Romantically Challenged (22 page)

Greg and Noah exchanged a look and Greg said, “I’ll wait for you by the door.”

I picked up my purse and stood up. “It was really nice meeting you.”

“You too,” Noah replied.

I waited a few more seconds, hoping he would ask me for my phone number. When he didn’t, I turned to leave.

“We should get together and see a movie sometime,” Noah said when I was two feet from the table.

Yes! I turned back. “I’d like that.”

Noah didn’t move, so rather than wait for him to figure out the next step, I pulled my pen out of my purse, wrote down my name and number on the front page of his
Variety
, and handed it to him. He promised to call and wished me goodnight.

Greg was waiting for me at the entrance. “It looks like you found yourself a match.”

“We’ll see,” I said and looked away before my smile betrayed me. I hoped Greg was right.

It Had Been Too Long

By the time I unlocked my apartment door it was almost eleven o’clock. I changed clothes and went through my nightly routine—removing my makeup, washing my face, and brushing my teeth—then climbed into bed. I fluffed pillows, rearranged blankets, and switched sides of the mattress, but nothing worked. All I could think about was Noah. I’d talked to him for less than an hour, and I was already fantasizing about waking up with him on Sunday mornings.

By four o’clock the next afternoon, I was debating whether anyone would notice if I locked my office door and took a nap. I’d barely slept three hours the night before and I’d been dragging all day. I had a narrow panel of frosted glass in my door frame, but I didn’t think it was clear enough for anyone to see through. I had just put my head down on the desk when the phone rang.

“Hi,” the caller said in an exceptionally perky voice. “Is this Julie Burns?”

“Yes,” I said. “Who is this?”

“My name is Sarah. I’m calling from Aish HaTorah.”

“Where?”

“We organized the Speed Dating event you attended last night.”

“Oh right.” I was a little embarrassed that I’d already forgotten their name.

“I wanted to let you know that you had one match.”

“What?” How could she know about Noah?

“You circled YES next to Richard’s name on your questionnaire. He circled YES next to your name too.”

“Great,” I said, without much enthusiasm. In the afterglow of meeting Noah, I’d completely forgotten about Richard.

“I’ve already called Richard and given him your phone number. He was very excited. I’ll give you his phone number, and the two of you can take it from here.”

I took down Richard’s number on a post-it and stuck it on top of the pile of post-its next to the phone on my desk. Phone numbers I saved but would never use.

* * *

I arrived home that evening to a flashing red light on my answering machine. I pushed PLAY before I’d even set down my briefcase and kicked off my shoes. “Hi Julie, it’s Richard. We met last night at Speed Dating. I’d really like to see you again. Give me a call when you have a chance. I’ll be home the rest of the evening.”

Damn. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Richard, I was just disappointed that it wasn’t Noah. I waited two more hours hoping Noah would call. When he didn’t, I called Richard back. We were on the phone less than five minutes before he asked me if I’d like to get together over the weekend.

“What did you have in mind?” Maybe he would wow me with something completely unexpected.

“How about dinner Saturday night?” he asked.

Or not.

We made plans to meet at La Mer, one of those ridiculously expensive restaurants I’d always wanted to try, but only when someone else was paying. I figured if he was asking, then that meant he was paying.

* * *

When I arrived at La Mer Saturday night, promptly at seven-thirty, Richard was already waiting. I was glad I’d worn my long black skirt instead of my usual black pants. Richard was wearing a gray pinstriped suit complete with white cuff-linked shirt and yellow tie. If he hadn’t already told me that he worked for his father’s shipping company, I would’ve thought he was a banker.

The maître d’ greeted Richard as if he were an old friend and seated us at a table for two in the corner. As we walked through the restaurant, I was surprised to see that almost all of the tables were filled. It was the quietest crowded restaurant I’d ever been in.

Richard ordered a bottle of wine with dinner and immediately began telling me the story of his life. I learned about the boarding school in Boston he’d attended from the time he was eight years old, his Ivy League college, and his family’s home in Charleston which was actually a twenty-room mansion on ten acres of land complete with swimming pool, tennis courts and a stable out back where he and his three brothers learned to ride.

The other family residences were a six-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan, and a vacation home in Antigua where they spent the winter holidays.

“What, no summer home?” I asked as a joke.

“No,” Richard replied in all seriousness, “it wasn’t practical. Every summer my parents would take my brothers and me to a different country in Europe so we could learn the language and soak up the culture. It made more sense for us to rent a villa for the season rather than buy a home in every country we traveled to.”

At Richard’s urging, I told him about my family’s annual winter vacation. It began with a twenty-three-hour drive from our house in New Jersey to Pompano Beach, Florida where my parents, sister, and I would descend upon my grandparents in their two-bedroom condo. Our daily activities consisted of lying on the beach in the morning, the pool in the afternoon, and going out to dinner and watching TV at night. All my family wanted to soak up was a tan. If we all came home a shade darker than when we’d left and no one ended up in the emergency room, my parents considered it a successful vacation.

Richard seemed unfazed by the differences in our backgrounds. I wasn’t. By the time we’d finished coffee and dessert, I knew it would never work out.

Too Rich

“How can anyone be too rich?” Kaitlyn asked over breakfast Sunday morning, which was an unusual occurrence now that she and Steve were an item.

“I’m not comfortable with him. Our lives are just too different.”

“Well how did you manage to have a five-hour date with someone you’re not comfortable with?”

“Easy,” I said. “I was fascinated. I didn’t think people like that even existed outside of books and movies.”

“I think you’re overreacting. I’m sure you could get used to the money if you tried. You’d probably even like it.”

Maybe, but…no.

She shook her head. “So how did you leave it?”

“He said he’d call. I think he will.”

* * *

After breakfast, Kaitlyn and I went to the Santa Monica Mall, then the Century City Shopping Center, and finally Beverly Hills. I spent the afternoon searching for black suede boots and Kaitlyn spent the afternoon persuading me to give Richard another chance. By five o’clock I was convinced that there was not one pair of comfortable suede booties in all of Los Angeles, and that Kaitlyn was right.

I could get used to the money if I tried. It wasn’t fair of me to rule out Richard, or “Richie Rich” as we were now calling him, just because he was wealthy. It wasn’t his fault he was a member of the lucky sperm club and had everything handed to him on a silver platter since the day he was born.

And it wasn’t like I had anything against money. In fact, I’d even fantasized about being rich myself some day. Since I hadn’t had much luck playing the lottery, and I knew I’d never get rich working for Rosenthal, the next best alternative would be to marry someone rich. I just needed to keep an open mind.

* * *

I tried to remember my new policy when Richie Rich called me Tuesday night. I listened intently when he told me about the yacht his father had just purchased and I even remembered to ask him if he’d solved his problems with his decorator. I was doing pretty well until he mentioned that he had season tickets to the opera.

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, why?”

I didn’t even know anyone that had actually been to the opera, and he had season tickets. I reminded myself to keep an open mind. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t think people our age had season tickets.”

“This is the first year I’ve had them in L.A. My family’s had season tickets at the Met for years.”

“I thought your family lives in Charleston?” Even I knew the Met was in New York.

“They do,” he said. “My parents used to take the corporate jet up to New York the day of the performance. My dad would fly back the next morning. My mom usually stayed and shopped for a few days. Depending on our school schedules, my brothers and I would fly in from Boston to meet them. Or sometimes we’d take the train.”

Open mind, open mind, open mind. After all, he did say they sometimes took the train. When Richard told me he’d like to take me to the opera sometime, I changed the subject. I wasn’t ready to make plans for our future beyond a second date.

Richard told me he had a business dinner on Saturday night, and since I had an arbitration brief due Friday and knew it would be a hellish day, I agreed to meet Richard for brunch on Sunday at Ivy at the Shore. It was another one of those expensive restaurants I’d never been to before. If I was going to date Richie Rich, I’d have to learn to take the good with the bad.

* * *

Just as I was about to climb into bed, the phone rang again.

“Hi Julie,” the caller said, “it’s Noah. We met last week at Starbucks. Remember?”

I was so focused on trying to make myself like Richard, I hadn’t thought about Noah in days. Actually, I had thought about him a few times, but I’d been trying not to because I was afraid he’d never call. I said, “Of course I remember.”

We talked for two hours—one of those great late night phone conversations where every statement leads to another tangent and you hang up because you can’t keep your eyes open, rather than because you have nothing left to say.

Around one in the morning, Noah finally suggested that we get together over the weekend. We made plans for an early movie followed by a late dinner on Saturday night.

Two for Two

I met Noah in Westwood Village. I was glad he’d purchased the movie tickets in advance since the line at the theater was already winding its way around the block. It hadn’t been too difficult to choose a film. There was only one playing that we both were interested in and hadn’t already seen.

After the movie, Noah suggested we walk around the Village and have dinner in the neighborhood. We made a left out of the theater and stopped at the first restaurant we came to. It was a small Italian place with black booths, red and white checkered table cloths and a short wine list. Noah said he’d eaten there once before and the food was good.

I followed him inside and we settled into a booth with two glasses of Chianti. The wine was awful, even for cheap stuff, but the pasta was good. We talked about the movie and our favorite restaurants, then the conversation hit an unexpected lull. I wanted to fill the void quickly, so I asked Noah the first question that popped into my head.

“Was last week your first time Speed Dating?”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “What’s Speed Dating?”

What was this,
The Twilight Zone
? “You know. The event we met at last week. At Starbucks.”

“What event? I just went there to for a cappuccino. Actually, I was surprised at how crowded it was. It’s usually empty at that hour on a weeknight.”

I wished I could crinkle my nose and disappear like Samantha on
Bewitched
. I’d assumed that the only people at Starbucks that night were other Speed Daters. Obviously, I was wrong.

“What’s Speed Dating?” he asked again.

At this point, there was no way I could lie my way out of it, so I explained the program to Noah. He responded with hysterical laughter. I tried to be a good sport, but when he was banging the table with his fist…“It’s not
that
funny
.
”

He breathed deep and took a sip of his wine. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at the situation. All this time you thought I was there Speed Dating, and I’m not even Jewish.”

This last part sent him off on another laughing binge, which started me laughing too. I supposed from his perspective, it was pretty funny. For the rest of the evening, every time he smiled at me I imagined he was thinking about our misunderstanding, then I would start laughing, which would start him laughing too. It made for a fun date.

As Noah walked me to my car, I thought about inviting him back to my house for coffee, but decided against it. It was already past midnight and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

When we reached my silver sedan, Noah grabbed my hand. “I had a lot of fun tonight,” he said.

“Me too,” I replied.

“We should do this again soon.”

“I’d like that.”

We sounded like we were reading from a bad script. Then Noah went off the script and kissed the palm of my hand. He held it to his face and, to my surprise, my fingers began stroking his neck and the tip of his earlobe. His skin was warm and incredibly soft.

Then he bent down and kissed me. First he just brushed my lips with his. Then he softly pushed down and I responded. His lips were warm and his mouth tasted like the mint chocolate chip ice cream he’d had for dessert. It was delicious. I was just starting to feel the tingle spread through my body when Noah pulled away.

“You better go,” he said.

I was a little startled by the sudden change. But once the moment passed, I realized he’d been right. It was only a first date. We shouldn’t let things go too far.

I climbed into the driver’s seat and drove home, alone, as usual. But that night I dreamed about Noah. And we weren’t just kissing.

* * *

I woke up the next morning and looked at the clock. 9:18 a.m. Too early for a Sunday. I rolled over and went back to sleep. The next time I looked at the clock it was 10:42 a.m. I jumped out of bed. I’d almost forgotten about my date with Richie Rich. I was meeting him for brunch at noon. If the traffic was light I might still be able to make it on time. But the traffic was never light.