What Love Looks Like (4 page)

“That’s insane. You
need to take responsibility for your happiness. Go out and get what you want
because it isn't just going to come to you, honey.”

        
“What
if he laughs in my face? He’s, like, a ten, Mo. He probably sleeps with
models.”

“You seem to be
forgetting that you too were blessed with unusually good looks,” she said. It
was sweet of her to say it, but it was also the obligatory response of any
encouraging wing woman. “Life’s too short to just let opportunities pass you
by. I say, seize the day.”

I sighed and
considered Maureen’s advice. She was right. As the ever-quotable Eminem once
said, you only get one shot. And what was the harm in asking him out? If he
blew me off, it wasn’t as if I ever had to see him again.

“Okay, you’re right.
I’ll give him my card,” I said.

        
“Your
card only has the office number on it.”

        
“I’ll
write my cell number down on the back. Geez.”

        
“Atta
girl!”

        
Soon
after all of the guests were seated, Maureen headed back to the office. The
final head count was two hundred and seventeen people, without a doubt the
largest lunch party in the history of East Coast Prime Downtown. Ryan and his
servers executed the salad course about fifteen minutes into Jay’s presentation.
I stuck around for a few more minutes at the front entrance for any stragglers
who showed up late. Latecomers aside, I had to figure out exactly how to pass
off my unsolicited business card to Jay without looking too pushy.

“So how do I sound up
there?” Jay asked, surprising me at the hostess desk. He was apparently on his
first intermission. He must have known he sounded good, and that he looked
good. But I wouldn’t tell him that, at least not explicitly.

        
“Very
informative,” I said, smiling.

        
“Thanks.
So, your job seems cool.”

        
“It’s
not as exciting as it looks. I spend a lot of time in my office.”

        
“I
hear that.”

        
“So
where are you staying?”

        
“The
Hyatt Regency right down the street.”

        
“Nice
hotel.”

        
“It’s
not bad. Is your office here?” he asked.

        
“No,
we’ve got a sales office about ten minutes away. That’s my home base. I’m
actually headed back there any minute. But I want to make sure that everything
goes perfectly for you.”

        
“Everything’s
been great so far.” His hands gripped the host stand so forecefully that his
knuckles turned white, and I couldn’t help but picture those hands gripping me
by the hips. His mannerisms had an air of authority and self-assurance.

        
“Well,
if you need anything at all, here’s my card.” I cleared my throat and
simultaneously jotted down my cell number on the back, as I promised Maureen I
would. “You can reach me directly at this number”—I pointed to the back
of my card—“for the rest of the afternoon if any issues arise. Not that
they should—I mean, Ryan’s fantastic. But just in case. I mean, they’ll
take great care of you, but you know, as a backup—” I chastised myself
for my awkwardness.

        
“Great,
thank you.” He examined the card front and back. Our eyes met briefly, and
again I trembled from the effect of his gaze. He grinned slightly, brushed his
golden hair off his forehead, and then adjusted his Windsor-knotted tie. “It
was really great meeting you, Elle.” He lingered for a moment and bit his lower
lip, our gaze still intact.

“You too,” I said. He
nodded, shook my hand once more, and returned to his podium.

Back in the manager’s office, I gathered my coat
and purse and thanked Ryan for his flawless implementation of my event. He
managed a half smile and a nod, and I made my way out the back door and into the
snow. I plopped into the front seat of my car and made the trip back to my
office in silence. There was too much to consider, and I didn’t want music to
drown out the lingering vision that I had of Jay. True, I knew nothing about
him. I didn’t know his age, his relationship status, or anything about his
background or personality. But I knew for certain that I liked what I saw, and
that I desperately wanted to see him again. And if I did, I wouldn’t let him
get away. But the ball was in his court.

4

 
       
A
week after the luncheon, I resigned myself to Jay Conrad's indifference.
Maureen was nearly as disappointed as I was when he didn’t call during the
remainder of his trip, but we both came to terms with it and carried on with
our work-consumed lives. I was having a difficult time escaping my professional
life at all. With no man and a bunch of married girlfriends, work had become
not only my livelihood, but also the sole source of my social life too.

“I don’t know
how you work with her in the office every day and manage not to cuss Penny
out,” Jenna said. We were browsing through Rowe, a chic, expensive boutique on
High Street. I looked at a display of folded pashminas and listened to Jenna
complain about Penny’s latest offenses. “She literally walked right past me to
say hi to Ryan when she walked in yesterday. It was like I didn’t exist. She
hates
women. I don’t understand it. I
know Ryan’s hot, but Jesus, would a hello to little old me kill the woman?”

“Wait. You think
Ryan’s hot?”

        
“Totally,”
she said emphatically. “I mean, in, like, a hot boss kind of way. I like that
authoritative vibe he gives off.”

“Hmm, I never
thought of him in that way.”

“Oh yeah, all
the girls in the restaurant love him, including One Cent.” I couldn’t help but
chuckle; Maureen’s nickname for Penny had gone viral.

“Maybe something
happened in her life that caused her to be such a mean person.”

        
“Maybe
she’s just miserable because she has the worst clothes I’ve ever seen.” Jenna
said.

        
“That’s
not the point. She could be Anna Wintour, but would it change the way you felt
about her?”

        
“No,
but I’m not really an American
Vogue
fan. And I really don’t understand why you’re defending her. She’s meaner to
you than she is to anyone else.”

“I try not to
let people like that get under my skin anymore. When someone is as ruthless as
Penny, it’s more often than not because they’ve got some fucked-up mental
baggage. She’s probably harder on herself than she is on any of us.”

        
“Well
she’s obviously jealous of you.
Everyone
thinks you’re the pretty girl, and she knows that,” Jenna said.

        
“That’s
ridiculous.”

        
“It
is not. It’s the truth.”

        
“Well
I don’t buy it.” I replied.

        
“Why
not?”

        
“Um
. . .” I was reluctant to tell anyone about my unfortunate past as a bullied
teenager. I feared that they’d judge me for the loser I once was instead of
seeing the person that I’d become. “I was different when I was younger. Really
different. I was so shy in high school.
And definitely
not
the pretty girl.”

At seventeen
years of age, I couldn’t wait to graduate and break free from the lonesome
identity I had somehow acquired; and I vowed never to attend a high school
reunion. More recently, I used Facebook to spy on the girls who had once made
me hate my life; I took a very guilty and silent pleasure in noting that many
had gotten less attractive while I’d finally come in to my own. They’d worsened
with age, while I’d improved.

The one perk of
being an outcast in high school was that you had nowhere to go but up. I wasn’t
the girl who peaked in adolescence—quite the opposite. And as a teenager,
I’d assumed that I would always be a loser and never imagined that anyone would
ever consider me “pretty,” as Jenna suggested. The self-loathing I’d once
possessed kept me from bad-mouthing people like Penny, even though I sometimes
had to bite my tongue.

It took my
entire twenties to learn what some people were born knowing: it didn’t matter
what anyone thought of me and that I, like all people, was worthy of happiness
and could succeed in spite of my past. I finally felt I'd been given something
of a reprieve when I arrived as a freshman at Ohio State. It was my second
chance. But I still had deep-rooted social anxiety, and I couldn’t completely
accept that I deserved joy simply because I was born into the world. I’d been
programmed in high school to believe that it was my lot in life to be an
undesirable outsider. But with each passing year of my twenties, I felt more of
a shift. And I knew that anyone else’s opinion of me was their problem, not
mine. But the moment my back was pushed against a wall, my inner teenager crept
up and said, “
Remember me?
”

Every time I
felt insecure about anything, I reverted to that girl. I had empathy for her,
even if I wasn’t her any longer. Deep down, I was still reclusive and introverted
by nature; I just worked my ass off pretending that I wasn’t. And I was still
insecure; I just didn’t let it show anymore. I'd dreaded every day at school
because I feared what someone might say to me about my clothes, my hair, or my
overwhelming shyness. I was bullied unremittingly for five years, and while it
was over a decade ago, the pain hadn’t fully dissipated. I doubted that it ever
would, but I'd found a way to make peace with it and was convinced that the
experience had made me a more tolerant and accepting person. But my remnants of
self-doubt had historically led to poor decision-making from time to time.

        
Thinking
of all this, I watched Jenna pay for her vintage cocktail ring, and I shelled
out two hundred dollars for a pair of J Brand jeans. We headed to Union for
mimosas. Union was our weekly brunch locale, specifically chosen so that that
Jenna could half-heartedly watch the basketball game among her favorite group,
the gay crowd. I’d never been a sports fan, but living in Columbus made it
impossible to completely avoid the Buckeyes. To compromise I included shopping
and girl time into game days. Union was only two blocks from the boutiques,
another reason we chose it week after week.

It was another
frigid day outside, but I didn’t mind; I was one of the few people I knew who
liked the cold. My grandmother had always said that I should be happy no matter
the climate I found myself in. She said that who I was with was more important
than where I lived. In retrospect, she was probably attempting to prevent any
of her grandchildren from trying to move away to somewhere warmer. Her words
stayed with me, though, because when the leaves changed color and snow began to
fall, my energy was renewed. Christmas was the happiest time in my house when I
was growing up, and it meant two weeks away from the mean girls at school. Now
as an adult, I still loved the holidays and went right on enjoying the chilly
weather long after they ended.

Nearly a week
after our shopping trip, I found myself chained to my desk for hours on end
clawing my way through a pile of e-mails. Maureen and I were buried from the
busy event schedule, but the paychecks helped soften the blow of being stuck at
the office. As I hit send on an e-mail confirming the entrées for an insurance
company’s dinner for twenty-five people, I heard my cell phone buzz in my desk
drawer. Robotically, I reached for it without looking away from my desktop.

When I finally
glanced at the screen, I read,
Elle, I’m
so sorry I didn’t call you that night. I misplaced your card.
Instantly, my
mind went to Jay Conrad. I didn’t have any other clients that I’d given my cell
number to recently, or any who had so deliberately blown me off. It had to have
been him.

Who is this?
I typed back, trying to seem as if I hadn’t been waiting to hear from
him.

        
It’s
Jay. We met a couple weeks ago
,
he wrote, confirming what I’d hoped was true.

        
Oh, right. How was the rest of your trip?

        
It was okay. Would have been better if I had
been able to have a drink with you, though.

        
I
blushed in complete astonishment that he’d reached out to me at all, let alone
suggested that we should have had drinks together.

        
Well, you live and you learn
.

That’s the truth. So, you ever make it out to New
York?

        
I’ve been a few times before, but not
recently.
I felt very uncool.

        
Well, maybe we can change that. I should
have asked you out when we met. I guess I choked. I really feel bad about it. I
want to make it up to you.

        
He choked? Jay Conrad, the golden boy, the man
that I’d likened to a fictitious irresistible vampire/billionaire sadist had
choked
? I found it impossible to believe
that he ever choked, especially with women; and certainly not with me. Not that
I was unattractive, but I wasn’t a perpetually tanned, girl-next-door blonde
bombshell either, and that seemed like exactly the type of girl that Jay Conrad
would’ve gone for.

I, on the other
hand was pale, and apart from a daily application of bronzer, made little
attempt not to be. My Mediterranean-looking parents had passed along potent
genes from Northern Italy. As a result, my skin was a light milky-olive tone,
and my hair was thick and espresso colored, and it hung in no particular
fashion down to the middle of my back. And while I was thin, I didn’t have the
giant boobs or bubble butt that I imagined Jay Conrad probably lusted after. If
anything, my butt was kind of wide and flat.

No worries,
I wrote.
Shit happens.

        
“Maureen!” I yelled.

        
She
charged into my office. “What’s going on? You startled me.”

        
“Jay
Conrad texted me!” I held up my phone to show her.

        
“Get
the hell out of here!” She was just as excited as I was. “What did he say?”

        
“That
he was sorry he didn’t text me sooner, and that we should find a reason for me
to visit New York. Does that sound like an invitation to you? Because I think
it does.”

        
“Oh,
definitely.”

        
Jay
and I texted back and forth, on average every ten minutes or so, for the
remainder of that workday and into the evening. The texts took on the form of a
full conversation, revealing details about both of our lives, the kinds of
things that people normally learn about one another on first dates. He was born
in Pennsylvania, ran track and played golf in high school, moved to New York
after college and did some modeling (including an Abercrombie & Fitch
catalog), but then got into software sales. He had three brothers and traveled
a lot for work and pleasure. I found him quite down to earth, in spite of his
exceptional hotness.

Come to New York
, he said later in the evening when I was getting ready for bed.

        
I
barely know you,
I replied with
one hand, brushing my teeth with the other.

        
Well,
that’s why you’d come, to get to know me.
 

        
We’ll
see.

        
Just
as friends,
he said
. Nothing crazy. We’d have fun, I promise.

        
I’ll think about it.
And think about it
I did. I thought about it in bed, as I drifted to sleep, and then again when I
woke the next morning. Shortly after I got up I received yet another text from
Jay, wishing me a pleasant day. I brewed coffee in a state of bliss more
typical of holiday mornings spent with my family, my third glass of wine, or
the sight of Luna romping with another dog in Goodale Park.

I heard from Jay
every day that week. Strangely, as his messages steadily came through, I didn’t
eat or drink excessively the way I normally did. I didn’t even feel the need to
shop for that fleeting sense of satisfaction that I’d come to rely on. My inner
(and once insatiable) appetite was satisfied by the regular messaging with Jay.
He was a substitute for my addictions, and I hoped he might even be a permanent
replacement. In one text he told me that he had
never ever done anything like this before
, which presumably meant
he’d never carried on a pseudo-relationship via text messages with a
near-stranger he’d met for all of thirty minutes. I definitely hadn’t either,
which made our digital liaison all the more energizing.

When I didn’t
order a mimosa at brunch that Sunday, Jenna declared it bullshit and demanded
to know why.

“I’m trying to lose
a few pounds.”

        
“What
for? You’re so thin already.”

        
“I
met a guy. Well, kind of.”