Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single (6 page)

BOOK: Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single
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We arrive at a table where a squat, ugly, pudgy man is wait
ing. He looks at me and sniffs. There must be a mistake—this man is wearing a navy snowflake sweater, which is rounded, because of his potbelly. His little potbelly. He looks like he's going to have a little baby.

“Jill?” he asks, looking skeptical.

“Kevin?” I respond, equally skeptical.

He nods doubtfully. “Have a seat?” he asks like it's a question, like it's up for grabs whether I should sit down or not.

I sit down.

He has a nasty deep-set wrinkle on his forehead, which creases when he talks. “Didn't recognize you,” he says and I'm not sure what to say to that, but I'm vaguely aware it isn't friendly. The Scampers waitress shows up, a blonde about twenty-two years old wearing a Scampers half T-shirt that exposes her perfectly flat, tan stomach.

“You want something?” he says while staring at her belly. “I mean, I'm not hungry. I just want a beer. I want a Michelob. You don't want to eat, do you? I don't want to eat. Let's not eat.”

I tell the waitress I'll have a chardonnay.

She leaves and he watches her butt. Then he remembers I'm sitting at the table. “Jill, Jill, Jill,” he says, and does a little drum-roll with his fingers. He squints at me again. “How old did you say you were?”

I don't immediately answer. Despite the constant buzz of the background rock, the particular acoustics of the sheltered booths are such that I can hear the conversation at the table behind us. “She asked where her daddy was, and I didn't know what to tell her,” a woman is saying. “I just told her he went on a long trip.”

BigKev007 clears his throat. “I mean, it's no big deal. It's just, you looked a little, I mean maybe that picture on your profile was from like…a while ago?”

“My name is Jennifer and it's from this summer,” I say. “Last June.”

“Right,” he says, nodding, “eight months ago.”

“Seven,” I say.

The waitress comes with our drinks and sets them down on lime green coasters. BigKev007 stares at her midriff again as she leaves. He sighs and raises his beer. “Here's to being younger,” he says, and we clink glasses even though I don't know what it is exactly we're toasting. After he swallows and smacks his lips, he says, “So you're like what, thirty?”

I take a sip of my drink and pray the earth will swallow me whole.

“Over thirty?” he asks and then waves his pudgy hand in the air as if to erase the question. “No,” he says, “sorry, you're right, who cares, right? No biggie.” He looks at his watch. “My ex-wife used to lie about her age all the time. I don't know why anyone even asks women how old they are. It's not like they're going to tell you the truth.”

We stare at the table.

Eventually I say, “I had a bad breakup, too.” I have no idea why I'd say that. You're not supposed to mention past relationships on first dates. Not even first dates that are tanking faster than deck chairs on the
Titanic
.

“What?” he asks.

“I said I sort of went through a breakup recently.” Why would I tell him that? Why would I pony up that little nibble of information? Why am I so stupid?

He thinks about this for a minute. “I got the dog in the divorce,” he says. “Fucking awesome dog. Piper.” Then he asks, “You like dogs?”

I shrug.

“Good. Women that don't like dogs are bitches. Did I tell you
I'm a lawyer? Criminal defense. I have this case right now, a guy who was taking pictures of Chinese kids, boys mostly. Like twelve-year-olds. He was giving them money and clothes, like he was their dad. Being all nice. None of those kids have shit. Some don't even have winter coats, so here's this guy who has a camera and he says he just wants to take some snaps. Asks them to take off their shirts or whatever. The kids get all hysterical and get the guy in trouble. Kids are unreliable witnesses, though, but try to tell a jury that.”

“Well, I hope you get him,” I say. “I hope you lock him up for life.”

BigKev007 makes a face. “The guy is my
client.
Why does everyone think I'm trying to prosecute him?”

I drain my wine and wonder if I have any Vicodin in the car. Then, in what will be our most tender moment, he leans over the table and says, “Pedophiles have a story, too, Jill.” He shakes his head sadly. “They have a story, too.”

I have no idea what to say. I never met a pedophile defender before. I think if I was a pedophile-defending lawyer and on a first date, this is one little piece of information I would not share.

He tells me what I would consider intimate and illegal-to-tell-strangers information about his various court cases. He goes on for some time and I'm just zoned out, staring at his fat, ugly, pudgy face. The more I look at it, the more it looks like knuckles. He doesn't ask me a single question about myself. He tells me he's been sober for thirteen years, but now he can drink a little. Then he says, almost proudly, like he's passed on the family business, that his teenage daughter is an alcoholic, too. “She's in rehab right now,” he says. “I guess the apple doesn't fall, stagger, or collapse far from the tree, huh!”

“I'm so sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” he says. I hate it when people say this. I know it isn't my fault, I'm just trying to be nice. Hasn't he ever heard of manners? “Was she in rehab for Christmas?” I ask. “Did she have to spend the holidays in a hospital?”

“No,” BigKev007 says, “she was out of rehab by then, but I don't know where she was on Christmas.”

I tilt my head because I think I misheard him. “You don't?”

“I went to Jamaica with this real piece-of-work redhead who turned out to be a complete bitch. I had to fly in another one because she was just crazy.”

The blond waitress comes back and asks if we want another drink.

“No,” he says while staring at her stomach, “just the check.”

“I'm sorry,” I ask him. “You had to fly in another…”

“Girl,” he says. “I had to fly in another girl.”

“But…was the first one still there?”

“Yeah, but she got her own room. I had a pretty good time. I did yoga on the beach. You do yoga? I just started.”

“So wait,” I say. “Your daughter was just out of rehab and you left her alone on Christmas to go to Jamaica with a woman who you ditched for another woman? And then you did yoga?”

He looks at me blankly. “I dunno,” he says. “My daughter went to her mother's house, I think, but that's another sob story.”

There's a moment of silence as I stare at my drink coaster.

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

The waitress sets a little green plastic tray with the bill between us.

“Sure.” This idiot better at least pick up the tab.

BigKev007 leans in and lowers his voice, like he's about to admit he was in fact peeing in his pants when we first met, or some other slightly embarrassing admission.

“I was just curious,” he says. “Have you ever thought about losing a little weight?”

White light. Shock. Disbelief
. I am stunned silent. He's still talking, but I can't focus in on what he's saying. Something about a cruise he knows about and a friend who went on it and lost all this weight. “Because you have a really pretty face,” I hear him say. And then something about carbohydrates and how living in the Midwest distorts one's concept of portions. He finally adjusts his glasses and looks at the bill. “Normally I'd get this,” he says, tossing it over to me, “but let's go Dutch, okay?”

Speechless, I nod while thinking,
Lose a little weight
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BOOK: Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single
13.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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