Perfect on Paper (5 page)

“Thanks again for this morning. Allow me to return the favor. If you’re up for it, I’d love to join you sometime.”

“Oooh,” she said in a tone that both surprised and delighted him.

Her response made him wonder how long ago it had been that someone had asked her out.

“Thanks. Are you free after work?” Nadine asked.

“When are you off?”

She glanced at the clock. “In an hour.”

“I’ll wait for you at Higher Grounds and if you can make it, awesome.”

“And if not?” Her smile threatened to make him dizzy but he stayed focused and nodded.

“Then I’ll get my homework done.”

He turned on his heel and walked out, silently berating himself for the school-boy comment. Maybe she was checking him out, but he didn’t dare look back in case it was only his own false perception.

* * * *

In the coffee shop, he tried to do some work, but his mind couldn’t focus. Instead, he tried to dissect what had just happened. If he played his cards right, there was a chance that this could be a date, he surmised.

He’d managed to get a bit of reading done and he’d gotten back to someone over a phone message before the goddess entered the student hangout, came over to where he was and sat down.

“Hi, David,” she said. He got up, trying to be a gentleman.

Immediately he recognized the flaw in his plan. She was far too sophisticated for this place. Sure, she picked up coffee here when she was at work, but she didn’t look like a university student or like the kind of woman who would spend time in a place like this.

“Nadine,” he began. “I’m so glad you agreed to meet me. Let’s get off campus, I want to take you somewhere better.”

She laughed. “What’s this about?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, you wanted to see me for something, right?”

He panicked. She had not considered this to be a date. It was obvious. He was a hopeful little boy, like a student who goes to the high-school dance and asks his teacher to be his partner.

“I just wanted to thank you for making my morning.” He smiled. He had to win her over, make her see what he saw in terms of the possibilities between them.

“Oh, you didn’t have to.”

“It’s not every day that a beautiful goddess does something nice for me.” David didn’t see any reason to play it cool. Nadine was out of his league. It didn’t take much to figure that out. At least, he thought, he might get points for enthusiasm.

“Goddess?” She looked shocked.

He nodded.

“I hardly think so,” Nadine said. “But thank you just the same. Flattery gets you everywhere,” she joked.

Much to her own surprise, Nadine was really turning on the charm for this guy. She didn’t know what it was about him. On the surface, maybe it was his sandy brown hair and broad chest, his crystal blue eyes and the intensity of his gaze. She could never date him, she reasoned, since he was probably almost a decade—or more—younger than she was. But there was no harm in looking. At least that’s what she had thought until she found herself unable to avert her eyes.

What was the harm in staying? She had wondered whether David had asked her as a date or whether he really was planning on doing homework and just wanted her to stop by for some reason. She pulled out a chair.

“I don’t have much time,” she said, answering the question she’d left hanging earlier about going off campus.

“What’ll you have?” David asked, springing up to get her order at the counter.

“Just a grapefruit juice or something like that,” Nadine said.

As she watched him line up behind a group of people who were also way younger than she was, Nadine grew self-conscious. She worried that grapefruit juice would make her seem sour and that was the very reputation she disliked. She knew what the young folks said about her and she would have joined their ranks seven or eight years ago, but things were different now. They didn’t understand that. After the idealistic phase of one’s twenties, one had to get a plan, have goals, make a future. What the hell was she doing ignoring all her plans to hang out with this younger guy?

“Here you are.” David put a small plastic bottle in front of her.

“Thanks,” she said. She wanted to leave. This was a mistake. Instead, she untwisted the cap and took a sip, then smiled awkwardly at her tablemate.

“So, Nadine, what do you do in your free time?”

Nadine scoffed at the question. “What free time?” She shook her head, but realized it was rude of her. He knew nothing about her. She explained, “I’m spending every spare moment getting my ducks in a row. I’m trying to launch a business.”

“Whoa. Really? But you work full-time.”

“Yep. That’s why I don’t have time for much else.”

“So you’re…single?”

“Yes.” The word was still foreign to Nadine. It made her think of her aunts and their scorn for what they called old maids. She was almost afraid to admit her status to David, for fear that it might spread throughout the bookstore as another reason to talk about her behind her back.

“That’s cool,” he said with a grin that gave away his intention. “Me too.”

Nadine was incredulous. Was he trying to pick her up? It seemed so ridiculous, her being his boss and all. His long hair. Her professional attire. Absurd.

“What do you do in your spare time?” Nadine said, in an effort to change the topic.

“I don’t have a lot, either. I’m reading a lot these days. School’s got me pretty busy.”

“What are you studying?”

“Philosophy.”

Nadine wanted to roll her eyes. It figured that this hippie dreamer spent his days and nights contemplating the nature of reality. He was her polar opposite.

“And what are you going to do with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like…for a career?”

“I know metaphysics isn’t exactly a career, but I’m committed to teaching myself how to think to the best of my ability. I believe that’s the most noble thing anyone can aspire to.”

“Did you say noble?” Nadine nearly laughed. “Who aspires for noble these days?”

“I do.” David seemed earnest.

“But how are you going to make money?”
Seriously, is this guy planning on being a bum forever or what?

“I don’t care about that. Money is nice, but it isn’t everything. When you have enough to cover your basic needs, I think it’s natural to move on to loftier pursuits.”

“Like swaying in a hammock?”

“Who said anything about that? You don’t know much about philosophy, do you?”

Nadine shrugged. She knew enough to avoid filling her life with useless garbage.

“I studied practical stuff, I guess.”

“Well, it doesn’t get much more practical than philosophy. I mean, it can really change your life.”

“How?”

“Years ago, I was depressed. Then I came across Marcus Aurelius. You know what he said? He said that very little is needed to make a happy life. It’s all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

“Was he strumming on his guitar when he said that?” Nadine smirked. It was just too much for her, this idealistic conversation. She couldn’t help but make fun of it.

“No, he was a Roman emperor.” David was obviously annoyed. “He was a powerful tyrant.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just a bit cynical.”

“Oh?”

“It’s been a shitty couple of years,” she said. As soon as the words were out, something in her decompressed. It was the verbal equivalent of letting her hair down.

“It has if you
think
it has.”

“It has,” Nadine insisted.

“Not objectively. It hasn’t been a shitty couple of years for me. And there are probably good things that happened in your life, too, but if you’re looking for the shitty stuff, you’ll find it. It’s called false pattern recognition.”

“Okay, Mr. Wisdom. If you say so. Then I suppose I just imagined the misery of my grandfather’s death, my fiancé ditching me and getting laid off.”

Nadine started to collect her things. It was time to go.

“I’m sorry,” David said. “I never meant to imply that you imagined any of those things.”

“Good. Because I didn’t.” She was defensive.
Who is this young know-it-all to tell me what my life is like?

“I’m just trying to say that I figured out that it all starts up here.” He pointed to his temple and tapped the side of his forehead a few times. “I used to think reality was objective, too. That bad things happen and they’re just bad. But now I’m interested in how to think about reality, how to perceive it. It’s the only thing that matters, really.”

“This is a little over my head. I have work to do.”

“I know you do, Nadine. I know you’re serious and I like that about you. I’m the same way.”

David could tell from the expression on her face that Nadine doubted that very much. After all, she had stuff to do and he was able to spend the rest of the afternoon waxing on about reality.

“Thanks for the grapefruit juice,” she said.

With that, she was gone.

Chapter Seven

David floated home. Sure, their conversation hadn’t been perfect. He knew she thought he was a flake, but he’d learned some valuable stuff. She was single. She was fierce and independent. She had a vision that she was working toward. She was unlike any other girl he knew.

David had grown tired of good time girls. There were plenty back on the beaches in Cuba. They were all over campus, too. Pre-lecture banter all around him told him that on weekends the girls in his classes got drunk and did things they later regretted. He didn’t even want to hear the particulars.

In Nadine he saw a spark of something deeper. He was honored that she could be so vulnerable with him. She trusted him with intimate information. And when she looked at him, he sensed that she wasn’t happy. There was something missing and he hoped that it was him.

His roommates had rented a movie and were about to start it when he opened the door.

“Wanna join us, man?” Chris asked.

“What are you watching?”

“
Weird Science
.”

“Seriously? Classic. I’m in.”

Joining them in the living room, he cracked open a beer and sat back to relive one of his favorite movies from adolescence. His roommates, like him, could quote most of the scenes. By the time they got to the part where the boys augment the breasts of the cyber girl they invent, David was already on his second beer and the room had the same energy as the scene in the movie. Boys in the movie and boys in the shared apartment all said it, in perfect unison—“Bigger, bigger.”

David thought about Nadine. How embarrassed he’d be if she knew that this was his idea of a good time. But when Kelly LeBrock appeared in front of the fictional boys, his heart skipped a beat, for this was the same feeling he’d had today. It was a combination of total arousal and deep, deep awareness of inadequacy. What can a couple of pasty little nerds offer a real woman? And so it was with Nadine. Even looking around the living room told him they could never be together. This place was furnished with a couch and chairs they’d found in the alley when they moved in. They had milk crate shelves, for God’s sake! Kelly LeBrock would have laughed and walked out.

David was by no means a nerd, like the guys in
Weird Science
, but he felt like one when he thought of Nadine. In a couple of years, he planned to move into his own place, buy real furniture and have a real job. Then, maybe, he’d stand a chance with her. But as things stood right now, they seemed worlds apart. More than anything, he wanted to fast forward to a time when she might consider him. He went to his room. His closet was full of jeans and T-shirts, clothes that did not fit with Nadine’s pencil skirt and blouse. He did have one nice shirt that his cousin had bought for him for a job interview years ago. He hadn’t got the job, but the shirt was still there. Maybe if he ironed it and paired it with his best jeans, he could feign compatibility with Nadine. But he quickly realized that one good shirt could not take him far. He knew what he needed to do. The only problem was he hated shopping.

* * * *

It was Saturday night and Nadine had granted herself the evening off. It had been ages since she’d gone anywhere. Marnie and their other friend, Alfonso, had invited her out for martinis. She got there late and the drinks had clearly been flowing.

“Hey, girl!” Alfonso shouted as he waved at her from across the crowded lounge. She waved back. At the table, he stood up and kissed each of her cheeks. Marnie hugged her.

“See that guy over there?” Alfonso whispered as he gestured to a bartender who clearly worked out regularly. Nadine nodded. “Marnie and I are competing for him. Who do you think stands a better chance?”

“Come on,” Marnie insisted. “He’s totally been making eyes at me since we got here. I got this one. You already had that guy at Starbucks.”

Alfonso rolled his eyes. “Bitch.”

Nadine needed this. Watching her friends being goofy reminded her that there was plenty more to life than trying to make a go of a business. All those nights of crunching numbers and browsing commercial rental space had made her batty.

“I need a gin and tonic,” she said.

She didn’t want to wait for someone to come and take her order, so she put her coat down on the booth bench beside Marnie and turned toward the bar.

“You’re going up there? Don’t embarrass us,” Alfonso said.

“Um, you’re doing a pretty good job of that yourselves.” She walked across the packed room filled with perfume and cologne-scented fashionable people. Nadine winked at her friends from the counter while she straightened her skirt. Her outfit was way too uptight, she thought, and so she unbuttoned the top part of her blouse. Still, it was very office-y.

The bartender with the invisible bull’s-eye on him courtesy of her friends was actually pretty friendly. He smiled at her.

“What can I get you?”

“Double gin and tonic,” Nadine answered, not giving in to the coyness of his stare, even though she, too, found him ridiculously cute. Some guys were just like that—cute in an untouchable way.