There's Cake in My Future (32 page)

NICOLE:
Going to be mobbed on a Saturday night. Oh! Bowling! What about that bowling alley on Ventura above the deli?

KEVIN:
Eaton, are you seriously suggesting bowling?

NICOLE:
It’s Washington now. And I like bowling.

No response from Kevin for a while.

NICOLE:
So, are you in, or what?

KEVIN:
I’m in. See you in thirty?

NICOLE:
Awesome.

Kevin clicks off. I click off, then run upstairs to grab my bowling shoes. (Yes, I have bowling shoes. It is the fabulousness that is me.) I’m so excited! I haven’t been bowling in I don’t know how long. In Los Angeles, bowling alleys tend to be booked by leagues until ten at night, and by then the girls are in bed and I can’t go. So it’s been months and months since I’ve been bowling.

Come to think of it—maybe even years.

My home phone rings. It’s Jason. Damn it. I really love him, but I really want to go bowling.

I pick up.

“Hey,” I say quickly, hoping this is a one-minute call. “How’s the event going?”

“It’s done for tonight, and I am exhausted and in bed. How are you? What have you been up to?”

“Good,” I say, nervously looking at the clock. “Nothing much. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” he says sweetly. “Listen, Jacquie called. She wanted to know if she could drop the girls off at four, instead of six.”

I audibly sigh.

“Problem?” Jason asks.

“You know? Kinda, yeah,” I admit. “I planned a day tomorrow. I know my job isn’t as important as everyone else’s, but I…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sweetie,” Jason interrupts. “Your job’s not less important than ours. If you have plans, it’s fine. I’ll just tell her no.”

“No. Because if you do that, then she’ll just show up at five all stressed out, and then the girls will pick up on the stress, and then they’ll get all stressed…”

“The girls have had a career mom for a long time. They’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“You know what? It’s fine,” I say quickly. “I can be done with my stuff by four. It’s fine.”

“You don’t have to be,” Jason insists.

“No. I want to be. I need to take Megan shopping for a new leotard anyway. It’ll be fine.”

Jason pauses for a second. I take the time to grab my iPhone and text Kevin:

Don’t leave yet. Jason’s on the phone.

“Are you okay?” Jason asks me. “You sound weird.”

“I’m fine,” I insist. “I’m just thrown at having my plans changed.”

Which is true. So I don’t quite know where it’s coming from as I blurt out, “I just … it would just be nice if someone acknowledged everything I do around here. I mean, Jacquie doesn’t even call me, she calls you. You don’t even know Megan needs a leotard, you certainly won’t know I got her one unless I point it out, which I’m doing now, which I know even as I’m hearing myself talk just sounds petty and insecure, but…” my voice trails off. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I’m having a bad day.”

“Did something else happen with the job search?” Jason asks me.

I sigh. “Man, I don’t even want to talk about that.”

“Is that a ‘I don’t want to talk about it, ask me questions’? Or a ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Seriously, if you bring it up again, I’ll rip out your throat’?”

I smile. “Second one.”

“Okay,” Jason says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

I miss him. I can just see him right now, lying in the hotel’s king-sized bed with a pair of flannel pajama bottoms on but no top (a quirk of his; his lower half gets cold, but not his upper half), drinking a glass of milk that he always orders from room service, even though it’s got to be ten bucks plus tip.

“You want to stay on the phone with me for a while?” Jason asks me.

“Sure,” I say softly.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I just wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I wish God would send down a lightning bolt: this is your place. This is where you belong. This is your path. Now knock it off, I’ve sent you enough signs.”

“You do know your path is with me, right?” Jason asks me.

“Of course.”

“Okay. Just checking. Because I can go down a lot of roads, but I plan to be with you no matter which one we choose.”

It’s nice to hear that. With all of the craziness of his work, his parenting, and my coparenting, I think maybe I had forgotten that.

I spent the next hour talking to Jason. I texted Kevin a few times, finally telling him I couldn’t go out tonight because I was talking to my husband.

But there was still a small part of me that wanted to go. Wanted the excitement of someone paying attention to me, and not just because I could be home by four to make everyone’s life a little easier. And I will admit when Kevin wrote his final text of the night:

Sorry I missed you. Coffee at school Monday?

A small part of me was excited for Monday.

Forty-one

Melissa

Nothing quite makes you feel as self-loathing as a one-night stand. Particularly if you’ve never had one before (seriously).

I open my eyes, and sigh. Crap. This is so not how I thought I’d feel the next day. I thought I’d feel empowered. Now I just feel clueless.

I look over at Danny, naked next to me in his bed. He’s a very fine-looking man. That chest is perfect. Muscular, but not overly so. And his face is exquisite—perfectly chiseled features and flawless skin. Much more handsome than Fred.

Why am I thinking about Fred?

I try to figure out how to politely extricate myself from this situation. I am a fucking idiot—I have no idea what you’re supposed to do the morning after a one-night stand. Maybe I should have looked that up on Bing or something.

I lift the sheets, and look down at my own body. Yup, naked all right.

Crap, crap, crap.

I slowly peel the blanket off of Danny and step out of his bed, careful to keep myself completely covered. Then I start a vain search for my underwear.

Yeah—this is a good place to be in my life. When I was a teenager just discovering boys, this is exactly where I pictured myself at thirty-two.

“Morning,” I hear Danny say behind me.

I jump a foot, startled, then turn around, and try to act nonchalant. “Good morning.”

He rubs his eyes. Checks his watch on the nightstand. “What time is it?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, my eyes madly darting around the room in search of my black satin underwear.

Danny reads his watch. “Wow. It’s almost ten. Do you want to go get brunch?”

“Brunch?” I repeat. “I’m not sure what the protocol is here. Are we supposed to get brunch?”

Danny sits up, and the sheet over him slides down to reveal his perfect, naked torso. “What do you mean ‘Are we supposed to’?” he asks me.

I sigh. “I know this is going to sound like a line, but I’ve never done that before.”

Danny smiles. “Never done which part before?”

“Oh God!” I nearly shriek as I cover my reddening face in embarrassment. “I’ve never had a one-night stand before. You can believe me or not believe me, but I haven’t.”

Suddenly I notice my panties are draping the lamp on his nightstand (good Christ). I race over to his side of the bed and yank them off.

Danny slowly rubs my stomach through the blanket. “Come back to bed.”

“Come BACK to bed?” I repeat incredulously. Then I try to figure out how to shimmy into my underwear while keeping the blanket completely covering me. “Oh, no, no, no.”

I watch his sheet slip down below his hip as he says to me, “You know, you can put your underwear on in front of me. I have already seen you naked.”

“That was at night,” I say, a bundle of nerves as I try to slip my underwear over my feet without dropping the blanket. “Plus, I was drunk.”

I manage to get my underwear completely on before Danny slowly (and sexily) pulls me back into the bed. He kisses my neck for a moment. Which I will admit feels ridiculously excellent. “You didn’t drink much,” he points out.

I try to push him off of my neck. I need to get out of here. “I was drunk on power and intoxicated by your beauty.”

“Intoxicated by my beauty?” Danny repeats.

I continue, “I needed to know that I could talk someone out of my league into wanting me. I have. Now I need to leave.”

Danny moves his left arm over me, straddling himself slightly on top of me. He smiles. “So … what made you pick me?”

I do give in a little by leaning back. I’m tempted just to do it with him one more time, then leave.

But, instead, I sigh loudly. “Oh please—I’m embarrassed enough without the Monday Morning Quarterback.”

“The what?”

“The Monday … Don’t you watch football?”

“Nah. I’d rather play sports than watch them,” he tells me seductively. He takes my hand and kisses my palm ever so lightly. Then he begins moving his lips up my arm. I could get used to this if I didn’t think he’d be dumping me later today. “Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask.

“No,” he mumbles while his hot breath caresses my neck. “Why? Do you have a boyfriend?”

Danny begins licking my neck as I try to continue my sentence. I take a deep breath and try to forget the hormones coursing through my body. Or the fact that I’m suddenly remembering how last night he was very … Um, what’s a polite way to say this?… how adept he was in the boudoir.

“Why would I be with you if I had a boyfriend? What kind of girl do you think I am?”

Before he can speak, I say, “Don’t answer that. I’m the type of girl who picks up random boys in bars. Oh God, I’m someone I hate.”

Danny stops kissing me. He looks me in the eye. “Are you going to relax at all?”

“Not until you dump me. No.”

He looks away, then blinks several times. My comments seem to inspire blinking in him. It’s not something I’m proud of, but he’s not the first.

Danny stands up and gets out of bed. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. What’s your idea of a perfect outing on a Sunday?”

“What? I have to pick what we’re doing? It’s not enough that I asked you out last night…”

“Asked me out? Is that what that was?” Danny jokes.

“Stop it. If we’re going to go on this date, which I’m not even sure is a good idea, I am not picking where we go. You need to make some decisions here.”

“Fine,” Danny says, sliding back into bed. “I choose bed day.”

He moves in for a kiss, but I crane my neck back, pulling away from him. “I do love the beach.”

Danny smiles to himself.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, climbing out of bed for the second time. “The beach it is. I have a brunch place I want to take you to first.” He turns to me. “Promise me one thing?”

“What?”

“At the end of the day, I am getting sex again, right?”

“Are you sure you want to?” I ask.

That makes Danny laugh. He takes my hand. “Come on, you goof.”

I let him lead me by the hand. “Where are we going?”

“Shower.”

“What?! Together?!” I ask.

“Yes. A shower together is the first step in the, quote, ‘protocol’ for the ‘morning after date.’ ”

“Are you making that up?”

“Well, since you’ve never had a morning after, you’ll never know, will you?”

I must admit, the hot shower relaxed me somewhat.

And, for now, I am liking this whole “morning after” thing.

Forty-two

Seema

This is weird.

He’s going to wake up, and everything’s going to be wrong.

Let the arm chewing commence. Or maybe not. Maybe this is the beginning of the rest of our lives. Maybe if I can just relax, and not overthink this thing, everything will turn out the way it’s supposed to.

I glance over at Scott.

And he’s … not there. The bed is empty.

I sit up. “Scott?”

Nothing. His loft is eerily quiet. “Scott?” I say again, a little louder.

No … he couldn’t have ditched me. He wouldn’t have made me feel totally abandoned on a morning when he knew I would need reassurance that what I did the night before was okay.

I get out of bed and head to the bathroom. “Scott?” I yell.

He did. He fucking left. Oh. My. Fucking. God. I don’t fucking believe he did this.

Shit. What the hell am I going to do? Clearly this should not have happened. It was a giant mistake.

In my head, I already know exactly how it’s going to go down. When he gets back, he’ll act like nothing happened last night: we were just a couple of friends who made a drunken mistake. No big deal. He’ll call me tonight and see me next Saturday at his show, where he’ll be sure to bring a date: a perfect ten, blond, big breasts, little waist, no brain. And he’ll treat the whole thing like it meant so little to him that I’ll want to stay in bed for a week, and not in the good way.

Or, worse, I’m going to get lectured. He’ll tell me that what he meant last night with all the “I love you because”s was really just that he loved me as a friend. I took it the wrong way, and therefore it’s all my fault that we’ve gone down this path.

I grab my matching bra and panty ensemble, then his
WE HAVE COOKIES
T-shirt and sweats from the floor, and quickly throw them on. Then I grab my purse, minidress, and shoes, and head out the door.

I’m already on the 101 freeway when Scott calls. I click on my Bluetooth, “Yeah.”

“Where the Hell are you?” Scott asks me (seemingly in confusion).

“I’m driving home,” I tell him angrily. “Where the Hell were you?”

“Picking up croissants. I was only gone for fifteen minutes.”

Oh, I fucking hate it when he lies about time like that. “I’ve been on the road for fifteen minutes,” I point out. “You were gone for at least forty-five.”

“No I wasn’t—”

“Yes, you were! And, by the way, very classy abandoning me after our first night together.”

Scott gets very quiet. “Seema, don’t do this,” he warns me quietly.

“Don’t do what?”

“Act how you’re going to act. Just please, for one God damn day, can you act like a normal person?”

“Act like a normal person,” I repeat angrily. “I see, because I’m being so abnormal.”