Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
We met at a popular rooftop bar that served glitzy, overpriced cocktails.
I’d heard of it but had never been there before due to my abiding distaste for places where people who cared about popularity and appearances and money gathered, a predictable remnant of my unhappy school years.
Drinks had been my idea, the location Adam’s.
Even with my extremely limited dating knowledge, I understood that if drinks went well, they could lead to a meal, which then could lead to a bedroom.
But if they went poorly, I’d be able to make a fast escape.
The ability to escape quickly seemed crucial.
Although I was a punctual person, I wasn’t necessarily an early person, but I arrived a full twenty minutes before we’d planned to meet.
I assumed Reza wasn’t unique and that being on time mattered to all UPS employees, so I hadn’t wanted to risk even a second of tardiness.
It turned out the rooftop was closed for the winter and the bar area was limited to a heated top floor, but there was still a crowd and a view.
I went ahead and purchased my own drink.
This seemed like a good strategy; the rooftop had made me think about roofies, which made me think about how unfair it was that women had to think about roofies.
(I doubted Cory was thinking about roofies.) My nerves were frayed as I waited alone in a too-tall chair at a too-tall table.
It seemed as if bar tables existed only to make adults feel infantilized, and I didn’t need any help there.
This date was already playing on all my childhood vulnerabilities.
Cory and I had both been late bloomers. While the average age for menstruation to begin keeps dropping due to God knows what hormones in our food and damage to our environment, my own period didn’t show up until I was sixteen.
And by the time my breasts and hips finally followed, I was already too entrenched in the art of invisibility—head down, shoulders rolled forward, seat in the back of the classroom—for it to make a difference with the boys. I already believed I was undesirable.
Cory had looked even younger at sixteen and was often mistaken for twelve.
When he’d first told me, I couldn’t believe it had been that bad.
But later, once we fully trusted each other, he’d shown me the photos.
He hadn’t been exaggerating. His body had been devastatingly childlike, more like a middle schooler than somebody who could drive.
And whereas I had turned my shame inward and become sad and reflective, he’d turned his outward and become angry and disruptive.
We both still carried resentment over these hurts, but mine was mostly under control while Cory’s actively simmered.
However, as my feet dangled above the floor, I felt young and invisible all over again.
Was dating making him feel the same way?
Suddenly it seemed impossible that I was meeting somebody who wasn’t Cory.
That anybody apart from Cory would even want to meet me.
Adam arrived a few minutes early, looking like his photos—and unlike Cory.
He was taller and more muscular than my boyfriend.
Olive skinned, not fair skinned. His eyes were brown and unobscured, not blue and framed with glasses.
The whole package was so unfamiliar that I had to fight the urge to duck and army-crawl away.
When he scanned the room, he seemed surprised to find me already there. He approached with a nervous smile. “Ingrid?”
I stood and gave him a light hug. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Same.” He removed his coat and draped it over the chair across from mine. “I’m impressed. Most of the women I meet for drinks show up late.”
Several thoughts dominoed through me: I was right! Thank goodness I arrived early. He sounds a little judgmental. How often is he meeting women for drinks?
He winced. “That came out weird. I only meant to say I appreciate that you’re already here.”
I blushed as if the blunder had been my own.
“I’d offer you a drink, but… can I bring you something else?”
I declined, and he promised to return.
Don’t be invisible. I sat on my hands to stop them from shaking.
Head up. Shoulders back. I wanted to spy on him while he ordered, but he deserved a chance to pull himself together in private, too, so I forced my gaze to the skyline instead.
Most of downtown Ridgetop still had its original art deco architecture.
I’d learned from Macon that a lot of towns in this part of the country had once had similarly elegant and ornate buildings, but most of them had been destroyed in the seventies and replaced with the blocky, uninspired boxes of the time.
Ridgetop had been too broke to modernize.
“A bad thing that turned into a blessing,” he’d said.
It had been another awful day at work with us barely able to acknowledge each other.
Another book banner had even graced us with her hateful presence, though she might have regretted it because Macon nearly tore off her head.
Normally he handled the complainants well.
He had the patience and belligerence to outlast them.
Exhaust them. He could outmaneuver almost anybody in any argument without ever raising his voice, but this afternoon he had roared , and the woman had threatened to have him fired.
“You will not win that argument, and you won’t win this one either,” he’d fumed, snatching the offending young adult book out of her hands.
The snatching was enough to get him into a bit of trouble with the director, but he was right that he wouldn’t be fired.
If we’d still been friends, I would have cheered at his outburst and done another double cartwheel into the audiobooks.
But if we’d still been friends, I doubt he would have lost his temper.
I was very aware that I was the reason for his unhappy mood, and that made me feel even worse.
“Sorry. I forgot it’s not rooftop season.” Adam reappeared, looking embarrassed again as he followed my gaze and guessed at the reason for my uneasy expression.
“I don’t mind!” It came out with an unnatural zeal, so I called myself on it. “I swear that wasn’t sarcasm. I’m just nervous. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date.”
I wondered if I should have admitted that, or even called this a date, but he smiled with understanding.
“Yeah, Reza mentioned something about that. And I can relate. My first few dates after my divorce, I was a mess. Not that you’re a mess,” he added quickly.
“I just mean that I understand. This stuff is difficult.”
“Does it ever get any easier?”
“A little. But sometimes it gets harder, too.”
It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but it sounded truthful, and a measure of my anxiety receded.
“You’re going to do great,” he said. “I promise.”
I gave him a rueful smile. “How do you know?”
He shrugged, but it was a warm shrug. “Just a feeling. It doesn’t hurt that you’re an attractive woman,” he added. “Men will always be glad to see you.”
I made a face.
“Oh my God.” His eyes widened as he laughed in disbelief at himself. “I told you, this stuff is hard. I didn’t mean for that to sound creepy, but I think I just creeped you out.”
I laughed, too, if only to lessen the tension.
But what he couldn’t have known was that it was the first time any man apart from Cory had so pointedly complimented my appearance.
I wasn’t sure what to do with this, yet our conversation did grow easier.
He wasn’t much of a reader, but Brittany was right that he was nice.
And he had a decent sense of humor, even though he wasn’t as naturally funny as Cory or as slyly funny as Macon.
He’d played soccer as a kid and had recently joined a casual adult league, which tracked.
He looked like the type of handsome guy who wouldn’t have noticed me in high school but who would have at least apologized if he’d accidentally bumped into me in the hallway.
Adam will remarry , I thought. Perhaps to someone who also had children. He mentioned his daughter, Lily, several times, and I was glad that he wasn’t one of those men who pretended his children didn’t exist. I was also glad that I would never have to meet her.
I’m not sure what I told him. Not because of the second drink, which he’d purchased and I’d kept my eye on, but because the whole experience was so surreal that my mind kept wandering.
I didn’t think he would reject me if I tried to kiss him.
The vibe between us seemed to be okay. But how would I know when to do it?
And how did people—people who had just met!
—transition from kissing to sex? I hoped he’d take the lead.
I also hoped he’d have protection on him.
I was on the pill, but still. There were diseases.
Oh God. What if I got a disease during one of these non-Cory encounters?
(What if Cory got a disease?) How was I supposed to ask a stranger if he had an STD?
“Ingrid?” Adam had clearly asked me a question, but I hadn’t heard it.
“I haven’t eaten dinner,” I blurted. “Wanna grab a bite somewhere?”
He gave a startled laugh in a way that made me wonder if he’d just said something similar. “Wait,” I said. “Did you just ask me that?”
“Uh, no. I asked if you enjoy being a librarian.”
My cheeks lit like bonfires. “Sorry, I was just—”
“Hungry?” It was a polite tease.
“Yeah,” I said weakly.
He smiled, and his crow’s feet crinkled in a way that I liked. “Let’s go.”
As we headed down the stairs toward the street, I remembered that Kat and Brittany had both asked me to check in because they were paranoid about serial killers. (Cory didn’t have to be paranoid about serial killers.) “You’re the one who set this up!” I had said to Brittany.
“Yeah,” she had replied, “but some psychopaths are secret psychopaths.”