Chapter 1 #2
“Can we just never let Mom set me up again?”
She laughs but quickly covers it with a hand clamped over her mouth. “I think the only way to do that is for you to actually meet someone.”
“What’s so funny?” I hear through the speaker. The screen suddenly fills with a third face lined with curiosity and a small case of FOMO. It’s Jade’s husband, Trevor.
“Grace and her horrible blind date,” Jade explains.
“Oh, no!” he exclaims. “Did he show up, see you, and leave?”
Jade smacks his arm. “Why would you say that?”
He shrugs, his cluelessness the epitome of honesty. “Because that’s a pretty horrible blind date.”
Though that would’ve been a pretty discouraging outcome, I can’t help preferring it over the night I had. “I wish he didn’t show up.”
“That bad?” Jade asks through a wince.
“He came to dinner with a ‘wife list.’” The flat tone of my voice measures equal amounts of annoyance and disbelief. I’m still in shock a wife list exists, and that I was graced with it tonight.
“What’s a wife list?”
“A list of Harold’s requirements to be his wife,” I say, answering Trevor’s question. “And he made me split the bill.”
Avery chooses that moment to wail, and a part of me thinks my blind date nightmare story is what caused her outburst. Which would actually be a valid response.
Trevor takes Avery from Jade’s arms, and Avery’s crying fades into the background.
While I miss the sight of my adorable niece, I’m relieved to have my sister all to myself.
“So, what was on this wife list?”
I reluctantly scour through my memory. “Um, decent health, not overweight. Preferably Chinese. Of childbearing age.”
If I weren’t so baffled as I recounted said list, I’d probably laugh at the amount of disgust distorting Jade’s face.
“I think I actually threw up in my mouth a little bit.”
“I did throw up in my mouth a little bit,” I counter, though it’s an exaggeration since it seems my gut decided it didn’t want a good meal—that I paid for by the way—to go to waste.
“What the hell does he mean, ‘childbearing age?’ I thought this was a date, not some livestock sale.”
“That’s what I said!” I exclaim, relieved my completely rational analogy wasn’t irrational at all. Maybe my standards aren’t as low as I thought.
“I’m sorry you had such a horrible night,” she says, knowing there’s really nothing else to offer.
“Eh,” I say, brushing off her apology. “At least I’ll have an interesting story to tell.”
“Don’t let Mom off that easily.”
“You know it doesn’t matter if I get mad at her,” I argue. “She’s just going to tell me that if I could find my own dates and if I hadn’t stayed single so long after my divorce, she wouldn’t be forced to find my dates for me.”
“It’s not like you asked her to.”
“Still.”
“We’ll talk to her together,” she offers. “I’ll hold your hand, and we’ll calmly tell her this is why she needs to stop meddling in your love life.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. It’s not like she’s wrong. I’ve been single for so long, I’m going to need a broom to untangle the cobwebs between my legs.” I look up and notice the very nosy valet’s brows shoot up. I turn toward a row of bushes for more privacy.
Jade laughs. “Maybe I can help her screen them before setting you up then,” she offers.
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.” While I appreciate my sister’s sentiment, I wonder what good it’ll do.
With every date I go on, whether it’s set up by my mom or a meddling relative or through a very unreliable dating app, I feel parts of me chip away.
My confidence is at an all-time low, as is my hope.
Maybe I can be one of those women who has a bunch of plants and goes to book club meetings and fills their time doing crafts.
They look happy and content. The afterthought of living out my life alone forces a ball of anxiety to tumble low in my belly, and I say, “Did you know that you’re thirty-two percent at higher risk of an accidental death if you live alone? Forty-seven percent if you’re a woman.”
“Grace, don’t do this.”
“What?” I argue. “I’m just telling you a fact.”
“A fact that you probably made up.”
“I didn’t.” I may have.
“Don’t go all morbid on me because you think you’re going to die alone. What about Buster?” she asks, referring to my beloved dog at home. I guess that’s the silver lining.
“Yeah, true.”
I hear Trevor call for her, his voice distorted in the background of their home. “I gotta go,” she tells me. “You’re going to lunch on Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, you can tell me more about this date. Trevor’s going to want all the details too.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty to fill you in.”
“And Grace,” she adds. “You’re going to be fine. Stop this whole dying alone spiral you do every time you meet some douche-y mama’s boy.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you Sunday.”
It’s so easy for her to offer a string of reassuring words with nothing to back them. Sure, this overthinking blob I tend to spiral into isn’t healthy either, but neither is lying to myself. It’s so easy to be bright and rosy when you’re not the subject of said spiral.
This feels so fucking lonely. There, I said it.
I’m going to die alone, most likely while choking on a piece of sweet and sour pork, and my plants will all die.
And no one will take care of Buster, so he’ll spend the rest of his life looking for me.
He’ll be like that dog who stayed at the train station for years and years after its owner died, living off scraps given by strangers while he waited for a ghost.
Okay, so maybe spiraling is as bad as Jade says.
I stare at my blank phone screen, thinking about how Jade and Trevor are probably wrestling Avery down for her bedtime.
All while I’ll be going home alone. I’ll walk into my empty two-bedroom condo, with nothing but a bottle of wine and binge-watching Netflix to help me fall asleep.
The morose frown on my face lingers while my reflection stares back at me.
The thought of scolding my mom or letting her off easy starts to totter in my brain.
She meant well, and if I explain to her the reasons why a man with a “wife list” ironically isn’t parallel to my own hypothetical “husband list,” then she’ll be able to weed out the losers better.
And if I completely turn her off from being my own personal matchmaker, I may completely miss my chance to find a soulmate.
Who knows? Maybe one of them will be a diamond in the rough.
The golden treasure she finds in the battlefield of love using her nifty Mrs. Han metal detector. It can’t hurt, right?
“Grace?”
I look up, only to come face-to-face with the last person I expect to see. “Andrew?”
Andrew Cohen. One-fourth of the Cohen siblings, one of which is Teeny, my best friend.
And being the youngest, Andrew always seems to carry with him the buoyancy that comes with the lack of responsibility while adding on the baggage of always having someone watch over his shoulder and correct his mistakes.
He tucks his hands into his pocket where the bottom hem of his blazer gives a drapery-like effect.
I see his watch glint off the overhead lights past the sleeve of his shirt.
Such a small expression of assurance. Combined with a slight saunter as he steps closer to me, he creates a guise over him, shielding away the image of Teeny’s brother and putting in its place Andrew fucking Cohen.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was, um, on a…I was having dinner,” I vaguely explain, though given that we’re standing in front of a restaurant, it seems obvious.
A wave of diffidence tumbles through me, making me clumsy and unsure, but I plow through it, reminding myself the date from hell isn’t something to be embarrassed about.
If anything, Harold should be embarrassed for treating me like the next candidate in a meat market lineup.
Andrew eyes me with a bit of skepticism, but I brush past it by asking, “You?”
“I had a work thing,” he tells me, his answer carrying the same vagueness I did.
We stay quiet, lingering in this slightly awkward silence, when Andrew cuts into it with a charming laugh.
“I just saw you last year. Why does it feel like forever?”
I mentally fact-check his timeline, confirming that Teeny’s wedding was almost a year ago.
It’s odd how much can change in a year. That boyish charisma he wore so proudly in his early twenties disappeared long ago.
I noticed it at the wedding. How his black tux and slicked back hair, and even the calla lily pinned to his lapel, instantly replaced the college boy I met over a decade ago.
“Yeah,” I confirm. “It was your sister’s wedding. I guess the year’s just…dragging.”
“You look great,” he comments, eyeing me from head to toe.
Though I didn’t opt for anything risqué or revealing, what I chose to wear tonight looks nice, somewhat modest. I picked a deep navy dress with short-capped sleeves and a hem that reaches just below my knees.
The back has an opening, exposing a sliver of my shoulder blades, and that small show of skin has me feeling confident and sexy.
I put some effort into tonight. I took the time to do my makeup and hair, and I even shaved my legs. Too bad it was all for nothing.
“So do you.” It’s not even a lie or a knee-jerk response to his compliment. He looks good. Annoyingly good. Especially his hair. It’s thick and wavy, pushed back with the kind of fade I find irresistible in most men.
“So, was this dinner thing a date? Or…” His sharp jawline softens for a moment, his subtle five o’clock shadow rolling with the curves of his errant smirk. The corners of his eyes, the tawny color of honey, crinkle, making the small mole below the tip of his brow disappear in the wrinkles.
I smile, the mask I put on to hide my embarrassment slipping just the tiniest bit. “How did you know?”
He shrugs. “Just an educated guess.” I roll my eyes, just as he adds, “And since you’re leaving the restaurant alone, I’m going to make another educated guess and say it didn’t go well?”
I cast aside my attempt to save face. I peer up at him, noticing how far back my neck has to crane to meet his eyes. “It was a blind date.”
He grimaces. “Do I want to hear about it?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, sarcasm edging its way into my voice. “Do you know what a ‘wife list’ is?”
His grimace deepens. “Do I want to know?”
“It’s probably best if you don’t.”
“His loss.”
He throws it out there so aimlessly, I don’t know whether to take it as a compliment or a show of sympathy. I choose the former and say, “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all night.”
Pity lines the creases on his forehead. “I’m sorry,” he offers.
“Nothing you need to apologize for, Andrew.” I pat his chest, letting him off the hook, just as I see my car pull up out of the corner of my eye. I grip the cash in my hand to slip to the valet when Andrew stops me.
“You want to grab a drink? It could help you forget about this ‘wife list.’ You can complain all you want about your blind date.” His thumb is pointed toward the entrance to the restaurant where I saw a sleek bar surrounded by more stiff suits and polished footwear.
The valet holds open the door for me, and it’s my answer to Andrew’s offer. A sign I should say “no, thank you” and go home, wash off this night with a hot shower and some warm cuddles from Buster. I push aside the temptation to take him up on his offer and walk toward the driver’s side.
“Maybe another time,” I tell him, throwing a cheeky smile over my shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of dates I need to drown in alcohol in the near future.”
Andrew smirks and nods, taking a step back to wait for his car.
I slip in, watching how he stands there, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched with an air of stress settling over him.
I start to wonder if his offer for a drink is for him just as much as it is for my own need to erase the last hour of my night.
Maybe a nightcap can’t hurt. One drink. How much damage could that do?
I unbuckle my seat belt and open my door. “Hey, Andrew.”
He looks up, and his eyes round with curiosity.
“I changed my mind.”