The Accidental Virgin (13 page)

Thursday night

S
tacy arrived first. She knew the restaurant fairly well, having eaten their last birthday dinner there with her parents. Sol and Belinda Temple were born on January 10 and January 15 respectively. So, each year, the three of them met post-New Year’s for a posh, expensive meal with multiple bottles of wine, culminating in a nerve-wracking drive home to Short Hills for Mom, but not for Dad, who, in his morning hangover, would barely remember cutting off that SUV on the New Jersey Turnpike.

They’d come to Jean Pierre Louis Paul twice, having loved the sampling menu of twelve courses ($150 per person, not counting wine and coffee) that took over three hours to consume. The food was just the beginning for Stacy, who wasn’t quite the gourmand her father was (he’d eat anything, the more “innards related” the better — sweetbreads, haggis, blood pudding — then proclaim, “Tastes like chicken,” and expect everyone to laugh). Stacy loved the low-country French decor, the strategically placed bushels of apples and bound stalks of dried sunflowers, the farm tables and spindle-backed chairs with needlepoint seats. Above the waist-high wood-paneled wainscoting, murals of harvest scenes covered the walls. Lilac and heather scents mixed with the garlic and rosemary wafting from the kitchen. Heaven. Sensually speaking.

She wasn’t alone in her opinion. Jean Pierre Louis Paul was one of the most popular restaurants in the city, achieving the unusual status of both a tourist and local ruling-class favorite. SNAP showed good taste in suggesting this spot. Plus, it was right in TriBeCa, only a short walk from her apartment in SoHo. She’d worried about the ill effects of a stroll on her freshness quotient, but the night had cooled considerably — couldn’t be more than 80 degrees — and both the air and the exercise calmed her nerves.

Stacy had had blind dates before. But not
this
blind. She also had a lot to answer for. She’d been honest about her appearance in the match.com profile (she couldn’t see the point in that kind of charade — on sight, the jig would be up anyway), but just about every other aspect of her profile had been fabricated. Fortunately, her relationship with this man might not last longer than one night. She figured she could maintain the self-invention that long. Some lies would be easier to stick to than others. It was unlikely, for example, that he’d pull a flute out of his pants and ask her to blow it. Perhaps metaphorically.

As she opened the red doors of JPLP, she had a flare of doubt about this date. The notion of casual sex was thorny enough. But she’d have to talk to this man for at least an hour before that could happen. She was no longer young enough to pound a few G&Ts and drunkenly ask the cute guy on the right to take her home.

Gigi XXX’s last swerve.com post surfaced in her frontal lobe like a bad apple in a barrel. “Life isn’t worth living if you’re not in love or trying to find it,” she’d written. Could that be true for Stacy? Had life not been worth living for the last year? She could pitch this blind date to herself as anything, a desperate attempt to rid herself of revirginity, a marketing experiment, a mystery unveiled. But SNAP was trying to find love. He’d written as much in his profile. His life was worth living. And Stacy decided she owed it to herself to be just as optimistic and stupid (that’s right,
stupid
) to hope for the very, very best.

Stacy killed a minute smoothing down her hair and flip-flopping between idealism and doubt. She didn’t even know his real name. Was he going to want dinner or just drinks? Dinner would be lovely. She had fond memories of the braised lamb. But three hours of conversation with a complete stranger might be pushing the limits of her strength and creativity (or maybe it would be a snap — perhaps that explained his alias). And, if he expected to dine, would she have to pay for her portion of the meal (he would never)?

These uncertainties nearly swept her back out the red doors and onto the street, but she took one large whiff of the commingled scents of wildflowers and roast duck, and had to stay.

The small barroom was located to the right of the vestibule, giving people a place to wait for their tables. She found a seat against the wall (perfect scoping position) in a wooden pew with cushioned seats. She ordered herself a drink. It helped tame her afternoon red wine hangover. And she’d need all the courage a cosmopolitan could provide. Two, quite possibly.

After her first long sip of the pink concoction, she looked around the bar. Slow night. The only other person in the bar was an older man who had to weigh 300 pounds. The wooden stool strained to support his weight. Stacy feared it might be reduced to splinters if he had another drink. Despite his girth, the man had found a designer suit to fit. Not that expert tailoring did much good. He was still Jabba the Hut in Armani.

He looked her way and smiled, his cheeks as wide as watermelons. She turned her back to him (practically facing the adjacent wall, which made it difficult to keep one eye on the front door). She checked her watch. SNAP was a few minutes late.

Another 10 minutes went by. If he stood her up, no harm, no foul. She’d pay her bill, walk home and knock on Vampire Boy’s door. Not quite ready to accept a blow-off, Stacy ordered another Cosmo. She had second thoughts about the second drink, though. It might appear to the Man Mountain that she was hanging around for his sake. If only SNAP would show up. He’d save her from the agony of being approached at a bar by an unattractive stranger, and then suffering waves of sympathy for him.

Drawing her out of her thoughts, a voice, deep and sexy, asked from behind her, “Is that you, Fluffy?”

Stacy spun around to face Jabba the Hut, only he seemed much larger up close. “Snap?” she asked.

“Please call me Jasper.”

“I’m Stacy,” she said. They shook hands.

“You seem surprised,” he said euphemistically.

“I am,” she said.
I thought you’d be human size,
she didn’t say.

“I wasn’t sure it was you. Maybe you didn’t recognize me. The photo on match.com is a bit old,” he explained.

“How old?”

“Seven years.”

And in those seven years, Jasper had consumed the meat of an entire elephant. “It’s a very flattering photo,” she said. “I mean, actually, you do look like your picture. You still have all your hair. Most forty-year-olds are thinning by now.” Nothing was thinning on him. He did have nice, thick brown hair.

“Actually, I’m forty-eight. But people tell me I look thirty-five.”

Hard to say. The grossly fat are rarely wrinkled, thought Stacy. “I suddenly have a terrible headache,” she tried.

“May I sit down?” Jasper squeezed into her pew. She felt tiny and vulnerable next to such a massive person. He smelled of talc and peppermint. Along with the shiny hair, he also had perfectly white teeth. Stacy took a breath. Okay, he was fat. But he wasn’t sweaty. Yes, he’d lied about his age and body type. But he seemed nice. Was this the time for Stacy to widen (as it were) her range of what she considered attractive? She’d never been with a heavyset man. For all she knew, he might be thrilling and potent in bed (provided that his tonnage didn’t break it). She resolved to give him a chance and not discard him for his size alone. Like she had a perfect body? Like she couldn’t stand to lose a few pounds? She wasn’t a looks-obsessed fat phobe like her mother. She would judge him on his personality and accomplishments. And lest she forget, he was rich (she wouldn’t be the first woman to overlook a fat stomach for a thick wallet).

He said, “Forgive me if this seems rude, but you can’t really be twenty-nine.”

People often told her she looked 25. “I’m thirty-two.”

“So you lied, too.” He smiled knowingly, as if her small shaving of the years was in any way equal to his mischaracterization. He was grasping for middle ground, she told herself. That was fair.

He said, “So tell me, Stacy. What do you like to do for fun?”

The question itself was baffling. She didn’t have fun; she had a job. What was fun, anyway? Scrabble? Anagrams? She said, “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure what you do for fun?”

“I have a very demanding job.”

He put one pudgy hand on her knee, and a flabby arm around her shoulder. “You need someone to help you unwind, Stacy. You need more time for
you.
Let me help you bring fun back into your life. Do you like Thai food?”

It was a French restaurant. “Thai? Sure.”

“Let me take you out for Thai food, and then we’ll go bowling.”

The thought of Jasper bowling…no, it was too painful to imagine. “Bowling sure does sound like fun,” she said. “Can I think about it?”

“What’s there to think about? You are a beautiful, special lady, and you need to relax. I can feel the tension in your shoulders.”

Jasper began rubbing her taut trapezius. This was far too much contact for the first five minutes. She’d need at least an hour and three additional drinks before she’d want this man to touch her.

“Do you like tequila? Let’s do shots,” he said.

“I’m not sure this is the place for shots.”

Jasper signaled the bartender and ordered the tequila. He handed her a glass and implored her to drink. She drank. When she put her glass back on the table and turned toward Jasper to say thank you, he kissed her. Blindsidedly, on the lips. With his lips. And then, God help her, his tongue. She pushed him off.

“Forgive me, but you looked so cute when you did that shot, I couldn’t resist kissing you,” he said. He did his shot and got a crazy look in his squinty eyes, like he might kiss her again.

She smiled stonily, not quite sure what to do. She didn’t want to be rude, but she’d have none of that sneak-attack shit. She shifted in the pew, recrossed her legs. His hand lifted as she repositioned herself, but his sausage fingers found their way back to her knee.

He said, “I’ve found that most women on match.com like to e-mail for weeks and then talk on the phone for a month before meeting. I guess they think that protects them. But you wanted to meet right away. You must have sensed something about me. I am definitely sensing something about you. You’re a very sexual woman, Stacy. A very special lady.”

She shook her head. “You’re embarrassing me,” she said.

“Don’t you think you’re a sexy, special lady?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“You deserve to be treated right. Let me take you bowling.”

“I don’t think I could wear rented shoes.”

He patted her thigh. She pushed his hand away. Thankfully, he took the hint and leaned back. He asked, “Want another shot?”

“You’re trying to get me drunk so I’ll make out with you.”

He grinned. “I sense your hesitation, Stacy. Despite how sexy and special you are, I can feel you holding yourself back. Drinking alcohol is one way to relax to have fun. But getting you drunk isn’t how I’m going to handle a special lady like you, Stacy. You need time and attention. You need a man to show you how wonderful you are, and take you places, buy you things. Over time and hours and hours together, hopefully, I can capture your heart.” Again with the ham hands on her shoulder and knee.

Stacy wasn’t sure if it was his repeated use of the word “special,” but after that speech, Stacy was nearly certain that Jasper would never see her naked. Or take her bowling. Or, alas, buy her things. But she’d promised herself to give it a real go. If her hopes would be crushed, let them be annihilated completely. And she had to be fair; if he weighed 150 pounds, would she have been as disgusted by his approach? So she tried to change the subject. She’d heard enough about his plans to capture her heart. Maybe she could eke out some attraction from his accomplishments. “So, Jasper. Tell me about your novels,” she said.

He rubbed her knee and asked, “Are you trying to change the subject?”

“I’m interested in your whole life, Jasper.”

“It’s only one novel, and it’s actually a comic book I wrote back in high school with a friend of mine. We never did anything with it, but I still consider it a real accomplishment.”

“Do you practice the violin every day?”

Jasper laughed. “I haven’t given it a good workout since the eighth grade, but I can play a mean ‘Scarborough Fair.’ ”

“You said in your profile that you’re self-employed?” she asked.

“I work in publishing.”

“Are you an editor? An agent?”

“I sell magazine subscriptions for Publisher’s Clearing House over the phone. It’s a great job. I never have to leave my house, and I make a very good living. Enough money to do whatever I want to do. I can fly to Florida on a moment’s notice. I could afford to eat in this restaurant if I wanted to.”

So he never had any intention of taking her to dinner tonight, at Jean Pierre Louis Paul or anywhere else. He’d just suggest meeting here to impress her, then grope her and get her drunk in the bar (a highly inappropriate bar, she might add, for soused canoodling).

“I mentioned a headache before?” she asked. “It’s gotten worse.”

He pulled back again (and removed his hands), but his hope wasn’t diminished. “I can cure a headache. Let me rub your temples.”

She said, “I’d rather you kept your hands to yourself. I’m not a touchy-feely kind of woman.”

He said, a mite snippily, “You don’t want to be touched? But you’re a sexy lady. You like orgies. You said so in your profile. If you don’t want physical contact, it can only mean one thing. You aren’t attracted to me. Then why did you push for a date? You saw my picture.”

The picture was seven years and 100 pounds ago. “It’s hard to tell what someone looks like from a photo.”

He frowned, his cheeks plumping. “Forgive me, Stacy, but a photograph is widely acknowledged to be an excellent way to tell what someone looks like.”

“You said in your profile that you’re athletic,” she said.

He said, “I
am
athletic. I ride an exercise bike every day. I play golf. I’m in a basketball league.” Stacy could hardly believe that Jasper could haul his walrus ass up and down a basketball court.