There's Cake in My Future (16 page)

“Vetted?” Mel asks.

“If a man is here tonight, he is friends with either the bride or the groom. That means that you can find out all you need to know about him after a few minutes of carefully placed questions to the wedding party. Bonus, he’s not going to screw you over later, because if he does he’ll either have a six-foot-six athlete who will pummel him or, worse, your friend Nic.”

“I don’t need to vet anyone,” Mel insists.

“This from the girl who used to Googlestalk her first dates,” I blurt out derisively.

“No. I am a changed woman. I don’t need to view a man as my future husband anymore. I need to view him as a hottie and just get laid.”

I stare at her. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am indeed. I’ve been giving this some thought. The cake charm said I was going to have a red hot chili pepper future. Right?”

“Oh, Christ, we’re back to the cake charm,” I mutter.

“I got the heart,” Scott says happily.

“You did?!” Mel says, clearly envious. “Oh my God, you’re so lucky. That means you’re about to fall in love. Can I see it?”

“Nah, it’s in a piece I’m working on for next month’s show. It’s pretty cool though. You’re coming next month, right?”

“Do you think there will be easy men there?” Mel asks him in all seriousness.

“Of course,” Scott answers with a look of abject confusion. “There are easy men everywhere. Men are, by definition, easy.”

I ignore Scott for the moment, keeping my attention focused on Mel. “What is with you? This morning, you could barely get out of bed.”

“That was this morning,” Mel says with unabated excitement. “Grieving is like drinking poison and hoping your enemy dies of it. What’s the point?”

“Actually, that’s resentment,” I point out.

“Oh, don’t worry. I have a lot of that too,” Mel assures me. “But listening to Nic when she was locked up in the bathroom made me realize something: unlike Nic, I’m not married. I can go have sex with Luke Perry! And Prince William! And even a Jonas brother if I want to!”

I turn to Scott. “What do you think? Do I go with a gay joke here or one about a purity ring?”

Before he can answer, Mel continues, “Back to my theory. I’ve decided to listen to what the cake charm has been trying to tell me. I’m thirty-two years old, and I’ve never been a slut.” She pauses for effect. “It’s time.”

I stare at Mel, in shock. What the Hell? I don’t even know where to begin. How can someone so intelligent come up with a plan so gloriously dim-witted?

I see Scott’s fingers snap in front of my eyes. “When they go into a trance, you need to just shake them out of it,” he says to Mel.

I turn to Scott. “Can you please tell Mel what men think when they pick up bridesmaids at weddings?”

“If they look like Mel?” Scott asks me in a normal voice. Then he changes his voice to a celebratory tone. “ ‘Yippee, I’m going home with a bridesmaid!’ ”

“You’re not helping.”

Scott continues in the same thrilled tone, “That was totally worth the hundred and fifty dollars I spent on throw pillows!”

“Nic wanted the throw pillows. Let the throw pillows go,” I say sternly to Scott. Then I turn to Mel. “Honey, the whole one-night-stand thing—way overrated.”

Scott smirks at me in amusement. “Do tell.”

“Oh, come on,” I say defensively to him. “What single thirty-two-year-old woman hasn’t made at least one incredibly bad decision in her sex life?”

“Me!” Mel says quickly. “I have not made any bad decisions in my sex life.”

“You chose Fred,” I point out.

“Duly noted,” Mel says. “But I am a serial monogamist. I went from my college boyfriend to Jeff in my early twenties to Fred up until this week. I’ve only been with three men in my entire life. I have done exactly what society has told me to do, and where has it gotten me? Alone, in my old room, and able to fake orgasms better than a porn star. It’s time to try something else.” Mel takes another sip of her champagne as her eyes wander the room. “There. That’s the one. I’ve spotted my prey.”

“What, you’re a cougar now?” I ask her.

“Too young for that. I’m thinking of myself more as a sex kitten.”

“Meeeoooowww…” Scott says approvingly.

Mel subtly nods her head toward the corner of the room. “See that guy over there? Do either of you know him?”

Scott and I turn to see five men standing in the corner. “Which guy?” I ask her.

“The guy in the gray suit,” Mel tells me.

“They’re all in gray suits,” Scott points out to Mel while he glares at me.

“What?” I exclaim. “You look great!”

Scott narrows his eyes playfully. “Grrrr…”

“The tall guy,” Mel clarifies.

“Jason works for a basketball team,” I point out. “Half the guests here are tall.”

Mel leans into us and nearly whispers, “The black guy.”

“Why are you whispering?” I whisper back.

“I don’t want to offend any of the guests here.”

“Why? Don’t they know they’re black?” I say kiddingly.

“Tall guy approaching. Shhh…” Mel says.

A rakishly handsome, tall black man in a gray suit walks right past us and over to a gaggle of giggly girls who immediately surround him.

“Okay. Well, men who look like that have a lot of options,” Mel says, not missing a beat. “I’m going to go look at the table assignments and try to accidentally on purpose run into either him or some other twelve on a scale of one to ten.”

She takes her leave.

“Personally, I am a cereal monogamist,” Scott tells me. “I always eat Rice Krispies.”

I smile at Scott’s joke. Scott waves to someone over my shoulder, so I turn around to see the bitch from the church. “Who’s the girl?”

“Eh, some ex-girlfriend of Jason’s,” Scott tells me in a brushing-off tone.

“Was there a love connection?” I ask him, trying not to sound too interested.

“Didn’t you hear me?” he says, taking a sip of champagne. “Ex-girlfriend. She’ll be fucking him tonight, not whatever poor sap becomes her one-night stand.” He takes my right hand with his left, and begins holding my hand as he says, “Seriously, no sex is worth dealing with tears or anger the next morning.”

“But you just told Mel—”

“Mel is a good girl,” he interrupts. “She might talk the talk, but she’ll be going home—alone—with us tonight. Let her feel like a sex kitten for a few hours. It’ll make her feel like she’s in control of her dating life. Which, really, she is. Most women are—they just don’t know it.”

I look down at our hands, and our intertwined fingers. It feels very nice, and I feel those familiar butterflies in my stomach. But I don’t know how to react publicly. Happy? Curious? Flirty?

“You know, if we hold hands, I can’t find anyone tonight either,” I tell him.

I mentally kick myself.
Good, Seema: go with suspicious and aloof. Men love that
.

Scott makes a show of whispering sweet nothings into my ear as the girl approaches him. “I can have you out of that dress in three minutes.”

I giggle, then take a sip of my champagne. “Is the extinguisher goo that bad?”

“No, no,” he assures me, then shrugs and smiles flirtatiously. “But I’ll still use it as an excuse to get you out of your dress.”

We continue to hold hands as I respond sarcastically, “Right. Like you couldn’t have done that by now.”

Scott visibly jolts at my statement. Clearly, I’ve made him uncomfortable. I take a nervous sip of champagne. Here I go again with the nervous drinking. I see the girl from the church make an abrupt left away from us and toward the bar.

Well, at least I won that round.

I notice that even after she’s gone, Scott continues to hold my hand.

“So how was the rest of your date with Tiffany after I left last night?” I can’t help but ask, although I’m not sure I want his answer.

“Britney.”

I quickly apologize. “Sorry. Right. Britney.” Then I notice the strangest look cross his face. “What’s wrong? Why the look?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” Scott says cryptically. Then he gets another look that I can’t quite read and says, “It’s going really well. Surprisingly well, actually.” And then he zings me with, “And you really like her, right?”

Crap.

I try not to hedge as I say, “Yeah. She—”

“Because she liked you,” Scott interrupts. “And not very many of the women I date like you.”

Wow. Okay.

“And I think this girl could really be in my life, so I want you guys to like each other. You did like each other, right?”

I force a smile, and lie through my teeth. “Yeah. She’s great.”

He smiles back, relieved. “Good, good.”

“So who didn’t like me?” I can’t help but ask.

“Sherri. She thought you were secretly in love with me.”

Before I can react to that bombshell, Mel walks up and urgently announces, “Nic put you guys at the singles’ table. Switch with me.”

Oh, good Christ. “Okay, I know you have this whole ‘I’m going to be a slut’ idea going for you right now,” I tell her. “But trust me, no one wants to be stuck at the singles’ table for the evening. Trying to find a bangable guy there is like going to Antarctica for a tropical vacation.”

“I’m sorry. Did you just say ‘bangable’?” Scott asks me.

“What can I say? The term ‘smokin’ hot’ has become cliché,” I tell him.

Mel continues, “He Whose Name Shall Not be Spoken and I are at table sixteen, also known as the
happy couples who have been together for a million years
table. I just really can’t deal with that tonight.” She takes a moment to register that Scott and I are holding hands. Then she shakes the thought out of her head and begins to beg, “Pleeaaasse let me take your table thirteen seats … I need to be with the beautiful people tonight.”

Scott and I exchange a look of horror. This is followed by my exclaiming, “You think the singles’ table has the beautiful people?”

“Of course,” Mel insists with vigor. “They’re the ones who have the time and the money to work out, get plastic surgery, and spend money on expensive dinners without boyfriends telling them they don’t make enough and shouldn’t be spending so recklessly.”

Before I can say, “What a loaded sentence,” Mel continues, “And they can have sex with whomever they want, whenever they want, so finding someone’s easier.”

Scott responds to Mel with, “Speaking as one of those people, I can have either one of you out of that dress in three minutes.” He reconsiders his statement, then turns to me with a wicked smile. “Or both of you.”

I hit him on the arm, then insist to my friend, “Mel, I think you’re missing the point of the singles’ table. It may sound like fun, but in reality there’s a lot of desperation that you don’t want to be a part of.…”

“Desperation mixed with alcohol is an aphrodisiac at a wedding,” Mel counters. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Just as I am about to stand firm that, no, we will not change tables just to accommodate Mel’s harebrained scheme, Bitch (I mean the girl from the church) walks up to Scott. She flashes an ivory card with the number thirteen calligraphied in aqua-colored foil. “So, will you be anywhere near me tonight?” she asks him in her sultriest voice.

And the plot sickens. “No,” I say, trying to sound disappointed that we won’t be joining her. “Honey, I think we’re at table sixteen.”

Nineteen

Melissa

Once the Grand Salon opens up to oohs and aahs, I quickly head to table thirteen to begin my night of wild passion.

Just as soon as I find a guy to have it with.

I happily have a seat in the middle of the round table and prepare to hold court.

Unfortunately, all I get are the jesters.

“What’s your favorite quadratic equation?” a middle-aged, pencil-necked geek to my left asks me as he sits down next to me.

“I’m sorry?” I ask.

Geekozoid smiles at me. “I took the liberty of asking Jason what you do for a living. He said you are a math teacher. So what is your favorite quadratic equation?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How was Comic-Con this year?”

Urkel’s face lights up. “Dude, it was rad. Even better than last year! There was a hot girl there dressed as Princess Leia when she was Jabba the Hutt’s slave…”

I put up my palm. “Thanks for playing. Buh-bye,” I tell him, then get up and make the long journey to the opposite side of the round table.

A balding man with a ponytail soon walks up to me and takes a seat by my side. “I’d like to buy you a car.”

“I’m sorry?” I say, convinced that I must have heard him wrong.

“I’m Joseph Potter,” the old man says, putting out his hand for me to shake, “and I’d like to buy you a car.”

I shake his hand, eying him warily. “I’ve heard that name before. Aren’t you some kind of movie producer?”

His face swells up with pride (or maybe Scotch). “I am. My film
Wolf
grossed over a billion dollars last year. Perhaps you’ve seen it.”

The girl who I can tell Seema wants to stab with a fork walks over to our table. I practically pounce on her. “Hi, I’m Mel, and this is my friend Joe,” I say to her quickly.

She puts out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Janet.”

“Hi Janet,” I say, shaking her hand quickly. “Are you an actress?”

“Why, yes I am.”

I throw her hand into Joe’s. “This is Joe. He’s a movie producer, and he’d like to buy you a car.”

As the two begin their love connection for the night, I stand up and head to the midpoint between Geekozoid and
Rich Old guy who thinks he’s still thirty
to have a seat.

An incredible hunk of a man with short blond hair walks up to the table, debating where to sit. I make eye contact for a few seconds—then smile and turn away shyly.

He walks over to me. “Hi,” I say, “I’m Mel.”

He puts up his index finger to shush me. “So then I told the bitch—look, either take me as I am, or I am out of here!” he yells into his headset. “And you know what that cunt of a woman told me…”

And I’m up again and onto the nine o’clock position of the table (since midnight, three and six are all zeroes in my book).

It takes about three minutes for a fat guy with garlic breath to sit next to me. He turns to me and says, “Hi, I’m … Achoo!”