Every Other Saturday (25 page)

“So what are you going to name me on the blog?” Melissa pulled Dave out of his thoughts about Julia, damn her, and their brief interaction a few hours before.

He’d taken Lyric over early, ostensibly to put a six-pack in Julia’s fridge, but ready for anything: awkwardness, anger, reassurance; even the long talk about friendship and trust he was surprisingly ready to have. But Julia had brushed it off, insisting there was nothing to discuss and busying herself with an artificial sunniness that didn’t suit her. He should be happy for the lack of drama, but it made him wary and unsettled. That other shoe hovered somewhere.

“Any ideas?” Melissa corralled his wandering attention, leaning forward on the table so that her flawless breasts were strategically pushed up and together, a delicate gold Star of David glittering between them. Her smile revealed perfectly straight, white teeth.

Twenty-four
. Dave toyed with an extra coaster on their table at the Vortex, a punk-themed burger place in Little Five Points.
Twenty-five tops
. Her profile said she was twenty-eight, but there was no way. “I was thinking maybe Frances Houseman.”

“Whaaat?” Melissa made a face, playfully scrunched. She was cute; he had to give her that.

“Not a
Dirty Dancing
fan?”

“Oh. Of course. I love old movies.”

He snorted. “Old movies? As in, 1987?”

She toyed with her necklace, zipping the star back and forth on its chain before bringing it to rest on her chin, a gesture that made her look even younger. “Definitely. They’re so much more graceful than movies today.
Especially
the romances.”

The heavily pierced server cleared their empty beer glasses, leaving the waters, and Dave motioned for the check. He was trying to figure out how to blog about Date Thirteen, considering the main source of their incompatibility was her age and maturity. Or maybe his stodginess and distraction.

It wasn’t fair to tell a twenty-four-year-old not to be twenty-four, or that she couldn’t date a guy in his late thirties. “Don’t lie about your age on your dating profile,” was a single sentence of common sense, hardly fodder for a dating expert. He had nothing to offer.

He’d been trying to explain as much to Kenneth at SportsZone, and even to Max, who had begun serving as Dave’s ad hoc agent in the last couple of weeks. As his blog crested a hundred thousand followers, there had been calls and emails to both SportsZone and Dave personally. Online magazines and television outlets wanted to interview him about his experiment and dating in general. There were even possible appearances on
The Today Show
and
Steve Harvey
.

Yesterday, his publisher called to ask him to write a second book, focusing on dating for men after divorce. An underserved market, she’d said; a distinctive voice. Maybe. But when it came to relationships, Dave was worse than a non-expert. He was a fraud.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked Melissa suddenly, trying to turn his derailed train of thought into something that passed for conversation.

She made a face. “I’m pretty sure I’m grown-up already.” She glanced down at her cleavage. “And I told you, I’m an associate social media brand strategist.”

“No offense, but I don’t have the first idea what that means.”

Melissa smiled pointedly. “Maybe you should, since we’re in the same business. Your brand is Dave from the Cave, and you only
exist
on social media.”

He made a show of patting himself on the chest and shoulders as though checking whether he existed in person.

She laughed. “You know what I mean.”

“That’s the thing. I’ve been doing this blog for ten years, and I’ve never thought of myself as a brand. I’m just a guy who started talking about sports online in his spare time. And maybe trying to reclaim a bit of my manhood from my ex-wife.”

“But you treat it like a business, right?” She sat up straight now, eyes alight with an intelligence he hadn’t noticed during the forced small talk of their meal. “You have sponsors and all that. And you’re not, like, the exact same guy here with me tonight who shows up in those blogs.”

“Are you saying I’m putting some kind of fake persona out there?” He cringed. It was as though she’d been reading his anxious thoughts from a moment before.

She shook her head and sipped her water. “No. I’m saying it’s a version of you. But you couldn’t be that guy all the time. Dave from the Cave is your brand, and you, regular Dave, have to have some distance from that or you can’t make objective decisions about the business.”

“That’s pretty damn insightful,” he said. She looked totally different when she talked about her work. Maybe she was twenty-eight.

Melissa shrugged. “My first marketing internship was at CNN. You learn a lot about separating the real person from the on-air personality there.”

“I started out as a numbers guy,” he said. “Sports statistics. The truth is, I’ve never thought of myself as having any insight into the human heart. Much less relationships.” Even as he said this, he could see pieces of Melissa’s blog forming in his head:
talk about what inspires you, share your professional life and expertise, you’re much prettier when you allow yourself to be smart...

“I disagree,” she said, as the server dropped the check. “I think women, my age especially, could use advice from a man with more experience.”

He chuckled. “I have more years than you, but since I was married to one woman for fifteen of those, I don’t know if that translates into anything useful.”

“Guess I’ll have to wait to find out,” she said, eyebrows raised.

Dave had to smile. Charming, smart, and persistent. Melissa was going to make someone an amazing partner. But not him. “Come on, Baby.” He put cash on the table and reached for his jacket. “Let’s get you out of this corner.”

# # #

“Jesus, Julia. Can’t you figure one damn thing out for yourself?” Caroline shoved a pan of potatoes into her arms. It had been the wedding from hell: drama, fights, and a cold, misting mid-November rain. But Caroline was edgy, even for her.

“It was just a question. I’m doing my best.”

“You’re always doing your best,” Caroline said impatiently, and added another pan on top of the first. “No offense, but it’s been over three months. Develop some instincts, would you?”

Julia hustled into the reception room, cheeks burning. There had to be another way to make extra money. She put the potatoes down on a table behind the buffet and kept going, through a side door and into the drizzly night. The cold rain was calming against her skin and her ego. She made her way along the side of the building to the main door and entered the reception from the other side, where she busied herself collecting empty glasses and tried to surreptitiously locate her sister. Like a mouse trying to spot the hawk among the branches. She just needed to stay busy until Caroline calmed down.

A few tables away, Sean was going full steam, his lean, strong body moving back and forth to lay out various drinks. A line formed at the bar, so Julia made her way over to help. He didn’t look at her when she sidled up next to him, but on the next drink order he handed her a wine glass. “Chardonnay, please, Julia.”

They fell into a rhythm, Sean pouring the cocktails and Julia fetching wine and beer, until the line had thinned to just a couple of giggling bridesmaids. He glanced at Julia as he refilled their wine glasses. “Thanks for the hand. You didn’t have to do that.”

Julia shrugged. “I was around. And avoiding my sister, honestly.”

His face clouded for a second and he glanced around. Another mouse in the hedgerow.

“Her rampage came this way, too?”

Sean focused intently on wiping down the bar. “You could say that.”

“Oh God. Sean, I’m sorry. I wish I could help her realize that she’s going to lose her best staff if she can’t control her temper.”

Sean shrugged. “I’m Irish. If anyone can handle a temper it’s me. Besides, I hear her sister is pretty sweet.”

Blood rushed to her face. “I’m not always so sweet myself. Just ask my ex-husband.”

Sean affected a horrifying fake Southern accent. “Whatever happened, he done you wrong, as y’all say here in the South. I can’t imagine you being anything but perfect.”

She snorted, amused in spite of her rotten evening. “It must be nice to be so young, and full of shit.”

He grinned and looked across the room at the DJ. “Looks like it’s time for the first dance. I’d ask you, but I reckon we have other things to do. And your sister is coming.”

Sure enough, Caroline was headed straight for them with a tray of half-filled champagne flutes. Too late to get away, Julia just took a deep breath and plastered a disingenuous smile on her face.

Caroline, however, seem to have forgotten all about the earlier incident. “They want to do the toasts first,” she said to both of them. “Julia, pass these around the crowd, then go back to the kitchen for more. Sean, you’ll need to open a couple more bottles out here for refills. Get some beer ready too.”

Julia took the tray awkwardly from her sister, both avoiding eye contact. She knew Caroline well enough to know that this awkwardness was supposed to pass for an apology, and she was too concerned about balancing the drink tray to question it. It was part of the job Julia still had not mastered. Caroline was halfway back to the kitchen by the time Julia got the tray balanced and turned around. Straight into Mr. Culbertson.

The irritable father of the bride had been mid-conversation and apparently gesturing wildly, walking toward the bar just as Julia was turning away from it. In the collision, the tray turned up and half the glasses tumbled to the floor, where several of them shattered. The other half merely spilled their content down the front of Julia’s uniform. And, of course, all over Mr. Culbertson.

He exploded. What followed was a string of spitting profanity so fierce and eloquent that it might have been funny or even admirable, had it not been aimed at her, inches from her face, and at such incredible volume.

Soaking wet and trembling, Julia scarcely knew where she was by the time he finished. She felt that part of her had in fact gone somewhere else during his tirade, but as his wife, pleading, pulled him away from Julia, she returned to herself and could see every nearby eye on her. Could hear Sean’s voice behind her but couldn’t make out what he was saying. She dropped the tray and ran, scarcely caring about the shattered glass and her feet. Tears streamed down her hot cheeks as she made for the exit. She didn’t care whether Caroline fired her or never spoke to her again or she had to sell her car or go on food stamps. Nothing was worth this.

She had almost reached the door to the parking lot, and freedom, when someone called her. “Julia? Julia Mendel?”

It took a minute for Julia to recognize the slightly nasal voice. Holy.
Fuck
. Maybe she could keep walking, pretend she hadn’t heard.

“Julia!” Several people nearby turned, and Julia had no choice but to do the same.

“It’s Tamara,” the woman trilled, extending a thin, olive-colored arm with a glittering bracelet dangling from her wrist. Julia took it, awkwardly, hands sticky with champagne. “Tamara Goldman? From the preschool?”

“Hi, Tamara,” Julia said, resigned.

With her other arm, Tamara pulled a short, curly-haired man away from another conversation. “Have you met my husband, Matthew Goldman, of Wood, Goldman and Associates? Matthew, this is Julia Mendel—head of the PTA at Sarah’s school.”

“Sure,” Matthew said absently, looking past Julia into the crowd. To Tamara, he said, “Is that Richard Davies over there? I should go talk to him.”

Tamara stood even higher on her toes than was facilitated by her twelve-inch heels, and gripped her husband’s arm. “That’s not Richard,” she said. “Richard is taller. Honey, Julia is Adam Mendel’s wife, remember?”

Matthew looked at her now. “Right. How is Adam? He was on our synagogue softball team. You’re not keeping him locked up at home, are you?”

“We’re divorced, actually.”

“What?” Tamara practically shrieked. “You never mentioned that. How awful! And with such small children.”

Matthew stared at Julia as if she’d just said she was planning to eat her children later. “But he was on our team,” he said slowly. “Center field. He hit that double when we won the championship.”

Tamara pulled Matthew closer to her, in a gesture Julia had seen more than once among couples when she shared the news of her divorce. As though holding your partner tighter in that moment would keep them from walking out on you later. And maybe it would; what did Julia know? All she knew now was that she was sticky, cold, and pissed off, and the last people on the planet she wanted to talk to were Tamara and Matthew Goldman of Wood, Goldman and Associates.

“Adam is keeping his bat in someone else’s dugout now,” she said impulsively. “He left me for his mistress and now he doesn’t pay his child support on time, so I’m working a second job with my sister. Or at least I was until tonight, because I’m about to get fired. Have a pleasant evening, won’t you?”

Before either of them could answer, she turned and marched out the door, not stopping even to think of their shocked faces until she was halfway home.

# # #