How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (7 page)

“Thank you for the compliment, but this task was custom made for a moron. It requires showing up, signing a thing, and taking the book to another building, four blocks away.” I know this is an exercise in pointing out the obvious, but I’m finding Lacey’s openness to being inconvenienced by my boss’s every whim and fancy to be highly unusual, and I’m hoping that my straight-forwardness will help us get to the bottom of it. I mean, after all, he is throwing a wrench in her Saturday night plans, too. Hey, maybe she decided to turn over a new leaf for my birthday. The only other possibility is that she’s thinking if my errand goes late enough, it’ll get too late for us to eat—per her “never eat anything within three hours of going to bed” rule, and she won’t have to buy me dinner at all.

Still trying to make the best of it, Lacey optimistically offers, “Well there are lots of good restaurants in that neighborhood. Why don’t I just pick you up at your place so we can get together at a reasonable time. I’ll run your little book errand with you, and make a reservation somewhere near the Chronicle offices?”

That’s weird, “I never told you it was the Chronicle.”

“You didn’t?” she seems shocked. “Then how did I know? Is it the Chronicle?”
“Yes.”

“Then you must’ve told me. Why would I think it was the Chronicle if you didn’t tell me?” Lacey never seemed like the psychic type to me, she’s too out of touch with the general consensus of the populous. She continues trying to figure it out, “Anyway, you said it was a book. Where else would you have to drop a new book off on a Saturday night, four blocks away, besides the Chronicle?”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“So I guess I was just assuming it would be what it is.”

We realize there’s no point in arguing about it, and also that if we don’t get off the phone and start getting ready, I am not going to be on time for this birthday ruining opportunity, which will only cause it to ruin my birthday plans further.

~

Boy is it easier to get ready for a night out when you haven’t promised everyone you’ll wear a certain dress or color. I get ready in record time. In truth, I think I was more motivated than usual, because I knew that if I kept Lacey waiting, it would be that much longer before I got a chance to tell her all about my amazing night, and I could not wait to tell her about my amazing night!

Lacey shows up, and I get in her taxi, ready to unload my whole story and release all my pent up emotions from last night, when she starts in about her night.

“I can’t believe you left me there alone with Marty, last night. I couldn’t figure out a way to blow him off, so I slept with him.” I look at the taxi driver to check for a reaction to the mention of sexual activity. No reaction. Good, this one doesn’t speak English.

Lacey doesn’t stop to check, she’s still talking, “And worse, I gave him my real number! Now he won’t stop calling me… Maybe I’m just too nice.”

“Nice” is not the first descriptive that comes to mind when you meet Lacey. Fun, ambitious, organized, honest, loyal, hard-working, detail-oriented, indefatigable, unintentionally funny, and her heart is in the right place, but the list of her attributes doesn’t usually lead to “nice”. She’s never mean, but she’s not really nice either. She’s more like a reality check. You want to hate her for the things she says, but when you’re done being mad and you stop to think about it, you realize that she’s usually right. Except about being nice.

On the other hand, I am the one who left her there under Marty’s supervision, so the fact that she slept with him may in some ways be my fault, and I feel terrible about it. I trusted him. Was I wrong?

“How did that happen?” I ask, after directing the driver to my office, downtown.

“I mean, I guess if you think about it, I kind of had no choice but to go home with Marty. Every other guy I talked to in that bar was looking for you! They were all like, ‘I’m supposed to meet a girl here named Samantha,’ ‘I can’t talk to you right now or my friend who told me to come here will kill me. I have to at least say hi to this chick Samantha.’ I mean, it was crazy, Samantha. They actually showed up, and for some reason, they actually seemed motivated to meet you—some girl they’d never even seen before—even though they were talking to me!”

I’m torn between feeling proud of myself, and bad for Lacey. But there’s no good way to tell a friend that when you come on too strong it makes you look desperate, and guys don’t find that attractive.

I also kind of feel bad for these guys who got all this pressure to come show up at a bar, only to be stood up by me. Then again, I had no way of predicting how the night was gonna go, and as far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t have gone better!

“So did Marty do anything to pressure you into sleeping with him?”

“Not really. And who cares about that! The worst part is how much he’s been calling me today!” Good, I was right to trust him. He was on the up and up, and Lacey’s only regret is that he still likes her the next day.

She goes into detail, “What happened is that after enough guys asked me where you were, I was like, ‘Yeah! Where is she?’ So I go ask Marty—cuz he was buying me drinks to make me feel better after each of the guys who basically rejected me—and he’s all, ‘Do you think I have nothing better to do than keep an eye on you and your friend all night?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s being a dick, too!’ But then he wasn’t being a dick, he was just joking, which I figured out when he said, ‘She left 15 minutes ago, with that guy she met.’ So you see? It turns out he
was
paying attention to me.”

Even in the retelling of the story, Lacey is so relieved by this, that I start to wonder if she actually likes this guy, but for some reason, doesn’t want to admit it to me. My suspicions are quelled by what she says next.

“So then he says, ‘It’s just rejection, you get used to it.’ And I’m like, what?! Maybe some lame-o, weirdo like him gets used to it! But that’s never happened to me before. So of course he agrees with me that I shouldn’t be getting rejected by these guys, and he’s like, ‘You’re so great, Lacey, blah-blah-blah. Those guys are idiots, blah-blah-blah. They don’t know how lucky they’d be.’ And I’m all, ‘Why are you so nice to me, when I’m so annoyed by you?’ I mean, seriously, why is he so annoying to me? He could be a great guy!”

“He is a great guy, Lacey.”

“I know! You know what else he said?” I shake my head, no. “He said, ‘Why doesn’t anybody in this place just wanna love the one they’re with?’ He is so sympathetic to what I was feeling. It was like he read my mind!”

“Or maybe, more specifically, he was trying to tell you about what he was feeling. You know, send you a hint to stop chasing down those other guys, when he’s standing right there ‘with’ you.”

“Well, whatever. He got what he wanted.” She pauses for a moment to relive her decision making process in her head, “But that’s not why I slept with him. I did it because I wanted to!”

“Good. That’s the only reason you should ever sleep with anybody.”

“Yeah! And he didn’t even want to sleep with me at that point.”

“He didn’t? What happened?”

“He said I was too drunk.” I was totally right to trust him. “But I made him do it anyway,” she continues, “because I couldn’t handle anymore rejection last night.” We really need to do something about her self-esteem. And the stupidest part is that a guy like Marty is exactly what would cure her insecurity.

Thinking I could get her to give him a chance, I ask, “So was Marty as good in bed as you’d hoped he’d be?”

“Who knows. I was so drunk I would’ve enjoyed having sex with a cucumber tied to a chair!”

I laugh while trying to avoid conjuring the image of that in my head. Thankfully, our taxi driver still doesn’t appear to speak English.

Then Lacey concedes, “Although I did watch the video playback, and it looked like it was probably the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“You taped it?”

“Always!--But secretely." This is a revelation that even I can’t justify about my dear, twisted friend.

“That way," she goes on, "if a guy dumps me, I can refer to it when I’m trying to remember how stupid he looks in the throes of passion.” Again, if you take a second to stop being mad at her, you will realize that she has a good point.

“What about you? What happened with that guy?”

I practically explode with my story, “He was amazing, Lacey! So amazing that despite any stupid errand my boss is making me do, this day has already gone down in history as the best birthday of my life. John is perfect! He’s everything I hoped I’d find at my party and more.” Then, realizing there is one little thing I should probably inform her of sooner than later, I add, “And I hope you don’t mind, I told him he could call me later to join us wherever we are.” I already know she’s not gonna like this.

She scrunches up her face, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“I know it sort of intrudes on our night, and I wouldn’t normally invite a guy, but I figured since it’s my birthday, you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too uncomfortable,” she says, a little more understandingly than I expected.

“You mean for you?” I clarify.

“No, for you,” she says, as if her reasons were obvious.

“Why would it be uncomfortable for me? You’re my best friend, and he’s a great guy. I have no doubts that you guys will get along fine.”

“I know, me too. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that—“ she stops short, and changes direction, “where did you guys go last night, anyway?”

I don’t mind that she doesn’t explain whatever weird justification is making her think it would be uncomfortable for me to have John here, because I’m too excited to tell her more about my night.

“Well first, he took me to his favorite place in the city—so I already know where to find him if he’s ever—“ I don’t get to finish my sentence because her text message chime interrupts me, and rather than ignoring it long enough to let me say, “—down in the dumps, I’ll know where to go find him to cheer him up,” Lacey takes out her phone and says:

“Sorry, I’ve got to respond to this.”

I try not to seem disappointed that I was interrupted and ignored after listening to her entire story about how she’s going to actively pass up an awesome guy because he’s too nice, or too complimentary of her, or too good in bed, or whatever her stupid reason is.

“Is it Marty?” I ask, trying to seem casual about my own need for attention right now.

“Um, no. It’s—“ Lacey trails off, distracted as she finishes her text. She doesn’t put away her phone.

Nonetheless, I try to start in with my story again, “So anyway, John takes me to—“

Lacey’s text chimes again, and she goes back to texting with this mystery person, and not listening to me, as we arrive at my office building, pay the taxi, and go inside. Fine, I’ll use this time while she’s ignoring me to think positive, happy thoughts about last night. I can enjoy my memories, even if she doesn’t care about them.

As we enter the building, I ask, “Who is that?”

“Oh, um, it’s work.” She stutters, unconvincingly.

We get in the elevator and start to go up to the fourth floor.

“Work?” I ask incredulously, “on a Saturday night, when you don’t have an event? What are you hiding from me, Lacey?”

She blushes, and tries to suppress an uncomfortable smile that is bursting through her cheeks, clearly revealing that she is trying to cover up her lies, “It’s work. Why wouldn’t I have important work stuff on a Saturday night? You do.”

“Yeah,” I reply, as the elevator door opens on my darkened office reception area, “but that’s only because my boss is an asshole.”

The lights come on, and everyone I know yells, “Surprise!” Including my boss. Crap.

Chapter 9

I’m pretty sure I look surprised right now, but not in the good way. Henry doesn’t really look surprised in the good way either. Everyone else just looks uncomfortable. My co-workers, the journalists, producers, and event planners I work with, our clients, my friends, my parents. Even Darien Campbell is here. I wonder if that means she didn’t really finish her book.

This is the part of the surprise party where everyone gets to relax, say hello, and figure out if I really fell for the surprise or not, but it’s pretty clear at this point that I had no idea this was coming, and nobody knows what to say. Everyone waits silently for me—or Henry—to break the ice. And the longer it takes, the more the awkward tension grows in the room.

I just figured out who Lacey was texting with as we got closer and closer to the office. It was my boss. The very person who set me up to get here, and who I so stupidly insulted as my way of prematurely saying “Thank you for planning my birthday party.” Man, do I suck.

In my defense though, this is why surprise parties are a bad idea! Everyone you know doesn’t call you on your birthday (hi, mom and dad!), and those who do are either unavailable to hang out, coincidentally out of town, or asking you for favors and to run errands for them on your own birthday—which needlessly pisses you off. And all that just so they can jump out of a dark room and yell “Surprise!” Is it worth it, I ask you? And is it fair that this surprise has just cost me my boss’s favor, and maybe even my job?

“I should fire you for those disloyal comments you just made,” Henry finally announces, once he overcomes his general embarrassment at putting himself out for me, only to be backstabbed by my opening remarks.

“I’m so sorry, Henry. I didn’t mean it. I was just expressing my displeasure at being here on a Saturday night that also happens to be the biggest birthday I’ve had so far in my life.” Aren’t they all? Okay, so that wasn’t the smoothest thing I’ve ever said. But I’m not done, “I feel really stupid, but I had no way of knowing what a lovely surprise you were planning for me under the guise of extra weekend work.”

“You make a decent point, Samantha. It is your birthday. But I wouldn’t have planned all this, if I didn’t think you were a bit more of a fan of mine than that.”

“I am,” I plead, “I… I just wasn’t a fan of this one task on this one day. Coming here, today. That’s all I was referring to. I think you’re a great boss. And I enjoy the work. And I appreciate that you don’t usually ask me to go to the office on Saturday to do messenger work… Although, now that this has happened, I would gladly do more weekend messenger work, so long as it means I get to keep this job.” This is in front of all my colleagues, friends, and family, mind you. I am groveling for my job, in front of everyone I know. It doesn’t get much more embarrassing than this.