30 First Dates (17 page)

"Seriously, babe, I've got this. Don't worry about it…it's not that expensive." Sherri interrupted Erin's musings and grinned. "I've got the hookups."

Erin shook her head. "You're the best. I don't know what I'd do without you."

She felt terrible, honestly, about letting Sherri pay for more than her share of the party, but at the same time she was in no position to turn down the help. Sherri's salary had already almost doubled Erin's, and she'd gotten a promotion in mid-summer and was now managing a team of eleven accountants and administrative staff. Erin knew Sherri didn't have any debt left over from their Paris trip, whereas she'd be paying off the trip bit by bit for quite some time.

But still.

Erin considered her financial situation. The magazine internship didn't pay anything close to her old salary, but it did pay, and it looked like she'd be eligible for a loan to pay for school with a little left over for living expenses. Plus, she was getting more confident about her chances of making a little money through the blog. She'd started looking into monetizing the site and now had a few pay-per-click advertisers set up in the margins of her posts. These didn't pay much, but she'd also accepted her first sponsored post assignment. For linking to a dating site in one of her posts, they'd offered her ninety dollars. It wasn't hard to do, and within two days of her post the ninety dollars had been deposited into her PayPal account. Easy-peasy.

Other bloggers were doing it, Erin reasoned. She'd read about it on message boards.

She sighed and leaned in to read over Sherri's shoulder. "That one's good," she said after Sherri read another prix-fixe list out loud. "I like this one, too." She tapped her finger on an Asian-themed list, with potstickers, California rolls, soba noodles in abaca boats and dessert won-tons.

"Mmm, yum," Sherri agreed. "Not sure how well that'd go with the drinks, though. Maybe we could find somebody to do sake?"

The drinks hookup had come from Ben. A guy he worked with had a wife who worked for a big-time beer and wine distributor. Because they'd decided to turn the party into a charity event—they were charging for tickets and donating the proceeds to an education nonprofit—the woman had offered a dozen cases of wine at a steep discount and thrown in a couple kegs for free. The woman and her husband were invited, and so were Nate, Melody, and her soon-to-be husband Ryan—their wedding date was the Saturday after the party.

At that thought, Erin remembered she was due for a bridesmaid's dress fitting later that afternoon. She glanced at the microwave clock.

"Holy cow." She jumped up. "I've got to get in the shower." Hilary's wedding was in October and, against her better judgment, Erin was still in place as maid of honor. As she expected, Hilary's Bridezilla claws were coming out. She was constantly sending Erin snarky texts and emails about the other bridesmaids, and Erin was starting to understand that her role as maid of honor would mainly be that of peacemaker. It was a role she'd been playing since childhood for Hilary, who tended to leave the broken shards of friendships behind her like the busted-out windows of an abandoned house.

On her way to the shower she checked her phone. There was, of course, a text from Hilary: OMG, *disaster*!!! Amie's gone up 2 DRESS SZS!! Where RU???

Erin rolled her eyes. Amie Sparks-Abbott, one of Hil's sorority sisters, had emailed the group of bridesmaids a few weeks earlier to announce that she was twelve weeks pregnant. What did Hilary expect? For Amie to starve her unborn child to keep the profile of the bridesmaids' line at a perfect size two?

Yes. Yes, that is exactly what she expects.
Erin secretly hoped Amie would grow at least another two sizes by October 11, maybe need to have her dress specially constructed to accommodate her belly.

Hmmphh.
No doubt Hilary would just hide her in the back for the pictures.

Erin pulled on her shoes and grabbed her purse, thinking about the party, the blog, the new job she had thanks to Ben, and how it finally felt like her life was changing for the better. She was
so
dreading this wedding.

*  *  *

Three days later, Erin rubbed her eyes and opened her laptop. She did her usual check for comments on last night's blog post, this one on her date with a thirty-two-year-old graphic designer, her first hook-up from a reader. Before she'd set the date she'd met "Jen31," the commenter who'd offered to set her up, for coffee at a Starbucks on the Belt Line—just to make sure she wasn't, like, crazy. When Erin was satisfied that she wasn't, she agreed to meet Devon, Jen31's best friend, in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas the following Friday. Jen31, whose real name was Jenni Novarski, was medium height and athletic looking, with a pink streak in her auburn hair and the kind of bohemian style Erin admired but could never in a million years figure out how to make work for her. Jenni was a painter and lived in an apartment near Deep Ellum that she referred to as a "flat." Erin tried to imagine setting Ben up in this way, thinking there was no way he'd ever go for it.

She couldn't do it, anyway, she realized. Her stomach knotted up at the mere idea of it. She ignored the thought and glanced at her post.

August 5: Date 11

Name:
DJ*

Age:
    32

Job:   
Graphic designer

List:   
Assert my right to peaceably assemble (aka No. 8: Attend a protest)**

I'm running out of easy list items to pick off on dates. I didn't know DJ* before Friday, but the person who set us up assured me he'd be cool with helping me knock out one of my weirder items on my list.

Finding something to protest was an interesting proposition. I'll be honest—I'm not all that political. This probably comes as no surprise, but hanging out on street corners with megaphones and "Occupy" signs has never been my thing. Still, it was fun to research this list item. I'd hoped to find an event where I could stand up for kids or education, but instead I found one related to my newfound career in writing. It was led by a group of free speech activists who were protesting censorship, and the protest happened right in the middle of downtown, near Malfunction Junction and within view of the Grassy Knoll.

DJ was cool through the ordeal—at least, he didn't give me sideways looks or flat-out tell me he thought I was crazy. We mainly observed what was happening, but we did chant with the crowd when they started reciting the First Amendment, and at one point we got right up in the middle of the protesters and were shoved around a little bit. Things went kind of nuts when some anti-protester shoved a cameraman in a news crew. All in all, it was an exhilarating experience. I can't imagine living my life as an activist, but I have new admiration for anybody who stands up for something that adamantly. I only wish I had that kind of fire about something more important than my own fumbling inadequacy at committing to a profession or holding down a relationship.

When we left Dealey Plaza, DJ and I had pizza at Café Neapolitan in downtown and spent the rest of the day together. After lunch we wandered through the Sixth Floor Museum, which I hadn't been to since a field trip in fourth grade, and then headed down to Greenville Ave. to poke through thrift shops—DJ's idea (he's pretty hipster)—and find a place to drink. We wound up spending about three hours in this awesome beer bar in Lowest Greenville. We ate dinner at a taco stand in Uptown. And yes, I brought him home, and yes, the narrative ends here. But remember, I'm a good girl…

Erin smiled to herself as she read over the last few lines. Devon was the best date she'd had since Paris by a long shot. Jenni had described him as really tall with blond hair. That, coupled with the cheesy idea they'd concocted to each carry a yellow flower so they could find each other in the crowd, made him easy to single out. He was striking—not conventionally good-looking, but a guy whose looks were interesting enough to turn heads. His eyes were a blue so icy they had a crystalline quality, and he had a long, slightly crooked nose. He was muscular, especially for someone so lanky, and he had a few tattoos on his upper arms that peeked out below the sleeves of his black tee, which was snug but not tight. Though Jen31 had described him as blond, his hair was actually light brown with blond at the tips in such a way that it looked "done," but Erin could tell it wasn't.

He looked mysterious, and after spending roughly twelve hours with him it was Devon's intelligence Erin found most attractive. He was scary smart—not smart in the way Ben was smart, but world-wise. And even though Erin was afraid he'd thought her mission for their date was lame, he was the perfect guy to have completed it with. He was the kind of guy she might have
met
while attending a protest.

At lunch she'd learned Devon had been married before, about ten years earlier when he was much too young—or in his words, "immature"—for it, and he had an eight-year-old son who lived with his mom most of the time in Grand Prairie but stayed with him every other weekend.

With a small smile on her face, Erin thought back over their lunchtime conversation, which happened on the café's patio, a small space gated off by a black iron fence with large red umbrellas that offered protection from the intense Texas sun. They were already hot and sweaty from spending hours outside, and he picked his chair first, giving her one with more shade.

"I've read your blog," he said, non-sequitur, after they'd received their food. Erin admired the gravelly tone of his voice, which was softer than she'd expected upon seeing him. Her eyebrows went up, but she didn't say anything because she'd just bitten off the end of a slice. "There was no way I was
not
going on this date."

Erin chewed fast and swallowed. "Why? Were you that anxious for Internet fame?" she joked.

"Ha," he said. "Hardly. I thought it sounded more interesting than the typical setup. I get set up a
lot
. I don't always agree to it, but my friends treat me like a pet project." He laughed but sounded frustrated.

"Why is that?"

"They think I'm still hung up on my ex-wife."

Erin nodded, thoughtful. "Is that true?"

He chewed slowly and sat back in his chair. "It used to be," he said after several seconds. "Not now. We're totally different people than we were back then. There's no way we could ever line our lives up at this point. Not that she's ever wanted to."

Erin's internal red flag shot up at once, and she was surprised by how disappointed she felt. Devon was a guy she wanted to know better.

She chewed her lip. "You didn't cheat on her, did you?"

He looked surprised for a couple seconds, and then understanding dawned on his face. "No, I didn't cheat. I just got scared." He paused, giving her an appraising look. "You've been cheated on a lot, huh?"

She shook her head. "Not a lot. Just in bad ways, I guess. My ex-fiancé cheated on me. I'm just glad I figured out what a dick he was
before
I married him." Her voice caught on the last word, and she said, "Um, sorry."

Devon shrugged. "No worries. What about that Bradley guy? Didn't he cheat on you, too?"

Erin laughed. "No. He didn't. He just desperately wanted to."

Back in the present, Erin chuckled again. That had been the most serious conversation of their date, and it was enough for her to know she liked Devon, but that he was definitely one, like Noah, to be careful about when it came to getting attached.

After their dinner of street food later that night, Erin broke her own rule and took him back to her place—thankfully Sherri wasn't home. She and Devon settled in on the couch and kept talking. They talked and drank coffee and fooled around for a half hour or so until Sherri's key turned in the lock.

Since he'd left, neither of them had called the other, but Erin knew she would if he didn't. Hesitant as she was to start anything with him, she also knew they weren't finished.

Back to her blog, Erin answered a couple of reader comments. She had a long list of regular readers now from all over the world, including a few she felt like she knew personally at this point. She'd started reading and commenting on their blogs, too. Of the few people who'd posted comments so far, most were pulling for Devon. He'd get a kick out of that when he read the post and the comments, which she knew he would.

After closing out of the blog she opened Twitter to check her @ replies and DMs. She was floored to find a direct message from @TODAYshow:
"Hi, @30Dates. We'd like 2 have u on our show. Intrstd? Contact…"
When she checked it a few minutes later, she saw she also had an email from a staff member of the show.

Her heart thudded against her chest like she was working to push over the hump in a distance run.
Can this possibly be for real??
She'd had more media inquiries since her local TV appearance, including a request for a phone interview for a blurb on women and blogging by a national women's magazine. From that, she'd decided she not only needed to restore her natural hair color but also have a professional photo taken she could post on the profile page of her blog.

But she figured she had plenty of time (and all of that required money), so she hadn't rushed to book a date at the salon. Now she almost considered looking up Mia's home phone number.

Holy shit!!
She knew Sherri would freak when she heard the news, but instead of yelling for Sherri, who was in her room, Erin dialed Ben.

He was yawning as he answered.

"I'm shocked, Bertram, that you're slacking," she chirped. "I figured you'd be out running by now."

"Well, you sound chipper," he answered in a lazy voice. "I figured
you'd
be sleeping in, what with your hot date last night and all."

Her jaw slackened just a bit…he'd already read her blog post? She'd posted it at almost 2 a.m. It was just after 8 now, six hours later.