Confessions of an Ugly Girl (8 page)

Todd really does look like a troll. I’m not being mean—it’s just a fact. He’s short and stout, with a brown beard that’s big and round. I can just imagine him standing in front of bridge and demanding people answer riddles before they’re allowed to pass.

“Millie!” Todd exclaimed when he saw me. “Are you having trouble with your computer?”

I guessed Sam didn’t tell the other guys about his lunch date. Was he embarrassed to be going out with me?

“Um, no,” I mumbled.

Todd must not have heard me, because he said, “I can help you, Millie. But before I do, I’m going to need you to answer a riddle.”

I stared at him. Was this some kind of joke?

Todd flashed me one of his superior smiles. “What goes up and down the stairs without moving?”

I actually knew this one. I was pretty sure the answer was a rug. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, I shouldn’t have to answer a stupid riddle in order to get help with my computer. Todd was taking his assholery a step too far.

“Is Sam here?” I asked.

Todd frowned. “Sam? What do you need him for? I could help you.”     

God, he was actually going to make me say it. I felt my cheeks getting hot. “Sam and I…” I began. I glanced down at my watch. “I’m supposed to meet him here for… you know, lunch.”

Well, at least that wiped the the smile off Todd’s face. His little troll eyes widened. “I didn’t realize that
you
were the one he was…”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, not really wanting to have a whole discussion about this.

I hated that all the computer guys were now going to know about me and Sam. They were probably all going to sit around laughing about what a dog Sam was dating. Or worse, they were going to feel sorry for him that I was the only girl he could get to go out with him. I imagined that arrogant asshole Todd ribbing him about me, making snide comments about how my ass was too big or I was too dumb to answer any riddles. I wanted to hide under the table.

Todd cleared his throat loudly. “I guess… you can go in the back and see Sam. He’s still finishing up some stuff.”

I could barely look at him. “Okay, thanks.”

Todd showed me the door to the main IT office, where all the computer dorks hung out. Sam was at a computer on the far side of the room, staring at the screen through his glasses. His hands were poised over the keyboard—he told me he typed with two fingers. Of the three guys in the room, he was the best looking by far. He glanced up when I came in and smiled.

“Hi, Millie,” he said. “I’m so sorry I got held up. I’ll just be two more minutes, I promise.”

I sat down next to him and he leaned forward and kissed me, right in front of everyone. He didn’t seem embarrassed about it at all, but I immediately glanced at the other guys. My bet was that they’d pity Sam for dating me. Poor guy in the wheelchair, can’t get anyone but that ugly girl.

I brought it up to him casually at lunch, whether the other guys knew about the two of us. Sam just grinned at me. “I told them I was seeing someone,” he said, “but I didn’t have the heart to tell Todd that it was you. I guess he figured it out now though. Poor guy is probably devastated.”

I shook my head. “Devastated about what?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I assume you’re aware that Todd has, like, a
massive
crush on you. He was going on and on this morning about some riddle he wanted to tell you.”

“Todd does
not
have a crush on me,” I informed him. How could Sam be so deluded? Honestly. “He’s just being a jerk.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not judging you for rejecting him,” Sam said with a shrug. “Todd has some social issues. The guy can’t get a girlfriend to save his life, much less one as sexy as you.”

I blushed. “I’m not…”

He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t think you’re sexy? Come on, Millie. You’ve
got
to be kidding me. You’re the sexiest woman in this room.”

I wasn’t the sexiest woman in this room or
any
room. And I don’t think there was any way that Sam could possibly have thought that I was the sexiest woman in that room, no matter how much he liked me. It was just… patronizing. I loved everything Sam said to me, but I didn’t love it when he said things like that. It made me uncomfortable because it felt like a lie.

But I didn’t want to say any of that to Sam. I figure if I point out that I’m not pretty or sexy, he’ll realize it’s not true. I spent the rest of the day scared that his buddies at work were going to say something to him and he was going to decide I wasn’t as great as he thought I was. But I called him before leaving for the day and he sounded just as friendly as always, so who knows.

AUGUST

August 10:

I got to see Sam’s apartment today. I don’t think there’s any chance he’s going to ever see mine, considering how many stairs there are to get in. Sam can handle jumping over one small step by doing a wheelie, but he said even that’s pretty hard for him since he doesn’t have much strength in his hands. So unless Martha decides to install an elevator, it’s not going to happen. Sam kind of played it down, but he seemed a little frustrated. I’m definitely frustrated.

But anyway, Sam’s apartment is amazing. He must be making a lot of money to afford it, way more than me, which is good because I read a study that said a woman will up her likelihood of divorce by 5% for every $5000 dollars she earns over her husband’s salary.

(Not that Sam and I are getting married or anything. I’m not even sure why I said that.)

Anyway, like I said, Sam’s place is really nice. It’s a two-bedroom apartment, so he has a huge bedroom and then a whole other room to use as an office. The furniture is simple but functional. I couldn’t help but notice that all his bookcases are half height, probably because anything higher than that would be wasted space.

He’s on the fifteenth floor and has an incredible view. I couldn’t stop staring out the window. “I love your apartment,” I told him. “You just need some carpeting to bring it together.”

Sam shook his head. “Nuh uh. Do you know how hard it is to wheel on carpeting?”

Of course. I never think of stuff like that.

The reason I wanted to come to Sam’s apartment was that I was going to cook him dinner. I’m not the world’s most amazing cook or anything, but we had eaten like every meal out and he never lets me pay, so I wanted to do something for him. I brought a bag of groceries with me and intended to make him some chicken and vegetable pasta. Sam made a big deal out of it, like I was the sweetest person in the world for wanting to make him dinner.

Sam’s kitchen was pristine. He told me he hires someone to clean, but also that he never cooks short of using the microwave. I don’t think my kitchen looked this good the day I first moved in. I almost felt bad getting it dirty.

I started out chopping vegetables and Sam went in the other room. Maybe I was nervous or something (and his knives were ridiculously sharp since they had barely been used) because within thirty seconds, I had sliced my finger. I held it under cold water, wincing at the pain and that annoying sliced-open-finger feeling. It occurred to me that if Sam sliced his finger, he wouldn’t even feel it.

The phone rang and I yelled out to let Sam know. “Let the machine get it!” he yelled back. Like me, he seemed to take most of his important calls on his cell phone. I didn’t even realize he had a landline. It was probably part of his cable package or something.

As I held pressure on my finger with a piece of paper towel, I heard a woman’s voice come from the answering machine: “Hi, Sam? Sammy, it’s me. I know you’re screening my calls on your cell phone, but I really need to talk to you.
Please
, Sam. Please, just give me five minutes to talk to you. I know you’re angry at me, but this isn’t fair. I—”

Sam heard the voice from the other room and was racing out to get the phone. I’d never seen him wheel that fast. He tried to grab the phone, but he had to fumble with his hands, more than I’d ever seen him fumble before. His face was bright red. He wasn’t looking at me as he spoke into the phone. “Holly,” he said in a low voice. I’d never heard him sound so angry. He was usually so cool and collected. “I don’t want you to call here again. No, I……. stop. Stop calling me. Yeah…… well, I’m going to change the number. Yeah, I don’t want to see you…… fine, please don’t call again.”

He hung up the phone, looking as upset as I’d ever seen him. He doesn’t blush the way I do, but his ears were bright red. “Who’s Holly?” I asked, trying to sound all casual.

“Nobody,” he said.

I looked at him.

He sighed. “She’s my ex-girlfriend. It didn’t end well.”

“Oh…”

“You don’t want to hear this story, Millie,” he said.

“I thought we were being honest with each other.”

He sighed again. “Fine. We were dating about a year and a half, and… I asked her to move in with me. She told me she didn’t see our relationship being a long term thing and admitted she was seeing someone else. I felt like an idiot. That was six months ago and I’m over it. End of story.”

He was dating her for
a year and a half
. That’s a really long time. I read that it takes half the time of a relationship to get over the relationship. So if they broke up six months ago, he still needs another three months to be over her.

“Were you in love with her?” I don’t know why I asked that. Apparently, I’m on some sort of mission to jeopardize my relationship.

He shrugged. “I thought I was, but clearly I was mistaken. I’m definitely not in love with her
now
. In fact, I don’t want to see her ever again.” He looked at me and frowned with concern. “What happened to your finger?”

“Nice job changing the subject.”

“Millie, you’re dripping blood all over my counter!”

I looked down and saw that he was right. The cut was worse than I’d thought. Sam tried to persuade me to go to the ER to get it stitched up, but I thought he was overreacting. After holding pressure on it for a while, the bleeding stopped and he got me his first aid kit so that I could bandage it up.

We ended up ordering out Chinese food, then we made out on his couch. It was a lovely evening.

August 18:

Approximately 70% of Americans are unhappy at their jobs.

You might not think so from my work description, but I actually really like my job. It may not be as exciting as, say, being a professional scuba diver. But it’s not like I can see myself in a job like that anyway. It’s nice to come to work, know exactly what you’re going to do that day, and find creative ways to solve problems.

Honestly, there are a lot of parts of my job that don’t require much creativity either. But that’s okay. Sometimes it’s nice to just be able to zone out and do rote work. I find it relaxing.

This week, my job has not been relaxing. We’re putting together a report for a large car insurance company, and I’ve been busy synthesizing the data from my team. The report should’ve been done a week ago but some unexpected problems came up, so at this point, we’re behind. It means I’ve been coming in early, leaving late, and skipping lunch this week.

I don’t mind so much coming in early or leaving late, but I feel bad that Sam texted me the last two days, asking if I could get lunch with him, and I’ve had to beg off, explaining about the workload. He said he missed me, but he understood. Today he didn’t text me about lunch and I felt a little sad, like maybe he’d given up on me.

Then at noon, he showed up at my cubicle. “I’m taking you to lunch,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

I wanted to go to lunch with him more than anything. He looked adorable today, even more so than usual, maybe because I hadn’t seen him much lately. We’re still at that phase in the relationship where just looking at him makes me tingle. He was wearing this slightly wrinkled blue shirt that brought out the color in his eyes, even behind his glasses. He wasn’t wearing a tie, as usual, and his top button was open, so I could see the tiniest hint of chest hair. It was really sexy. God, I wanted to see his chest. I hadn’t gone there yet, but I thought about it as I ran my hands over the fabric of his shirt. I could tell he wasn’t muscular under there and he once told me kind of apologetically that he didn’t have much muscle tone due to the paralysis, but it was still sexy because it was Sam.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.” I gestured helplessly at my computer.

He frowned. “You can’t take half an hour break the whole day?”

“Rich is going to freak out,” I said.

In fact, I was nervous that my boss Rich was going to see Sam at my cubicle and start prematurely freaking out. He had been hovering over me all damn day.

Sure enough, within 30 seconds, Rich was racing over, looking very pale. I think he’s become balder in the last week and he looked like he was about to drop dead of a coronary. As much pressure as I’ve been under to get this report done, he’s under more.

“Hi, Sam,” he said. He was trying to play it casual. “How are you doing?”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I think Rich was a little patronizing in his interactions with Sam. Sam always seemed mildly annoyed, but took it better than other people would have.

“I’m fine, Rich,” Sam said, using the same patronizing tone. “How are you?”

“Been better,” Rich replied. He turned his attention to me. “What’s going on, Millie? Is your computer broken?”

Right, because why else would Sam Webber, the computer expert, be at my cubicle? “No,” I said.

“Oh,” Rich said, looking relieved. “Good.” He hovered there, waiting for me to answer his next, unspoken question: why the hell was Sam at my desk?

Both men were staring at me, waiting for an answer. The whole office was staring at me. I wracked my brain, trying to think of a plausible excuse. Maybe he was here because he owed me money for Bess’s baby shower gift? No, he’s a man. Maybe he and I were on competing softball teams and he was here to arrange a time for the next game? Totally, Millie. Good one. “Um,” I said brilliantly. Hey, I’m an actuary—we don’t think fast on our feet.

“Actually,” Sam said, “I’m here to take Millie out to lunch. Do you think you can spare her for half an hour?”

Rich looked so confused, I almost laughed through my terror. His brows knitted together, trying to figure this one out. He’s kind of slow. But not that slow. “Oh! Um, yes, of course, Sam. Just try to bring her back in one piece.”

I could have crawled under my desk. Rich didn’t even look as surprised as he could have. The ugliest girl in the office was going out with the crippled guy… guess it made some sense.

I tried not to be, but I was pissed at Sam. Now everyone in the office, including my boss, knew that we were dating. Maybe I don’t think fast on my feet, but Sam does. He could have come up with some reasonable excuse for why he was at my cubicle. He didn’t even try.

Once I was angry, it felt like everything he did was pissing me off. Like why did he always bring me to the same restaurant for lunch? Okay, maybe it was the closest one to work and it was very accessible, which is important, but it was too early in our relationship to be so monotonous. And we’d have a lot more time for lunch if he didn’t take so damn long to transfer in and out of his car. Well, I guess he was pretty fast at it, considering he can’t use his hands. But it takes me like five seconds to get out of the car and it takes him at least… two minutes.

By the time we were in the restaurant, I was good and angry. Sam was trying to make conversation, but I was answering in monosyllables and mostly looking down at my menu. Finally, Sam said, “Okay, Millie, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then why are you sulking?”

“I’m not sulking,” I said sulkily.

“Look,” he sighed. “You know me by now, Millie. I don’t like to play games. Some guys will mess around with you but that’s not me. I’ve been straight with you from the beginning. I like you and I tell you that. And I got the feeling you weren’t the kind of woman who likes to play games. So why don’t we be the kind of couple that doesn’t play games with each other and actually says when something’s wrong so we can talk about it?”

“Okay,” I said. He was right. I don’t like games either. I appreciated the fact that he was always so straightforward with me.

“So what’s wrong?”

“I just…” I felt stupid now, telling him this. “Why did you have to tell my boss we were dating?”

Sam frowned. “People from the company are allowed to date.”

“I know, but…” I was blushing now. “Why does everyone have to
know
?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you embarrassed to be dating me?”

He didn’t sound angry when he said it, just a little hurt. I immediately felt awful. I wasn’t embarrassed about him at all. Just the opposite. I feel like people like me are supposed to keep my private life private. Nobody wants to picture that stuff. “No!” I said.

“You hesitated.”

“I didn’t, I swear.”

“Millie, we’re two adults,” he said. “We’re in a relationship. It’s not a big deal. It’s not something we need to keep secret.”

“I guess so,” I said. He was right. Between the two of us, he had more relationship experience. I’d never had any relationships lasting close to a year and a half.

“I told everyone at the Computer Helpdesk about you,” he reminded me. “And I told my parents.”

“You told your
parents
?” I was totally shocked by that revelation. Sure, I tell my mother about almost every date I have, but men aren’t like that. Usually they get around to telling their parents about their girlfriend sometime while they’re walking down the aisle. Donna told me she didn’t even meet her husband’s parents till they were dating for a year and she suspected they didn’t know about her until about a week before that.