Match

by Seth King

  “You’re late,” I said as she marched into the room and tossed her bag onto the table. She looked much…classier than I’d imagined, judging by her pictures. There was almost an old-fashioned air about her, with her athletic shoulders and wavy blonde hair and a somewhat swaggering disposition. I could almost see her sashaying around a courtroom in a drama from the 1940s. She was a real broad, and for some reason, I kind of liked it. “You’re…beautiful, but you’re late.”

  “And?” she said as she sank onto a seat. Her black suit was understated but tasteful without being old-maid-esque, and her midnight blue scarf was an unexpected touch. Mixing blue and black was against the rules, but I enjoyed a rule-breaker.

  “I’m a busy dude. Just like everyone else in this city.”

  She opened up her menu and smiled down at it. “Well get used to it, because I’m afraid I run on suburb time, not city time, so it looks like you’re shit out of luck. What looks good?”

  I leaned forward. “Well,” I said after a moment. “I’m certainly not used to being spoken to like that. But I kind of like it.”

  She looked up at me from the menu. “Okay, Mr. President. Sorry for challenging your authority. Who are you, anyway? Besides a dick?”

  “…You don’t know?”

  “How would I know who you are?”

  I sort of blushed. “I don’t know, people usually have an inkling from the gossip pages or whatnot. But trust me, it’s good if you don’t know. I wish I didn’t know myself.”

  “I just moved to the city. I don’t read, nor give a shit about, the society pages here.”

  “That’s actually refreshing. I like that you’ve never heard of me. So what’s your deal, toots?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t call me toots.”

  “Wow. I was just kidding.”

  “Well it wasn’t funny. Toots. Even though you are kind of cute.”

  “Thanks, but you should’ve seen me before all the plastic surgery procedures. My natural-born face was not a pretty sight. Think Quasimodo meets Chelsea Clinton circa the White House years.”

  She giggled, then stopped herself. “Don’t make fun of a Clinton like that.”

  “Jeez – it was a joke. I happen to admire smart women. And – cute,” I said. “Your whole thing you have going on – it’s cute.”

  “What thing?”

  “The fact that you think a combative attitude right out of the gate is an attractive quality in a woman. Or anyone, for that matter.”

  “I never said I was trying to impress anyone. And you’re obviously not doing well in the dating department yourself, since you used Spark to meet me, and all.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “What is there to know? You seem pretty bland.”

  I laughed a little. “Okay, whoa, let’s backtrack. I’m Penn. What do you do, Hannah? I like your name, by the way.”

  She flashed a tight smile. “Thanks. I just finished school, actually.”

  “I’m sorry. I hated school.”

  “I don’t. I love academia.”

  “Why?”

  “Because school is the one thing that has never disappointed me.”

  I was speechless for a second. “Well…oh, then. What about work?”

  “I’m currently unemployed, but that’s changing on Monday. My sister knows someone who knows someone who got me an office job.”

  “Ah. And what brought you to the city with such an unplanned agenda?”

  “The city brought me to the city. I’m in love with it. And also, I do what I want, when I want to do it, so that’s a null point regardless. And what do you do?”

  “I’m…in tech.”

  Her expression changed.

  “What is it?”

  “You just don’t seem like the nerdy type.”

  “Why not?”

  “Your muscles, for one.”

  “How did you see my muscles?”

  “Your shirt came undone a little when you leaned forward,” she said casually with a flick toward my torso. “Males don’t have a monopoly on checking people out, either. It’s called the female gaze, toots.”

  “Touché. I hope you enjoy the picture now, because you should’ve seen me a few years ago – it was not a pretty sight. I was skinny and awkward and terrible. But that’s what money does – makes you afford trainers and better food.”

  “Interesting. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oh, you’ll do fine in the business world,” I smiled. “Your haughty demeanor and slightly masculine clothing choices would suit you well in that universe. Pun intended.”

  She sat taller and tried to look intimidating, but something like hurt flickered in her eyes. She was like one of those regal herons from the marshes, only with a broken leg and a man-hatred complex. “Oh, really? And what makes you think you know me so well?”

  “I was a psychology minor in school before I had to drop out to take care of family issues. I know people.”

  “I thought you knew tech,” she said.

  “Where the two intersect is my specialty, actually.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Typical dude, thinking he knows everything about everyone because he took Psych 101 when he was nineteen.”

  I smirked at her as the restaurant’s Asian-flavored music pumped into the room, lending the silence an almost electric quality. A waiter appeared and took our orders. Hannah ordered their biggest steak, which I respected quite a bit. God knew she was going to need her energy for what I was going to put her through later. After I ordered the exact same thing, the waiter disappeared. I leaned forward.

  “You’re a pistol, aren’t you?” I asked. “I haven’t met a woman like you since my bitch of a mother died, come to think of it.”

  She did a double take. “Whoa, I don’t even know where to start with that one. Bitch?”

  “Yes, bitch, actually. The worst thing a human can be is a bad parent.”

  “How so?”

  “She was a manic-depressive who ruined my childhood and then drank herself to death when I was sixteen. I mourned the childhood more than I mourned her.”

  My mother was admitted to the hospital on a Tuesday before Christmas with urination problems, and when the doctor told her she was in full liver failure due to her drinking, she asked the nurse for a bottle of Malibu rum and told her to turn on Ellen DeGeneres. The last six months of my life before she died were hellacious. She made me wait on her hand and dirty foot, and never met an insult she didn’t fall in love with. That’s why I took her life insurance money, rented out an office space in Nolita, taught myself code, and decided to invent an app and try to become a billionaire.

  Actually, that last part wasn’t exactly true. My wealth was highly tied up in the day-to-day performance of my company and currently hovered at somewhere around $960 million. But last month I was a billionaire, and next month I probably would be one again.

  What I didn’t tell Hannah was that I still saw my mother in my dreams almost every night, and in the dreams I would beg her to stop drinking, just as I did when she was here. It was so good to see her alive again, even in my memory, that I’d stopped trying to make the dreams go away. After all the damage she’d inflicted on me, I still loved her, and I despised myself for it.

  “I really know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?” Hannah asked herself under her breath with a self-hating smirk.

  “What was that?”

  She closed her eyes and winced. “Nothing. Look, this is moving quickly. Let’s start over, for real this time. I’m Hannah and I came here to hang out with a new friend and have some good wine. What about you?”

  I couldn’t control the laughter that escaped from my mouth.

  “And what’s funny?”

  “We both came here with expectations,” I said quietly. “I’d venture to say yours involved more than polite conversation and some cabernet.”

  “And what exactly does that mean?”

  “Let’s just be honest. I know what this is.
I know what you want. You want…more.”

  “More, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “So, because I have a vagina, I came here to get pregnant and land a husband and shackle you to a lifetime of quiet desperation in the suburbs?”

  I shivered.

  “I came here for food, wine, maybe a little talk,” she said as she sat back again. “Don’t think that just because I have red Chanel polish on my nails, I’m trying to sink them into you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, Hannah, you can play my game. I’m intrigued.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you were intrigued. I didn’t ask you anything, actually.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll volunteer more information. You’re turning me on. Very much.”

  She appraised me, her eyes larger than the plates under us. “Holy shit.”

  “What?”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Deadly so.”

  “Yeesh. I’d be enjoying this show you’re putting on if I weren’t so horrified by it. You think you have a monopoly on douche-baggery because you’re a guy? Please. I can make Adam Levine look humble.”

  “Go on.”

  “Okay. I was at the top of my class. I could beat ninety percent of the boys in my county in track. If you want someone to push around, which I assume you do, judging by your demeanor, you should’ve swiped the other way on me.”

  “Then why did you download an app where you meet people, Miss People Hater?”

  Her façade cracked for a moment. “Why did you?”

  I looked away as my dick throbbed in my Zegna suit. Why did she think I had come? To cum, that’s why.

  “To fuck,” I said. Her mouth fell open.

  “Say that again,” she dared.

  “To fuck. And what’s the problem with forthrightness? Do you want me to lie and say I’m looking for a relationship, that I want rainbows and hearts and babies, just so I can lead you along and get what I want from you and then never text you back again? Aren’t you sick of the bullshit? I know I am.”

  “At least you’re honest,” she finally said, looking more disappointed in herself than me for some reason.

  I sipped my wine and continued. Something about her just made me want to talk. “I’m not looking for a relationship, I can’t lie. I hate women right now, or so I’ve been told.”

  “Why?”

  “My mom was psychotic, and the only girl I ever loved just broke my heart in half and is now living in a commune in the Berkshires with a woman named Bree. So I downloaded Spark to fuck as many girls as possible, because I’m angry.”

  “Wow. You really are one of those guys, aren’t you?”

  “What guys?”

  “One of those Manhattan sharks who made a couple million in the stock market or tech or wherever, and thinks it gives you the right to throw your cash around and say whatever you want to people, no matter the reason behind it. You think it makes you look like a baller when it really just makes you look like a pathetic prick.”

  “Don’t call me a ‘shark’ because I’m confident. Everything you think you know is wrong. You’ve been conditioned to run away from assertiveness, aggressiveness, masculinity. If a guy makes his intentions known, he’s ‘creepy’ or ‘awkward.’”

  “Whatever. You clearly hate women more than I could ever hate you. Ugh, you are so pathetic. Why did I even come here? You’re just like the rest of them.”

  “Like you’re any less pathetic, making all these assumptions about someone you don’t even know? You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know what it’s like to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket burn in a fire. You don’t know what it’s like to change your whole life for someone and watch them shrug and walk away. You don’t know what it’s like to propose on the same night you got dumped. That girl made me into a fool, and I have nobody to blame but myself.”

  Sympathy washed over her face. Then she dismissed it. “So now you want to take out all your anger on other women, to punish them?”

  “True or false: you hated your father.”

  She incinerated me with one look. “My dad is a good man. It’s not his fault that-”

  “How old were you when the problems started at home?”

  “How dare you ask me that. How dare you. I should get up and leave.”

  “But you won’t. Most girls like you were mistreated by the primary male in their lives, their father, and so they heap that misplaced rage onto any male they come across down the line.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” she said, but her face wasn’t angry – it was sad. “And no, I’m going to stay, because I enjoy watching you squirm. And how the hell do you know these things about me? Did you research me or something? Are you a murderer?”

  “Please. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, her lips curling into some kind of smirk. “Fine. Now it’s my turn to analyze you. You think you’re not transparent, but you’re a window, clear as day. You’ve got more issues than a dentist office’s waiting room table. You wear this abrasiveness as a sheen over your vulnerability, and it’s all bullshit. You don’t have a monopoly on broken homes, sweetie. I can see right through you. You’re lonely, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You’re so lonely. You can make it about some ‘sex thing’ all you want, but you’re alone. Like I said, you go through life like a shark, but really you’re a puffer fish, hiding in the coral and sticking out your spikes whenever someone gets too close. You’re just as lost as the rest of us – you just hide your hopelessness well.”

  I couldn’t deny it – her words chilled me to the core. And she seemed to notice, too – for a second, guilt flickered over her. Then she got up and grabbed her purse, just like that. For some reason the prospect of her departure made me feel lonely and somehow disappointed.

  “Look,” I said. “Let’s start over. I didn’t mean to come off so harsh earlier.”

  “Well, you did. Donald Trump has put on a more subtle show.”

  “I’ll send my therapist bill to your doorman, then.”

  “I’m too poor to have a doorman building. Anyway, let’s cut to the chase. I’m gonna tell you what’s going to happen on this date if we ‘start over,’ because I’ve been down this road before and I know how this movie ends. You’re going to swagger in here and make eyes at me, even though you’ve got thirty-seven matches burning a hole in the pocket of your overpriced suit. You’re going to use semi-charming lines on me that also worked with four different girls last weekend, and I’m going to fall for it just like they did. We’re going to have sex, and afterward you’re going to claim that you had fun but you’re sooo tired and hint that you want me to leave, and then I’m going to go home alone at one in the morning and you’re going to Snapchat me sporadically for three days before communication fades for good, and then I’m going to be back where I started: alone, because dating in this century is as pointless and discouraging as trying to get a family of cats to take a bubble bath. But I’m over it. I’m over the cycle. Have a good day, sir.”

  I sat back. “Wow, you really think you’ve figured out the male kind, don’t you?”

  “Sure I have. It’s not that hard.”

  “Yeah? How’s that working out for you?”

  She glanced away. “It’s not my problem that you can’t handle a strong woman.”

  “You think I have a problem with strong women? Hell, you should’ve met my favorite aunt – she didn’t just light up the room, she lit it on fire. What I have a problem with is the fact that you sat here and repeatedly insulted me to my face.”

  She huffed. “Look, I’d love to stay and listen to you talk about yourself some more, but for your information, I am not some basic bitch who goes to the Financial District nightclubs looking to lease my lady parts over to some asshole hedge fund manager for a few decades in exchange for a Tribeca loft and weekends in Southampton. I’m just a bitch, period, and I’m not g
oing to sit here and be treated like this. Have a nice night, or just fall off a balcony, either one.”

  As I watched her leave, she paused and turned around one last time. “Oh, and Penn?”

  I smiled. “Yes?”

  “Sorry about your dick. If you have this much of an inferiority complex, your penis is clearly only accessed with the help of a pair of tweezers and a high-powered telescope. Have fun overcompensating for it for the rest of your life. Bye.”

  She turned and disappeared down the dark hallway, leaving only the subtle scent of her elegant perfume hanging in the air behind her.

  Hannah Goncalves

  What the fuck was that? I thought as I hit the loud, breezy street and took out my phone to call a car. He was so abrasive, so confrontational, and such a dick. I am going to murder Rachel for making me do this, I told myself as I stared into traffic. Kill her and destroy her body and throw the remains into the river. I’d set out to find a nice guy and then be nice to him, and I’d ended up with the biggest asshole of them all. Something about his whole demeanor was just so smug and self-assured – seriously, how was I supposed to not be a bitch to him? Ugh, this was just my luck.

  And most alarmingly of all…why was I so turned on by him? Why was my heart thudding around, and why were my hands all clammy and sweaty? This went against everything I believed as an intellectual, self-sufficient female. Cocky assholes were supposed to be gross and repulsive. Why was it drawing me in?

  I heard a voice behind me, and I glanced backwards. Oh, God. He was here. And he was so tall. Hadn’t I scared him enough yet? At the very least, he could’ve made himself ugly for a second so I could storm away more effectively, and with less regret.

  “Hannah, please stop.”

  “Go away.”

  He walked over to the doorman, murmured a few words, and handed him a wad of cash. “I’ve covered dinner,” he said as he returned. “Let me drive you home. I shouldn’t have called you aggressive. We can drop you off wherever.”

  I bit my lip. I was furious, but I wasn’t furious enough to turn down a free ride and end up having to pay for my own Uber. I thought of that stupid bet with Rachel, and how pissed I’d be if I lost it. I had twelve hours to win. Twelve hours to find someone I could at least claim I was sort-of-seeing. Theoretically, it could be easy…I could fuck Penn and tell Rachel about it and delay the bet…and also, he was so sexy, and it would probably be fun…