Knowing the answer, I said, “You mean Phoebe Cates?”
“Yeah! That’s her.”
As I wondered why the only guys who seemed to hit on me were the ones I didn’t find the slightest bit attractive, I gave him a sideways smile and said, “I actually have heard that a few times but, other than the dark hair, I don’t see a resemblance. But I’ll take it as a compliment. Thanks!”
Cutting in, Suzanne said to the guy, “Does that mean we’ll catch you jerking off in the bathroom later?” Grabbing our drinks from the bar, she turned to me and said, “I got us a table.”
I called out, “Nice talking to you,” before making a quick escape with Suzanne to our table in the brightly lit lounge, which was decorated with posh booths and bright red couches.
Before we got halfway through our first round of mojitos, Suzanne asked if my membership on Match.com was still active. She met her fiancé Luke online and whenever I complained about a horrible first date, she’d recite her favorite cliché: “It only takes one!”
“Yes, Suze, my profile is still up.” My membership had actually expired but it wasn’t technically a lie since I could still receive emails. I just couldn’t open them.
“But are you actively searching or sitting around waiting for guys to email you?” she asked.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Suzanne gave me a disapproving look while I sank my butt lower into the leather seat cushion. “I’d just prefer to meet someone the old fashioned way, that’s all,” I said. Like in college, I thought, as my mind wandered to Hille.
“Hmm, not sure if I should be insulted since I didn’t meet Luke the old fashioned way.”
“Suze, I totally didn’t mean that as an insult to you, but I can’t stand online dating anymore and you’ve already snagged the one decent guy! I’m just gonna take my chances for awhile and see what the universe throws my way.”
“Like that goon at the bar?” Suzanne joked.
“Please. Seriously, can we please drop the subject? It’s a buzz kill and these mojitos are too good to waste.”
“I just don’t want some bitch stealing your husband because she was looking for him while you were waiting for the universe to drop him at your doorstep!”
“You sound like my mom! I promise not to let some bitch steal my husband, okay! Now can we get another round of drinks? I have some information to share.” I decided that maybe Suzanne would be less concerned about my single status if she knew I’d had sex recently.
“Information, huh? I’m sufficiently intrigued.” Standing up, she said, “Okay, I’ll buy another round and you can spill when I get back.”
The deafening sounds of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” reverberated in the air as I watched Suzanne maneuver her way through the packed lounge area until her blonde curls disappeared in the crowd of Capitol Hill staffers and lobbyists. Despite spending so much time together, our love lives were not nearly as in sync as our menstrual cycles. Suzanne ended one long term relationship, joined Match and only went out with two other guys before meeting Luke. My only long term relationship was Paul and most of it took place under the influence of alcohol.
When Suzanne returned with our drinks, she sat down and said, “First of all, I hate this song—sets women back decades. Second of all, and more importantly, what information do you have to share with me?”
Laughing, I said, “First of all, I’m surprised you don’t love this song considering that Luke ‘put a ring on it’! Second of all, you don’t waste any time, do you?”
“You started it, girlfriend. What’s up?”
“Okay.” I paused dramatically. “Since we were on the subject of my love life—”
Interrupting, Suzanne said, “A subject I promised I’d drop!”
“Yes, but if I initiate the conversation, it’s okay.”
“Okay, I am now fully aware of the rules. Keep going.”
Raising my voice facetiously, I said, “Please, no more interruptions! What I’m trying to tell you is that I actually had a little fling in New York.”
Looking at me with surprise, Suzanne said, “Really? Wow. Who with? One of the attorneys?”
“No. No one from the firm. Someone I went to college with. Have I ever mentioned Hille to you?”
Suzanne shook her head in answer, but then her eyes widened. “Hille! Yes! The serious one who’s the Tony Randall to Paul’s Jack Klugman, right?”
“Nice memory, Suze! Yes, that Hille.”
“You fucked him?”
“You’re so crude, but yes, we had sex.” Suzanne wasn’t one for beating around the bush.
“This is definitely turning into a more interesting drink night than I was expecting. I might have to tell Luke not to wait up. Give me the scoop. How’d it happen?”
“Well, Hille put his penis in my...”
Crossing her eyes, Suzanne said, “Du-uh! I know how it happened. You know what I meant, loser!”
“I actually thought that was pretty funny but, yes, I know what you meant.”
Suzanne looked at me expectantly. “So?”
I started to tell her what happened the first night.
“He’s gay,” Suzanne interrupted.
“What the fuck are you talking about? He’s not gay!”
Suzanne stood up. “A guy who turns down sex with a girl who is not a dog is gay. Period,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Can you let me finish? And, by the way, I’m so flattered you don’t think I’m a dog.” We stared each other down for a few seconds before I broke the silence. “Um, why are you standing?”
Suzanne sat back down. “Finish.”
“As I was saying, he initially turned me down since Paul and I used to date.”
“A hundred years ago!” Suzanne cut in again.
“Which is exactly what I said, but he was adamant.”
After interrupting me several more times, Suzanne finally allowed me to conclude my story.
“We started kissing and, before I knew it, we were drenched in post coital sweat.”
Suzanne raised her eyebrows. “Before you knew it?”
“Figure of speech, Suze! No, it was really good. Really, really good.” I felt my face flush and a tingle in my pants as I flashed back to Hille’s body hovering over mine, my hands gripping his firm butt cheeks.
“Damn, Stephanie, you’re full-on beaming right now!”
“I know,” I said, smiling. “Weird, huh?”
“No, not weird. I like seeing you excited about a guy!” Leaning over the table in interest, Suzanne asked, “So, what was so good about it?”
“Suze, it wasn’t just the sex. Kissing him was like butter. Literally, his mouth was smooth like melted butter and my lips practically slid off his. So many guys have rough lips. I don’t know why soft lips aren’t as important to guys as they are to girls!” I closed my eyes. If I concentrated hard enough, I could still feel Hille’s lips on mine.
“Stephanie!”
I opened my eyes. “What?”
Laughing, Suzanne said, “I lost you there for a minute. Tell me more!”
Feeling the heat rise in my face, I said, “Oops. Where was I? Oh, yeah, his mouth tasted like butterscotch. A butterscotch flavored Altoid!”
Looking at me skeptically, Suzanne repeated, “Butterscotch?”
“Yes, I tasted butterscotch.”
“Maybe he ate a bag of Werther’s Originals before he got to your hotel,” Suzanne said smiling. “So, do you like the guy or was it just great sex?”
“I think I like him, Suze. He makes me nervous in a good way and I feel the need to impress him like I haven’t felt around a guy in ages.”
“Impress him how?” Suzanne asked.
“With my smarts.”
Before I could continue, Suzanne snorted and I waved my hand in protest, almost knocking over my drink. “Seriously, he’s a brain and, while I love chick-flicks and repeats of ‘The Brady Bunch,’ I want him to know I’m not one dimensional.”
“Stephanie, he’s known you since college. I’m sure your deeper side has surfaced at least once or twice in that time,” Suzanne said before breaking out in laughter.
“Don’t laugh at me!” I begged. “C’mon. I actually have feelings for a guy that go beyond tepid for the first time since you’ve known me and you laugh. Nice.”
Finally serious, Suzanne said, “I’m sorry, Steph. I admit, I am having too much fun with this. I’ll stop.”
“Thanks.”
“So, when you are going to see Butterscotch again”?
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Butterscotch since he left my hotel room five days ago.” And I had double checked to make my sure my phone was charged and on at all times. And since Hille had responded to the ‘joke of the day’ email Paul had sent to all of us, I knew he wasn’t trapped under a dresser in his apartment.
Tapping her perfectly manicured pointer finger on the table, Suzanne said, “You know what I always say?”
Hoping for sage advice, I asked, “What’s that?”
“Don’t put all your eggs in one bastard.”
Ten
The following night, Hille still hadn’t called and I needed an excuse to put distance between me and my phone so I went to the gym. Running was a much better stress reliever than sitting in front of the tube with a pint of Cherry Garcia and I wanted to be in good shape in case Hille called and wanted to see me naked again. I stepped on the treadmill, entered my stats and began my two minute warm-up of walking briskly. Although I was usually pretty focused at the gym, I decided to actually look around and see if there was any eye candy. I needed to prove to myself that Hille was not the only guy I found appealing. To my left, a girl who weighed next to nothing was running vigorously. She was probably better off strength training or eating something more than raw carrots. To my right, a plump guy, probably close to my age, was jogging at a slow pace. He was perspiring so profusely that some of his sweat landed on my treadmill and I scanned the room for another open machine. There weren’t any so I focused on not vocalizing how disgusting I thought he was. Next to the row of treadmills, the resident meat heads showed off their massive biceps by lifting heavy weights but none of them did it for me. I was never attracted to the really muscular type. I preferred guys who were in shape, like Hille, but didn’t look like they spent all of their free time at the gym.
Just thinking about Hille made me horny and as the beginning notes of U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” played on my MP3, I increased the speed of the treadmill to 8.0. I quietly sang along to the music, hoping to drown out thoughts of him but it didn’t work. The faster I ran, the more vividly I could imagine him cheering me on, screaming “That’s my girl!” while I crossed the finish line of the National Marathon.
After my run, I walked to the floor mats to stretch and do some sit-ups. As I passed the row of Nautilus equipment, I stopped short in my tracks and banged into one of the male fitness instructors.
The instructor, a tall guy wearing a black t-shirt with the word ‘Trainer’ printed across the left breast, put his hand on my shoulder and asked, “Are you okay?”
Flustered and distracted by another guy who, from the back, looked exactly like Hille and was wearing a Phi Alpha Omega t-shirt, I turned to the instructor and said, “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I thought I recognized someone. Sorry about that.”
“No worries. There’s some heavy equipment here, though, so you really should be more careful.”
“Definitely. Really sorry.” The instructor walked away and I immediately turned back to the Hille look-alike who was now facing me and looked nothing like him. I shook my head in embarrassment and left the gym without doing my sit-ups. On my way home, I stopped at Safeway to pick up dinner – Ramen Noodle Soup. I was in the mood to indulge in serious MSG.
Later that night, I picked up the phone to call my mom just as it rang. “Hello?” I said.
The male voice on the other end of the phone said, “Hello.”
I immediately recognized his voice and felt a pulsing in my throat like my heart had relocated to my mouth. To waste time while I swallowed my heart back down to my chest, I asked, “Who is this?”
“It’s Hille.”
“Hey there,” I said.
“That was weird. I didn’t even hear the phone ring.”
“I don’t know. I had my hand on the phone, ready to make another call and picked it up mid-ring. Maybe that’s why.”
“Do you want me to call you back?”
“No, that’s okay. It wasn’t urgent.” I knew my mother would gladly come second to an eligible bachelor. “What’s up?” Hoping his call would be worth the long wait, I sat down on my favorite reclining chair, kicked my feet up and muted “Bones” on my television set.
“Nothing much. Just wanted to say hi.”
“Hi back at you. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. It’s pouring here so I’m just looking out the window and watching the trees sway in the wind.”
“You have trees in New York?” I joked.
“One or two. But I live in New Jersey. We have lots of trees in Hoboken. We even have flowers.”
“Is that why they call it the Garden State?”
“No. I think the Garden State was a reference to New Jersey truck farms that provided floral and agricultural produce to cities in the area back in the nineteen-thirties.”
I smiled to myself. If anyone would know the origin of a state’s nickname, it was Craig Hille. “You’re a wealth of information, Craig.”
“So, I had fun last week.”
Picturing him naked, I said, “So did I.”
“I actually wanted to call you sooner but we’re building out the forty-fourth floor of my building and I’ve been in charge of the computer installation. It’s been crazy.”
“No worries. I’ve been so busy lately, too.” Yes, I had been very busy anxiously waiting his call.
“I just didn’t want too much time to go by—I don’t want things to be awkward the next time we see each other, you know?”
“Why would things be awkward?” I asked.
“It’s just, we’ve been friends a while...”
As I heard the word “friends” escape Hille’s mouth, my lips started to quiver and I readjusted the recliner to the upright position.
“And I don’t want what happened to get in the way of our friendship,” Hille continued.
As I recalled the many times I offered a guy my friendship as a gentle letdown, I knew what was coming and felt moistness behind my eyes I couldn’t hold back.
“We’re friends, right, Steph?”
Wiping my inner eyes with the knuckle of my pointer finger, I thought to myself ‘fake it till you make it,’ swallowed down my tears and said to Hille in my brightest voice, “Of course, we’re friends! Don’t be silly!”
Eleven
That was a first. A guy had never pulled the friend card on me. Sure, I had crushes on guys who never asked me out and there were plenty of times I was too afraid to even strike up a conversation with one, but I had never actually hooked up with a guy who afterwards said he didn’t like me ‘that’ way. And why did he wait until after we’d had sex to tell me? Was it because the sex was bad? I thought it was hot! Was it because he wasn’t attracted to me? He called me pretty at dinner and then said his attraction to me ‘wasn’t an issue.’ Was he lying? I just didn’t get it. Was this my comeuppance for all the times I had told a guy I didn’t feel romantic potential but would love to be friends?
After silently wallowing in self-pity failed to make me feel better, I grabbed a can of Diet Coke from my refrigerator, sat at my two-person kitchen table and called Hope to vent.
“Maybe it’s the distance,” she said. “I mean D.C. and New Jersey aren’t exactly in walking distance.”
“Maybe you’re right. I just don’t get why he bothered coming back to my hotel room in the first place. If he was so concerned with our friendship, why didn’t he j
ust leave it at ‘I don’t feel comfortable sleeping with my best friend’s ex-girlfriend from three billion years ago?’ Did I do something wrong to turn him off?” I took a gulp of my soda, wishing it was beer. There was silence on the other end of the phone which made me paranoid. “What?” I demanded.
Just Friends With Benefits Page 7
