Gatz walks past, heading back for the front of the café, and before he can disappear I hurriedly call after him. “Got a question for ya!”
He turns on one heel and looks at me with raised brows. “Yup?”
“My book club,” I say, reaching for a pinch of chocolate shavings.
“Yeah?” He tucks his thumbs into the pockets of his apron.
“We’re having bring-a-friend night next month,” I say casually. “If you’re interested, you’re welcome to come with me.”
He looks on with a slightly puzzled expression.
I give a breathy laugh and say, “Or not. Just thought I’d ask.”
“Okayyyy,” he draws out.
“Since you like poetry and all. Thought maybe you’d be interested in the book club.” I place the chocolate shavings onto the slice of pastry. “That is, if it doesn’t interfere with your classes and all. We meet one night a month, a couple hours over at the library.” I gingerly roll the pastry into the desired shape. “Next meeting’s not until after the holidays. We’re reading Save Me the Waltz. Zelda—”
“Fitzgerald. Yeah,” he says straightaway, rotating back round on a heel. “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”
“Okay, whatever suits you.” I pinch off the pastry and delicately place it on the sheet.
“Jackie not take you up on the book club invite?” Sophie asks, quickly rolling out another pastry.
Gatz exits the kitchen, and I grab for another pinch of shavings and pop a sprinkle into my mouth. “I told you she wanted to bring her collection of Vogues, didn’t I?”
***
This is it! I’m all dolled up for my last blind date, wearing this pretty pink and cream ruffle blouse that still had the tags on from when Jackie made me buy it for the first blind date but that I’d refused to wear after all. I decided to go all out and really get dressed up for this date, seeing how Operation Blind Date officially ends tonight. Either the date will sink or swim, but either way I don’t really mind. The application still isn’t up for the Zambia project, but it doesn’t need to be. I’m ninety-nine percent confident that I’m going to apply when it does go up. I’m leaving the wiggle room of one percent in the event this date swims rather than sinks; and even if it swims I’ll still probably go. Claire says Shane’s a laidback kind of guy and has even done some intrepid traveling of his own, so that means he’d most likely understand me needing to leave town for a few months.
I’m actually really excited about this date, and not just because it’s the last one and I can put this crazy Operation game behind me. Shane’s been made to sound very easy on the eyes, interesting, easy-going—it will probably be an awesome first date.
I look at my sports watch and note that technically Shane should be here, if he’s anything like the last date, John, and punctual.
Oh, well, I think. I decide to get myself a water while I wait.
Thirty minutes, two glasses of water, a beer, and about ten pages of Save Me the Waltz later, I’m not exactly thinking Oh, well anymore.
I glance at my watch for the umpteenth time, and I’m beginning to feel myself seethe. I understand running late; things come up and you can’t fight life. But thirty minutes? No—correction. Thirty-eight minutes and still no Shane?
I scratch at the top of one braid that’s starting to look a little ratty. (I really need to get my hair re-braided.) Maybe I’m at the wrong place. Maybe I got the bar name wrong.
No way, I think as I search through my bag.
The note Claire made out for me reads, Five Knot Tavern, 9pm.
I’m at the right place. It’s well past nine.
It’s official. This date hasn’t sunk; it never left the frickin’ dock.
I take a pull of beer. Go figure. Of course this happens the night I decide to wear these kitten heels Jackie left for me and this really beautiful blouse with my best pair of jeans—the pair that really shapes my butt, slims my hips, and can be zipped and buttoned without me having to hold my breath.
I push the empty bottle of beer to the edge of the bar, and the bartender catches sight. “Can I get you another one, pretty lady?” The sun-weathered, sailor-like wrinkles around his eyes crease as he grins. “On the house.”
“What the hell,” I say with no resolve. “Thank you.”
“Stood up?”
“Looks like it.” I crumple up the note.
He pulls a beer from the fridge and swiftly removes the cap. He sets the cool, condensing beverage on my tattered cardboard coaster. Pushing it my way he says, “Looks like he just might’ve showed up after all.” He makes one sharp nod in my direction and I slowly turn around, filled only with surprise that Shane would have the gall to show up—I consult my watch—fifty minutes late!
I search the room for the newcomer into the bar, but I don’t spot the well-built, buzz-cut brunette that Claire said I’d be expecting. No. He’s not here.
“Emily,” a male voice calls out.
I dart my eyes towards the voice, stopping abruptly as I make out the familiar face at the door.
“Chad?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“What are you doing here?” I ask Chad as he approaches.
He pushes back a thick, wet piece of dirty-blonde hair and clenches his jaw. He takes the seat next to me.
“I am so sorry, Emily,” he says, looking at me with remorseful eyes.
I’m confused. What the hell is going on? Where’s Shane? Wait a minute! Does Shane even exist? Is this all a ruse to get Chad to go on a date with me? Omigod!
I firmly shake my head in confusion, closing my eyes and grimacing. “Wait a minute.” I hold up a hand. “What the hell are you doing here, Chad? Where’s Shane?”
He rests his forearms on the bar and holds up an index finger to the bartender. “A dark on tap.”
“Chad!” I exclaim. “Where’s Shane? Or should I be asking, does Shane even exist?”
“He does,” Chad replies solemnly. “And he’s a jackass.”
I take a slow and confused sip of my beer.
“Sorry he stood you up, Emily,” he says, looking abashed.
“Well, whatever. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but really this whole Operation Blind Date has been a complete hit and miss. It was fun and worth a try, but you can’t force love.” I take another sip. “Ha! Can’t force a guy to show up.”
He rolls his head, stretching his neck from side to side. “Some guys are jackasses, what can I say?”
The bartender serves Chad his dark, foamy beverage.
“So how’d you get wrapped in this?” I ask.
He flicks apprehensively at his lip ring with his tongue a few times, then says, “Apparently I’m the guy who shows up at the bar and saves the day.” He chuckles to himself at what must be some personal joke and takes a long sip of beer. “It’s my pleasure to come here, Emily.”
“Claire tell you to?” I ask with a slight smirk.
“She called me, yeah. Guess Shane called Conner and said he was bailin’.” He cracks his knuckles. “So I go and see him, few minutes ago actually, out there a few houses down, right on his deck, chilling with some guys.” He shakes his head in reproof. “Said he wasn’t up for it after all. I’m sorry, Em. He’s a jackass. I couldn’t leave you hanging.”
“Don’t worry,” I say with ease. “I got to do a bit of reading.” I lazily lift up my copy of Save Me the Waltz.
He takes a long draft of beer, and I mindlessly flip the pages of my book forward, and backward, forward, and backward. “You want to know something funny?” I say, setting my book down and putting my hands in my lap. “Kind of absurd, but funny?”
“Shoot.”
“When I saw you at the door I thought—” I bite on my lip. “I thought maybe you were Shane.”
Chad snorts.
“Like,” I say, bobbing my head, “there really was no Shane. You were him. Like some kind of trick to get me out on a date.”
“Emily.” He leans nearer. “E
mily, if I wanted to ask you out on a date, I’d ask.”
“Well,” I say feeling my cheeks go pink. “So this isn’t some ruse to go out with me?” I playfully shove at his muscular bicep.
“You want to go out on a date?” He looks at me expectantly.
“Honestly?” I jut out my bottom lip and look in the distance behind him, seriously contemplating. “No.”
He guffaws and brings the glass to his lips. “Thanks, way to let a guy down.”
“Stop joking,” I say, punching at his arm this time. “You don’t want to go out with me, and I don’t want to go out with you. Let’s be honest here.”
“No, actually,” he says after a smack of the lips, “I, uh, I’m not being very honest.”
“Oh?” I stare on in bewilderment.
“About asking you out,” he clears his throat in a discomfited way. “If I wanted to ask you out, I would.” He gives me a questioning gaze.
“I don’t follow.” I nervously pull on my beer, rapidly racking my brain for what Chad’s trying to get at.
After another loud and abrupt clearing of his throat, he says, lowly, “I’m lying, saying that if I wanted to ask you—a girl, or, erm, a woman—out, that I would.”
I keep quiet, my silence urging him to further clarify.
Instead of explaining, he swills his beer slowly around the edges of the glass, watching a faint spiral begin like a tiny tornado.
I turn my pewter ring around a few times, randomly surveying the bar, waiting for Chad to fill the awkward void.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asks finally. He fixes his eyes on mine imploringly.
“Depends,” I say. “What’s the secret?”
“It’s Sophie.”
“Sophie?” I sigh. “You burn another batch of baked goods? You on her temporary hate list or something?” I snicker. “Break her oven?” I put one hand on my hip. “Am I going to walk into work next week and there’ll be a dramatic story from Sophie about how you—”
“No,” he interrupts brusquely.
“Okay.”
“It’s Sophie. I want to ask her out on a date, but I can’t.”
“Awww.” I toss my head back, mouth agape. “I see. You and Sophie, all flirty and teasing and picking on each other. You’ve got that sexual tension thing going.” I nod complacently. “The old fling from college is a burning little flame, huh?” I lightly tap his forearm, grinning cheesily. “I see.”
“No,” he says, voice low. “It’s more than that. It’s serious.”
“How serious, Chad?” I’m trying to stifle a flabbergasted look, but I’m imagining where this is going, and I can’t help but feel the weighty tug of shock.
He inhales deeply, almost shakily. “I’m in love with her.”
And there’s that flabbergasted look. That completely, totally bowled-over face that I’m now wearing.
“Don’t say a word,” he says tersely. “Promise?”
I finally bring myself to clamp my lips together. I nod quickly.
“Promise?” he repeats with urgency.
“Promise.”
“I want to be with her, but I know I can’t.” He breaks our eye contact and stares straight ahead. He suddenly looks very sad. His face goes long, almost reading of compunction.
“You could ask her out,” I offer in a meek tone.
“No,” he says, adamant. “No way. Our history’s foggy and messy and—”
“But you have history.”
“Not a great one,” he says with false laughter. “We have a friendship, however weird or rocky it seems or may be, and I get to be around her and help her out around the café and that’s great. But…” He takes an awkward drink. “No. We are what we are, and that’s the way it is. She’d never take me seriously.”
“Fate,” I say with a sniff. “Yeah, sometimes it totally blows.”
Chad lifts his beer and motions for a toast. “To loves: Lost, never had, and, whatever the hell is in the future.”
I raise my bottle and cock my head to the side in an empathetic way. “Cheers,” I say with a clink of glass.
***
Somehow I wind up being the girl who gets to keep the secrets. I’m glad I can be seen as a confidante, but sometimes too much is just too much. This secret of Chad’s isn’t like Robin’s proposal, for instance, since that was soon going to be outed. No, this secret is one that I might have to keep forever!
I see how Chad thinks he can’t approach Sophie and tell her that he’s been secretly pining away for her all this time (and the amount of time? I didn’t even ask—too afraid to hear what I bet has been years!). The two have such a quirky friendship, always on eggshells with each other in a strange, somehow friendly way. But bringing this news to their friendship would probably put Sophie over the edge.
I mean, if Sophie wanted something with Chad, she’s sure as hell had her time to voice it—to do something about it. They’ve known each other for years. He’s there at the café, working alongside her, giving her help. He’s best friends with Conner, and Sophie and Claire are best friends. The four are often together. Not to mention that random, steamy hookup Sophie and Chad had years ago back in college. That hookup that Sophie still freaks out about if it is ever alluded to.
But Chad made me promise not to say a word, and a word I will not say. I don’t know if he ever intends on divulging his feelings to Sophie. For that matter, I don’t know how much longer he’s going to put himself through what must be torture of being around a woman he wants to have but thinks he can’t. How much longer is he going to lend a hand at the café, all in the name of friendship? God, it’s kind of romantic in a way, isn’t it? To have a guy kind of pining for you and going out of his way to be around you like that? Sophie may have her reasons, but her dry spell with love and the dead or dying romance with Henri could probably all be made better with a little lovin’ from Chad.
I blow out a giant puff of air and make a flapping noise with my lips. Too much, too much, I think. They have their drama. I peer out the car window to gauge how much farther Jackie and I are from Robin’s house.
“What’s wrong, babe?” Jackie says in a spill it! voice.
“Oh, nothing,” I dismiss. I turn up the radio of Jackie’s Mercedes a few notches.
“Whatcha thinkin’?” she sings, making a tight turn at the light.
Thinking fast, I reply, “I’m still trying to figure out the photos I want to use for that possible coffee table book.”
“Oh! With Robin? That photo book?”
“Yeah.” I rest one side of my head on my hand, staring out the window as the hibernating scenery of Seattle in winter passes by.
“I so think you should use those Ghana pictures you were thinking of using,” she says encouragingly. “They’re awesome.”
“I was thinking Africa, too.”
Jackie slows, approaching a stop sign, as I continue on, timidly. “You know there’s this volunteer opportunity? Application’s not up yet, but I’m seriously considering it.”
“Emily’s packing up and leaving again,” she trills. She glances at me. “I can’t say I blame you, though. Operation Blind Date was a bust.”
“Not a bust,” I say in defense.
“Where next?”
“Africa again. Zambia. I’m going to apply as soon as possible.”
“When would you leave?” She makes another stop.
“The spring,” I reply. “March.”
“Have fun breaking that to Robin.” She fluffs some fingers through her short hair while looking at herself in the rearview mirror, then slowly moves through the intersection. “You really think you can bail out on her wedding, girlfriend?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it right now, Jack.” I give her a pleading face. “It’ll undoubtedly come up at Robin’s, and I’d rather shove that thought aside for as long as possible.”
She makes a miffed sound, then says in an upbeat tone, “You’ll be happy to know then—to change the
topic—that my therapy sessions are going well. I was crazy to consider divorce. Just needed a little more therapy, that’s all.”
“That’s excellent,” I say, genuinely happy that Jackie seems to be putting behind her the rough patch with Andrew, Nikki, and her general days’ drama, not to mention her dance with divorce. “You still doing the extra sessions?”
“Yes!” She clicks on her turn signal and pulls into the left-hand turning lane at the stop sign. “I’ve been doing extra sessions, and they’re going so well Dr. Milbanke has even suggested that I transfer.”
“Transfer? Like, to another doctor?”
“Yes! He said that we’ve achieved all we can together, or something like that, and that I should go see one of his colleagues. Some really good psychiatrist or something.”
“That sounds like you need more help.” I proceed cautiously, not wanting to set Jackie off or dampen her good mood. But isn’t that kind of a regression, when your therapist suggests there’s nothing more he can do for you and that you should see a different therapist?
“Look, Emily,” she says, sounding a tad forlorn, “I think things are going well, but Dr. Milbanke thinks otherwise, for some reason. I don’t know.” She shrugs her slender shoulders. “Nothing’s set in stone yet. I’m still seeing him three times a week right now and things really are going well with Andrew.”
“Well that’s good,” I say submissively.
“And Nikki, too!” Jackie flashes a bright white smile my way. “She hasn’t been acting like a bitch or anything lately, and whenever I call for Andrew, he’s there; or she points me in the right direction.” She has an air of self-satisfaction about her. “I think my drunk texts did a thing or two.”
“Oh, Jackie,” I say with a sigh as she turns into Robin’s quaint Phinney Ridge neighborhood. “If there’s any trouble with anything, you know you can come to me, right? To any of the girls.”
“Babe,” she says, deadpan, “you think I would hesitate to crash your place? Come by and unload my troubles on you?”
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