Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink (32 page)

I make a point to shrug nonchalantly. “I’m having dinner with my friend. I’ll check my phone after dinner.”

I know in my heart that everything I have just said is a lie. Because my first thought is
Please be him
. “I need some more croutons.” I pop off the couch and head toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”

“No. I’m good,” Jeff says through a full mouth.

On the way to the kitchen, I pass the phone on the counter to see that there is a God:

Hey. It’s Ben Cameron. I’m getting off work in an hour. Any chance you want to hang out tonight? (If you have to take care of Jeff, I totally understand, and I’ll see you tomorrow.)

OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod.

I grab my phone, throw all of my sanctimonious lectures out the window, pull a Leilani, and thrust the phone into Jeff’s face. “What do you think this means? Should I go? What is ‘hang out’? He didn’t say ‘hang out’ at the airport; he said things like ‘vision of loveliness’ and ‘fell in love.’ What does this mean?”

Jeff pulls his head back a bit to look at the text. “Well, for one thing, it means he’s not in an airport for less than an hour with you. When we tell you we’ve fallen in love on the first date, you tend to freak out. And no man under the age of eighty should ever utter the words
vision of loveliness
aloud. Makes it sound like he still puts on his socks with garters.”

“Good point,” I am forced to admit. I look at the text again. “I think I should let him miss me a little. Conjure up a little mystery.”

Jeff pats me on the shoulder. He sounds a bit surprised as he says, “Good for you.”

“Wait.” I point to Jeff. “Except, how long am I here for? A week? Two weeks? Why miss out on an opportunity to see him? I’m not playing the long game here, I’m playing the short game. Hence…”

“Hence?”

“Hence,” I repeat firmly, “I should go.”

Jeff narrows his eyes. “Well … I guess there’s something to be said—”

“Then again,” I refute, “why would I want to make this easy for him? I mean, really, isn’t a girl’s favorite part of the relationship the beginning? When the guy’s trying hard?”

“Actually, I think a girl’s favorite moment of the relationship is right after she gets engaged. But by then she’s caught, which would mean your argument…”

I bug my eyes out at him.

“Sorry,” Jeff apologizes. “You don’t even really need me here in the room for this, do you?”

Jeff’s phone beeps a text. I look over his shoulder and see it is Brian:

Do you want me to come over and look in on the patient?

Jeff immediately types back …

I would love that. I’m sending Mel off on a date with a cute doctor.

“Wait! What?” I exclaim.

“Look, you know you’re going to go out with him. Now, you can either bore me for the next twenty minutes listening to you argue with yourself, or you can jump right in, say yes, and spend that extra time taking a shower and shaving your legs. Your call.”

I’m sure my mouth looks like a straight horizontal line as I stare at him, assembling in my head an unbelievably strong and witty comeback from an independent woman who doesn’t need a man.

Instead, I begin texting back to Ben as I ask Jeff, “You have razors in the guest bathroom, right?”

“Remember not to overthink it,” Jeff jokes as I head toward the guest room.

“Again, shut up.”

*   *   *

Well over twenty minutes later, I am showered, shaved, spritzed with perfume, and completely made up to look as if I have no makeup on.

I also have nothing to wear. Or at least nothing that says,
Oh, are you here? You caught me completely unawares. I just happen to look this fantastic all the time, and without any effort on my part whatsoever. This just happens.

I stare at the clothes in my still-packed suitcase and wish I had time to hit the mall. I yell from my room to the living room, “I need you to help me pick something to wear. And by that, I mean I have nothing to wear.”

“Sometimes I prefer my dates that way,” Jeff yells back.

Within minutes, I walk out of my room wearing a beautiful, little black dress I bought in Paris.

“Wrong!” Jeff, still working on his iPad, declares from the couch without even looking over at me.

“You haven’t even looked at it yet.”

“I know you well enough to know your first attempt always tries too hard.” He turns around to see me. “I see I’m still batting a thousand.”

“This is a beautiful dress,” I insist, suppressing the urge to stomp my foot like a toddler.

“For cooler weather and a nicer restaurant, yes. But you are in the tropics on a Sunday night with a guy who just asked you out less than an hour ago. Assume you’re going for fish tacos and dress accordingly.”

I sigh, turn around, and head back to my room. Eventually, I settle on a sand-colored denim miniskirt, and a dark blue silk Hawaiian shirt that I borrow from Jeff’s guest closet. (I’m not even going to ask why he has an assortment of expensive Hawaiian shirts in his guest closet.)

After getting Jeff’s approval, I spend twenty minutes doing exciting things such as reapplying deodorant and fluffing out my hair. Finally, I reappear to Jeff proudly, throwing up my arms and announcing, “Ta-da!”

Once again, he doesn’t look up from his work. “Change the shoes.”

I let my shoulders slump as I turn back to my room to change out of four-inch heels and into some sparkly, flat sandals.

“There are condoms in my nightstand!” Jeff yells to me.

“I’m not bringing condoms,” I tell him firmly. “I’m not having sex.”

“No judgment. But in the last few months you have been a bit of a—”

“I’m done catting around,” I declare as I emerge from my room. “I’m sick of the aftermath. If he really likes me, he will drop me off at the end of the night, give me a quick kiss good-night, then ask me out again. If he doesn’t like me, he will drop me off, lie and say he’ll call me, and I’ll never hear from him again. Either way, it’s a million times easier to wait by the phone if you haven’t done the walk of shame.”

“A million times easier?” Jeff repeats doubtfully.

“Fine. Four times easier. My point is, it’s less likely to drive a girl to a Sara Lee cheesecake and a bottle of pinot for dinner.”

Jeff winces. “Why wouldn’t you at least go for a prosecco?”

“That’s what you took from my theory? A poor wine pairing?”

Jeff shrugs just as his doorbell rings.

“He’s here!” I whisper urgently, racing up to Jeff in panic. “Go answer the door.”

“Doofus, your doctor boyfriend put me on bed rest. I’m not supposed to get up.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, and if I answer the door, I’ll look too eager.”

“And if you don’t answer the door, you’ll look like an asshole.”

“Oh. Right. Crap.”

I walk to the door, take a deep breath, and open it.

Ben stands in the doorway, holding a potted money-tree plant.

“Wow! Most charming thing ever.” I take the money tree and quickly put it in Jeff’s dining room. “All right, we’ll leave you alone. Don’t wait up!”

“Don’t come home too early,” Jeff says in a bright voice. “Where are you taking her? Fish tacos?”

“Ah! Brilliant!” Ben says, his face lighting up. “I was still debating. But you mean the place with the surfboards—”

“Yeah,” Jeff interrupts, “and that tree near the outside…”

Ben nods. “Plus it’s open—”

“Till ten on Sundays. Exactly. And they won’t kick you out if you stay late. Although for drinks after dinner—”

“Life’s a Beach. I’m way ahead of you,” Ben interrupts. “So, originally, I was thinking—”

Jeff puts out the palm of his hand. “Let me stop you right there. Trying too hard. Take her there—”

“The third time we go out. You’re right. What do you think about tomorrow?”

“Well, we were supposed to go to the Black Rock torch lighting today. Maybe tomorrow?”

Ben nods, impressed. “Good plan.”

I cross my arms. “I’m sorry. Am I getting in the way here?”

Ben looks confused. “No.”

Jeff smiles at me. “Actually,
you
are,” he says, gesturing to Brian, now standing in the front doorway. “Get out.”

I blow Jeff a kiss, which he pretends to catch and bring to his heart.

Then I push Ben out the door.

F
ORTY
-
FOUR

Jeff nailed it when he suggested that Ben take me to a fish-taco restaurant. I’m guessing it’s one of the only casual restaurants in Kihei open late on a Sunday night. There are no waiters, you order at the counter, the tables are made to look like surfboards, and the restaurant is brightly lit. Very.

Not a romantic atmosphere by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe Jeff’s onto something. I’ve been on a zillion first dates where we’re both trying too hard, and I wound up spending more time worrying about what to order, what to say, and how to dress than I did about whether I even liked the guy. Maybe it’s time for a first date where I get to eat messy-eating food with my hands and get to say whatever pops into my mind.

“These tacos are amazing,” Ben assures me once our food comes. “Along with all the regular stuff you find in tacos, they also put coleslaw made with buttermilk in the middle. And all of the fish here is superfresh.”

I bite into my taco, accidentally dripping taco filling and coleslaw sauce all over my bright blue plate. The ahi tuna tastes insane. “Wow,” I say through a full mouth. After I chew and swallow, I tell him, “Man, that’s good. Star-Kist and ahi should not even get to share the same last name.”

“So much of the flavor has to do with how fresh everything is,” Ben says, swiping his taco in sauce that dripped onto his plate. “Particularly the fish. I’m telling you, the first few weeks I was here, I ate fish three times a day.”

“So what inspired you to move here?” I ask as I pop a delicious french fry into my mouth. “The food?”

“Oh, that. The weather. A few other things. Long, boring story with notes of self-righteousness.”

“‘Notes of self-righteousness.’ Sounds intriguing.”

“It’s not, I promise. Besides, I’d rather talk about you. So what happened in Paris?” Ben asks as he opens his second taco and pours Tabasco sauce on it. “Did you get all the sex you want?”

“Does anyone ever get all the sex they want?” I joke.

Ben makes a joke of motioning to an imaginary waiter. “Check.”

I laugh, then bring the conversation back to him. “So, did you go to medical school out here?” I ask, even though, thanks to Jeff, I already know the answer.

“No. Went to Columbia, then stayed in New York for my residency.”

“Did you know anyone who lived here before you moved?”

“Yes and no. I actually have a friend from medical school who practices in Honolulu. She invited me out here after I left my wife. Oahu wasn’t quite the right fit for me, not sure why. Maui felt more like home.”

“You were married?” I blurt out. (Note to self: google-stalk and facebook-stalk the crap out of that nugget of information later this evening.)

Ben shakes his head. “Yes, and I don’t want to bore you with that story. It’s not exactly good first-date material.”

“What
is
good first-date material?”

“Politics, religion, future,” he jokes. “And my love of ComicCon. That always gets the hot girls excited.”

“But not exes?” I probe, trying to sound as light as possible. “Because I am fascinated to know what idiot woman could have let you go.”

He takes a second, probably to debate what to share with me. “Have you ever been married?” he asks thoughtfully.

“No.”

“Well, my experience is, when recounting what happened, you both end up looking like crazy people, clueless people, losers and assholes. Who’s playing which role kind of depends upon the day and the fight. Soooo…” He shrugs and tries to force a smile. “I kind of hope we can talk about something else.”

“Okay.… So what brought you here?”

“My friend Randi invited me to stay with her in Honolulu during my separation. I just got on a plane and never looked back.”

I can’t help myself—my jealousy rears its ugly head. “So, you didn’t fly across the world for sex with Randi?”

He chuckles. “With Randi? No. She was my roommate in med school. She’s pretty, but there was always something about her that was more like a sister. Anyway, so I go to see her and stay with her family. She’s an ER doc too, and she doesn’t do call. She only works four twelve-hour shifts a week—no seventy-hour workweeks. She has a toddler and a baby and a husband who works a nine-to-five job in local advertising.

“It took me all of one day to see she was happy. And I wasn’t. There was so much I hated about both my job and my life. I hated the constant adrenaline I needed to keep up with an emergency room in Manhattan. What was exciting at twenty-six can be exhausting at thirty-two.”

“I feel that way about dating,” I joke. Well, sort of joke.

“Yeah, me too. Anyway, so I was walking on the beach in Waikiki, playing with Randi’s kids, and as I tossed her giggling toddler up in the air for the fifth time, I realized that I don’t have to be the person I set out to be when I was a kid. When I was ten, I thought Bo from
The Dukes of Hazzard
was cool—what the heck did I know? I immediately started to make job inquiries and applied for a medical license in Hawaii. Eventually, I found an urgent care in Lahaina looking for someone.”

I realize I’ve been nodding the entire time he’s been talking, “Wow. You actually followed your midlife dream. Good for you.” I take another bite of fish taco. Culinary-orgasm good. “So, any regrets? Miss anything?”

“I’ll admit, I do miss the money.” He motions out the window toward the town, pitch-black and mostly asleep on this peaceful Sunday night. “But I love the million-dollar weather.” He takes another bite of food. “So, what about you? What’s your life story?”

“Not done writing it. Check back with me in thirty years,” I say, smiling, as I eat a french fry.

“How long are you here for?”

“I don’t know. How long can you be charming for?”

“If I said the rest of your life, would that be overkill?”