How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (2 page)

“My guess is she’d probably say, ‘Thank you for finally listening to something I’ve said.’ Something you, my dear Samantha, clearly did not do when I told you that she’s a fashion designer.” Oops. I really should’ve remembered this, since she was basically the reason he moved to New York, the U.S. capital of fashion. But I don’t entirely blame myself because when someone chooses to elope instead of having a big wedding, they can’t expect their friends to take the time to do any research on the person they’re going to marry, whom they may or may not ever meet.

“Despite the fact that you clearly don’t care about any of the minor details of my life,” he continues, “I’m still sorry that I won’t be able to fly in for your birthday shindig tonight.”

“It’s not a birthday shindig.”

“Call it what you want, Sam, but don’t try to convince me that this isn’t some elaborate plan to meet that guy you’ve always said you would meet by the time you turned 30.” He knows me so well. Scary. “So what time does this failure avoidance party get going, Cinderella?”

“Ha ha. You can tell people to show up at nine. I’ll be there early.”

“Whoa, only giving yourself three hours before the clock strikes midnight and your ridiculous life schedule turns into a pumpkin?” Sometimes I wonder if I pick my friends based on how good they are at abusing me with their sense of humor. “I’ll tell Willie Grant to go. He still lives in San Francisco.”

“No, not him. Send me someone I would like.”

“So what does that consist of these days?”

“You know, good-looking, successful, sweet, thoughtful, nice, generous, romantic—like the male version of me.”

“So basically, you want somebody who’s perfect.”

“First of all, thank you for finally admitting that I’m perfect. But no, I know that’s not realistic. He doesn’t have to be perfect, just close enough to it that I don’t notice his flaws.” Tim laughs. To be clear, he’s laughing at me, not with me. But I stand by the fact that a girl’s gotta have standards. Even if she does only have 12 hours left before her life goals turn black and moldy like an old rotting pumpkin that’s been left out until Halloween has faded into Thanksgiving, and everyone is lining up to buy Christmas presents.

Oh look, Anna Rubin is on chat. I hang up with Tim. No point in telling you about Anna Rubin. I hardly know her. Suffice it to say that she is happily married with young kids, and she works as a nurse in a surgeon’s office. She knows doctors.

“Hi Anna,” I chat.

“Long time. What’s up?” she replies. I tell her all about my plans, and sure enough she is eager to help me cross over to the married side and she knows tons of great guys. It’s sad, but in some weird way I think I may have just made her day. If this is all it takes to make a married woman’s life exciting, I have to ask myself if I really want to join that club… What am I thinking? Of course I do! It’s a goal, and I’m not a quitter.

She has so many options that she has to narrow it down by asking me what I’m looking for.

I write back, “I’m looking for a best friend for life.” I realize that might be a little vague to someone who knows me about as well as a man with no tongue knows the taste of an ice cream sundae, so I add, “The kind of guy who likes to do the stuff I like, dancing, dinners, hiking, you know, a fun guy.” Then remembering how some of the fun guys I’ve dated turned out to be overgrown babies whose youthful love of life comes more from a case of arrested development than a general gratitude for how lucky they are to be living such a blessed life, I decide to tack on one more requirement, “And easy to get along with. You know, mature-ish.”

Being on Facebook, it’s hard not to browse through some of the guys I’ve already dated, who for whatever reason didn’t turn out to be the one. I wonder if I should invite any of them. You know, in case it was just a matter of bad timing before. Some of them might be in a better place now. More importantly, some of them have really cute friends.

Not Chris, he was too young. Chase was too drunk. Taylor was too obsessed with himself. Ryan made it clear that he only wanted sex, and he probably wouldn’t be that good at it. No, this is probably a waste of time. I need to move on to new frontiers, and not get distracted by old victories, most of which left me feeling defeated. Back to plan A.

More texts, tweets, IMs. I wonder if this is the kind of thing it’s okay to send out a press release about? The wire would be the fastest way to get the message out to all my work contacts at the various local blogs and papers, which would cast a wider net. Considering that tonight is my last chance to accomplish this goal or forever live in infamy as a failure, I’m thinking yeah, I definitely need a press release.

~

Moments after I send it out, my boss, Henry, walks into my office with a printed out copy of my public release.

“I had been wondering why you hadn’t come out of your office all day. And then I got this. Is this what you’ve been doing on company time?” Um. Think fast, Sam. I am pretty much caught up on my business. I mean, I could be using this time to research prospective new clients, but I don’t have any unfinished business with my current clients, and it is my birthday… kind of.

“Um… I didn’t take a lunch break. I did this during the time I should’ve been eating.”

“And you really think you’re going to pull off this stunt?” he asks, incredulously. I realize that in some way, what I’m doing may seem a little extreme. But I think that one of the reasons I’ve been so successful in this career is that I’ve always understood one thing…

“Sometimes, when you wanna meet your prince, you have to plan the ball yourself.”

Henry smiles. He should, I’m quoting him.

“And that, Samantha, is precisely why you are my top producer.” Then he adds, “Which isn’t to say that I don’t find your plan absolutely beyond the realm of sane thinking.”

Then out of nowhere, he cryptically says, “Come with me. I’d like to show you something.”

Now I’m worried. You never want your boss to come at you with any directives that could leave you vulnerable to being caught off guard over something you didn’t know you did wrong, especially when your boss is my boss. That’s the thing about Henry, you never know from moment to moment if he’s gonna say something to compliment you or destroy your self-esteem with a slashing blow straight to your soul. He travels easily between the two extremes, sometimes in the course of one sentence or paragraph, until it makes your head spin so fast that he can ultimately manipulate the outcome of any conversation. I guess he’s the perfect mentor for a girl who believes she can fix anything. Still, I try to hide my concern as I follow him through the bullpen, in the direction of his office, wondering what awful thing I’m about to get in trouble for.

“You know,” he says, “when I said that thing about planning the ball, I was using the expression metaphorically. I was describing a means of maintaining control over what is and isn’t said about your clients in the press, by being in charge of the means by which rumors are exposed. I didn’t mean for it to be taken literally.”

“I know. But it was still really good advice.” I recognize that I may be buttering him up a little extra, in hopes of softening the blow of whatever he’s taking me to the principal’s office to scold me about.

To my surprise (although it shouldn’t have been), we take a last minute left turn into the kitchen, where the rest of my co-workers surround a cake, with the numbers “three” and “zero” flaming at the top of it.

“You know, my birthday’s not really until tomorrow, so let’s not age me prematurely here. Ha-ha.” I know they say all publicity is good publicity, but we in the public relations business know that’s not true. If it weren’t for our hard work and spin, most publicity would be bad publicity, and even our magical touch can’t do anything to help a murderer, a racist ranter, or an accurate public announcement of one’s real age to all her co-workers. This is definitely bad publicity.

Henry tries his hand at spinning it anyway, “You should be proud, Samantha. You’ve accomplished a lot for your age. Hell, you’re the best publicist I’ve ever had working for me!”

Daggers shoot at me from the eyes of every non-assistant in the room. Great, now they all hate me. Thanks, Henry. Well, at least that took the focus away from my age.

Henry senses my discomfort, and once again comes to my rescue, if you can call it that, “Hey, if you guys don’t like being second and third best, you’re welcome to try to take her place at the top. I’ve got no problem changing my mind, and passing on the crown and scepter as soon as one of you shows me that I should.”

Well, that wasn’t awkward.

I try to lighten up the mood, “Should we sing happy birthday to me, or just go straight to eating cake? I haven’t eaten today, so I’m more than happy to dig in if you guys aren’t up for singing right now.”

No one responds, making me feel ever so much more awkward. Which is why I figure I may as well throw caution to the wind, and humiliate myself further, in hopes of advancing my cause, “So, any of you know any great single guys who might be interested in meeting up with me tonight at K-Bar?”

Chapter 3

Five hours until midnight. Two hours until I’ve promised I’d be at the bar. Lacey is going to be here any minute. I plan to get there early so we can settle in and have a drink before people start to arrive. I’ve found that a little drink can calm the nerves before any date, and tonight I’ve set myself up on a blind date with destiny. So let’s double that.

Hair is done. Makeup looks great. Now all I have to do is put on this soon to be historic purple dress. As I slip the dress up my body, I remember why I chose it for this momentous occasion. The silkiness makes me feel both sexy and sweet. The tailoring hugs my body in all the thin places (my waist), while being more forgiving in the hips. And the aforementioned décolleté makes my breasts look just slightly more cleavalicious than they actually are.

I reach back to grab the delicate zipper, trying not to get it stuck on the luxurious silk chiffon fabric, as it usually likes to do. Careful, careful… The zipper rides up, and gets stuck, not because of the fabric, but because of my girth. To get the dress closed from here I would need to pull the dress tighter near the waist, while I pull the bottom of the zipper down, and zip the handle up. Basically, I need three hands. This is why I need a man in my life!

I suck in my breath and carefully try to cinch it up, but as soon as I let out my breath, the zipper rides back down to the top of my hips. Patience is the key. I try again, holding my breath until I’m sweating my perfect makeup job right down my face. Finally, with mascara on my cheekbones and blush on my chin, I get the zipper all the way to my upper back. Phew! I rest a moment to catch my breath and look in the mirror. Thankfully my makeup isn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined, but the dress isn’t zipped all the way either.

I reach back and realize why I gave up when I did. I can’t reach that part of my back. I get an idea.

I sit on the edge of my bed, with my feet dangling on the floor. Then I lay on my back as I throw my legs up in the air and over my head, so that my feet are hanging over my head, over the other side of the bed, and I’m balancing on the back of my neck, leaving both of my arms free to do whatever they want behind my upper back, and they want to zip up this dress. Success!

I roll myself back up, feet landing on the floor where they started. I let out a giant breath of relief, at which point I hear the sound of fabric cracking, and letting out the seams right over my butt, exposing my panties to the knick-knacks laying around my bedroom. Looks like I’m not going to wear this dress after all. Well, at least after tonight I’ll have someone to zip up my dresses for me.

I rip the dress off, which proves to be much easier than getting it on—especially considering the extra space the gaping hole has just created—and look for something purple to wear. Why did I have to commit to a color? I quickly sift through my closet: purple, purple, purple. I’ve got nothing. Except… there is this one oversized man’s T-shirt? I throw it on, rip the shoulder Flashdance-style, and belt it into a mini-dress. Upon seeing my reflection all I can think is, “I know the 80s are back, but why?” Now all I need are some legwarmers and a strip club. No thank you.

My text message dings. Shit, Lacey is waiting in a cab outside with the meter running.

I throw off my clothes, adding them to the mess on the floor, and as quickly as possible, browse through the other previously worn and not yet washed outfits strewn across the room, in such a way that they look like the discount bin at a retail store.

In my dirty laundry pile, I locate a fun flirty dress that I wore last week to a restaurant opening. It doesn’t have a zipper and it’s a magenta shade of pink. Close enough. I throw it on, slip into my pumps, throw some jewelry in my purse, and grab my jacket as I rush to the door.

~

When I open the door, Lacey is standing there shifting her boobs around in her bra, “Are my nipples pointing straight? I can’t tell.” I can’t tell either, because I’m too busy feeling mortified that my conservative older neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Apartment Seven just walked by and heard her say that. They glare at me. They probably think I’m too old to be single and living alone. They probably think I’m alone because I can’t get a man—instead of what it really is, that I just forgot I was supposed to. They probably recognize this dress from when I wore it 3 days ago. I hate their judging eyes.

“I thought you were waiting in the cab?” I say, wishing she had.

“I was, but you took so long, I wanted to see what was up with you. He’s still out there.” Then, without skipping a beat she goes back to discussing her boobs, “I got this really cute new bra! Which is a miracle because even though my boobs are supposed to be Ds, they’re less firm than before, so now I can fit them into Cs, which is awesome because designers don’t care about girls with D-cups or bigger.” Despite the running meter, I take extra time to lock my front door in hopes of letting my neighbors make their exit first, so that they don’t have to endure any more of this tirade than necessary. Unfortunately, behaving like the old folks that they are, they walk especially slowly toward the security door, and hear everything, as Lacey goes on.