Steamed

by Conan-Park, Jessica

  My sister, Heather, had finally called back. I rattled off my woeful Noah story in expectation of sisterly outrage.

  Instead of agreeing that I’d been terribly wronged, Heather said, “Well, what did you expect, you dummy?”

  “Did you not hear the words tank top and swagger?” I demanded.

  “Oh, Chloe, get over it.” She covered the phone and yelled, “Walker, pull your pants down before you start to pee! When is he going to stop doing that? Look, Chloe, I’m sorry that things are bad for you right now. I keep telling you to use Back Bay Dates. That’s how Ben and I met, in case you’ve forgotten. I didn’t meet my husband in college the way everyone says you’re supposed to, so I used modern technology. That way you can weed out all the bad ones and match up with someone who shares your interests, wants a relationship, and all the other things you’re missing with these bozos you keep dredging up from God knows where.”

  Heather raised her voice and practically shrieked with glee, “In fact, this is a perfect idea! You can marry your Internet date and both the Carter sisters will be written up in the paper, and we’ll be, like, spokeswomen for Back Bay Dates, sharing our love stories with the public, encouraging people to take charge of their dating lives. It’s a very logical approach to finding the perfect mate. Walker is tangled up in his pants! I gotta go, call me later!” And she hung up.

  There was no way I was going online to meet some serial-killer date. Those Web sites were even worse than the horrible restaurants that hosted “speed dating.” I knew all about speed dating. My old college roommate, Elise Jackson, tried it when she was heartbroken about the end of her calamitous six-month marriage. She prepared by memorizing a short speech outlining her background, her interests, and the top five reasons she was an excellent candidate for further dates. Clad in a professional-looking suit from J. Crew, her hair in a bob, Elise marched off to a round of speed dating prepared to make an eloquent presentation and snag a dream husband. She spent approximately six minutes with each man there, and each time she swapped tables she used up all the allotted time by rattling off the same speech. As each man looked at her with glassy-eyed boredom, she started to panic and began to perspire profusely. By the time she reached her final date, she’d become such a wet, stuttering disaster that she flung her speech away, yanked off her sweat-soaked blazer, downed the rest of her date’s Heineken, and begged him to take her out of there. To her surprise, he agreed. He introduced himself as Teddy and took her for drinks at Rialto. There he confessed that he’d made a mockery of himself by passing out “cheat sheets” to the women: his romantic résumé, including all his contact numbers, printed on four-by-six cards. He said the ultimate humiliation had come when a severe-looking brunette had taken out a red pen and begun correcting his notes. “See where you’ve written, ‘Adventurous and ready for anything’? You should really give an example of what you’ve done that’s adventurous so your dates know what you mean by that.” Elise and Teddy laughed their way back to her place and spent the night giggling about Miss Editor and how lucky they were to have found each other.

  Teddy and Elise are now married and domestically settled in a suburb of Chicago. I hate Elise.

  But it still seemed so unromantic to me, the notion of people speeding to present themselves to one another and then racing to evaluate amorous possibilities on the basis of minimal profile information—not at all the way I pictured meeting my future spouse. I was sure that if I tried this increasingly popular method, either I’d end up talking to a bunch of dopes who were dying for my number, or I’d spend the evening swooning over men so far out of my league that I’d leave feeling inadequate and depressed. Just because Elise and Heather had found great matches through contemporary means didn’t mean I was cut out for it.

  I stood peering into the fridge in the hope of finding comfort food. Perhaps there was something to be said for taking control of one’s love life, I thought. I mean, meeting a man in some random place like the supermarket or a bar didn’t necessarily mean that fate had somehow planned the encounter and didn’t guarantee that you and the guy would be even vaguely compatible. Television and movies had tainted my perspective on how couples can actually meet; my fairy-tale idea of romance was the result of too many hours of seeing actors, beautified by makeup artists, stylists, and personal trainers, collide with destiny, which had been equally beautified by set designers, lighting experts, and production crews. Lies, lies, lies! Besides, hadn’t I just dated the ultimate caricature of big-screen sex appeal and charisma, Noah? And look where that had gotten me. Well, speed dating was out. But I did contemplate Heather’s Back Bay Dates. A rational, logical approach was what I needed.

  THREE

  BY six o’clock that evening I had finished the first coat of Oops paint in the living room. Each wall was a different neutral, earthy tone. I’d cleaned up some of the clutter but had left the furniture in the middle of the floor. Although peace and calm had yet to fill the space, I’d done enough for one day. I’d been listening for signs of Noah downstairs. Except for some blasting of Jimmy Buffet, I hadn’t heard anything. It was a miserable feeling, both yearning for and hating him.

  I warmed up my favorite junk food for dinner, a frozen puff-pastry pie filled with spinach and feta, and took a huge slice to my bedroom. I positioned myself cozily in bed and ate my million-calorie dinner while I watched a rerun marathon of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Except for the homosexual thing, that Kyan would make a wonderful boyfriend. I almost cried as he gently and sensitively convinced a straight man to remove his horrendous toupee and reveal his bald head to his family. Even when the cast returned for their second season with terrible new hairdos, I forgave them because they had accomplished their mission of correcting the wrongs, fashion and otherwise, of straight men everywhere.

  I’d have given my entire supply of beautifying lotions and potions to have had the forethought to stock my fridge with pastries from the North End. The only other cheer-up food I had were some chocolate-covered Oreos, which, although not Italian delicacies, did momentarily take the edge off my heartache. By ten o’clock, when another newly made-over straight guy had shared his new look with family and friends, I was exhausted. I shut the television off, lay down to go to sleep, and promptly developed a horrible case of insomnia.

  I’d gone through bouts of it before. It used to afflict me almost every Sunday before school or work. I’d be awake until four or five in the morning, tossing with nerves and anxiety, sweating, and crying from exhaustion. I’d count the few hours I had left to sleep and worry about how I’d function the next day. Tonight, my mind raced with the fear that I’d live the rest of my life in my zany-colored condo above Noah, alone with my socially challenged cat and an unreliable coffeemaker.

  My heart started pounding, and I grew more and more frustrated with myself. Why couldn’t I sleep? Anxiety flooded my brain, memories of mistakes I’d made and fears of mistakes I would undoubtedly make. I remembered the embarrassment I’d felt at the age of seven when my mother had caught me stealing a Snickers bar from a convenience store. I thought of the time in tenth grade when I’d failed a pop quiz in French class, where I usually got As. My teacher had written “Mauvais!” with an accompanying frowning face at the top of my paper. Even the checkout incident at Home Depot!

  Then my brain started rehashing memories of relationships and rejections. Like, there was the day I had finally broken up with Sean. He had loved me so intensely, and for whatever reason, I just hadn’t loved him back enough. I had broken up with him three times in the two years we had dated, each time getting back together with him because I hadn’t been able to tolerate the pain of being apart, the anguish I had caused him, and the unhappiness I had caused myself.

  We had made plans to move in together, and after avoiding apartment hunting for weeks, I’d gone to see a therapist friend of mine, Debby.

  “Look,” she’d pointed out, “Sean has become more like a brother to you than a boyfriend. And you don’t s
leep with your brother.” She’d paused. “At least you’re not supposed to.”

  Deciding that I didn’t want a life of brotherly love, I called Sean and, in cowardly fashion, ended things on the phone. I hadn’t wanted the burden of seeing his face and watching his heart break.

  I pulled the pillow down tightly over my ears, as if I could block out the memory of his angry words. “You’re not doing this to me over the phone. I’m coming over,” Sean had said in a panic. He had raced over to my place, and I hadn’t even had the decency to look at him. Instead, for the twenty minutes he’d been there, I’d kept my face buried in my hands, but I hadn’t been able to stop crying and shaking because I was tearing him apart. I forget most of his words, but I remember hearing him pace across my floor. I’d just kept telling him how sorry I was. He’d punched the wall, walked to me, kissed me on the forehead, and said, “I love you.” Then he’d left quickly, and I’d sobbed on the couch for two hours.

  Maybe I should have stayed with Sean, who’d loved me so much, who’d been such a great guy, who’d wanted to marry me and live happily ever after. Why I hadn’t loved him that way, too, I just didn’t know. I replayed the scenario in my head until I couldn’t stand it any longer. When I finally sat up and looked at the clock, it was one in the morning. I tossed myself back down on the bed and spent the next two hours in an insomniac search for comfort: smoothing the sheets, adjusting the pillows, trying to relax and clear my head of everything negative. At three, I gave up, turned on the lights, and went to the computer.

  And visited the Back Bay Dates Web site.

  Fatigue made me feel as if I’d been chugging cheap beer; it loosened my inhibitions and nudged me in directions I wouldn’t otherwise have turned. Opening the Web page, I could see why people used Back Bay Dates. The site wasn’t filled with idiotic photos of happy couples strolling along a beach flanked by a fabulous sunset. There were no flashing hearts, no bridal bouquets bouncing across the page, no promises of perfect love, no matrimonial guarantees.

  On the contrary, everything was professional and streamlined. All right, I did have to fork over $39.95 for the perks of membership, but would I want to date someone who was too cheap to invest so little in a future with me? Of course not. I was worth the money. I was weeding out cheapskates by joining this fee-for-service site rather than one of the free-for-all-freaks sites. So I punched in my credit card number and silently thanked dead Uncle Alan for funding my foray into modern dating. After debating user names for twenty minutes and deciding that there were no cool user names, I settled for GourmetGirl.

  I answered approximately three hundred questions regarding my leisure activities, basic physical attributes, and hopes for a partner’s qualities. I struggled over the first thirty questions as I debated the pros and cons of each response. I mean, if I said, “Yes, I am spontaneous and enjoy flying by the seat of my pants,” would I attract a chaotic and untrustworthy man with no sense of commitment? Or would I meet a man who would surprise me with a midnight flight to Rome to dine al fresco at his favorite hidden jewel of a restaurant on pasta made by a cute little old Italian lady who would proclaim us a match made in paradiso? I eventually gave up wrestling with my responses and just clicked my mouse on the multiple-choice answer that seemed most me. I then previewed my profile, posted myself in Women Seeking Men, and set up my Back Bay Dates mailbox. Members could browse one another’s profiles, even search by various categories, and if interested, e-mail the person at a BBD mailbox, all anonymously. I could always back out of this lunacy by ignoring my mailbox or canceling my account.

  I had nothing to lose by reading profiles. I checked out dozens of men and discovered that BBD was not the cyber meat market I had imagined. Most of the profiles read like mine: they described relatively normal people looking for love. Some of the men had even included pictures, often images that eliminated some sweet-sounding guys. Even though I was becoming a politically correct and open-minded social work student, I still wanted a hottie.

  I finally chose three profiles, none for any particularly good reason except maybe the lack of self-descriptions such as, “I enjoy extreme skateboarding and body piercing for pleasure.” I sent each man a BBD “postcard,” which was the site’s way of letting someone know you were interested in a profile. I had a nasty case of buyer’s remorse after I hit Send, but was so tired that the twinge of doubt didn’t keep me awake.

  I woke at ten on Sunday morning to the smell of burning coffee, welcome reassurance that some things in life were dependable. I cracked my front door, listened in the hall for signs of Noah, and then rushed down the stairs to the front hall and stole his New York Times—the least he owed me. I sat at the kitchen table and tentatively looked out my window. No blondes today, I was relieved to note. I sipped my coffee, devoured an egg bagel with lox spread, and started on the Times crossword puzzle.

  Somewhere around 28-Across, I was struck by the realization that I’d done something hideous. Oh God! Back Bay Dates. What could I have been thinking? I was not supposed to do anything drastic in my postbreakup state of mind, and there I had gone ahead and joined a freaking dating service. I leaped to the computer and found the site. What was my user name? This was worse than waking up to a wretched hangover and remembering you’ve spent the previous night dancing on a bar counter to “Oh, What a Night” with your skirt yanked up way too high and your bra straps hanging down your arms. I looked around my desk and saw GourmetGirl and my password, NoCheapThrills, scrawled on a sheet of paper.

  I logged in, and, yes, I had indeed posted myself on Back Bay Dates. Shit. Maybe I could delete my information before anything horrendous happened. I navigated around the page and was just about to cancel my account when I noticed that one message was waiting for me.

  No, no, no! I’d been so bleary eyed last night I couldn’t even remember whom I’d written to or what I’d said. I clicked on my mailbox and was terrified to see a message from someone called DinnerDude who had apparently read my message that morning. I groaned and shut my eyes in the superstitious hope that the message would evaporate. I opened my eyes.

  Damn. DinnerDude’s message was still there. He thought our foodie user names were pretty funny, a comment that completely ticked me off since I couldn’t stand people who referred to themselves as foodies. He’d read in my profile that I was a “culinary whore,” a phrase he thought was hysterical. I couldn’t have written that, could I? The ill-chosen term implied that plied with the right risotto, I might just rip off my clothes and sprawl across the dinnerware to show my gratitude. My prospective date went on to write that he was thinking of investing in a new restaurant, Essence, and was going there this evening to check it out again and to speak with the owner and the chef. Because I was so into food, would I like to meet him there tonight?

  Suddenly, the man sounded interesting! And he apparently had money to fling about in investments. Perhaps what had doomed my previous romantic escapades had been food incompatibility! My relationship failures hadn’t been failures at all, but Mother Nature’s way of preventing the propagation of culinarily challenged people, natural selection aimed at eliminating poor palates from the gene pool. All along, I’d been meant for a man who shared my love of wonderful food. This DinnerDude had great possibilities. We could become the new hot Boston couple who invested together in zillions of spectacular restaurants and were written up in Boston Magazine as the premiere patrons of local eateries. With unusual confidence and positive thinking, I wrote an e-mail agreeing to meet DinnerDude at Essence. I then sent Heather a message saying she ought to start organizing my wedding.

  The day planned itself. I had to clean myself up and find something sexy and yet appropriate to wear to dinner. My face was puffy from all of yesterday’s crying and late-night computer activities, and I generally looked pretty disgusting. I called Adrianna and left another pleading message, this time yelling incoherently about e-mail and restaurant dates. Okay, what would my fashionable friend tell me to do first? The solu
tion leaped out at me: free makeover, of course!

  I tossed on jeans and a fitted V-neck T-shirt, raced down the fire escape, didn’t even glance at Noah’s window, hopped in the Saturn, and sped down Route 9 to the Chestnut Hill Mall and charged toward the Lancôme counter.

  A woman named Dana greeted me and listened while I explained yesterday’s mess in excruciating detail, ending with the heinous reality that I would have to see Noah the Jerk again, and probably soon, and that under no circumstances was he to be allowed to witness me looking so gross. And that I had this blind date tonight and better look damn good. Forty-five minutes later, I left the mall with a bag full of gorgeous products and words of encouragement from Dana.

  I arrived home to find a gigantic bag outside my side door. I’d never left anything at Noah’s, so it couldn’t be the traditional returning of items belonging to an ex. I read the card taped to the bag: “Chloe, I’m not sure what is going on, but I can tell you’re having a wild weekend. Sorry I haven’t been able to call. I’m working the rest of today, but we’ll talk tomorrow. Thought you might need something special to wear . . . for an Internet date?!? Love, Adrianna.”

  I took the bag inside, ripped it open, and pulled out the ultimate beautiful dress: straight cut, midcalf length, low across the chest, with thin straps over the shoulders. This stunner was made of some luxuriously silky material in a deep periwinkle blue. I looked at the label sewn in the back and smiled. Adrianna, it read. I knew she’d been slaving over this dress for weeks now: I’d suffered being stuck with pins the numerous times she’d had me model it for her. Ade had been working on a few designs that she hoped to sell to her posh hair clientele, and I’d been secretly coveting this creation during all those fitting sessions. The dress was perfect for the restaurant tonight—fancy but not too formal, sexy but not slutty. She’d even given me matching heels that tied around the ankle, and a pair of sheer nylons. I loved my best friend. I called her cell phone, poured out praise for the dress and thanks for her generosity, and said we’d talk the next day.