Love for Scale (11 page)

She sat on the couch, grabbing the remote off the coffee table. Patting the couch in invitation, she encouraged the dog to hop up beside her. Sunny happily crouched down and then with a massive grunt from his teeny weenie body, jumped up on the sofa next to her. He squirmed up against her leg and lay down, a big sigh supplying the finale to his physical exertion.

Rachel smiled down at the little dog and rubbed his head and back, his big brown eyes closing in contentment. She glanced at the clock: still a few hours before she had to get ready for her date. Flipping the channels for several minutes, Rachel finally realized there was nothing worth watching so she gingerly—so as not to upset the snoring dog—got up and headed toward the kitchen to find something to eat.

She was staring into her third cupboard before she even realized what she was doing. She was looking to self-medicate with food. It was a habit. An old habit. A
bad
habit. She slammed the cupboard closed, angry at herself, but relieved that she hadn’t actually found anything appealing.

I need a nap, that’ll get my mind off food
. Rachel went into the bedroom and lay down on Sheri’s bed. It didn’t take long before she felt her mind begin to wander with the beginnings of dreams, but not before she felt the bed quiver and a warm little body wriggle up against her belly.

Chapter 15

At precisely seven o’clock, a car pulled up in front of Sheri’s apartment building. Squinting to try to see its occupant, Rachel wished she had stayed up in the apartment so he could buzz her; then she’d know for sure if this was him rather than risk the embarrassment of going out to some stranger’s car. She shifted her weight from one uncomfortable foot to the other (“The
only
way you can get away with wearing that skirt is if you wear something with a heel,” Sheri had said).
So much for it not mattering what I look like on the bottom.

The car door opened, a man got out. He looked to be about five foot ten, with a medium build. Brown hair and glasses. Joe average. Turning toward the front door of the building, he didn’t even hide it when he looked Rachel up and down. She knew in that instant that the date was going to be a disaster. Fighting the urge to turn and run back toward the stairs, Rachel stepped forward, determined to be brave and see it through. She would consider it dating practice so when Mr. Right did come along, she’d be polished and not screw it up. She pasted a smile on her face, the same smile she used when her least favorite library patron, Mr. Barton, refused to pay fines, insisting that without
his
tax dollars, there would be no library.

With a pose of confidence she didn’t feel, Rachel stepped forward.

The man opened the first set of glass doors. “Hi, I’m Leo,” he said sticking out his hand for her to shake. How formal. His handshake was not clammy, thankfully, but rough, crushing Rachel’s fingers together. Probably used to shaking more men’s hands than women’s, Rachel figured.

“I’m Rachel, nice to meet you,” she lied.

“Shall we?” He opened the door for her. Nice. “I’ve made reservations at the China Lantern, I hope that’s okay. Sheri said you like Chinese food.”

A buffet. She knew it well. Rachel groaned inwardly as a list of
do’s and don’ts
memorized from the Weight Watchers booklet flashed on the screen of her mind. Buffets were
don’t
number one. No one who lacks any sort of self-control (and let’s be honest, if we had any self-control, we wouldn’t be at Weight Watchers, would we?) should ever go to a buffet. Okay, too late for that. Plan B: load up on low point items. Salad, plain shrimp, vegetables. She got into the car, nodding her thanks at Leo for holding the door again. She began adding up the salad dressing points and the seafood sauce. Maybe she’d splurge for some rice noodles with beef. How many points would that be? She wondered as the car jerked forward.

“Uh…Hello?”

Rachel turned. “Sorry?” she felt a blush rise up her neck threatening to color her face. Wasn’t the number one rule of dating to pay attention when your date speaks? Oops, not even five minutes in and she’d screwed that up.

“I asked if you like working at the library.”

“Yeah, it’s okay,” Rachel said, not thinking for a second that this guy wanted to hear about her job.
Try to act interested in him
, was rule number two. “How about you? Are you a financial planner also?”

“Yeah.” Leo shook his head, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he drove. “But listen, uh…I don’t mean to sound like an asshole or anything, but what I do is complicated and I don’t think you’d understand it, anyway.”

Rachel studied his face, trying to see if he was serious.

He turned and looked at her. “What?” he asked, frowning.

“Oh, nothing,” Rachel said, looking out the passenger side window.

This is going to be just fabulous
, Rachel thought right before:
Sheri, you are so dead.

* * *

Rachel had never before appreciated how beneficial going to a buffet on a first date could be until she sat across the table from Leo the asshole blind date from hell. She was well into her first full plate before she realized that his constant looking over her left shoulder was not due to him being slightly cross-eyed but because of the blonde silicone-enhanced waitress in the section of tables behind them.

As soon as Leo’s half-assed attempts at conversation became intolerable, after say, eight words, Rachel put her fork beside her plate and politely announced that she was going back for a few more pieces of sushi. The trick was to only get a few at a time. And as a bonus, maybe that would keep her from eating too much, she thought.

Normally self-conscious, especially when eating in front of people, Rachel found that she really didn’t care what this guy thought and decided to enjoy herself. She didn’t care that he watched her go up to the buffet twice as many times as he did, she didn’t care that she ended up overeating (couldn’t her extreme suffering be counted as exercise?) and she didn’t care that his looks at the waitress became full out flirting.

What she
did
care about was that when she excused herself to go to the ladies room, she returned to an empty table. She sat by herself for over twenty minutes, slowly gnawing at the barbecue ribs she had procured on her way back from the bathroom.

Rachel turned and looked at the blond waitress, catching her eye and waving her over. The waitress smiled and nodded before she put her tray down at the server’s station and headed over.

“Can I have your server bring you something?” she asked, all innocence.

“Uh, that guy I was with, did you happen to notice if he left?”

The waitress blinked. “Your brother? Oh, he said that his beeper went off and he had to go back to the hospital to see a patient. I thought he would have told you.” She frowned.

My brother? Oh God. Is there any chance to salvage what little dignity is left?
“Oh, I was in the bathroom,” Rachel said.

“I guess it must have been a real emergency,” the waitress said, shrugging. “He said he’d like to talk to me some more, but only had time to scribble his number down for me. We’re going to hook up next week.” A smile crept across her dumb face.

Do not get mad, do not cry
, Rachel repeated over and over in her head.
You hated him anyway; he’s not worth crying over.

“So I’ve only got a second, but tell me what your brother’s really like.” Apparently this clueless waitress and Rachel had just bonded and were now best friends.

Before Rachel could open her mouth, her own waitress deposited a plastic tray with the bill on the table. “Here you go,” she smiled, also clueless.

Seriously? The schmuck ditches me
and
stiffs me with the bill
? Sheri and Brian were going to suffer slow and tortuous deaths.

“I’ll get you some Wet-Naps,” the waitress said, pointing at the corner of her own mouth, a subtle demonstration.

Shit, Rachel thought, swiping her napkin across her lips, eradicating the barbecue sauce. She fiddled around in her purse for her Visa card and tossed it onto the tray on top of the bill. She didn’t even bother to check the amount, it didn’t matter.

Blondie was still waiting.

Rachel dug around in her purse some more. “Oh, dammit!”

“What?” Blondie Big Boobs asked.

Rachel clutched at an old prescription bottle of allergy medication that had been at the bottom of her purse for years, her hand deliberately covering the label. “I picked up my brother’s prescription and forgot to give it to him.”

“Prescription for what?” Just as Rachel had hoped, it turned out Blondie was nosy.

“Valtrex,” Rachel said, suddenly having all the confidence in the world.

The waitress looked like a deer in headlights.

Rachel looked around and then leaned toward the waitress. “For his genital herpes,” she whispered. Her delivery was deadpan. Her library’s weekly sex talks for teens delivered by the public health nurse had finally come to good use. Rachel’s vast knowledge of various treatments for STDs was being successfully parlayed into a delicious batch of revenge.

“Oh!” breathed the waitress.

Even if Rachel had the superpower to make people disintegrate right before her, she still couldn’t have caused the waitress to disappear faster than she did on her own two feet.

Rachel’s smile was genuine, for the first time that evening. She only felt a slight tinge of guilt over pulling one over on the waitress who hadn’t done anything bad to her. But Leo would probably always wonder why the waitress had never called. Rachel took pleasure in the knowledge that her plan would reach its pinnacle of greatness if he ever returned to the restaurant to find out why. And he had seemed arrogant enough to do just that.

When the Visa machine came, she paid the bill, took her slip and grabbed her purse to leave. As she pushed her chair back, she heard her name.
Her smile faded. God, please let there be someone else named Rachel at the table next to me
, she begged.

She looked up to see Finn walking toward her.

“Hey, Rachel, how’s it going?” His eyes darted down to her table at the two settings of dirty dishes.

“Okay,” she lied.

“It’s nice to see you,” he said. He jerked his thumb toward a big table in the corner where a crowd was hovering, trying to decide on seating arrangements. “I’m here with my family. It’s my uncle’s birthday. They dragged me here. God, this is the worst place ever for a recovering binger.”

“Buffets are tough,” Rachel said. It was true, and not just because of the food.

“Did you want to join us?” Finn asked, all smiles. “I’m sure my family won’t mind and you can keep me on track.”

“Uh, I was just leaving,” she said, trying to look like she was in a hurry. “I was here with my brother; he got called away just a few minutes ago.” She shrugged, feeling bad for lying, but it was still easier than explaining what had
really
happened. And even if she had been honest, she was on the verge of crying and was sure that if she got even the hint of a pity face from someone, she was going to burst into tears.

“Well, I should let you go, then.” Finn looked disappointed. “Have a good rest of your weekend. I’ll see you on Tuesday at the meeting.” He smiled, shoving his hands into his front pants pockets.

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Rachel said and turned to leave. As she got to the archway of the room, she turned and watched as Finn sat down at the table occupied by his family. He said something, she couldn’t hear what, and everyone at the table laughed. They looked like nice people. If they were anything like Finn, she knew they would be.

She wished she’d had the guts to tell him the truth. Maybe then, she’d have accepted his invitation and be sitting with him and his family at their table instead of leaving the restaurant pathetic and alone.

Chapter 16

One good thing about her date from hell: since she was staying at Sheri’s she didn’t have to go home and explain another failed date to her mother. In fact, she hadn’t told her mother she was going on a date at all. Good thing. She cried quietly most of the way home in the back of the cab, not because she’d had high hopes for her date with Leo, but because she had been so utterly humiliated. Again.

She finally began to cheer up after imagining Leo sitting at home actually being consumed by huge, pus-filled, painful boils that would prevent him from ever dating again. That would serve him right. Asshole.

Rachel trudged up the stairs to the second floor, unlocked Sheri’s apartment door and was greeted by Sunny the dancing Chihuahua. Sunny didn’t normally dance, except when he
really
had to go. Taking that as her cue to move faster, Rachel grabbed his leash and a couple of plastic shopping bags, stuffed Sunny under her arm and headed back down the stairs.

After Sunny’s jaunt around the corner, stopping at every single vertical item to sniff and/or mark, Rachel took him back up to Sheri’s apartment. She realized that although she was bone tired and beyond emotionally drained, she still had to head over to Brian’s townhouse to walk his dog.

Grabbing her car keys and Brian’s house key, and reminding Sunny to be good until she returned, she left the apartment.

She almost lost her nerve when she was greeted by Glen’s throaty, “
Ooof
” as she slid the key into the front door lock.

“Hello?” she said as she pried open the door, trying to be as non-threatening as she could. There he was. Glen was clearly not a dog. Glen was a shaggy, fawn colored pony.

“Hi Glen, I’m here to let you out, so you’re not going to eat me are you?”

“Ooof,” Glen said again as he shoved his huge head into Rachel’s hand, looking for affection.

“I guess that answers that,” she said out loud, relieved. She grabbed the leash off the hook by the door and snapped it onto Glen’s collar.

“C’mon, Glen,” she said, unnecessarily. Glen was more than ready to go.