of the Originals laughed.

“Then I followed it up with ‘I’m CEO of my own garbage company. Gives new meaning to being a garbage man.’”

More laughs.

“They didn’t know what to do with that,” he said.

“Where did you do it?” asked Norman.

“A few years ago, when I lived in Boston. Your friend was right when she said it’s more fun if you put a few drinks away beforehand.”

Funny, I didn’t detect the New England accent until he mentioned Boston. He held up his smoothie as if to toast all of us, and then he walked out as we thanked him for his input and bid him a good day.

“You thinkin’ of speed datin’, Eva?” asked Spencer, whose Southern accent became even more apparent following the smoothie-drinking-speed-dating Bostonian.

“Thinking about it, yeah.”

“How come? I mean, what ever happened to you loving singlehood?” asked Spencer.

“Trust me, if she does speed dating, she’ll love it even more,” said Jan.

“So, did you hook up with anyone that night?” Dean asked Jan.

“Dean!” she said, exasperated. “Enough already.” He frowned and sipped his iced latte.

“It just seems that you’re saying one thing and doing another,” Spencer remarked to me, ignoring Jan and Dean’s little spat.

“Who says dating can’t be a part of singlehood?” I said. “Besides, I’m just curious. It’s a process of elimination. For all those people who keep telling me what I’m missing and that I should be ‘out there.’” I made quote marks with my fingers. “So, I’m going ‘out there,’” (gestured the quote marks yet again) “to prove to them that it doesn’t work and is not detrimental to my lifetime happiness.”

I turned to a table of Regulars. “So, any of you singles wanna come with me sometime?”

Dara, one of the new Regulars since the summer began, shook her head. “Not me. You might as well auction me off on eBay.”

“That might be next,” said Spencer.

Sister Beulah also shook her head. “I’m spoken for,” she said as she winked. I smiled back.

“I’ll go,” said Norman.

I whisked around.
“You?”

“Why so surprised?”

“I don’t know, I just thought—” I stammered. “I didn’t know you were interested.”

“Why not? It’s been awhile since I’ve been on a date.”

“OK then,” I said, my voice shaky. For some reason, going speed dating with Norman seemed like the equivalent of going to the senior prom with my brother, if I’d had one.

“I’ll go,” Minerva chirped with a sly grin.

I gaped at her. Was she serious?

“Yeah,” she said as if she’d read my mind. “It’ll be fun.”

“But, you’re—”

“Look, I’m going to want all the details, and not just the WILS version, either. Just think of this as a favor to you—I’m saving you the trouble of recounting it all.”

I could actually feel my jaw flapping as I searched for something to say. “But, Jay—”

“Maybe he’ll come, too.” Her perpetual grin was so mischievous I thought she could’ve been playing a trick on me. And yet, I feared otherwise.

“Come on, Eva, let her go,” Jan coaxed.

“Yeah, and then you can have dueling blog posts afterward,” Tracy added.

“Nice! Like a news report–style thing,” Dean added.

“But,” I tried again, “she’s
married
.”

“So?” said Tracy. “You’re only doing it to prove how stupid it is anyway. What does it matter, so long as her husband doesn’t mind.” She then turned to Minerva, “Would he?”

“Nah. Knowing him, he’ll wanna come along. You have no idea how bored he gets with me studying all the time.”

Dean laughed. “Minerva, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen you study.”

“Dean,” Jan chided, “what do you think she’s doing here all the time?”

“Uh,” he gestured at the group of Originals and Regulars all engrossed in the conversation, “
this
?”

“The cookies are good, but they’re not
that
good,” Tracy said, backing up Jan. “She’s obviously one of those people who studies best with a little background noise. Right, Minerva?”

Minerva considered the stack of notes next to her, under a crumb-dusted plate. “No, the cookies really are
that
good.”

The group laughed as Minerva licked her fingers, dabbed at the remaining crumbs, and finished them off before taking her plate to the dish bin at the far end of the counter.

“Would your husband really want to go?” Tracy asked, obviously finding the thought as absurd as I did.

Minerva returned to her seat and brushed stray crumbs off her notes. “Sure. We haven’t been out in ages. At this point, the poor boy will probably take whatever he can get. And it’s like you said, she’s not looking for a soul mate or anything—and neither are we, mind you—just a bit of fun. Right, Eva?”

I tried to read Minerva’s expression, searching for ulterior reasons behind her newly found interest in a social life…or was it
my
social life she was trying to keep an eye on?

“Well, I guess when you put it that way,” I said. What did it matter anyway? She was right. It wouldn’t matter if Jay and Norman went any more than if Spencer or Scott did. It was all in the name of good fun, nothing more. Right?

“So,” said Jan, “whaddya going to wear?”

I rolled my eyes. My co-manager, my best friend
and her husband
, and I were all going speed dating. How was I supposed to think about what I was going to wear?

The next morning Dara came in an uncharacteristic fifteen minutes early—most days you could set your watch by her punctuality.

“Hey, Dara, what gives?”

“I’ve got an early meeting.”

“The usual?” I asked, already pulling a blueberry muffin from the display case. “To go?”

“Today, yes.”

I slipped her muffin into a bag. “Anything else?” I asked.

“Actually,” she sounded pleased with herself, “there is.” She then slid a folded, neon pink flyer across the counter to me. I opened it to find a full-page ad:
Romance in 8 Minute’s!
and mentally chided the printers for not catching the unwarranted apostrophe.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Speed dating,” she said, “for you and Norman.” She grabbed the bag and her latte, and left me agog. This from the woman who said she’d rather auction herself on eBay. Where’d she get it? The flyer included date (this Friday), time (9:00 p.m.), place (Pub on the Pier), and a suggestion (Dress to Impress!). When Norman came in, I showed it to him, and I left Minerva a text message on her cell phone since she was in labs all day. She texted me later that evening:
j and i will meet you at the grounds fri 8:30
.

My stomach dropped. This was really gonna happen, wasn’t it.

By six thirty Friday night, I had scrubbed off the lingering scent of The Grounds, scarfed down a slice of cold pizza, emptied the entire contents of my closet, and scattered them around my room in a frenzied attempt to outfit myself; by seven thirty, I was fast approaching an all-out panic attack.

No, it wasn’t panic. One does not panic about something that one is doing simply as an experiment. And I’d decided that that’s what this was: a social science experiment, to be followed up with a written report. That’s why it mattered; it’d throw off the study if I didn’t dress appropriately.

So what was “appropriate”? The flyer said Dress to Impress. What if I didn’t want to impress? What if I was merely window shopping, just looking? What if I wanted to intrigue rather than impress?

I checked my closet again—the remainders were either not fit for public viewing, hadn’t been worn since I’d last power-washed The Grounds, or were the wrong size in one direction or the other. Faced with a closet devoid of any further possibilities, I confronted my disheveled bedroom again, taking stock of my options.

My bureau was buried under dresses. Sundresses. Cocktail dresses. Funeral frock. No go. None of them. Too frilly, fun, cute, bright, busy, sexy, formal, or—in the case of the funeral frock—churchy (and although Nora Ephron recommends that every woman should have a little black dress, I doubted my funeral frock was what she had in mind).

I turned to my reading chair, covered with my collection of business suits—relics from academic conferences and teaching days. Big thumbs down. Too formal, drab, dry. Said all the wrong things about me. Said, power-hungry. Said, I-could-eat-your-liver-for-lunch-if-I-wanted-it. I mentally crossed suits, pantsuits, and skirts falling below the knee off my list.

Jeans? They beckoned from my dresser, inching their way out of half-closed drawers. Ugh. Not the image I wanted. Too twentysomething, too comfortable, and too casual.

I was left, then, with combinations of skirts, pants, and tops, a myriad of choices blurring before me in piles on my bed. I eyed the few skirts not belonging to suit sets that lounged across my pillows.

What would Elizabeth Bennet wear? What would Bridget Jones wear? What would Carson Kressley wear?

I considered an option: a black pencil skirt, slit up the back. Hemmed just above the knee, it accentuated my legs and hips. With the right top, it could be sophisticated and sexy without crossing any lines. Definite possibility.

On the other hand, the cream, cotton-linen blend pants were versatile, comfortable, flattering to my figure, and adaptable to almost any social situation depending on the pairing of shoes and blouse. Also possible.

Ten minutes to eight.

Shitters.

Pants. No, skirt. Skirt?

“Argh,” I grumbled, moving blouses from one pile to another, then back again. I called Minerva’s cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail—geez, don’t tell me they left for the shop already!

Time to think logically. I turned to my bed, lecturing to an imaginary class of denim rejects and using my most scholarly voice.

“Objective: To assess the validity of speed dating, and make conclusions about…” I stopped sorting shirts, searching for the right word, “its ridiculousness?”

If they could’ve, my suits would’ve rolled their button-eyes at me. I plowed ahead, sorting through my shirts by hanger again.