Can I See You Again?

Can I See You Again?

“
Can I See You Again?
is a heartfelt, humorous look into the nature of true love and the winding, twisty—and, in this case, muddy—roads we often take to get there. Morgan perfectly crafts a story that will hold you in its grip until the very last page.”

—Kristy Woodson Harvey, author of
Lies and Other Acts of Love

PRAISE FOR

The Someday Jar

“Allison Morgan's charming debut
The Someday Jar
is much more than just a fun read, it is a reminder to seize opportunity when it comes, to believe in yourself, to never settle, and most importantly, to actively fill your life with wonderful experiences that will become cherished memories.
The Someday Jar
is a book to read today, not someday, and Morgan is clearly a writer to watch.”

—Stacey Ballis, author of
Wedding Girl

“A reminder that the idealism of childhood dreams is something we should always hold on to, this novel sparks hope with its whimsical story. From heartwarming to heart-wrenching, the ups and downs of the main character's journey, through romance, loss and new beginnings, might just inspire readers to follow some long-lost dreams of their own.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“The perfect blend of humor, inspiration, motivation, and romance!”

—San Francisco Book Review

“A breezy, fun-filled dream of a read . . . Strongly recommend for fans of contemporary fiction.”

—The Reading Nook Reviews

THE SOMEDAY JAR

CAN I SEE YOU
AGAIN?

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is an original publication of the Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2016 by Allison Van Rooy.

Excerpt from
The Someday Jar
by Allison Morgan copyright © 2015 by Allison Van Rooy.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

BERKLEY® and the “B” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

For more information, visit
penguin.com
.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morgan, Allison, author.

Title: Can I see you again? / Allison Morgan.

Description: Berkley trade paperback edition. | New York : Berkley Books, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015045574 (print) | LCCN 2015050072 (ebook) | ISBN

9780425282458 (softcover) | ISBN 9780698405400 (ePub)

Subjects: LCSH: Man-woman relationships—Fiction. | Dating (Social

customs)—Fiction. | Mate selection—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION /

Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Romance / Contemporary. | GSAFD: Love stories.

Classification: LCC PS3613.O725 C36 2016 (print) | LCC PS3613.O725 (ebook) |

DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045574

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley trade paperback edition / August 2016

Cover photographs:
Woman
© Ilina Simeonova/Trevillion.
Woman's hair
© Victoria Andreas/Shutterstock.
Front door
© David Papazian/iStock/Thinkstock.

Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To
Oma

“I can't believe this is happening,” I say to my secretary, Andrew, who's seated across my desk.

“Want me to pinch you?”

“Stay away from me.” I laugh, lifting my hands to stop him as he jumps from his chair. “Dr. Oz said squeezing the skin can cause blood clots. Or something like that. And, anyway, it's hard to celebrate if I'm dead.”

“Nonsense.” He quickly nips my elbow, then steps away to answer the phone.

I'm not dreaming, but my God, it's surreal that in less than two months' time my very own book,
Can I See You Again?
, will hit the shelves.
The shelves.
After two years of manuscript revisions and enough rejection letters to wallpaper an Ikea, my book—which is my hardest-fought and proudest accomplishment—will be published. If I weren't wearing my new black pencil skirt, I'd run outside my office and spin cartwheels along the shore. Well, that and no one wants to see the fabric split clear up to my waistband. Again.

Comprising tips and suggestions to find the one-and-only,
my self-help debut chronicles a handful of my most memorable matchmaking love stories (my favorite being the couple who married at seventy-seven years old and went bungee jumping on their honeymoon) along with funny anecdotes about first meetings that didn't go well—one guy arrived in a U-Haul, tossed his date a pair of gloves, and told her to grab the far end of his sectional. Another guy brought his date to a funeral.

Not only will a successful book broaden my business and its footprint, but the bags under my eyes from late nights fixed at the computer—honestly, seeing one's reflection in a laptop monitor at two a.m. should be a crime against women's rights—tears of uncertainty pooled on my keyboard, and callused fingertips from typing, deleting, and typing again will culminate in something tangible. Something
I
created. Something my grandmother Jo will be proud of.

Behind my computer, I reach for the framed and faded snapshot of her and me sitting side by side on her porch steps outside the home my G-pa built nearly forty years ago. I'd asked her one afternoon, as we tilted our heads together and smiled for Mom's camera, “Think I could write a book?”

“Oh, Bree, I do. And I'd be first in line to buy it.”

I can still smell the hint of black cherry on Jo's breath when she kissed my cheek good-bye.

It's hard to fathom that fifteen years of Saturdays have passed. Harder yet to believe it's just the two of us now. She's the only family I have left. And though Jo hides it well, her once-infectious smile has flattened into a thin line of disappointment, and it doesn't take a body language expert to recognize the layer of sorrow clouding her eyes.

So along with sidebars and strategies, curse-filled rants, doubt, and resurgence, I've infused my heart and soul into
Can I See You Again?
—not to mention a sizable chunk of my savings account for a publicist—and there's nothing I want
more than to celebrate the release of my book with Jo, highlight a joyful connection from our past. Ease the sting of all that I ripped away.

Andrew returns and leans against my desk. He's dressed in black jeans and a fitted gray vest wrapped over a white button-down shirt topped with a paisley bow tie. His dark brown hair is shaved close above his ears and grown longer on top, gelled into perfectly white-tipped spikes (he bent over his bathroom sink and dipped the points in bleach).

Andrew has been my closest friend since our junior year at UCSD; we shared the community bathroom in an off-campus apartment complex along with a wicked fight three weeks into fall semester—who knew that turning my hair dryer on and off as I readied for my seven a.m. class rather than leaving it on until my hair was completely dry had him teetering on the edge of sanity? I told him he had the slumped shoulders of a wallflower. He told me to shave my forearms.

The following day he bought me a sleek,
quieter
hair dryer, lent me his favorite sweatshirt, and showed me how to apply lip gloss. We've been tight ever since.

Same can't be said of his parents. Once they learned of his feminine ways and sexual preferences, they enrolled Andrew in football camp, martial arts classes, shooting range lessons, anything and everything manly with hopes of toughening him up. It didn't work.

“Jo's on the phone,” he says. “She sounds kinda flustered, didn't even want to talk about what happened on
The Bachelor
last night.” Andrew picks at the label of my granola bar. “We
always
talk about what happened on
The Bachelor
.”

“That's strange. Let me see what's going on.” I press line one, grateful he loves my eighty-year-old grandmother as much as I do. Though, how can he not? She's spunky and adorable with her floss-like silver hair coiled and secured with
a butterfly clip. She makes the best snickerdoodle cookies in all of San Diego County, and though neither admitted it, while she was recovering from her hip surgery four years ago, I'm pretty sure the two shared a bag of Fritos, a can of bean dip, and a tightly rolled joint. “Hi, Jo. Everything okay?”

“Oh, my heavens, Bree, I don't know what to do.”

Andrew's right.

All the same, I smile at the trepidation in Jo's voice. Bless her heart, she's grown a bit forgetful and fearful in her golden years, and though I visit every day, it's not uncommon for her to call panicked because she misplaced the TV remote or can't find her other slipper. But no matter, I'll call or stop by a hundred times a day if need be. Anything to keep her close and content. Anything to soothe the strain of the last fifteen years. “What's wrong?”

“The postman just delivered a letter.”

“Yes, okay.”
That's kind of what they do.
“What does the letter say?”

“It's full of tiny, fancy words. I can't make sense of it. But
final notice
is written in red ink, right across the top. It says I owe a lot of money. Can you come over?”

“Yes, of course. But, don't worry, it's likely a scam of some sort. Remember the silly water filtration system that telemarketer practically strong-armed you into buying a couple years ago? I'll come by after work. Need me to bring anything? More sandwich meat? Still have enough green apples?”

“I'm fine. Just hurry.”

“I will. And in the meantime, try to relax. Make yourself a cup of that lavender-sage-flavored tea you like. I put more in the pantry. I'll see you after a bit.”

“She okay?” Andrew asks.

“Yeah, just got a threatening letter.” I jot myself a note to
pick up a piece of her favorite double-chip-chocolate cake. Chocolate cake makes everything better. “How do people sleep at night, preying on old people?”

“Armpits of society.” Before heading toward his desk, Andrew points at my computer screen and says, “You know, most people screw around shopping on Amazon or watching YouTube videos of hairless cats. You're the only person I know who sneaks glimpses of the
New York Times
bestseller list during business hours.”

“The best of the best land here.” I tap the black-and-white Web page filling my screen. “This stuff is interesting.”

“Apparently you've never seen a hairless cat eat a raspberry.”

“Get back to work,” I chuckle. But rather than closing the Web page, I click on this week's current number-one bestseller,
Fallen
, triggering memories of Jo and me, anteing with raisins, Ritz crackers, pretzel sticks, or her favorite—liqueur-filled chocolates—scrolling through the
Times
Web page, wagering on the upcoming week's bestseller rankings. We'd bet which novel jumped to the top spot, which fell below twenty, the number of times
Love
,
Forever
, or
Dead
appeared in titles, how cute we thought the male authors might be.

It never mattered who won. We combined our snack piles and munched on the winnings, laughing at nothing special, enjoying the afternoon with just us two.

My office door swings open and my client, Nixon Voss, steps inside.

“Hey, Bree.” He settles into the chair across my desk in smooth dark jeans, nearly swallowing the leather slingback with his long California tanned frame. Nixon tugs at the cuffs of his pale pink button-down shirt, a color not many men can pull off. “How are you?”

With a crumpled smile, I grab my cell phone and aim it toward Nixon, showing him the lengthy text from another of his disappointed dates. “Are you out to set a record?”

“It's nice to see you, too. Heard it may rain later, but it's a beautiful morning so far, don't you think?”

I pause, then say with a voice matching the teasing tone in his, “So sorry. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Multigrain bagel? A conscience?”

“Do you chastise all your clients like this?” He silences his ringing phone with a thumb pressed against his pocket.

“Just the ones who break hearts in the double-digit range. How many does this make now? Eleven? There's no bonus for the most dates, you know. No punch card where you get the twelfth free.”

“Now you tell me. All this time I've been holding out for a Bree Caxton and Associates bumper sticker.”

I swallow my laugh and flip open his date's file; she's a blue-eyed ballet instructor whose toned thighs make me regret the wedge of Oreo-crusted cheesecake I ate for breakfast this morning. “Where'd you take her? And don't say for coffee.”

“Then I won't say it.”

“You know, it'd be easier finding a lasting match for a death row inmate.”

“Better get cracking on my espionage plan, then.”

“You realize you're trying to impress these women?”

“And they should be trying to impress me. But why suffer through dinner if we can't muster a decent conversation during a cup of coffee?”

“Because women like dinner. Dinner shouts to the world that you chose her, above all others, even if just for the evening. And trust me, a valued woman is more likely to open up. In
all
ways. Dinner is the slow seduction.”

“Slow seduction?”

“Stop laughing. I'm serious.” I flick a stray paper clip in his direction.

He reaches for it, but the wire fumbles through his grasp. “All right. Dinner. Slow seduction. I'll try to remember that. Excuse me one sec?”

I nod the go-ahead and he pulls his persistent phone from his pocket. It occurs to me that in the handful of times we've met, Nixon's phone is always cemented inside his palm, securing a deal, ratifying a contract, persuading a client to jump onboard. When does he find time to play Game of War? Or nap?

No doubt, Nixon's a sharp, diligent businessman with an iron-will dedication to his company. So it seems fitting, as he taps at his keys, that his phone's alert is a series of three rigid bumps like the hammering of a nail.

I flip my phone end over end while thinking about how revealing ringtones are. When waiting for a dentist's appointment or manicure, I try to peg other people's chosen signals based on their magazine selection, shoe style, tattoo, or haircut. It's a silly little game I play. Totally judgmental and founded on nothing besides conjecture. But, what the hell, I get a kick out of it. And, given that my livelihood depends on my ability to read energy and body language, I'm happy to report that the last nine out of ten times, I've nailed it. Not to mention, I predicted three out of the last four
Amazing Race
winners. Hard to say if my intuition stems from my psychology degree, books I've devoured on human behavior, or my being born on Halloween.

Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for the instinct and over the last six years, I've not only met hundreds of fascinating people but also capitalized off their unique characteristics.

“Sorry,” Nixon says, pointing at his phone, “small fire at the office.”

He types his reply and I consider my own ringtone, realizing
I don't differ much from the predictable. My dark blond hair is draped around my shoulders in loose curls and my makeup is minimal. I'm happiest with my butt in the sand or curled up on the couch with a crossword puzzle and bag of peanut-butter-stuffed pretzels by my side. I love to walk, I hate to bike, and I'm a pointed toe away from conquering an eight-angle yoga pose.

So it's no surprise that my ringtone is a Fratellis song, by an organic indie rock band I fell in love with after my boyfriend, Sean, took me to their concert last spring. We drank too many Blue Moons, danced until a blister formed on my pinkie toe, and then, wired and giddy, fooled around like teenagers in the back of his Audi A4. Which, by the light of day, isn't as fun as it sounds. I limped around for the better part of a week with a cup-holder-shaped bruise on my left hip.

Allowing Nixon another minute, I sort through my mail, tossing away pamphlets advertising last-minute Ensenada cruise deals, free cash, and low auto insurance rates. I then order three rolls of Christmas-themed wrapping paper from my landscaper's granddaughter who's fund-raising for a field trip to the San Diego Zoo. They're $24.95—
per roll
—but who can say no to a pigtailed second-grader with a gap between her front teeth?

Nixon still types.

Okay, that's long enough.

“Medical emergency?”

He says nothing.

“Beached whale?”

“Hmm?”

“Should I take cover because we've launched into World War Three?”

Nixon lifts his focus to offer a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about scowl.

“We're discussing your life, remember?” I point at his phone. “What's more important than love?”

“Look.” Nixon clicks off his screen. “I appreciate your help. I really do. But you know this whole arranged-dating thing isn't me. I'm here because my mom forgets I have a business to run and insists . . .
actually, commands
 . . . that I have a date on my arm for my cousin's wedding. If I don't, she'll have to explain to friends and neighbors, the caterer, the florist, and anyone else within earshot that the Voss family name is in jeopardy because I haven't married and spawned a grandchild, which in her eyes is equivalent to the earth slipping off its axis. So, according to my mom, if I don't have a girlfriend at the party, I'll be responsible for the end of humanity.”