Cheapskate in Love (5 page)

“I’m not so sure of that,” Bill replied.

“Why? What is your Chinese dragon doing now?” Stan asked.

“We broke up again yesterday. I haven’t spoken to her yet.
And I’m not going to. This time it’s really over. I’ve had enough. She’s
crazy.”

Stan didn’t believe Bill for one second. Stan had heard him
say that he wasn’t going to see Linda many times before, much more persuasively
than now. When Bill had first started to see Linda over a year ago, and they
began the chain of break-ups and make-ups, Stan really thought that Bill was
ending his interest in her when he said so the first few times. He was visibly
angry and calling her all sorts of things, none of which were complimentary.
But Stan’s credulity had passed completely when it came to Bill and Linda. He
was a hardened disbeliever. He didn’t believe what politicians said, and he
believed Bill even less when the subject was Linda. He was certain that Bill
was going to see her again, probably very soon. Probably they would be making
plans that afternoon for a reunion. Bill and Linda, Stan thought, were
obviously not made for each other, but they didn’t seem to be compatible with
anyone else either. They seemed doomed to be together, since they couldn’t
tolerate being alone. Stan knew of other relationships that were sustained by a
mutual fear of singleness, but none had the amount of differences and dislike
that Linda and Bill had for each other. As Stan often did, he donned the role
of devil’s advocate and asked, “Why don’t you look for someone else?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Bill said, which was true; he
sometimes was, but he didn’t do more than that.

Although Stan knew what the answer was going to be, because
he had made the suggestion before, he ventured to say, “Why don’t you try
online dating again?”

“That’s just a bunch of emails back and forth,” Bill
grumbled with disdain, “that tapers off to nothing. Once I did meet someone
through a dating site. But she didn’t look anything like her pictures. She must
have been ten years older than her photos. At least ten years older. I didn’t
recognize her at all in person.”

Stan had heard that story before. “I read that seventy-five
percent of people over the age of forty-five find dates online,” he remarked.

“Don’t remind me of my age. You know I don’t like that.
How’s your food?” Bill’s plate was picked clean of every rice grain, and he was
acting restless.

“OK,” Stan replied. “It’s edible. It’s worth five dollars,
maybe even six dollars.” Despite his effort to consume quickly, he had eaten
only half of his lunch. He kept on eating. “I think you should try online
dating again,” he said.

Bill didn’t like the idea. When he had tried it before, he
had received no responses from most women he had emailed. This was probably
because they had the most beautiful pictures he could find, and they were all
much younger than him. But still the results had been very disappointing, and
he wasn’t eager to be ignored by more women. The old computer he owned also made
online dating very tiresome, because it operated so slowly and often froze.
When that happened, his passion for finding someone was interrupted, and it
didn’t always return after rebooting. However, Bill knew that Stan was trying
to be helpful, and he had heard of happy couples,
who
had met online, so he replied without any enthusiasm, “Maybe I will. I know
Linda is doing it. Her profile says she only wants to meet guys making at least
twice what I do.”

“You’ll find someone before she will,” Stan assured him.
“Just say you’ll be glad to hear from any woman, even someone earning nothing
at all and loaded with debt. You’ll have women falling all over you.” Stan
laughed loudly at his joke, while Bill grimaced. Bill then switched the
conversation topic and inquired about Stan’s children. They talked about the
kids and other less personal things, before returning to their offices for the
afternoon.

Chapter 5

On the way back to his office, Bill pondered his dating
situation with all the honesty he could muster.

When he was still a teenager, he had begun to date. Since
then he had never been without a steady girlfriend for more than a couple of
weeks, but now the road of relationships he had traveled seemed to have come to
an end. With Linda, he felt he had left the paved road of his past, as bumpy
and swerving as that had become, for a narrow, rocky, dirty byway, where he had
been stuck in the mud again and again and nearly shaken to pieces. Now a path
for two-person vehicles had entirely disappeared, and he was on foot in a
wilderness where he did not know in which direction to go to reach a road
again. He felt lost and alone, but he had sense enough to know that turning
around and looking for Linda was not the way forward.

He needed to meet new women. That was a certainty. But as he
looked around on the crowded sidewalks of Midtown, where many women were
passing, none of
whom
caught his eye, he said to
himself, “They have to be the type for me.” Bill was trying to be honest with
himself
. Although he was no Adonis, he thought that his
happiness depended on finding an Aphrodite. Linda, his ex-wife, and all the
women he had dated had been remarkably good-looking and much younger. They were
the type of women that other men would stop and stare at. That was the reason
he had dated them. No matter how much inner beauty a woman possessed, unless
she had that something extra on the outside, a
young
extra something, Bill sighed,
she
wasn’t meant for him. His ideal woman, he thought, would have the kindness,
generosity, and patience of a saint. And she would look like a sinner, a young
sinner, with a body that made him want to sin and sin again. He preferred to
find a woman with both qualities—a heart of gold and the shape of a super
model—but he would settle for someone who came close to meeting the
second criterion. He knew he had to be somewhat flexible, if he really wanted
to find a replacement for Linda.

He had met Linda, and several other dates before her,
through a matchmaking agency, but he wasn’t eager to return there. None of the
women, whom the agency had paired him with, had ever worked out, and the cost
of the service was much too high for such misfires. He didn’t want to remember
what he had paid. At that agency, he thought, he was at a disadvantage, too,
because he lived in a rental studio. One of the matchmakers had once said,
looking at him as if he was a homeless person, “Most of our women prefer to
find men who own houses,” which he felt was insulting, because his studio was
big enough for two people. He could even make room in the closets, he thought,
for a woman to have one-third of the space. As much as he disliked online
dating, Bill thought that he might have more and better prospects
there
than with an agency. He didn’t have to immediately
tell any woman, whom he met online, where he lived.

By the time Bill entered the building in which his office
was located, he had completed the honest appraisal of his situation and reached
a plan of action.

A half hour after he returned from lunch, he put into execution
the first step of his plan. He left his seat and strolled over to the office
manager’s desk. Katie, the office manager, was busy chatting with friends and
exchanging photos over the Internet, as she normally did for at least three
business hours every day. A young woman in her early twenties, she
instinctively knew that her personal life was more important than her
professional activity. She kept a low profile in the office and never did more
than she was asked or required to do. Even her clothes and looks blended in
with the office furnishings.

“Katie, are you busy?” Bill asked nonchalantly, as if he was
going to ask her to fax something or make some copies.

“Just a moment. I have to wrap something up,” she replied,
continuing to finish a posting to her friends full of smiley faces and
exclamation points and hardly any subject at all. Bill waited patiently. The
other three employees in the marketing agency were ostensibly busy at their
desks. Bill could see all of them, because the office had no cubicles or walls.
It was one big room.

“OK. What is it?” she said, after hitting the send button.

“Do you have time to take my picture with the office
camera?” Bill asked.

“We already have business
pics
on the
server. I can send you the link,” she replied. Bill often had trouble finding
files on the shared drives, Katie knew. She had seen that
his
own
files were a mass of disorganization.

“For the proposal I’m working on, I’d like something a bit
more casual,” Bill explained. Since he was the office’s new businessperson, he
was frequently preparing proposals for new business. The rare success of his
proposals probably stemmed from his philosophy of sales, which he explained to
his coworkers from time to time. A new client would join them for two reasons,
he would say. First, the client recognizes that we have the necessary skills.
Second, and more importantly, the client feels that
we
are
a good emotional match
. In accordance with his
philosophical strategy, Bill spent most of his time wining, dining, and
shooting the breeze with potential clients, especially if they were men.
Consequently, it appeared to both his contacts and his coworkers that Bill
worked harder at having a good time than selling his company’s services.

Claire, the office boss, immediately looked up from her desk
when she heard Bill. She thought his sales philosophy made some sense, but at
the moment he didn’t seem to be engaged in company business to her. “Doesn’t
sound like a business proposal to me,” she remarked cleverly. “Whom are you
proposing to?” A stylish dresser in her late thirties, Claire was full of
conceit over the professional success she had achieved and how good she still
looked. To Bill, however, she had never looked good enough.

The copywriter, Debbie, also in her late thirties, who was
heavily overweight and self-absorbed, stopped nibbling on a cookie to chime in,
“Are you finally going to make the big leap from Linda?” Everyone in the office
knew of Bill’s stop-and-start dating with Linda. He shared more details when it
was going well, but he said enough when it wasn’t for all of his coworkers to
get the big picture.

“She must have stuck too many needles in you,” Claire added.

Shaking with laughter at that joke, Debbie said, “It’s about
time. She poked you more than a pincushion.” Despite her uncontrolled laughing,
Debbie would have liked someone to poke her once in a while. She was a victim
of the chronic single syndrome.

Matt leaned back in his chair. Thirty-four years old and a
graphic designer, he was the image of downtown cool with messy hair, unshaven
face, ripped jeans, wrinkled shirt, and scuffed tennis shoes. Outside of New
York City, someone might have thought he was a poor farm hand, but New Yorkers
knew better. He couldn’t let Claire and Debbie have all the fun at Bill’s
expense without getting in a wise crack, too. He confidently proclaimed, “Fifty
dollars he boomerangs back to her within a week. Anyone want to lay some money
down?”

“No way,” Debbie shot back. “He’s a masochist. And she’s a
sadist. They were only apart for a full week once before, that I ever heard
about. Most of the time they run back to each other within a couple of days,
tops.”

Bill stood his ground, not reacting to what his coworkers
said. To no one in particular he remarked, “She’s been emailing me all day, but
I haven’t responded.”

With that bit of information, all of the women assumed that
the breach between the broken hearts of Bill and Linda would soon be patched up
with a Band-Aid. They knew there were no other women trying to get his
attention. Bill would have said so, if there
was
such
a person. Such joyous news he couldn’t keep a secret. It was also highly
unlikely, they all thought, that another of their sex would appear in the near
or far future with the level of personal interest in him that Linda showed at
times. So they figured that Bill would be making his trembling way back to her
soon. None of them replied when Matt said, “My fifty dollars says they’re back
together before the end of today. Any takers? Anyone want to part with
their
money? Here’s my money.” He took out his wallet and
waved fifty dollars in the air.

“Do you have time to take my picture?” Bill asked Katie.

“Sure,” she replied. “Where do you want to take it?”

“Go to the terrace on the seventeenth floor,” Claire said,
trying to be helpful, although she thought he was wasting his time. “The city
skyline will be in the background. That’ll catch women’s attention.”

“And make them think you’re a sugar daddy with a sweet set-up,”
Debbie added, embellishing Claire’s idea. “They’ll think you’re the owner of a
stunning multi-million-dollar penthouse.”

“Won’t they be disappointed,” remarked Matt.

Debbie’s imagination was ever expanding at the thought of
Bill in a penthouse. “Women from around the world will be emailing you. They’ll
be begging for a date. Pleading for a response. Swearing they’ll do anything,
anything for you. And the most persistent, beautiful, young beggar for your
love...”