The BACHELORETTE Project (The Project: LESLEE Series)

by Tami Anthony

  Annie breaks in the middle of the road and proceeds to make a U-turn. “Wait!” I yell. “What are you doing? The restaurant’s the other way.”

  “I’m taking you back home.”

  “Why?” I whine. “Come on, Annie. It won’t be that bad. I just need you there for support and just in case he turns out to be crazy.”

  “You’re the crazy one. I don’t want to be the third wheel on your little Internet date.”

  “But you won’t be,” I assure her. “You’ll be very much a part of the conversation. It’ll just be like three grown adults going out and socializing. Please, Annie. I really like this guy.” It’s not a complete lie. Yeah, I do like him, but I won’t know how much I actually like him until I meet him. Besides, people lie on the Internet all the time. He could turn out to be a complete pervert or scumbag like the rest of them or he could smell … really bad which is an absolute turn-off for me.

  “OK, I’ll go,” Annie agrees, “but you’re buying me appetizers.”

  “Deal,” I say as Annie drives toward the restaurant. We find a parking spot on Walnut Street and walk to Cuba de Alma in silence. “I can’t believe I’m doing this for you,” Annie says as she opens the door to the restaurant. I walk inside.

  “I’d do this for you if the tables were turned,” I tell her walking to the hostess stand. “Party of three for Leslee,” I tell the hostess and she looks over her list.

  “Your other guest is already here,” the hostess tells us as she walks us to the table. So this means that Xavier is good with time. That has to be a good personality trait, even though I’m late for everything I go to. Maybe if Xavier and I hit it off, he can teach me about time. That would be a good thing, right?

  As we walk toward the table, I see Xavier waiting patiently for us. He smiles. I do have to point out that he looks a little off from his Internet picture. He’s so young looking and so chubby that I almost feel bad for him. He stands up from his seat to greet Annie and me, and I notice that he’s shorter than me. Not only was the picture a little bit of a lie, but his height seems a little off as well. Then again, I am wearing heels. The world seems so much higher in a pair of Louboutins.

  “Hi, Xavier,” I say pleasantly as I give him a friendly, yet innocent hug.

  “It’s nice to meet you in person, Leslee,” he tells me then looks over at Annie. “Is this your friend?”

  Annie puts out her hand for a handshake and smiles. “My name is Annie,” she tells him.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Annie,” he tells her. “I’m Xavier. I’m sure Leslee told you all about me.”

  I laugh nervously. “Not as much as I should have unfortunately,” I answer. It would’ve been a lie anyway. He really looks off to me, and his hair is outdated, too. A young Hispanic man with a bowl haircut. OK, who in their right mind would wear a bowl haircut after 1992? Really? SERIOUSLY?! In fact, he doesn’t look like his profile picture at all!

  We all sit down in our chairs and look over the menu. “Is the food good here, Leslee?” Xavier asks and I nod my head. He looks around the dining area in awe. “I’ve never been to a nice place like this.”

  “Trust me,” Annie says to him. “You’ll love it. Their black bean soup is killer.”

  “The Sancocho de Pollo is really good, too,” I say. “All the food here is good.”

  “So, Leslee,” Xavier starts, “how was your day?” Should I be honest with him and tell him that I’ve been prepping all day for this date, waiting anxiously to meet him? Nah. I think to myself. I don’t want to seem too eager, or worse: desperate.

  “My day was good,” I answer. “I did some grocery shopping in the morning, I went to the gym, and I did some cleaning. I had a very productive day I would say.” Lies. All lies. I didn’t do any of that stuff today, but I don’t want to sound uninteresting. “What did you do?” I ask him in return.

  “I worked today,” he says.

  “Oh, what do you do?” Annie asks him.

  “I do home remodeling,” Xavier says. “But I mostly do window replacements.” Being a blue-collar worker means that you have to be good with your hands, right? I mean, installing windows is somewhat of a handy job. What would the world be without windows? Oh, who am I kidding? He has one of the most boring occupations in the world. What did we have in common in the first place?

  “So, how do you know each other?” Xavier asks Annie and me. I look at Annie waiting for her to answer. I don’t want to be the one to tell him that we went to college together and she dropped out because of her unexpected pregnancy. It seems too personal to announce over a dinner setting. Besides, this date isn’t about her. It’s about me, and getting to know Xavier. Annie is just a wing-woman.

  Annie looks back at me as if to imply that she wants me to answer for her. Sigh. “Annie and I went to school together,” I inform him.

  “High school? College?” he asks. How embarrassing. I want to keep this part of the conversation short and sweet. I don’t want her feeling uncomfortable, and more importantly, I don’t want the night to consist of Annie’s life story.

  “We went to college together,” I answer. “Temple University.” Where the hell is our waiter? I think to myself. “So, Xavier,” I start, “what is it that you are looking for in a woman?” I think this is a good question. It’s straight-to-the-point, it’s informative, and it’s a good icebreaker. His answer will tell me exactly what type of man he is.

  Xavier laughs nervously as if he doesn’t know what to say. He thinks for a second. “That’s a good question,” he tells me. “Well, I like a woman who’s smart, sexy …” Ring, ring, ring! My cell phone. This can’t be happening. I just asked this man, my date, one of the most important questions of the night and someone has the nerve to call me?! I can’t answer, at least not right now.

  I fish into my purse and pull out my phone quickly. KAREN! Why in the world would she even think of calling me now when she knows that I’m on a date? I ignore the call and put my phone back into my purse. “Sorry,” I apologize to Xavier. “You were saying?”

  “I like a smart and sexy woman,” Xavier repeats. “Someone who isn’t afraid to be themselves—” Ring, ring, ring! I think I want to plan Karen’s murder right now. She isn’t trying to ruin my date. She’s already doing that with the calls.

  “Can you excuse me for a second?” I tell Xavier as I grab my purse and haul ass to the restroom. Ring, ring—“Karen, what do you want?!” I snap into the phone as I answer it. “You know that I’m on a date!”

  “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” she whines into the phone.

  “What? Where are you?” I ask. Leslee, I think to myself, this can only happen to you.

  “I went to the gym up the street from our house,” Karen tells me. “As I was running on the treadmill, my stupid shoelace got caught in the machine and I fell and hurt my ankle. You have to get me.”

  “Where’s Russ?”

  “He’s not home!” Karen snaps. “Just come and get me. I’m in pain!”

  I sigh in frustration. “Fine,” I say in a huff as I hang up the phone. I swear if I wasn’t a nice person, I would leave Karen at the gym and she would have to limp her way home. My love life isn’t being fair to me. I finally have a semi-normal date going and I have to leave (FYI: I say “semi-normal” because I’m sure that most dates do not consist of a party of three).

  I walk back to the table and notice that Annie and Xavier are laughing in conversation. “Hey, where’d you go?” Annie asks as she looks up at me. “The waiter came by and we ordered drinks. I hope you like Mojitos.”

  “Annie, can I talk to you? Privately?” I ask, smiling. I don’t want to scare her too much because what I’m about to do is probably what is considered the unthinkable to most women.

  “Um, sure,” Annie says confusingly as she looks at Xavier. I grab Annie’s hand and pull her out of the seat.

  “We’ll be back, Xavier,” I tell him. “This will only take a second.” I lead Annie to the bar
and she plops onto a bar stool.

  “So, what’s going on?” she asks. “Xavier seems nice.”

  “Yeah, he seems nice to me, too,” I say quickly. “Look, I have to leave.”

  “What?!” Annie snaps. “Where are you going?”

  “Karen had this accident at the gym and I have to take her to the hospital,” I tell her. “She probably sprained her ankle along with losing her mind.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I don’t like Karen,” Annie tells me, “but I can go with you if you want.”

  “Um …” I begin to think if it’s even a remotely good idea to have two people that dislike each other in the same hospital let alone the same room. Then again, it is a hospital. If they happen to fight each other, it’s the perfect place to end up. “You know what I was thinking?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you can …” I can’t believe I’m saying this, “stay with Xavier. You can be like my wing-woman. Men do it all the time.”

  “How are you going to get to Karen when I’m the one who drove us here?” Annie asks me. Oh, yeah. That is a good point.

  “I’ll take a cab,” I reply and Annie rolls her eyes. “I really want to stay, but I have to go. Karen would not let me live this down if I don’t go and get her.”

  Annie begins to shake her head. “I don’t know,” she tells me with uncertainty. “This is supposed to be your date and I don’t even know him.”

  “Yes, but what better way can Xavier get to know me than finding out information from one of my good friends.” I say, smiling. “Please, Annie? Then you can tell me if he’s a good match for me, then the next date, I will go out with him alone.” In actuality, he’s not a bad guy. In fact, he seems like a good guy, just with a bad haircut is all. He has a job, has his own place, no children. There might be something there with him that I don’t see yet, and maybe Annie can find out for me, and as I stated before, men do the whole wing-man thing all the time. This can be the perfect thing to round out my BACHELORETTE experiment.

  “OK, I’ll stay,” Annie agrees with hesitation.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I say, hugging her.

  “You can never say that I’m not a good friend.”

  “I would never say that,” I tell Annie. “You are one of my best friends.” I grab my purse. “Tell him that I’m sorry and that I will call him later,” I say to Annie as I rush toward the exit. This is by far one of the best ideas I’ve come up with, I think to myself. I just hope that he doesn’t think that I’m blowing him off or making up some sort of excuse to leave. Normally, this would be a good excuse to leave a date early, but unfortunately this isn’t an excuse. Karen really is this much of an asshole. Crazy, delusional, Bridezilla best friend. Thank you, Karen. I finally go on one semi-normal date and I have to leave all because of your attempt at achieving abs of steel. Screw you, Karen. Screw you …

  Chapter Eighteen

  "Hey, Annie, it's Leslee! Give me a call back!" I hang up the phone. I've been trying to reach Annie all morning to see how it went with Xavier ... and if Annie's giving me the green light to go out with him again. After the whole foot guy thing and the stripper/dancer incident, I thought it'd be a great idea to have a wing-woman. You know, to see if it's worth going out with Xavier. I trust Annie's judgment, so hopefully all goes well, and hopefully Xavier is the handsome, independent man that he says he is (but I still hate his haircut though, just sayin’).

  I continue to check my cell phone for any missed calls or messages: no messages. Where the hell could Annie be? Usually when I call her, she answers the phone right away, and on the rare occasions that she doesn't answer the phone, she always calls back within 15 minutes. I hope nothing is wrong with her. Oh my God! I think to myself. Maybe Xavier abducted her or something. GASP! I hope it's not that bad. I hope that she's OK, alive, and breathing. But, then again all those crazy Internet perverts that are out there are always kidnapping or killing someone. I begin to worry. What if something happened to my friend on the date that I was supposed to stay on? I’ll feel so bad if that's the case. I pick up my purse and keys and run out the door. I jump into my car and rush over to Annie's apartment. Please, just tell me she's all right, I think to myself. I hope Xavier didn't hurt my friend.

  As I pull up to her complex, I see that her car is there. I park right next to it and go inside her building. I knock on the door. "Annie?" I say and I can hear someone talking on the inside. "Annie, it's me, Leslee!" God, I am such the super stalker, but for good reason, of course. Just as I’m about to knock again, Brianna swings open the door. "Brianna!" I say and give her a big hug. "Where's your Mommy?"

  "She's at the table reading the newspaper," Brianna answers and she runs into the living room to watch cartoons. I sigh out of relief. Thank God! I walk into the kitchen and see Annie sitting down at the table with a cup of coffee.

  "Hey," I say to Annie and she continues to read the paper. "I've been trying to call you all morning."

  "Oh, yeah,” she answers. "I saw that you called. I had left my cell phone here when I went to pick up Brianna from her Grandmom's." She finally looks up at me. "What's up?" she asks. Annie doesn't seem like herself today. She seems kind of standoffish.

  "Well, I wanted to know how everything went last night…with Xavier," I reply.

  "It was fine," she says and gets up from the table. "You want something to eat? Maybe some coffee, too?" she asks and I just shake my head. Why won't she just tell me if he's a match for me or not? I want to know what she’s found out about him.

  She starts to wash the dishes in the sink and I sit down. "No, thank you. I had breakfast already," I say which is a lie. I am so hungry right now. I couldn’t eat because all I could think about is the whole Xavier thing. "So, how did it go?"

  "How did what go?" she asks. OK, she's really avoiding the subject right now! Something isn’t right.

  "You know, the thing with Xavier ... wing-woman ... you know," I remind her.

  "Oh, yes, that's right," Annie says all of a sudden remembering. "Xavier." She pauses. "How do I even say this without sounding too harsh? Leslee,” she starts, “Xavier is not your type."

  "What do you mean he's not my type?" I ask her. There's something that she's not telling me here. I can feel it all in my bones. Maybe she found out about weird fetishes that he has, or maybe he’s a super obsessed stalker type … or maybe his remote control is smaller than average …

  "He's just not the type of man you would date, that's all." Annie doesn't even look at me when she's saying this. "He's not all preppy and all white-collar like the guys you like to date. Xavier is more of the laid back, blue-collar type. He's not you at all."

  "And how would you know?" I ask her. I don't like being judged like this. I'm very open-minded about men. I don't just date white-collar men. The stripper for example: totally not white collar! OK, maybe he was kinda white–collar … OK, fine! He was, but that’s not my fault that those are the type of men that are attracted to me. "Is there something that you're leaving out here? I'm starting to feel like there's something missing," I say to her and she still doesn't look me in the eye.

  "I just don't think that you would make a good couple," Annie says then finally turns around.

  “Well, why not?” I ask. This is like beating a dead horse as people would put it, or trying to talk to a brick wall. She’s never been like this with me.

  "Because Xavier is interested in me," Annie says and I can just feel my mouth drop.

  "What?” I’m so confused at this point. “He's interested in you?" I ask as if she didn't just say that. Did she just say that? All the nights that I spent at home talking to him and now he’s interested in Annie? Why doesn't this add up to me? "But, how ..." My voice just trails off.

  "Well, after you left, we had a few drinks, a nice dinner, and just talked all night," she tells me. “He’s a really nice guy, and I wanted to know if you would mind if I went on a date with him?" How do I even feel about this? How do I even answer
this question? This just became one of the most fucked up moments in dating history. How did I let this happen? Oh, yes, I know how this happened: wing-woman.

  I sigh. "Well, I don't know if—"

  "He said that you two were just friends and that there wouldn't be any hard feelings," she interrupts me—rudely interrupts me. And what she’s telling me is almost funny to me because I didn't know that's how he felt. I know that it's the Internet and all, but if I knew that there definitely wouldn't be anything between us, I wouldn't have wasted my time with him and I would've stopped talking to him altogether. I wasn't talking to him for Annie's sake. I was talking to him for me! "We really have a lot in common it turns out. We like the same music, the same movies,” Annie says. “He loves kids. When I told him about Brianna, he wanted to meet her right away." I half smile. To be honest, I'm kinda shocked at this point. This situation, quite frankly, is a little twisted. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. I just wanted Annie's opinion of him, not to plan dates with him and have extended conversation with him. The wing-woman plan went totally out the window.

  Annie waits for an answer from me and I just sit there with a confused look on my face. The question that I have to ask myself now is would I be OK if these two went out? I mean, I'm not in love with Xavier. I'm in like of him. He made me laugh. I am interested in him, but no so much anymore, especially since he blatantly told Annie that he and I are just friends and nothing more.

  I rise from the kitchen table and begin to leave. I can hear Annie following after me. “Leslee, are you mad at me?” she asks. Could I be mad at her? I mean, I’m the one that thought of the semi-genius wing-woman plan. I just didn’t see something like this happening, or maybe subconsciously I wanted it to happen? Ah, I just don’t know!