“Don’t say anything to her until we’re sure,” she said finally. I couldn’t believe that she still wasn’t convinced, but Meg always had been more optimistic than she should have been when it came to love. Perhaps that’s what happened when you married your high school sweetheart and lived happily ever after, I thought glumly. I tried, as always, not to resent her a tiny bit.
“But—” I started to protest.
Meg cut me off. “Look, Harper,” she said firmly. “I know it looks bad, especially if the girl was saying that stuff in the bathroom. But isn’t it possible that she was lying to her friend? And that you were mistaken about what you saw at the table? Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe it wasn’t even Alec.”
Okay, this was downright delusional on Meg’s part. Clearly I had gone to the wrong friend about this. I needed to call Emmie instead.
“Maybe you’re right,” I mumbled, not really meaning it. I had no idea what else to say, and my frustration level was rising along with my anger at Alec. Obviously I needed proof. If I couldn’t convince Meg, how was I going to even broach the subject with Jill? I felt heartsick thinking of the conversation I’d have to have with my newlywed friend, who was so fixated on the image of perfection she thought she had created for herself.
I hung up with Meg and immediately called Emmie. I quickly recounted everything I’d seen at Ralph’s.
“I was right,” Emmie breathed softly when I had finished.
My breath caught in my throat. “What?”
“I thought I saw him,” she said slowly. “About a month before the wedding. With another woman. I wasn’t sure, so I never said anything to Jill or you guys. And I think I kind of talked myself into thinking I’d been mistaken. Who would cheat on his fiancée just a month before the wedding? But it must have really been him.”
“Oh my God,” I murmured, feeling sick to my stomach. “He’s been cheating on her all along?”
“That little bastard,” Emmie said, her voice soft and deadly. “I’ll kill him.”
From her tone of voice, I believed she might do it.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, since killing him was not actually an option, although it was certainly tempting. “Jill will never believe us if we just tell her. She wants to believe everything is perfect.”
Emmie was silent for a moment.
“Let’s follow him,” she finally suggested.
“Follow him?” I repeated dubiously.
“Yes,” Emmie said, sounding more sure of herself now. “The next time he tells Jill he’s going to a business meeting or has been called into the hospital. Let’s follow him with a camera. We’ll take pictures. Then she’ll will have to believe us. We’ll have proof.”
My stomach swam uncomfortably at the thought. “We’re not detectives, Em.”
“We can be if the situation calls for it,” she replied, sounding a bit insulted.
“But, Em, he’ll see us,” I insisted, feeling discouraged.
“Not if we use the wardrobe closet to disguise ourselves,” she said mysteriously. I felt a little glimmer of hope, even though my recent experience with the wardrobe closet had been less than ideal.
“You think?” I asked after a moment. Far-fetched as it sounded, it just might work.
“Definitely,” Emmie said firmly.
We agreed that Emmie would sit in the coffee shop across the street from Jill’s apartment the next evening and wait to see if Alec came out. I told her I would join her there after work; then I remembered I’d already made a commitment.
“Oh geez, I have a date,” I exclaimed. I was supposed to have dinner with yet another NYSoulmate.com match, a political consultant named Jack. “I’ll just call him and cancel.”
“No,” Emmie said. “We don’t even know that Alec will go out tomorrow night. And you have less than a week left on The Blonde Theory. Just keep your cell on. If I see him leave, I’ll call you and have you meet me wherever he winds up.”
I DIDN’T SLEEP much that night. Whether Meg believed me or not, I knew what I’d seen. Poor Jill.
She had been so sure that she had finally stumbled upon perfection when she found Alec. And she had it all planned out in her head. She was living her dream—perfect, wealthy husband; perfect, expensive home; perfect, upper-class life. But it was all a sham. And she didn’t know it yet.
It seemed her mother’s constant nuggets of wisdom about dating had backfired. Sure, Jill had gotten everything she’d always thought she wanted, everything her mother had ever told her she needed. But she had forgotten to look for one basic ingredient in her perfect man: decency. I’d always had the feeling that she looked down her nose, just a little bit, at Meg, who would probably never make more than eighty thousand dollars a year (not bad anywhere else in the country, but pocket change in Manhattan) and who was married to an electrician probably making about half that. They lived in Brooklyn; they clipped coupons; they wore clothes they’d had for years instead of buying new wardrobes every season as Jill did.
But they were happy. Really, truly, genuinely, lasts-forever happy. And that was one thing Jill had forgotten about in her rush to drag Alec down the aisle so that she could live out the dream her mother had always insisted upon.
I SPENT THE morning yawning thanks to my nearly sleepless night. Molly brought me four cups of coffee (which forced me to make six trips to the bathroom; yes, I have the world’s smallest bladder), but I still didn’t feel awake at noon, when Matt James arrived for our appointment.
The sight of him was enough to stir me into at least a semblance of alertness, though. As Molly let him into my office, I couldn’t help but notice how good he looked in a pale blue shirt, charcoal slacks, and a charcoal silk tie. He was downright gorgeous. Damn it.
“Wow, fancy,” I said, teasing him slightly.
He shrugged and grinned at me as Molly shut the door behind him. “Well, I had a big meeting with some big-shot lawyer today.”
“Anyone I know?” I asked with a smile.
“Nah, just a really gorgeous woman who was nice enough to give me a few minutes to ask her some stupid questions.”
I involuntarily flushed in response. I certainly hadn’t expected that. Then again, maybe he was sucking up because he was afraid I’d charge him for my time today.
“No need for compliments,” I said brusquely, trying to ignore the heat I felt creeping into my cheeks and the rapid acceleration of my heartbeat. “This hour is on the house.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well thanks,” he said softly. “But I still mean what I said.”
His green eyes held mine for a moment longer than was necessary. Finally, I broke the stare and dropped my eyes to the legal pads on my desk, feeling nervous as I fumbled around for a pen.
“Uh, what I can do for you today?” I asked. I looked up at him again and noticed that he was still standing. So was I, for that matter. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head at my rudeness. “Have a seat.”
Matt sat down in one of the leather chairs facing my desk and leaned back, stretching his long legs out in front of him as he watched me for a moment. The attention was making me increasingly uncomfortable, so I sat down beside my desk and hurried to start the meeting.
“So what can I help you with, Matt?” I asked brusquely, trying to sound as professional and detached as possible. No point in letting him know that I wanted to leap into his lap and make out with him. That wasn’t very lawyerly. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to give you what you need since I don’t practice criminal law anymore,” I added tightly.
Matt grinned lazily at me. “Oh, I suspect you’ll be able to give me what I need,” he said with a wink. I struggled to ignore the potential double meaning. Clearly my mind was just in the gutter because he was so distractingly hot. And I, of course, was in the longest slump of my life. “Why don’t you start by telling me a little but about what you do do then,” he continued. “I mean, if you don’t mind.”
“No, that’s
fine,” I said, relieved to be moving on to a topic I at least knew something about. It was better than sitting there wondering what kinds of girls Matt James liked to date, which was the thought currently tugging at the corners of my mind. Admittedly, this was a complete waste of time. I knew he was just flirting. It was probably how he talked to every member of the female gender.
“Patent law is a very specialized area of practice,” I began, trying to sound as formal and professorish as possible. I tried to recall the introduction to my first day of patent law class, but that had been an eternity ago. So I winged it. “Basically, it’s my job to protect the inventions of my clients in a legally binding manner,” I said stiffly. “I have a background in chemical engineering, so most of my clients have some sort of chemical aspect to their work, and I have to deal on a routine basis with people high up in management, marketing, and technical development in companies that my firm does business with. Booth, Fitzpatrick and McMahon is contracted to represent their legal interests in and out of the courtroom. I deal specifically with obtaining and protecting patents for new products they develop.”
I paused for a breath, and Matt nodded appreciatively at me.
“Wow,” he said. He gave a little laugh. “It sounds complicated.”
I shrugged, feeling a bit embarrassed.
“It is sometimes,” I admitted. “I have to do a lot of reading and keep up with everything from the newest developments in the industry to the emerging science behind biopharmaceuticals to the ins and outs of polymer chemistry. It’s really challenging. But that’s part of what I love about it.”
I paused again and thought about it. It had been years since anyone had asked me about what I did on a day-to-day basis. My friends had a basic grasp, and they didn’t need a reminder of my daily routine. Besides, I knew my job sounded very boring to almost everyone but other lawyers.
But hearing myself explain exactly what I did, to an incredibly handsome actor, of all people, sent an unfamiliar swell of pride shooting through me. I didn’t appreciate enough how much I loved my job, or how lucky I was to be doing it. I had been spending so much time lately focusing on the fact that the men in my life were scared of my profession that I had almost started to resent the very thing I loved so much.
I went on to explain to Matt about our in-house technical library and online search facilities, which allowed me to research the background, precedents, and other patent applications that related to the patents my clients were seeking. I told him about how I had to go to several technological and scientific conferences each quarter, just to keep up to date with progress in various fields, and how I had to spend a sizable chunk of my time outside the office skimming research journals. I told him about my occasional trips to Washington, DC, to search through the hard copies of patents at the US Patent and Trademark Office. And I told him about what I considered the most frustrating aspect of my job—the fact that I couldn’t discuss the specifics of my work with anyone, not even my partners in the firm.
Being a patent lawyer was a very isolated life, I explained, feeling a tinge of sadness. It was an area of law that called for the absolute utmost secrecy and discretion, which meant that I couldn’t talk about patent applications with anyone, not even Molly.
“Wow,” he said, shaking his head appreciatively. “Harper, I had no idea. I’m really impressed.”
“You are?” I asked dubiously.
“I came here prepared to ask you all sorts of questions,” he said, after a pause, still looking at me with an intensity that made me feel like squirming under his gaze. “But you’ve explained everything so well. Now I just have one thing I want to know.”
“Yes?” I asked warmly, relishing, for the first time, the opportunity to actually give some advice to someone who didn’t hate me or judge me because I happened to have done well in school or gotten a job I was good at.
“Why...,” he began softly, then paused, shifting his weight in the chair and looking me right in the eye. “Why are you pretending to be a ditzy bartender to get dates on NYSoulmate?”
My mouth went dry, and I could almost feel my heartbeat grind to a stop in my chest. I sucked in a breath and stared at Matt, who was looking at me with what appeared to be genuine concern. “Wh...what?” I finally choked out.
“Why are you pretending to be a ditzy bartender to get dates on NYSoulmate?” Matt repeated in the same even tone of voice, still looking at me carefully but not, I noticed, in an unfriendly way.
“Um, what do you mean?” I asked, stalling for time by playing dumb. Which, might I add, I had been getting awfully good at lately.
“You’re BlondeBartenderHotti,” he said calmly. “I saw your picture.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not mean.
But I felt attacked. “What were you doing on a dating Web site anyhow?” I blurted out instead of answering him. “What, a guy like you can’t get dates without going online?”
Matt looked a bit wounded but shook his head. “It’s hard to get people to see me for who I am instead of as an actor on a soap opera, you know,” he said. He shrugged and held his hands out helplessly. “Like, for instance, I went to a good school, too. Yale, actually. I did pretty well. I’m pretty smart. I’m not just another dude who stands in front of the camera and recites his lines like a trained monkey. But most girls like you wouldn’t even consider going out with a guy like me.”
I was momentarily stunned. Matt James had gone to Yale? And, more unbelievably, he needed help getting dates?
“What do you mean, girls like me?” I asked softly, after a moment of silence between us.
“Smart girls,” he said, looking a bit pained. “Accomplished girls. Girls who aren’t just looking for a guy to wear on their arm. Or to bankroll their lifestyle. Or to brag about to their friends. Girls who have some substance and take pride in taking care of themselves.”
I gulped and stared at him. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; I had always envisioned Matt James dating stick-thin model types (or at least artificial, sexed-up morons like Alec’s redhead). Isn’t that what actors did? Even C-list soap-opera actors? Why would Matt James be any different? He could have any woman he wanted. I cleared my throat.
“Are you being serious?” I asked, my voice sounding smaller and more timid than I’d intended it to.
Matt nodded slowly, staring intently at me. “You still haven’t answered my question,” he said. When I just looked at him, he added, “About the dating site. Why are you pretending to be a dumb blonde?”
My mind spun through the possibilities of what I would tell him. Maybe I could say that it was research for a patent application of some sort. Or that it was all just a joke. Or that it wasn’t me at all—it was another woman on the site who looked like me.
In the end, I decided to tell the truth. I blinked quickly, suddenly fiercely embarrassed.
“Nobody wants to date me,” I mumbled, feeling pathetic. I hated the loss of power that came with admitting what a loser I was in the dating world. I hated that Matt James, someone I barely knew—and beyond that, someone I was attracted to, despite myself—was seeing me with all my layers stripped away. I hated that in order to admit the reasons behind The Blonde Theory to Matt, I had to admit them fully to myself.
“What do you mean?” Matt asked, looking startled.
“Nobody wants to date me,” I repeated, feeling more miserable and embarrassed with each word that crossed my lips. “Sure, I get dates here and there. But Matt, no one wants to keep dating me once they find out I’m smart. Or that I’m a lawyer. It’s like I have a disease or something. Even with the guys who’ve stuck around for a few months—the few serious relationships I’ve had—it’s always been an issue. I just thought...I just thought that maybe it might be worth trying to see what it’s like to date without scaring people, you know?”
Somehow, the floodgates had opened, and I couldn’t stop. I told him about The Blonde Theory: Meg’s idea, the girls’ enthusiasm, and the elaborate lengths to whi
ch we’d gone to pull it off. I told him about the dates I’d had so far and about my sinking feeling that I’d found my answer: that guys would only ever be into me when I acted like a dumb blonde. While I spoke, Matt watched me closely, not saying a word, simply nodding here and there when I finished sentences. I knew he was judging me—and his verdict wasn’t going to be good.
Finally I finished and sat with a dry mouth, awaiting Matt’s reaction. As the seconds ticked by, I began to deeply regret opening up to him. I regretted making the appointment with him, regretted feeling attracted to him, regretted telling him the truth. It had all been a big mistake. A big stupid mistake.
Then he spoke. “This Blonde Theory, as you call it...,” he said slowly, pausing as if choosing his next words very carefully. “It doesn’t...it doesn’t make a lot of sense, Harper.”
“Yes it does,” I snapped back immediately, surprising myself with the vehemence of my own defensiveness.
“Harper,” Matt said slowly. He looked down at his lap then back at me with an intensity that set my heart pounding. “Don’t you realize that if you just act like yourself, the right guy will come along?”
I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to be polite.
“While I appreciate the insight, Matt,” I said, my voice thick with sarcasm, which, of course, I was using to mask the intense discomfort I was currently feeling, “I’ve been trying that for the last twenty years or so. And it’s not working yet.”
“Your mind is just closed, then,” he said simply.
I stared, incredulous. Who did he think he was, Dr. Phil coming to save me from myself? What did he know about being me? What did he know about constantly being rejected simply for being yourself? What did he know about having someone you love simply walk out on you because you’ve done a good job at work?
“You don’t know anything about me,” I said coldly, aware in some remote way that the anger that was rising inside me was a bit misdirected.
“I think I do,” Matt replied softly, without missing a beat, which just infuriated me all the more. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “So you’re just looking for someone who will appreciate you for who you are?” he asked.
The Blonde Theory Page 18
