Lucky in Love (3 page)

“Why not?  What's wrong with him?” It was so like her. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Nothing is wrong with him, trust me!  I've never used the equipment, but I have seen it.  And let me just say you would be very, very happy!” At last, I had said the right thing. Tara became rather thoughtful as she walked past me and sat down at one of the small desks.

“Really?! Ok, so suppose we did go out and things didn't work out...would that affect you and me?” She looked at me with some concern.

I went and sat at the desk beside her and reassuringly said, “I don't see why it would.  Truth is, I seem to be able to maintain relationships with his girlfriends better than he does.”

“Good to know.  But if for some reason he and I work out and get serious...and this is strictly hypothetical...you would have to break off any and all contact you still have to any of his ex’s.”

I smiled.

“Understood.”

Suddenly, Tara glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall behind my desk and stood up.

“I better get back to class.  I'll see you later.”

“K.” I stayed seated as I watched her leave my classroom and close the door behind her. I looked up at the clock myself. If I wanted to finish what I had started before classes started again, I had to hurry. I pulled myself out of the chair and made my way back over to my grown up sized desk, but before I had a chance to sit down the door opened again. I didn’t even have to turn and look to know who it was.

“Tell me the truth, she was talking about me wasn't she?!” Jason was standing there, smug as ever.

“Seriously?” 

“What?”

I just shook my head.

“Could you be any more into yourself?” It didn’t matter what I said, Jason didn’t hear any of it anyway. It just rolled right off of his back until he got to the part he was interested in.

“Come on.” He was starting to whine.

“Go away.” I waved him out as dismissively as I could and then went to sit back down in my chair, but it didn’t work. Quite the opposite actually, instead of leaving, Jason came further in to the room and took a stance right there at the end of my desk, making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else but him and the dark shadow he had thrown over my desk by hovering so closely.

“I'm not leaving 'til you tell me what she said.”

I threw my arms up in defeat.

“Fine, she said you were hot.  Now go away.”

A broad smile spread across his face.

“I knew it.  Did she say anything else?” He was beginning to get on my nerves and I was already starting to regret what I had done just minutes before, trying to encourage Tara to get involved with him.

“I didn't take notes, Jason.  You're going to see her tonight, just ask her yourself.” Realizing that he had pushed me far enough, Jason began to back out of the room.

“I will!  Because she thinks I'm hot,” he grinned.

“Goody for you. Don't you have a job to do?”

“Alright, alright.  I'm going.” And with that, he finally left the room, smiling the whole way out.

I glanced back up at the clock behind me. I had exactly seven minutes until the room would fill up with thirty teenagers. Teenagers I actually cared a great deal for, they were great kids – smart kids, but they were extremely loud kids, too which made the quiet time in between so precious.

After flipping through the stack of essays, I found the paper I had been working on at the beginning of my lunch break. I had just enough time to scribble down a few notes and suck down what was left in my juice box, before it was time to get back to work.

Speed Dating

It was
later that same night, and there we were about to attend the dreaded speed dating event. Much to Tara’s dissatisfaction, I had done very little to prepare for the evening regarding my looks. The truth was I had come straight from work without even stopping by the house just to avoid any further questioning by Gabe or Noah. As it was, I had done what little I could to bring my modest day time teacher look up to date night standards, and even I was aware that I wasn’t quite up to par. After a failed effort at letting my hair down, I quickly reverted back to the pony tail when I realized there would be nothing I could do to get the dreaded pony tail kink out without a brush and blow-dryer. My make-up consisted of little more than eye liner and Chap Stick, although in my defense, I really didn’t own much else. As I looked down towards my feet and caught a last minute glimpse of my outfit, I was half shocked that Tara had even allowed me to come. While I had remembered to stuff a spare shirt into my bag that morning, I had not had the foresight to bring a matching bra. Therefore, I was now wearing a strappy black top (very sexy by my standards) with a bright yellow bra strap poking through. Below the shirt, were the same black pants I had worn to work along with the black flats I wore nearly every day. Initially, I had thought the ensemble would look cute, but now, standing out in front of that bar and assessing what was essentially my competition, I realized that I was sorely mistaken. It wasn’t cute so much as it was plain, and truthfully, almost frumpy. The pants I was wearing were likely two sizes too big, which I had bought that way intentionally for work thinking more about the comfort and less about the style aspect. For some reason, I remembered my flats to be the perfect shoes, completely interchangeable with any look. Alas, that was not the case. They were sad looking as they nearly disappeared under my baggy pants and after closer examination in desperate need of some polish.

Nevertheless, there I was.  Standing beside Tara and Jason, who in their eased perfection, made me look even worse. Looking at them and their wildly more appropriate attire, I silently vowed to make time for a shopping day in the near future.

Once we had signed ourselves in, we took a few moments to assess the situation. From the looks of it, there was going to be quite the big turnout. Before I could determine whether this knowledge made me feel scared or optimistic, my phone beeped for what had probably been the twentieth time in five minutes. I grumbled and checked my phone, even though I already knew who it was.

Tara looked over at me curiously.

“Who keeps texting you?” I finished reading the message and then quickly shoved my phone back into my purse.

“Oh, it's just Noah.  He's been doing it all day. He's driving me crazy.  Oh great, and now he's calling me!” I pulled the phone back out to answer it. I didn’t even have a chance to say, hi”.

“Does his wife know about this?” Noah asked sarcastically.

“Who do you think set us up?!” I quickly retorted.

“Fine, you don't want to tell me about him, that's your business.  You do realize though, that I automatically have to assume that there is something wrong with him.” Unbelievable. He was such a jerk.

“Funny, I would think you would assume that there is something wrong with you,” I snapped back.

“Why would I assume that?” he asked, clearly confused.

“Because you're the one I don't want to talk to!” And just like that, I hung up and turned off my phone to ensure that he wouldn’t be able to interrupt the evening any further.

Meanwhile, Tara, who had been watching me huff and puff and turn all red in the face while talking to Noah, turned to Jason and quietly asked, “Are they fighting?”

He just grinned and shook his head. “Nah, they're always like that.”

“Sounds kind of dysfunctional.”

“Oh, it is.” And he was right. It was.

When I finally looked up from my phone I was suddenly aware of the look on Tara’s face. As close as we were at work, we really never spent that much time together outside of school, which meant she wasn’t at all familiar with the different dynamics between me and the guys. What seemed perfectly normal to me probably seemed more than a little odd to someone on the outside.

“Sorry, guys.  Don't worry though, it's not going to happen again. My phone is off!” I held it up for them to see for good measure. Two seconds later, Jason’s phone began to ring. It was Noah.

Jason sighed and pressed the power button. “Great, and now so is mine.”

After putting his phone back into his pocket, he held his hand out towards the bar and said, “Well Ladies, shall we?”

Relieved to finally change the subject, I nodded. “Yes, let’s.”             

The three of us headed over to the bar. The bartender gave us a once over and even though his glance only rested on me for half a second, I instantly had a flash of the thoughts that must have been going through his mind. Having spent many years on that side of the counter, I was all too familiar with the skills one develops in regard to reading people and relationships. No doubt he saw Jason and Tara looking all pretty and perfect and then saw me and determined that they were a couple and I was their frumpy, single friend they were desperately trying to unload at this speed dating event. Oh, if only he knew the truth. Fact was, that at the end of the night, Jason would be going home with me, just like he did every night. I realized of course that it meant nothing, but knowing that one simple fact, still gave me a small sense of satisfaction.

Once we each had a drink in our hand, we finally dared to inch our way toward the speed dating room, which was filling up at a rapid pace. I looked around the room daring to hope for a mere moment, but quickly squashed those feelings when I realized that most of the men there would not be of interest. The second most satisfying moment that night, was realizing that my people reading skills were still just as keen as they had been back in my beer slinging days.

Still, there was no turning back, so we each went and took a seat at one of the many tables set up in what was now looking to be a rather small space for the amount of people who had shown up. The host of the evening was a woman in her mid-twenties. She was way too young and perky to be hosting this event and I had to work hard at resisting the urge to toss my cocktail napkin at her just so I wouldn’t have to see her bright, toothy smile as she welcomed us with great enthusiasm to what I could only describe as “dating hell”.

“Ladies and gentlemen!  Welcome.  Before we begin, let me go over the rules with you.  The ladies will remain seated while the gentlemen rotate from table to table. Each date will last five minutes and you'll know the time is up, when we ring the bell.  Let's begin!  Enjoy and good luck!”

And so it began. With one eye closed, I nervously waited to see who would take his seat across from me. When I saw him, I instinctively wanted to shut the other eye, too, but I didn’t. He was medium height and medium build, and in all likelihood, not bad looking. However, the blue velvet jacket he was wearing over a rather pink shirt made it hard to look at anything else. Except for maybe the hair, which had highlights and was greased back so slickly that the candlelight around the room was dancing around on the top of his head like a million twinkly little stars. My first thought was of Noah and how I would have to tell him about this. The second thought was that I could NEVER tell him about this! Regardless of the reaction I was having internally, I tried to maintain a welcoming face as the guy sat down and proceeded to make his first move.

“Hi.  I'm Ron and I just wanted to ask you if it hurt when you fell from heaven, because you look like an Angel.” He grinned and I caught sight of a flashy gold tooth right there in the front. It was all I could do to keep from tackling the perky hostess who had so falsely promised a successful venture into the land of love. Since that wasn’t an option, and love was clearly out of the running, I opted for entertaining myself. One way or another I was going to have a good time.

“Hi Ron, I'm Nancy.  And yes, it hurt like hell.” I threw in a Brooklyn accent. Just sort of seemed right for a girl like Nancy to be from the Bronx. Ron hadn’t been prepared for this.

“Oh...” he nervously laughed. “Well, so...so what do you do, Nancy?”

“Ron, I spend most of my day chopping off balls.” I was on a roll now.

“You what?” The color began to fade from his face.

“I'm a vet, Ron.  That's just part of the job.” It was just too easy.

“Oh, of course...So, do you like what you do?” It was a little late for a comeback, but Ron gave it a try anyway.

“Who wouldn't?” I grinned, secretly hoping a piece of olive from my martini had somehow wedged itself in between my teeth, so that Ron might have experienced the same horror I had when he had grinned at me. Just then the bell rang.

“Nice meeting you, Ron!” I called after him, as he scurried away from my table and on to the next girl. I silently said a quick prayer for her, whoever she may have been and then braced myself for the next date.

This time, he was so utterly unsightly, it was almost endearing, but just almost. The fact of the matter was that what was most likely to blame for his unsightliness was a lacking sense of hygiene.  His hair was untrimmed and oily; causing what appeared to be severe adult acne on his forehead where his hair seemed to be permanently plastered do to the excess body oils. If he had acne anywhere else on his face, I couldn’t tell because his scraggly unkempt beard covered the majority of it. Upon closer inspection, I detected what appeared to be leftovers from a turkey sandwich stuck in the matted hair below his chin, which I desperately hoped, were from a recent meal, but the general appearance of this guy suggested otherwise. His shirt was stained and smelled as though it had been retrieved from under a pair of used gym socks and I let out a small sigh of relief, knowing that I would never have to look too closely at his pants, as they were hidden by the small table we were both seated at. As he looked up at me and prepared to initiate the conversation, an onslaught of dialects and sarcastic comments came rushing through my mind. This guy was going to get it good.