“Would you excuse me for a minute?” I ask.
“Sure,” Kristin answers. “Want me to go with you?”
“No,” I tell her. “I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”
As I’m walking away, I can hear Jed somewhere behind, telling me to wash my hands.
A party? I don’t even know this man and already he’s asking me if I want to go to a party with him?
I guess it’s not all that outlandish. We have been talking for a while, and we do seem to get along really well.
Opening the door to the bathroom, I walk over to the sink and splash some water over my face.
I’ve been out of the game too long.
The guy didn’t ask me to marry him or bear his children. He just asked if I wanted to go to a party and I’m on the verge of a panic attack about it.
My phone beeps again.
I dry my hands and look at the message.
It says, “I hope that’s not too forward, but my friend, the one that gave me your number, he’s the one that’s throwing the party. I thought it might be a nice, low-pressu”
I wait a minute for the rest of the thought.
The phone beeps and the message continues, “re way for you and I to get to know one another a little better.”
“I don’t know,” I write back and look up into the mirror to see my mascara running from washing my face. I add, “I’m not sure that I’m really ready to start something serious with anyone right now.”
“Keep it together, Jessica,” I whisper to myself.
“I’m almost done!” some woman, apparently in one of the stalls, calls out.
I just grab a paper towel and clean myself up as best I can before going back out to the restaurant.
My phone beeps.
The message says, “I’m not saying we should move in together or anything. I just thought it’d be nice to have a conversation with you face to face.”
This might not feel like such a momentous decision if it weren’t for the fact that I felt a bit of a spark with Eric in the store the other day.
We didn’t talk about it or anything, but I know he felt something, too. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, though.
“Can I bring my sister?” I write.
The only problem with taking Kristin is that I’m going to have to think of some plausible reason why Jed can’t possibly join us.
I would just go with the truth and tell Kristin that her boyfriend or whatever the hell he is to her is a whiny know-it-all and that he annoys the crap out of me, but that didn’t go over so well the last time I said something similar to her.
The phone beeps.
The message reads, “That seems only fair.”
I give myself one more look in the mirror and take a deep breath, steeling for myself for the train wreck that is dining with my sister and Jed.
Chapter Twelve
Placing Bets
Eric
“It’s the fucking boss lady?” Alec asks.
“Will you keep your fucking voice down, she might be here already,” I tell him. “She doesn’t know it’s me, but yeah, I’m sure it’s her.”
“What are the odds on that one?”
“I have no idea,” I tell him. “What do you know about the sister?”
“Sister?” he asks. “Whose sister?”
“Jessica’s,” I tell him. “She’s bringing her sister. You know, the one who gave her my number?”
“Oh right,” Alec says, “the sister. I really don’t know, man. I know she’s a little high-strung, but get a drink or two in her, and yeah, I don’t really pay that much attention to Irene’s friends.”
“What do you think I should do?” I ask. “Do I tell her that it’s me on the phone or do I try to pull some Cyrano de Bergerac shit and go all covert about it?”
“I think I understood about half the words there,” Alec says. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” I start. “Things are starting to thaw between her and I in the real world, and I’m not sure that I want to try to mix the two relationships this quickly by telling her that I’m the guy she’s been texting all her dreams and aspirations for the last however long.”
“You don’t have the nose for it,” Alec says.
“What?” I ask.
“I was just fucking with you on the Cyrano thing. I’ve seen Evita.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask. “What does Evita have to do with—look, I don’t know what to do here, and I’d really appreciate some advice.”
“Eric?” a familiar voice calls.
I grit my teeth, grin and turn around.
“Jessica,” I say. “What are the chances of us ending up at the same party?”
“I’d say they’re pretty high,” Alec mumbles, and I elbow him in the ribs.
“I know,” she says. “You’re Alec, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” my friend, the one who knows enough about the story of Cyrano to remember the nose, but still somehow thinks he was a character in Evita, answers. “This is actually my party,” he says.
“You two know each other?” the woman standing next to Jessica, I can only assume her sister, asks.
“Yeah,” Jessica says. “These two did some work in the store for me.”
“So, where’s your friend?” the sister asks.
“Friend?” Alec responds, not straining any muscles by acting stupid. “Oh,” he answers, “the one with the phone number.”
“…yeah,” the sister says. “He invited us. I think he really wants to meet Jessica. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Alec answers. “He just called and said he might not be able to make it. Something about bad clams, I don’t know.”
While Jessica and her sister are looking at each other, I sneak another elbow into Alec’s ribs.
“He might show up later, though,” Alec adds, not helping in the slightest.
“All right,” the sister says. “We’ll hang around for a bit.”
The two walk off and Alec and I smile and wave.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” I ask him. “Bad clams?”
“I thought it would give you the option of ‘showing up’ later if you decide you want to come clean with her,” he says.
“Could you do a favor for me and think about that for just a moment?” I ask.
“What?” he asks. Then it hits him. “Right,” he says. “You can’t ‘show up’ because she’s already seen you.”
“That’s right,” I tell him. “Now, I’m either the guy who just stood there and didn’t bother telling her I’m the one she’s trying to meet, or I’m the guy on her phone with food poisoning from eating fucking bad clams!”
That last part comes out a bit louder than I meant, but the music and general cacophony cover it well enough.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
“Before or after I bury you in the desert with only your head above the sand so the vultures can pluck your eyes out while the rest of you turns into a raisin?” I ask.
“After,” he answers, not missing a beat.
I sigh.
“What can I do?” I ask. “I can’t just go over there and tell her that I’m the one on the phone. Although I’m pretty sure she’d buy the fact that you’re an idiot, I have no way to account for the fact that I didn’t say something at the time.”
“You’re right man,” he says. “You really should have said something.”
“Do you have anything to drink?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says, “keg’s in the back, just like when we were kids.”
“When I come back, I’m going to explain to you everything that’s wrong with what you just said,” I tell him and walk toward the back.
Beer.
I’ve never really understood beer.
It seems to me that if you’re going to drink something with alcohol in it, you’d either want something that tastes good or something that gets you fucked up, maybe both. Beer always seemed to me to be neither.
Still, I’ve watched enough television to know that when people are stressed and don’t know what to do, they drink.
I can’t say that it’s ever really worked for me, but maybe I’m just not getting drunk enough.