The Opposite of Me (30 page)

“Sorry,” I said as she rushed by, shooting me a dirty look.

“I like that shirt almost as much as the red dress,” the cashier said, eyeing my light green halter top with approval. I’d paired it with my skinny jeans and new chunky Marni heels with the buckles on the fronts, and I’d used a straightening iron to make my hair fall in gleaming sheets to my shoulders.

“Thanks!” I said, darting out the door and jumping into my parents’ old station wagon. I was going to be late to meet Jacob Weinstein, thirty-four, who’d moved to town a few months ago and was ready to start dating.

For the past two weeks, ever since I’d officially been hired by Blind Dates, I’d gotten a whole new kind of education, one that didn’t have anything to do with product differentiation or target demographics or branding. I’d learned about people. I’d learned about their fears and desires. I’d learned the secrets they held close, hidden from colleagues and acquaintances and family members.

I’d also learned that looking into the files of a dating service can break your heart. What people yearn for, more than anything else, is a connection with each other. They want someone to raise a family with. They want someone to hold hands with. They want someone to take care of them when they’re sick, and to still love them when they’re old and wrinkly. Incidentally, if these services can be performed by a person who looks like Heidi Klum or has the bank account of Donald Trump, so much the better.

I’d spent hours curled up on May’s couch, reading through the stacks of files. What I’d discovered is that during every wedding and baby shower and birthday party—every life event, really, both major and minor—there are people clustered on the sidelines, in the shadows just beyond the spot
light, outwardly celebrating but inwardly wondering what they’ve done wrong, why they’ve ended up alone while the rest of the world seems to have paired off, and if they’re always going to be this lonely.

May was good at drawing people out. I read about a widower who told May he bought cans of tuna fish for his lunch one at time, just so he could go into the grocery store every day and experience human contact during his brief chat with the cashier at checkout. I glimpsed the secret of a woman who’d been obese as a teenager and still saw herself as fat and unlovable in the mirror, even though she exercised every day and was now a healthy size. I learned about the anguish a man suffered when his fiancée literally left him at the altar. The maid of honor had come up and whispered the news in his ear while he stood there in his tuxedo, waiting for his bride to walk down the aisle.

Had there always been this many lonely people in the world? I wondered, marveling at the stacks of folders surrounding me.

“We do more than just fix people up,” May had told me on my second day. “We listen to them; in fact, listening is probably the most important skill you’ll bring to this job. We find out what went wrong in their past relationships, and we work with them to make sure they get out of any bad patterns they may be in. We help people discover what kind of partner they really want. We’re more than matchmakers; we’re therapists and best friends and sometimes even drill sergeants.”

“Really?” I’d said.

“Sure, for people who have totally unrealistic expectations,” May had replied. “If a fifty-year-old guy comes in here wanting to be set up with a nineteen-year-old Playboy bunny, we have to do a little ass kicking, find out what’s really going on with him and why he’s having such a crisis of confidence that he needs arm candy to prove to the world that he’s important
and desirable. And if that doesn’t work, we tell him to go find a mail-order bride and we show him the door. There aren’t a lot of clients we turn down, but you’ll have to be prepared to do it now and then. We have an informal no-jerks-allowed policy.”

I’d nodded, loving the way May was already using the word
we
, like I was her full partner.

“On the flip side, a lot of the clients we see are facing a crisis of confidence,” May said. “So build them up a bit. Give them a compliment or two, but only if it’s sincere.”

Now, as I walked into a restaurant-bar called Parker’s and looked around for my client, I remembered what May had told me—that listening was the most important part of my job. “Everyone has a story,” she’d said. It was time to find out what Jacob’s was.

He was sitting in a booth against the far wall. He was a nice-looking, dark-haired guy who was on the short side. The sleeves of his shirt were pushed up to reveal strong-looking forearms. His file told me he was a mortgage banker who enjoyed skiing, traveling, and cooking ethnic food.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Jacob confessed right after we’d introduced ourselves. His shoe was drumming a rat-a-tat-tat against the floor.

“Relax,” I told him as I sat down across from him. “We’re just going to have a conversation, then I’m going to find a really lucky woman who gets to go out with you.”

He smiled, revealing an endearingly crooked front tooth, and I knew I’d said the right thing. Funny, but there was no sign of the shyness that usually plagued me in social situations. Maybe it was because the voices in my head, the ones that told me I’d never be as pretty and desirable as Alex, had lost some of their power now that I knew how many other people had harsh voices inside their heads, too. Maybe my new clothes and makeup helped as well; I was still playing a part, still acting outside of myself, in some ways.

“Anything to drink, hon?” the waitress asked, motioning to the drink menu.

“What are you having?” I asked Jacob.

“A martini,” he said. “Mine’s plain, but I heard they make good chocolate ones here.”

“Perfect,” I said.

The waitress walked away, and Jacob leaned back against the cushioned padding of the booth.

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he said. “I still can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s horrifying. I mean, having a plain martini when there’s chocolate available.”

Jacob smiled, a bigger smile this time.

“Listen, I think you’re brave,” I told him. “You’re going after what you want.”

“I guess you could look at it that way,” he said.

“So tell me about you. You cook and you love to travel?” I said, crossing my legs and leaning closer to him. “Clearly you’d be the perfect man, if it weren’t for that plain martini flaw.”

Was I flirting with my client? But Jacob seemed to need it; he was so anxious.

“Maybe I could change, for the right woman,” he said, smiling again. His foot had stopped tapping, I noticed.

“Tell me who would be the right woman for you,” I said. “What qualities are important to you?”

“I love good food, so she can’t be the kind of woman who picks at a salad and says she’s full, then sneaks home and wolfs down a bag of Chips Ahoy!” Jacob said.

I laughed, and he seemed emboldened. “And I love to travel, so agoraphobics are out, too.”

Jacob was cute, funny, and nice. My chocolate martini was perfection. And I was getting paid for this?

“What else?” I said lightly. “Tell me about your last girlfriend.”

“Sue?” Jacob said. “Mmm . . . how should I put this?”

“As bluntly as possible,” I joked. “I need to know all the details if I’m going to pick the right woman for you.”

Jacob sighed. He started to say something, stopped, then blurted out, “Everything made her cry. And I mean
everything
. At first it was one of the things that made me fall in love with her. I thought she was so sensitive. I brought her a rose on our first date, and she cried. One of her friends announced she was pregnant with twins, and Sue cried. Then I realized she never stopped crying.”

“Sappy commercials?” I asked. Jacob nodded.

“Sunsets and sad movies, too . . . Then one day her parents came to visit and we picked them up at the airport. And I somehow ended up crushed between Sue and her mom, and the two of them were wailing away—I mean,
wailing
—and I looked over at the dad, and he was just pulling tissues out of his pockets with this resigned expression. And I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it; the harder they cried, the more I laughed. And of course her mom thought I was laughing at
her
, and, well . . . things just went downhill from there.”

“What happened when you broke up?” I asked.

“Sue didn’t shed a single tear,” Jacob said.

I looked at him, and we both burst into laughter.

“So no criers,” I said, pretending to scribble it down. “Check. What else?”

“And, um, it would be kind of nice if the woman you picked . . .” Jacob’s voice trailed off.

I stayed quiet; May had said that letting silence linger could be a powerful tool in getting clients to open up.

“If she just . . .” Jacob cleared his throat.

I knew Jacob was too good to be true. Here’s the part where
he’d say he wanted someone who would let him wear her false eyelashes, or go to
Star Trek
conventions every weekend.

“If she looked like you,” he said.

I floated home with Jacob’s compliment ringing in my ears. But his words came to a screeching halt, like a needle being yanked across a record, when I pulled into the driveway. Alex’s shiny black Lexus—the one Gary had given her for her twenty-ninth birthday—was there. It was a Thursday night. What was Alex doing here?

“Back so soon?” she called from the living room as I opened the front door as quietly as I could. I’d been hoping to sneak past my parents and change and wipe off my makeup before creeping back outside through my bedroom window and making a pretend entrance. My parents wouldn’t have noticed a thing; Alex, a champion nocturnal escape artist, would be harder to fool.

“Be right there,” I said, darting into the hallway and heading for my room. I made it four steps before my heels tripped me up and I sprawled on the carpet. Crap! Now they’d all come running and see me!

“What was that?” Mom said.

“Sounded like someone dropped a vacuum cleaner,” Dad observed.

“Probably Lindsey fell down,” Alex said, and they all said, “Ah!” and turned back to watching their
Wheel of Fortune
rerun.

“I’m fine!” I shouted. “Just in case you were wondering!”

No one answered me, so I got up and kept walking, slightly disappointed that I didn’t need to use the G.I. Joe crawl I’d been mentally rehearsing to maneuver into my room. I slipped into slacks and a blue button-up blouse, creamed off
my makeup, and brushed my teeth before heading back into the TV room.

“How was your date?” Alex asked.

“Date?” I said. “What date?”

“Oops,” Mom said again. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But I was walking by your room when you were making plans to meet him.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Jacob, silly,” Mom said.

“How long did it take you to walk by?” I demanded.

“Details,” Alex ordered.

“We, um, just went for a walk and talked,” I said.

Alex tore her eyes away from Pat Sajak. “You went for a walk?”

“That sounds nice, honey,” Mom said.

“Your date sounds nice to your mother,” Alex said. “Do you realize how many things are wrong with that sentence? Why didn’t the guy at least buy you a drink? Is he cheap?”

“I don’t need to drink to have fun on a date,” I said, stifling a hiccup. That second martini had been strong. “And why aren’t you out tonight?”

Alex didn’t move, but something in her face changed, grew almost sorrowful. “I was tired,” she said.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re hassling me for going out on a boring date, but you stayed home with your parents?”

“Hey,” Dad said, wounded.

“We’re still hip,” Mom reassured him, patting his hand.

“I didn’t feel well,” Alex said.

I knew instantly that she was lying. I can’t say how; maybe because I’d watched her lie so many times to my parents I’d become an expert in detecting a subtle change in her tone, or a slight flicker of her eyes. I knew with a rush of certainty she was
here for another reason. Were she and Gary having problems? A stab of fear tore through me. Please don’t let it be that. I couldn’t help imagining Bradley consoling Alex, the two of them sharing another bottle of wine, him putting an arm around her and—I squeezed my eyes shut. No.
No.

“So what did you and your young man talk about on your walk?” Mom asked me.

“Mom,” Alex and I groaned in unison.

“Well, he is a young man, isn’t he?” Mom asked in her best annoyingly reasonable tone.

“We talked about work, mostly,” I said. “He’s, um, a mortgage banker.”

“Sexy,” Alex commented.

“It was fun!” I protested.

“Did he show you his jumbo loans?” Alex said, making it sound dirty. “Does he have a . . . 
position
on reverse mortgages?”

“Jacob’s a great guy,” I said hotly. “Maybe he likes me for my mind. Maybe he actually likes talking to me.”

“Blank in the blank blank blank,” Dad said, staring at the puzzle on the screen. “It’s a phrase.”

“Now Alex,” Mom said. “Stop teasing. The only reason why Lindsey got her big promotion is because she works so hard.”