Finding Mr. Right (7 page)

Dear Diary,

Blake has a girlfriend. A real girlfriend. It was quite a shock for me to meet her, and I’m not really sure how I feel. She’s gorgeous, of course, but really nice, so I can’t hate her. Though, I don’t really have a reason to hate her. She says she’ll be my gym buddy, as she hates going by herself. I didn’t ask why she doesn’t go with Blake, but I guess that was a bit too much to expect and ask. Actually, I didn’t ask them about their relationship at all. I just didn’t want to know. I don’t know what to think or feel right now. I can’t explain the surge of jealousy I got when I saw them together. I thought my heart belonged to Ben, but there is something in Blake’s eyes that makes me feel so warm inside.

“Maggie, you look great.” Bridget smiled at me in her cute workout outfit. She was waiting outside the gym for me and didn’t seem annoyed that I was ten minutes late.

“Thanks, you look great too.” I smiled, wanting to hate something about her but failing.

We walked into the gym, and I could feel several guys’ heads swirl around to look at us. Okay, maybe not at me, but at her.

“That guy is totally checking you out, three o’clock,” Bridget whispered to me.

I looked over to my right and made eye contact with a handsome older man. He was staring and smiling at me. I gave him a smile back, and this time I was not embarrassed or anxious. He really had been checking me out.
Hmm
, I thought to myself,
maybe I’m not as invisible to men as I thought.

“So how is the novel coming along?”

“Did Blake tell you to ask me that?” I’d only been on vacation for 2 days. Was this going to be a constant inquiry?

“No,” Bridget laughed. “Actually, he told me not to ask you. He said he didn’t want you to feel like you were being pressured, but I was just curious.”

I looked over at Bridget. She seemed so genuine and nice. And when I had met her a few weeks before, I had felt like she was someone I could be great friends with. I didn’t want to like her. I wanted her to be a bitch. Inexplicably, I wanted her to have some major faults. I didn’t quite know why I felt this way, maybe just protective of Blake. He was one of my oldest friends, and we’d just come back into contact, and I didn’t want to lose his friendship again so quickly. To say I was in shock when I met her would be an understatement. I had tried to think of some famous authors named Bridget when he first introduced us, but then she told me she was a lawyer as well, so I knew she wasn’t an author.

Every time they laughed or told stories, they seemed to look at each other with such respect and admiration, and something inside me would curl. I really wanted to know how long they’d been dating, how they met, and if it was serious, but I didn’t want to be nosey. I mean, he hadn’t even introduced her as his girlfriend, so it was obvious to me that they weren’t the sort to shove the relationship in other people’s faces. It did hurt my feelings that he’d never told me about the fact that he had a girlfriend, especially since I had asked him about his love life.

“So, is it going well?” Bridget started talking to me again as we settled onto the two recumbent bikes and started pedaling.

“It’s going okay,” I was hesitant to say more than that. I couldn’t tell her that I had spent more time thinking about her and Blake than my book.

“You know, if you want, we can go to this house in the hills tonight. It’s my friend’s, and whenever I feel like I’m lost and need inspiration, I go and relax and my mind frees up.”

I looked over at Bridget. It was going to be impossible to hate her if she was going to be so nice.

“Wow, that would be kinda awesome actually.”

“Great. We’ll have a girls’ night. It’ll be fun,” Bridget smiled at me widely.

“You and Blake aren’t doing anything tonight?” I was surprised. I thought that Saturday nights were reserved for boyfriends and girlfriends.

“No, we don’t really hang out that much. He works a lot, as I’m sure you know.” She laughed. What a considerate girlfriend. I knew that work or not, I would want to see my boyfriend on a Saturday night.

“But you are a lawyer too.”

“Blake has a much bigger workload than me, but a higher salary as well, so I guess it evens out.”

“Yeah,” I didn’t want to probe deeper. But I felt a little happier all of a sudden. They couldn’t be that serious if they didn’t have set dates for Saturday night.

“So, what time tonight?” I was now ready and raring to go with my book.

“Let’s say 6? We can grab dinner first, then pick up some wine and go on up. Sam’s out of town for a few months, so we can go over whenever we want.”

“Sounds great.” We got down from the bikes with my muscles only slightly aching.

“And tomorrow we can come back to the gym and do cardio and upper body!”

“Uh, sure.”

As we grabbed our bags, I checked my phone and saw that I had a text from Blake.

Hope it went well at the gym today. I figured you would prefer having Bridget as a gym buddy over me. :)

I smiled at his text and looked over at Bridget. “Ha-ha, just got a text from Blake.”

“Sweet. How is he?”

“Oh, he didn’t text you too?”

“No, Blake doesn’t text me much.” She laughed.

“Oh.” Wow, Bridget was a really laid-back girlfriend. Maybe that was what Blake liked about her. Maybe she was just really confident in herself in that she didn’t need to hear or see her boyfriend much.

“I’ll meet you at the restaurant at 6 p.m.?” Bridget shouted over to me as we walked to our respective cars.

“Sure, see you then.” I hopped into my car, feeling more energized than I had in the past few weeks.

Dear Diary,

I think I am now in love with two men, Ben and Blake. Of course both of them are off limits to me, so naturally I did the most feasible thing I could do next. I signed up for an online dating service, because you know, when you are in love with 2 men who don’t love you, trying to write a book, training for a marathon, and trying to lose weight, you need to add another distraction to your life. To be fair to myself, it was Bridget’s idea. She says several of her friends who recently got married met their partners online. And while she didn’t tell me this to goad me into joining exactly, her talk did plant a seed in my mind. Also, I had this idea that perhaps Bradley Cooper was looking online as well. I’d just read an article about how celebrities look for love online anonymously to ensure the person wants them for them and not just their fame and money. And supposedly some actress from some TV show I’ve never watched ended up marrying some non-celebrity guy. So after all that, I decided that was the way I was going to end up with Mr. Right.

Writing with Bridget was great. I got a lot done, and my first impression of her was indeed correct. She was a wonderful human being. I’d told Gayle about her before she picked me up and she had advised me to get as much dirt on Bridget and Blake as possible and try to break them up. But I didn’t think that would be a good idea. It was bad karma, and honestly, I didn’t think I would be successful if I tried anyways. I didn’t think I could compete with Bridget, and I didn’t really think Blake was interested in me. It also seemed somewhat unfair to Ben. I’d wanted him for so long. How flakey would I be if I dropped him as the object of my affections for Blake?

Gayle didn’t have any answers to my mumblings. She couldn’t explain it either. She didn’t know why I was so interested in Ben and thought I should just drop him from my thoughts. He was one of those guys who was obviously a dirt bag, yet he had the looks and the charisma to make a girl forget her own name. Sometimes, I wondered if Gayle had fallen under his spell as well. But there was no way No-Nonsense-Gayle would ever put up with All-He-Thinks-About-is-Himself-Ben. But she had been asking me about Ben and Jasmine a lot recently and seemed to be overly upset at the fact that they seemed to be getting on really well, even more so than I was.

“What does he see in her?” she said one day, showing a lot more exasperation than I had expected to hear from her in regards to him.

“I don’t know. Perhaps her body? Maybe the sex is good?”

“That bony thing? I’m sure it can’t feel good.”

I didn’t want to laugh out loud or point out the obvious to Gayle. She was just as skinny as Jasmine, and if it didn’t feel good with Jasmine, it wouldn’t with her either.

“Yeah, I don’t know. It seems as if he is really smitten. He told me he was thinking about moving in with her.”

“WHAT?” Gayle shouted.

“I know, right? I was in shock, but what could I say? I don’t want to seem as if...”

Gayle cut me off. “You need to speak to him seriously. He cannot move in with her! That would be a big mistake.”

“I don’t think that I am in a position to really...”

“He cannot move in with her. You are one of his best friends, Maggie. You need to talk to him.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” I had no intention of telling Ben not to move in with Jasmine. I didn’t want him to think I was really into him. It would be too embarrassing.

“Hey, so did I tell you I joined cupidlove.com?” My segue into a new subject worked.

“What? OMG, you are online dating now?” Gayle screeched. She’d been hanging out with me for too long. She wasn’t usually prone to these loud, excited outbursts.

“I signed up last night. I have a feeling this is the best way for me to meet Bradley Cooper.”

“Maggie, are you joking right now?” Gayle sighed.

“No, didn’t I tell you about this magazine article I read? It says a lot of Hollywood stars are looking for love anonymously online because it is the best way to find out if a woman is into them for who they are and not their fame.”

“Maggie.”

“Don’t worry, Gayle. I’m not holding out for Bradley. But I think it’s the best way to get over Ben and Blake.”

“Blake?” she screeched in my ear again. Oops, I hadn’t really told her that I was starting to feel weird things for Blake.

“What’s going on with you and Blake?”

“Nothing.”

“But you like him?”

“I don’t know. Well, maybe. But, I don’t know. Anyways, he has a girlfriend.”

“What about Ben? Are you over him now?” She sounded excited.

“Huh? I don’t know. No. Yes. Maybe.” Sigh.

“Maggie?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know how to feel anymore. I still think Ben is cute, and I think Blake is hot and super nice, and I still lust over Bradley, but I just don’t think I’m being realistic in expecting any of them. And I am fed up with being single and lonely.”

“It’s okay, Mags. It’s good,” Gayle’s voice was soft. “This is really good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah, you deserve someone real. Someone to love you. Not just a dream lover.”

“Huh?” I was indignant.

“You know what I mean, Mags. It’s time to take control of your life. It’s your time now.”

“I know. It’s time.” And it was time for me to start living and stop dreaming.

“Mags, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” I was worried Gayle was going to ask me about my gym workouts and about my running. I didn’t want to have to admit those still were not going very well. I especially didn’t want her try and coerce me into working out more than I currently was. One step at a time, please.

“What really made you decide to start online dating? I’ve tried to encourage you so many times.”

I thought about her question carefully. It wasn’t an easy thing to admit. I knew I was a dreamer, a hopeless romantic, the idealist who believed in love at first sight and fate. And in my heart of hearts, I still believed that it was possible for Bradley and me to be together. But in the last few weeks, part of me had changed.

“I think I’m changing, Gayle. I’m becoming a doer, you know...” I paused, not sure how much I was willing to admit, even to myself. Especially to myself.

“I’ve always had dreams. To write a bestseller, to be skinny, to marry a gorgeous man. And I’ve never really done anything grand and nothing has inspired me to. I’ve been happy with my dreams, but now, I, I just feel like the dream is not enough.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’m scared though, Gayle. What if I...”

“You won’t fail, Mags. You could never fail.” Gayle’s voice was so strong, so confident, that it warmed me through and through. That was why Gayle was my best friend. Even though she sometimes made me feel inferior or bossed me around, I knew she was my strongest proponent and supporter.

“Thanks.”

“It’s true, you know. I admire you.”

“I admire you too, Gayle. I never would have...”

Gayle interrupted me. “Let’s not get all sappy. Tell me more about Cupidlove!”

I laughed. Gayle was not a feelings person, and I knew she must have been feeling super awkward at the way the conversation was going. It suddenly struck me that I needed to do something for Gayle. She was single as well, and as far as I knew, was not dating or interested in anyone. I’d spent so much time thinking about myself and my own problems that I’d failed to actually find out what was going on in Gayle’s love life for a while. That had to change.