The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken

by Passananti, Mari

  “Very few people love their work. If you’re happy sixty or seventy per cent of the time, you’re ahead of the game. Besides, you’re young. You’ve got time to change careers four times, if that’s what you decide you want to do.”

  I listen to his advice, thinking he’s so handsome and confident that I could jump him right here. Though he must not feel the same way if he’s giving me a speech I could get from a career coach. But I’m not sure where else to steer the conversation so I flip my hair flirtatiously and decide to stick with our safe and serious topic. “So how about you? Do you love your job?”

  “Yeah, I suppose I’m part of the lucky minority.”

  After that, we talk about his job, and I learn that he’s the point man for at least half a dozen accounts, and all of those are for household-name products. I’m starting to feel a little professionally inadequate next to him, when he changes the subject and asks where I’m from. Good. More safe territory.

  He orders us another round of martinis but makes no move to consult the menu. I realize I’ve finished my drink and give him the short version of my life. He listens raptly, as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever heard, when I tell him I grew up in Wellesley, right outside Boston, which was an idyllic existence, featuring excellent public schools, private tennis lessons and long weekends in Stowe and Wellfleet. Then I landed at Princeton and encountered a whole different level of privilege: the kind of kids who use “summer” as a verb, and do so on the Riviera.

  My parents now “winter” in Florida, where they can play golf, drive below the speed limit and eat dinner before six. I neglect to mention that my father, a retired math professor, has become obsessed with paint-by-number kits. Every wall in both parental homes is covered in paint-by-number reproductions of the great masterpieces of classical art. Or that my mother gets hippy-dippier as the years go by, but limits her eco-consciousness to certain aspects of her life. She wears only organic clothing and grows her own herbs. But she still gets her nails done every Thursday and insists on driving her gas-guzzling BMW six short blocks to her gym. I do mention that I have an older brother. He’s married with kids in San Francisco. I stop myself before blurting that he’s probably the most normal member of the Clark clan.

  The drinks arrive. “So that’s the sixty-second scoop on me. How about you?”

  Oscar runs his fingers through his hair and leans towards me over the table. “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell. I was born in Utah, but I went to Columbia and haven’t dreamed of leaving Manhattan since. I’m forty-two years old, and my wife left me a year ago for a French film producer she met at a charity benefit. Maybe I should have seen it coming. They had this whole Euro connection thing going on.”

  I must look at him like he’s lost me, because he explains, “Olivia was from Andorra. We met at a coffee cart on 53rd Street.” He pauses to smile at this memory. “She was on vacation with some girlfriends, but she canceled her ticket home after we spent the better part of a week together. We got married, and while she never complained about it, she never really took to living on our side of the pond. I suppose we’d been growing apart for some time, but it still smarted. Anyway, I came home early from a business trip to London, to surprise her for our anniversary, and the housekeeper told me my wife had gone out. She wouldn’t look at me when she said it, and I knew something wasn’t right. When she came home the next morning and saw me there, she didn’t even try to deny it. She just went to her lingerie drawer and pulled out divorce papers.”

  He pauses and looks directly in my eyes. I have no idea what to say. If Angela told me some guy shared all that on a first date, I’d say, way too much information. The little voice in the rational side of my brain is yowling “red flag!” at the top of her little imaginary lungs, but I’m blinded by Oscar’s looks. Every woman in this restaurant wants my date. I can’t toss him aside because he might be on the rebound like me. Or sensitive. Which, if I recall correctly, used to be considered a good thing in a man, at least until the early 1990’s or so. I take a huge gulp of my second pomegranate martini and mumble, “I’m sorry.”

  He brightens. “I believe everything in life happens for a reason, and I don’t believe in looking back. But I do want to be upfront about my history. What about you, have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “Ever come close?”

  “You could say that.”

  The waiter reappears and provides me with a temporary stay, which is good, because I’m not eager to tell Oscar about Brendan. To an outsider, it might seem weird—no, not weird, unfathomable—that I knew a man for fourteen years and didn’t surmise he was gay. I still feel like the biggest fool ever. In my defense, Brendan went to great lengths to hide the truth. I found a bottle of Viagra after he moved out. It had fallen behind the bathroom vanity, and in hindsight, explained a lot.

  Oscar asks if he can order for us, which catches me off guard because no guy has ever asked me this before. He rattles off a list of requests, and selects a bottle of wine, which the waiter calls a highly discriminating choice. Any thoughts I had previously entertained about offering to pay my share vanish. The rent is more pressing than this stranger’s opinion on my post-feminist manners.

  The wine, on top of the cocktails, gives me the courage to ask Oscar if he ever asked out a complete stranger before.

  “You’re the first. And don’t get creeped out. I just moved into that office a couple of weeks ago. Everyone’s telling me it’s time to get back in the saddle, but I spend so much time at work, and I can’t bring myself to do Internet dating. So when I noticed you, you seemed so beautiful, and fresh, and approachable, that I decided to dip my toe in the water. I figured the worst that could happen would be for you to ignore me.”

  The little voice in my head squeals, “Line! Line!” but I silence it and smile back at him. The wine feels warm in my otherwise empty stomach and I’m getting lost in his gaze. The sushi arrives, not a moment too soon, and the wine keeps flowing. Another bottle appears and lubricates the conversation.

  We actually have quite a bit of those first-date things in common. We both prefer dogs to cats, but neither of us has time for one.

  It turns out Oscar’s ex-wife now lives with his two ex-Labradoodles in Paris. In addition to both being dog-less dog lovers, we both like to ski, but neither of us gets to go very often. We’re annoyed by SUV’s, reality television, and clueless people who don’t care what’s happening in the world. By the time the waiter clears the plates, my first date jitters have developed into a full-blown crush. And he’s getting cuter by the minute. Or maybe that’s the wine.

  We leave the restaurant a full four hours after we arrived. When he steers me out the door, his hand lingers on the small of my back. I expect him to hail a cab, but a black sedan pulls up. “Your chariot,” he jokes, as he holds the door. He’s so engaging, and gorgeous, that his hokey humor doesn’t bother me at all. I slide into the back seat. “Where to?”

  In a moment of insanity, I blurt Angela’s address. I do this because Oscar seems so perfect. I want to remove the temptation to invite him upstairs and ruin the chance of something bigger, for one night of fun.

  “You heard the lady,” he says, and raises the privacy screen. He drapes his arm around me and before I fully process what’s happening, we’re kissing in the back of his limousine. It sure doesn’t feel like he’s out of practice. His hand rests on my knee before sliding up my inner thigh, and while the voice in my head is shrieking at me to push him away, my body over-rules it and I feel my legs open a little as he pulls his mouth away from mine to kiss my earlobes and neck. He pushes one of my spaghetti straps off my shoulder and his mouth moves down to my collarbone. The hand that’s not on my thigh moves up my waist.

  Fortunately we arrive at Angela’s before my resolve crumbles completely. He walks me to the entrance and plants what feels a lot more like a third date kiss than a first date one on me. Angela’s doorman, who has known me for three years
, pretends to ignore the show and admits me without comment. I linger in her lobby until the black car disappears from view, then step back outside and hail myself a taxi. The doorman looks at me quizzically but shrugs, and within minutes I’m on my way home.

  FIVE

  I am so hung over I want to die. I am mortified that my brain, which feels so swollen it could burst through my skull, cannot recall the entire conversation from last night. My memory gap starts around the time the second bottle of wine arrived. I have no idea what we talked about after dinner, but at least I know for sure there was no conversation in the car. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that I missed most of the decade wherein I was supposed to be learning the ropes of Manhattan dating protocol because I was with Brendan. Still, I’m pretty sure that drinking enough to lose parts of a first date can make the possibility of a second date somewhat remote. I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.

  Both fortunately and unfortunately, my head hurts too much to obsess about how much I screwed up. I can kick myself later, after I guzzle a few liters of water and the Advil kicks in. I briefly fantasized about calling in sick when the alarm went off this morning, but I have three client meetings today. Besides, staying home wouldn’t buy me a day of rest. Carol has her assistant call sick employees at various intervals throughout the day, to make sure they’re home. She claims to have some “pressing work question,” but it’s always something that could wait. I make a mental note to cancel my landline, toss back as much water as I can stomach, and haul myself to the shower.

  The subway ride is fifteen minutes of pure hell. My head feels like it’s in a vice and someone’s breakfast smells of onions. I make it to the office by ten after nine, and brace myself for the barrage of questions about my date with the mystery admirer from across the way.

  I head straight for the kitchen, where I run into Marvin, who looks too traumatized to remember to ask about my love life. He’s frantic, red-eyed, and generally looks like he’s stuck his fingers into an electrical socket. “Someone stole our coffee maker!” he finally manages to splutter.

  I don’t immediately register what he’s saying so he elaborates. “It was there last night, and now it’s gone. I’m going to Starbucks. Do you want anything?”

  I ask him to bring me the biggest coffee he can carry.

  Carol struts off the elevator before Marvin can make it out the door. “Good morning, people!” she trills.

  She sounds happy. Friday mornings she does yoga. It normally tempers her mood swings for an hour or two. She steers Marvin back towards the bullpen. “People, I have an announcement. Effective immediately, this office is detoxifying. No more coffee! We’re all going to drink green tea, which will make us more alert, more productive, and therefore more wealthy.”

  She plucks a Starbucks cup from New Girl’s desk with a gloved hand and deposits the almost-full beverage in the trash bin. New Girl stifles a whimper. Carol turns and retreats to her office, and her assistant starts distributing tea bags from a cardboard box. As soon as we hear Carol get on the phone, Marvin gives me a look and I get up and accompany him to the coffee shop.

  Around ten, I receive an email from Oscar, which is odd, because I only gave him my phone number. He must have consulted our website.

  “Zoë, I can’t stop thinking about what a great time I had last night. You’re amazing. Are you free on Saturday? I’d like to cook you dinner. Xoxo Oscar.”

  Wow. Maybe I’m not so bad at dating after all. Or maybe he was too buzzed to notice that I passed buzzed and rounded the turn into drunkenness shortly after the second martini rolled into the first bottle of wine. I email him back, thank him again for dinner, and tell him my boss reads my email so he should use my Gmail account.

  Saturday. I have something Saturday, but in my post-debauched state, I can’t remember what it might be. Besides, whatever it is, it can’t be as important as a second date with the hottest, most sophisticated man who’s ever taken an interest in me. And called me amazing.

  Sadly, there’s no time to think about the weekend now. I have a junior litigator coming in for a practice interview. We don’t normally provide that service, but this poor kid gets loud hiccups whenever he’s nervous. Carol says it’s part of my job to de-sensitize him to the interview environment. Which is bullshit. We work for commissions. If any regular client kept striking out like this, Carol would say to write him off and tell him, gently, that there’s nothing more we can do. But this kid isn’t a regular client. A month ago, when Carol assigned me the file, she told me, “He’s a V.I.P.” When I asked her to please clarify, she got all giggly and told me, “Well, just between us girls, his father is a partner at Silverblum Gatz, and he thinks it’s time Junior accomplished something for himself. So he’s resolved not to get his son another job, unless he absolutely has to.”

  I thought that explained it, because everyone, even New Girl, knows Carol would love to get a Silverblum account. The prominent investment bank is one of the few feathers still missing from her professional cap. But there was more.

  “And I want to get that dreamy Walker Smythe into bed,” she confided. “So you had better do right by his son.”

  Powerful, wealthy men make my normally frosty boss frisky. So that’s why I have blocked off two hours of time, for which I will not get paid, to grill Percival Rupert Lyman Smythe about his law school grades, his woefully limited work experience, and his 2nd Circuit clerkship.

  Percival Rupert Lyman Smythe is late, because it’s not the receptionist on the phone. It’s Niles. His sperm was too cold to spin, or something like that, and they have to try again next month. But in happier news, he tells me that he thinks his meetings went well, and he’s ready to fly to Cutler & Boone’s LA office to try to seal the deal.

  I take down the dates he can’t travel due to Susie’s ovulation calendar, and promise to set up the trip as soon as possible. If I can’t get him out there within a week or two, chances are good the deal will die.

  While I’m busy on the phone, Carol’s assistant swoops down out of nowhere and confiscates my venti Americano-with-two-extra-shots with her manicured talons.

  I dash out to buy a replacement and return in the same elevator as the Silverblum guy’s kid. Safe. Carol’s not quite crazy enough to seize my beverage in front of a client.

  Unfortunately, she’s hovering over my empty desk when I emerge from the conference room almost two hours later. She’s reading my email. Not even surreptitiously. Marvin shoots me a sympathetic glance and mouths, “Lunch?” I mouth back, “Okay,” but Carol has other plans for me.

  “Zoë, darling, are you free for lunch?” she practically sings. Not a good sign. When she calls any member of her staff darling, it’s because she wants something. Such as twelve hours of labor on a Saturday.

  I can’t lie. She’s been in my Outlook and has no doubt seen I have nothing planned. Evidently she needs to buy a present for a friend and she wants to use me as a mannequin. Resistance is futile. If I tell her I can’t do it now, I’ll be out at Barney’s with her at eight o’clock tonight. At least it looks like she took her pills today. Her make-up is beautifully blended.

  Moments later, we’re down on Madison, hailing a cab, which is ridiculous, because Carol has a driver. He parks a block away, because she thinks none of us know about him. Just like none of us are supposed to know she shops for herself during the work day. She has her chauffeur ferry her bags directly from Bergdorf‘s to her apartment so we won’t see.

  My throbbing head and I spend the better part of an hour modeling Hermes scarves for my boss and a saleswoman who makes me feel small and unworthy by glaring at my pinstriped pantsuit as if its inferior fibers might somehow contaminate the merchandise.

  Her obvious disapproval scandalizes Carol, who barks that I should go to Saks over the weekend to buy something presentable and more age-appropriate. “Ann Taylor is only for girls in their twenties,” she explains, in a tone that implies I’m an imbecile. I know better than to ob
ject that achieving the age of thirty-two does not automatically render me rich enough to buy couture.

  After forty painful minutes, she loses interest in humiliating me and makes a decision. We leaves Hermes with her purchase carefully gift wrapped in their trademark orange, and she “treats” me to a lunch of a side order portion of seaweed salad, no dressing, served with a lengthy dissertation on her new detox diet. In addition to coffee, Carol has banned red meat, white carbs, blackened anything, and all “colored” booze. By this she means, champagne, okay, scotch, no good. She drones on for what feels like an eternity about how she’s having her nutritionist and lifestyle guru come in to review the holiday party menu. She’s sure she’d be millions richer if she’d only had the foresight to rid her body of poisonous elements years ago. I’m sure she’d be millions richer if she stopped hiring these quacks to micromanage her personal life through a series of fads, but she doesn’t solicit my opinion, and I’m smart enough not to volunteer it. When she excuses herself to go to the ladies’ room, I decide it’s safe to whip out my phone and order a turkey club and fries to be delivered to me back at the office.

  Kevin must hear me on the landing when I get in shortly before eight at night, because he appears at my door before I can even kick my shoes off. “You look like hell,” he says with a grin. “Must have been a successful date.”

  “Almost too successful. He’s too good to be true.”

  Kevin rolls his eyes. “The guy’s in advertising. He makes good first impressions for a living, but I’m glad you had fun. It’s about time you emerged from your cave. I bet you shaved your legs for the first time in a month.”

  “He’d have no reason to touch my legs on our first date,” I say, with mock incredulity, though I don’t share that my pulse quickens at the mere thought of Oscar’s hands on me again.