Point, Click, Love (23 page)

“Huh?” said Annie.

“I’m sure she’s told him but he hasn’t said anything so I just don’t know.”

“Oh, my God,” said Katie.

“Yeah, oh, my God,” said Claudia.

“Do you want to end it with Steve?” asked Annie.

“I don’t know,” said Claudia. “But I know that I don’t want my marriage to be over because I don’t know how to use Facebook!”

“Who’s this Marjorie chick and why do you think she’s Steve’s lover?” asked Katie.

“She’s his little Facebook friend, and I think they started meeting in real life too.”

“Facebook is evil,” said Annie.

“I’ve been saying that since day one and nobody listens to me,”
said Claudia. “People aren’t supposed to have all that information about you. You’re not supposed to be in constant contact with five hundred of your closest friends. We shouldn’t be able to look up our high school sweetheart and reconnect and try to relive the past. It’s not natural. Facebook makes people do weird things.”

“Or maybe it hastens the inevitable,” said Katie quietly, gently massaging Claudia’s back.

This brought Claudia to tears once again.

“I’m sorry, Claudia,” said Katie. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s okay,” said Claudia. “You’re probably right. Listen, can we stop talking about this now? Please? Just give me a glass of that wine and let’s talk about something else.”

Annie poured some wine for Claudia, and the three sat in silence.

“Okay, so I have something,” said Annie, and the other two perked up excitedly.

“Oh, good, tell!” said Katie.

“Well, remember Rick? The mystery donor?”

“Oh, yeah!” said Claudia. She was glad she came. It felt good to get everything out, and now it felt good to leave it behind and hear about somebody else’s life.

“I found out his name.”

“Really?” said Katie. “How?”

“The receptionist at the sperm bank. Anyway, long story short, I met him at a coffee shop.”

“Did you ask for his sperm?” said Claudia.

“No, haven’t gotten around to that yet. But, you guys, he’s incredible. Really. Just beautiful! And super charming and funny and nice. I like him a lot!”

“Like him like him?” asked Katie.

“No! I mean, I want him to be the father of my baby, that’s all.”

“Oh, right, that’s all,” said Claudia.

“We exchanged info, and I think he likes me too, you know, as
a friend. We’re going to check out this Russian deli that sells smoked fish this weekend.”

“An obvious second date,” said Katie.

“So how do you plan on going from salmon to sperm?” asked Claudia.

“I don’t know. I figure if we can establish a friendship, maybe I can just come out and ask him for some.”

“Stranger things have happened,” said Katie. “I think.”

“All right, enough about me,” said Annie. “Your turn, Katie. What’s up with the online dating thing?”

“It’s okay,” said Katie.

“Okay?” said Claudia. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

But Katie wasn’t sure she could do better than that. How could she tell them about Dave? About Henry? What would they think of her?

“Well, I’ve been dating this guy. Cute, fun, sweet. My age, this time.” It was weird to think of Dave as her age. Yes, he was only two years younger, but he seemed to Katie to be of another generation.

“That’s great!” said Annie.

“Then I started seeing his friend.”

“Huh?” said Claudia.

“It’s like, Dave, the guy, hangs out all the time at Mike’s Pub. So I got to know all his friends. And one of his friends, Henry, starts hitting on me. And I’m all freaked out, and I tell Dave, and he tells me, ‘Hey, go ahead and see him.’ It’s, like, that’s what they do—share.”

“Share?” asked Annie.

“The friends, all of them have dated each other, sometimes at the same time. So I figured, what the hell? It was starting to get kind of heavy with Dave, and I just didn’t want to get all caught up
in him, you know? I thought if I started seeing Henry too it would keep things light and casual. Do you think I’m a total slut?”

“Do I think you’re a slut?” said Claudia. “Are you kidding me?”

“I don’t think you’re a slut either!” said Annie. “Look, guys do it all the time and nobody calls them sluts. What’s wrong with it? You got their permission.”

“Permission? They practically begged me to do it!”

“There you go!” said Claudia. “So it’s good for everyone.”

“It all sounds good, but I have to tell you, it feels kind of weird,” said Katie. “I know guys do it and don’t think twice. In fact, they probably love it. But, for me, it’s kind of hard.”

“That totally makes sense,” said Annie. “But maybe it’s good for you. Maybe you need to learn how to look at relationships differently. Not get too attached. Focus on getting what you need from a man.”

“You sure do know what you need, Annie,” said Claudia.

“Yeah, I know what I need,” said Annie. “Now I just have to figure out how to get him to give it to me.”

Chapter Sixteen

A
nnie’s words kept replaying in Katie’s head: “Focus on getting what you need.” But Katie still wasn’t sure what she needed. Months ago, she’d thought what she needed from a man was easy, fun sex. But now that she was getting it—from two different guys—she wasn’t so sure. She actually thought all that sex was exactly what had gotten her into this mess.

Her boss told her she wasn’t being fired because of anything she did, but Katie was convinced that all those hours of dating and drinking had led her to losing her job. And what about her kids? They felt neglected, and they were right. Katie had been busy and distracted and pushed them off on Rob as much as she could. No, Katie concluded, all this great sex was not what she needed.

Then what did she need?

The first thing she needed was a new job, so Katie threw herself into a search. She blasted her résumé to every bank in town, answered ads for administrative assistants and receptionists, and joined every business networking site she could find. But after a couple of weeks of searching without a single response, she was worried.

Ever since the divorce, Katie had struggled to make ends meet. She’d never had the chance to build up any savings, either for retirement or for the kids’ education. She lived from paycheck to paycheck, with Rob’s meager child-support payment providing only a modicum of relief. She thought about going to her parents for help, but her dad was retired and they had already been helping out her brother and sister for years. The last thing she wanted to do was add to their burden.

Katie prided herself on her independence. She knew she would find a way.

Then she thought of the
Times
article she had taken from Annie, which was sitting on her nightstand. So she plopped down on her bed and began to read about SeekingArrangement.com, where young pretty women hooked up with rich older men.

“We stress relationships that are mutually beneficial,” the website’s founder said. “We ask people to really think about what they want in a relationship and what they have to offer. That kind of up-front honesty is a good basis for any relationship.”

Yes! thought Katie. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d been trying to do all these months—think about what she wanted from a relationship?

Sure, the site had plenty of gold diggers and ditsy young things who only wanted a taste of the good life, but there were also a lot of intelligent young women trying to finish school or get through a rough patch, women who found older, wiser, wealthier men and established a meaningful—mutually beneficial—relationship with them.

Some of the men were married, but some of them weren’t. Some of them provided monthly allowances of thousands of dollars, and some offered pocket change. Some wanted busty blond bimbos, while some wanted smart, attractive, independent women.

But was it wrong? wondered Katie. Was it just a flimsy disguise for prostitution?

The article quoted a history professor, who pointed out that, since the early 1900s, dating involved boys paying for “meals, entertainment, and transportation, and, in return, girls were to provide well-groomed company, rapt attention, and at least a certain amount of physical affection.” According to her, SeekingArrangment.com was “a piece of contemporary society. It’s simply more explicit and transparent about the bargains struck in the traditional model of dating.”

Exactly! thought Katie. How tired she was of all the pretending, how no one wanted to admit the truth. Look at Ed. He was older and wealthier and took her out to fancy restaurants and gave her gifts. And what did she give? Her companionship, her affection, and her body. No, there was no quid pro quo, but how long would Ed have kept pulling out his credit card if Katie had been unwilling to put out?

This would be no different, except that she would be taking cash instead of jewelry—money that would help her keep her home and feed her children. Wasn’t that better than a bunch of useless merchandise? Wouldn’t the man feel all the more helpful and better about himself if he was making a real difference in someone’s life?

Katie had been to so many of these dating sites that she wasn’t even fazed when she visited the Seeking Arrangement home page and found a good-looking older man, graying at the temples, flanked by two scantily clad women busting out of their bikinis. Katie wondered if she could compete with that, but figured it was
worth a try. Either there would be a nice older gentleman in search of a woman like herself or there wouldn’t.

When she posted her pictures—the same ones she used for the other dating sites—she couldn’t help but feel they weren’t quite right for a site like this. Maybe she needed one that showed a bit more skin. So she put on a black tank top that offered a nice but minimal glimpse of her cleavage and went into the bathroom with her cell phone. When she posted the photo, it looked a little like low-budget porn, but, Katie thought, what the hell. Over the past months, she had already snuck into a boyfriend’s house and watched as he screwed his old girlfriend. And she had already dated a man and his best friend simultaneously. How much further could she go?

As she was composing her new profile—one that accentuated all she had to offer and hinted at all she hoped to receive—Katie got a text from Dave, quickly followed by one from Henry. They both had been texting her incessantly over the past couple weeks, and she had put them off by telling them she was too busy dealing with her job search to even think about going out. But now she was ready to cut the cord completely. There was nothing Dave and Henry could give her at this point, and she was tired of giving of herself with nothing to show for it.

“Sorry,” she texted to Dave. “Cant see you anymore. Too much going on. Need to focus on job and kids. Please understand.”

She would have liked to send the exact same thing to Henry, but figured they might compare notes. So she wrote: “Hen, time to move on.” She thought Henry would respond better to a more definitive break. “U r a fab guy. Take care.” For this last text, she decided to adopt the annoying language she had shunned for so long. But never again, she thought.

The next day, Katie began to receive emails from arrangement seekers all over the country, even some from as far away as France and Dubai.

“Nice to see some new blood!” read one. “Mind sending me a bikini shot?”

Another had “Come to Daddy” in the subject line, and in the body it simply said: “Daddy’s gonna make you come!”

One thirty-nine-year-old “Daddy” from Japan asked if Kansas City was near New York. Katie wondered how he’d managed to find SeekingArrangement.com but not MapQuest.

A seventy-eight-year-old Daddy seemed annoyed that thirty-four-year-old Katie would have the nerve to put herself forward as “Baby” material. “If you really think you’re up for the role, maybe you should give us Daddies a better look at the goods,” he wrote. Katie wondered how this so-called “captain of industry” found the time to write nasty emails to women he wasn’t even interested in. Perhaps he was the self-appointed Seeking Arrangement police, on the lookout for “Babies” who were past their prime.

Then came one with the header “A Touch of Class.” It read: “Why do women these days think they need to let it all hang out to be sexy? Don’t they know there’s nothing sexier than a little restraint? You seem like a classy lady. Bert.”

Bert was fifty-seven years old, with a full head of dark gray hair and a brown complexion that looked fresh from the tanning bed. He listed his location as Wichita, Kansas City, Boston, and Brussels. His annual income was “more than $1 million” and his net worth was in the “$50 million to $100 million” range. He wrote that he was a “businessman” who was based in the Midwest but traveled frequently to the East Coast and Europe. His interests included opera, Renaissance art and architecture, tae kwon do, and cycling. He said that he was looking for a bright, attractive woman who could share his passions and introduce him to some of her own. His “budget” was “negotiable.” Overall, his description was brief and vague, as if giving too many details about his
charmed life would elicit too much attention from eager young women.

Katie was intrigued, but every time she moved to hit “reply,” her eyes shifted to the number “57.” He was fifty-seven, twenty-three years older than she was. Katie’s father was sixty-two, only five years older than Bert.

Come on, Katie told herself, women do this all the time. She could tell that Bert was fit and in shape, probably in better shape than Ed was, and certainly had a lot more hair. She pictured Ed, with his balding head and significant paunch, and that’s what pushed her over the edge.

“Hi, Bert. Thanks for the nice compliment. If you’re looking for a woman who is not willing to parade around in skimpy lingerie for the entire online world to see, then I may just be the one for you. Katie.”

Bert replied a few hours later with a “

Katie agreed, but rather than meeting at a restaurant or bar, she suggested they meet at a park. For some reason, more than at any other time in her online-dating experience, Katie was nervous. She didn’t want to feel constrained, locked into a booth and obliged to fumble with napkins and menus and cutlery. She thought a nice early-evening walk around a rose garden would calm her.