by Sarah Title
“What? No!”
“What’s your problem, then? Are you jealous or something?”
“No! No, I don’t even care, come on. I just—I have a deadline, that’s all. And you wouldn’t return my calls.”
“You only sent me one text.”
“I sent two.”
“And I responded. And now I’m here.”
“So, okay. Great. Let’s do this. Are you ready for the interview? Great. What were your first impressions going into last night? Did you think you’d end up sleeping with this loser?”
Bernie stood up so fast that Colin was surprised the table didn’t flip over. But it didn’t, and before he knew what was happening, she was halfway to the door.
“Hey, wait! Hold on. Stop, I’m sorry.” He grabbed her elbow, and she shook him off, but she did stop her mad dash for the exit.
“Is it out of your system now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re done shaming me for doing the totally normal thing that millions of dating Americans do every night?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t say anything, just turned and sat back down in front of her abandoned latte.
“You know, you don’t even know if I slept with him,” she said, once he was situated back in front of his open laptop.
He looked up in surprise. She hadn’t slept with him?
Good thing he didn’t care.
“So . . . what did you guys do all night?” he asked, despite not caring. He just needed to know, for journalistic reasons.
“I’m not letting you put that in the article,” she said.
“But it’s part of the experience.”
“No way. You can write about the parts of the date that you saw, but that’s it.”
“Fine. No overnight details. But off the record?”
“We had fun. The end. Don’t worry, I’m sure this next date will be terrible and I’ll be mad about the whole thing again.”
“Can’t wait.”
He so did not care.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
DISAPPROVING LIBRARIAN ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS
____________________
By Colin Rodriguez, Staff Writer
What does it take for a guy to make a good first impression?
I can tell you what informs my first impressions of my dates. Wait, no, I can’t. It’s more of a general package deal, and once the elements are broken down, it seems wrong. Will I notice if she has nice legs? Sure, if she’s wearing a skirt. But will I notice if she didn’t shave her legs that day, or will I be turned off if her legs aren’t that nice? No. Will I notice if her hair looks good? If she’s wearing a lot of makeup? If she’s smiling? If she’s scowling into her phone? If her earrings match her shoes? (Actually, I’ve never noticed that. Sorry, ladies.)
But what about the first impression that a guy leaves? I’ve never thought about that.
“Your privilege is showing,” says the librarian as we sit down to talk about her last week of dates. Which is her cute way of saying I’m a self-centered asshole. But what does she notice about a guy when she walks in to meet her date?
Especially since she has notoriously said that appearances don’t matter.
“Stop twisting my words,” she tells me, and I ask her to clarify, because I am a dummy.
“It’s not that appearance doesn’t matter,” she explains over a gigantic latte. It’s going to be a long afternoon if she has to drink that whole thing, which is good, because it will probably take a while for her to talk herself out of this conundrum she’s caught in.
“Appearances matter, but there are no requirements for how a guy is supposed to look before I’m attracted to him. Does he have to look like he’s wearing clean clothes? Yes. Does he have to be tall? No. It’s just in the—” And here she flaps her arms around for a bit, explaining the “the” that has a guy leaving a good first impression.
Now might be a good time to throw it out to the readership.
So, Glaze.com readers, what is it? What do you look for in a guy that makes you say, yes, I’ll walk into the restaurant and go on this date.
“ARE YOU SURE you have permission for this?”
Colin turned and gave Bernie an eyebrow, which Bernie took to mean that she shouldn’t ask any more questions. She held up her hands in defense. “Just making sure.”
Colin unlocked the door to the carousel building tucked away in Golden Gate Park and walked around, out of sight, until the carousel came to life. Bernie couldn’t stop the gasp that came out when she saw the carousel, glowing with electric light.
“Wow.”
Colin stepped out from inside the mechanism and came toward her, weaving between exotic shellacked carousel animals.
“How do you know how to work this thing?”
“I would tell you that it has something to do with my little sister who works with the Parks Department, but that could put her job in jeopardy.”
“And then you’d have to kill me.”
Colin didn’t say anything, just held out a hand to her. She grabbed it—quickly, before it carouselled away—and let him pull her onto the ride.
She found her sea legs while Colin checked his phone. “He’s late.”
Bernie shrugged. She was in no hurry.
“Would you care to pick your mount, milady?” Colin asked with a grand flourish and a bow.
“You know, chivalry is an outdated notion that posits that women are the weaker sex, incapable of functioning without a man.”
“So, no being nice?”
“No putting women on a pedestal. It makes us helpless. Pedestals are for objects and prizes, not people.”
She waited for his smart-ass comment, but it didn’t come. Instead, it looked like he was actually thinking about it. She’d let him think it out, she figured, and started a slow perusal of the carousel’s creatures. It was a flamboyant, majestic masterpiece, with horses, sure, but also a tall proud giraffe, a ferocious dragon, a rooster. She settled on the goat.
She climbed on, mindful of the full skirt of her dress, though she supposed it didn’t really matter. As she was settling in, Colin climbed on the tiger next to her.
“I can’t ride while we wait?” he asked in response to her raised eyebrow.
“It’s a big carousel, you know.”
He just shrugged.
Carousels were really slow.
It gave her time to appreciate the bright illustrations on the panels in the center, scenes from the old-timey Bay Area surrounded by ornate gold leaf frames. Again and again, as they turned and waited. It was a weird combination of thrilling and boring. That was kind of a metaphor for this whole dating experience.
“What are you thinking?” Colin asked.
“Just metaphors and stuff.”
“Uh-huh.”
Colin leaned past her to wave to someone outside the building.
“Is that him?” she asked against the sudden onslaught of butterflies in her stomach. She wasn’t used to feeling butterflies before a date. She supposed it was an improvement over the old predate panic she had felt at the beginning of her month of dates. This was less painful, and more ticklish. Maybe dating could be fun.
“Never mind.”
They circled around again, and Bernie noticed the person seemed to be wearing all the clothes he owned at once.
“Why do you say that?” Bernie asked, even though the guy looked homeless and she was secretly relieved. But whatever, she reminded her liberal brain. Maybe he was just a really committed hipster. She shouldn’t judge his sartorial choices just because she looked fabulous now.
They circled around again, and this time her not-date had pulled up his shirt and pressed his naked torso against the glass of the carousel building.
Her date was a flasher. She had veto power, right? She wondered if there was another way out of the carousel building.
On their next go-around, her not-date was gone.
“That was a quick show,” Colin comme
nted, and Bernie immediately wanted to defend the homeless flasher who had interrupted her peaceful ride. Because that was her reaction to everything Colin said—to firmly claim the opposite.
Colin checked his phone again. He swiped through a few things, then sighed and put it away.
“He’s not coming, is he?”
Colin looked at her with pity. She didn’t really care that she was getting stood up. This was the first time it had happened, and she’d been on eighteen dates so far. Still, something about that look made her want to cry. And then punch him in his pitying face. This Colin, he provoked strong reactions in her.
She didn’t give in. Instead, she rested her cheek against the pole of her goat and let the carousel carry her up and down, slowly in a circle.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she squeezed the pole because the urge to punch was coming on stronger than the urge to cry. Or maybe the urge to punch was trying to overpower the urge to cry.
“At least you’ll get a story out of this, right?” she asked him. “Spinster Gets Stood Up?”
He didn’t laugh, despite the smile pasted on her face.
* * *
Colin wasn’t sure when this had stopped being a story. All he knew was that some rando from the Internet had stood Bernie up, and he wanted to punch that dude in the face. Even though Bernie was right; the no-show would make an interesting story.
“I am really sorry,” he told her, and he thought he saw a murderous rage in her eyes, but that couldn’t be right. He was being nice. She looked away, and he watched her bob up and down on her goat.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be if you quit looking at me.”
“Hey.” He reached out for her arm. She didn’t turn. “Are you crying?”
She whipped her head around so fast, Colin felt the breeze. She wasn’t crying.
She’d really meant it when she said she didn’t need him to be nice. But this wasn’t holding the door for her. This was being a friend.
No, no, not a friend. They weren’t friends. They hated each other. Disliked. Preferred the company of others.
Still, she was his story, and his responsibility. He had a professional obligation to try to get it right.
“Are you mad because you got stood up?”
“Can you stop trying to guess how I feel?”
“How can I make it better if I don’t know what’s wrong?”
Her head tilted back in shock. “You don’t need to make anything better. God, you’re so patronizing. You know that?”
“Patronizing? For wanting you to feel better?”
“Yeah. You want me to be this nice, quiet little receptacle for all of your feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. Guess what. I’m pissed that I got stood up. And I’m pissed that I’m pissed. And I’m pissed that you keep looking at me like I’m a delicate flower that will shrivel up and die at the first disappointment. I’m still trying to process all this, okay? And I don’t see why I have to be pleasant while I’m doing it.”
“No one ever accused you of being pleasant,” he muttered.
Then she did the last thing he ever expected Bernie to do.
She started laughing.
Oh, he’d heard her laugh before. She laughed on her date with stupid Ben. She laughed when she talked about the hilarious, hilarious patriarchy. She’d even smiled at him a few times, which was usually a prelude to laughter.
Normal people smiled, then laughed. She ranted at him, then exploded in a full-belly, tears-streaming-down-her-face, silent, red-faced laugh attack.
At least he thought she was laughing.
“Are you laughing?” he asked, just to make sure.
“Your face—” she gasped. She tried again. “Not pleasant—” She didn’t get very far before choking on another laugh.
“I don’t get it,” he said. He had a feeling that he might be pouting, but he was a grown man so he definitely wasn’t pouting because grown men don’t pout. Although she did seem to be laughing at him. But why? For calling her not pleasant? He insulted her and she laughed?
Apparently their relationship was evolving.
“Oh, crap,” she said with a mighty sigh, wiping her eyes. “Sorry,” she said, but he didn’t believe for a second that it was a sincere apology since she followed it with a giggle. Bernie did not giggle.
She also did not hide her face with her hands. Bernie never hid from him. It was always all out there for him to see, whether he wanted to or not. That was her face. That was how she got into this mess in the first place.
“Are you crying?” he asked, just to make sure.
“Shut up,” she said, the words muffled by her hands.
“Hey.” He leaned across to her goat and pulled her hands away. She turned her face away from his, but not before he saw her lips pinched tight and her wet cheeks.
“I’ll kill him,” he said. “I’ll track him down and put a flaming bag of poop on his doorstep.”
She let out a watery laugh. That was good. A laugh was good. Well, a less maniacal laugh was good. He’d have preferred a sincere laugh, but it was better than abject weeping.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it? You’re crying!”
“No, I’m not,” she said, wiping her cheeks. She turned and bared her teeth. “See? I’m smiling.”
“Yikes.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Ugh, dating is the worst.” She rubbed her chest. “I don’t even know why I care. I didn’t even know this guy.”
“Maybe he had a work emergency.”
“Maybe. What does he do?”
“Uh, he’s a professional sign painter.”
She snorted.
“There could be a sign emergency,” Colin suggested.
“No, it’s fine. He just changed his mind.”
“Or chickened out.”
“Yes. He chickened out of dating me because I’m so intimidating.”
“You are intimidating, you know.”
“Why, because I have such a mean face? The face that broke a thousand Internets!”
“You don’t have a mean face.”
She turned and looked at him.
“Okay, sometimes you have a mean face. But that’s not it. You’re intimidating because you’re confident.”
“Oh, so I should look vulnerable and fluffy so a man feels more comfortable with his ability to dominate me?”
That was his Bernie back, the one who wouldn’t let anything go. He almost smiled, but he was afraid she might kill him.
“It’s not good for a man’s ego to be with a woman who doesn’t need him.”
“Which is exactly why I don’t date.”
“No, I’m not explaining myself right.”
“Okay, yes, please do a better job explaining to me why I need to be meek and desperate in order to attract a man.”
“Men are fragile.”
She snorted.
“We are! We need to feel needed!”
“So I need to make myself incompetent to get a man?”
“I thought you didn’t want to ‘get’ a man?”
She sighed and bumped her head against her goat’s pole. “How many times are we going to have this argument?”
“It’s our shtick, baby. It’s what we do.”
She laughed against her goat. “You don’t find it exhausting?”
He shrugged. “I like to have something to strive for.”
“To strive to change my mind about diminishing myself to make a man look good?”
“To convince you that making yourself vulnerable to love doesn’t diminish you.”
She looked over at him. She looked surprised. “Wow.”
“I know. I’m not just a pretty face.”
“I never thought about it that way.” She looked out the glass windows, at the city slowly spinning by.
He watched her thinking. He’d never done that before—really watched someone puzzle something out. But wit
h Bernie, it was a daily, fascinating occurrence. Had he really never gone out with anyone who was this thoughtful before? Or had he just not been paying attention?
Also, he wasn’t going out with her.
But it was too late. The thought was planted in his head. What would it be like to go out with Bernie? It wouldn’t be peaceful, that was for sure. It would be a lot of walking on eggshells to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing.
Except he didn’t feel like he had to walk on eggshells. He kind of liked it when she argued with him. He found himself saying things he didn’t even mean, just to watch her hackles go up. He didn’t really agree with her—he still thought she took everything way too seriously—but he was starting to understand her point of view.
He wasn’t really sure how he felt about that.
He just knew that he liked being around her, and he was not going to think about how glad he was that her douche bag date hadn’t shown up tonight.
She tucked her legs up underneath her, somehow managing to stay balanced on the goat’s back. She still looked sad. Thoughtful and sad. Emo girl, she would call herself if she wasn’t so in her own head.
Now he was reading her mind. It was starting to get weird on this here carousel.
“So,” he said, needing to break up the heavy silence around him. “Should we talk about tomorrow?” Tomorrow’s date was going to be at a roller derby bout. People busting heads in a controlled environment seemed like the perfect thing for her. He sort of couldn’t wait to tell her.
“Is it okay if we don’t? Just for a little bit?”
“Sure.” He could not talk. He could just sit here on his tiger while she sat over there on her goat and he could watch her hurting and not do anything about it. No problem.
Gah, feelings. This was really annoying.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he had climbed off his carousel animal and was standing next to hers. He rested one hand on the goat’s rump, feeling the up and down motion, up and down. Bernie turned and looked at him, surprised, and he put his other hand around her waist. He didn’t even feel her hesitate, she just wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. But then the goat rose again, and she almost lost her balance and she leaned back, laughing a little. “Scooch up,” he said, and before she could say anything else, she was twisted around, her back to the pole, and he was climbing into the seat. He pulled her close again, pulled her head to his shoulder, and rubbed her back. She hooked her legs over his and they both hung there, riding the carousel waves and breathing together. He closed his eyes and took her in. She smelled nice. Sort of like strawberries. The longer he rubbed her back, the more she melted into his chest. He rubbed her arms and her neck and, with his eyes still closed, he ran his hand up her cheek and he didn’t even open his eyes as he bent down to her mouth.
