Twitterpated (2 page)

Chapter 2

I
TRIED TO JUGGLE A BULGING
sack of Chinese takeout and my overflowing workbag, while I fumbled with the lock on the front door, when the knob suddenly twisted and the door flew open. Sandy stood there, obviously on her way out. She groaned. “Let me guess; you’re spending the evening getting caught up with work.”

“I have a big deadline. I can’t miss it.” The end of my first project as a manager loomed, all headache-making. I hadn’t been gunning for my recent promotion to begin with, but I wasn’t about to embarrass myself now that I had it.

“Play with your spreadsheets tomorrow. Come out with us tonight. I’m meeting some people at The Factory. Remember your resolution,” she chided.

“Ask me next week when my deadline is over. I’ve got balance sheets coming out of my ears right now.” I shook my head again. As much as taking a break from my crazy hours tempted me, I said, “I just can’t.” Not without regret though.

“You’re never going to meet Prince Charming holed up in here.”

“I’m not looking for Prince Charming. Just a nice guy, and I don’t think my kind of nice guy is going to be clubbing at one a.m. But dance with a hot stranger for me.”

Sandy gave up, tucked a tiny silver purse that couldn’t have held more than her ID under her arm, and gave her reflection a once-over in the foyer mirror. “Any hot strangers I find are all mine,” she said. “How do I look?” She had a killer body and an arresting face. Looking at her wild red hair, I decided for the umpteenth time that there was never a more misnamed Sandy.

I’m not Alpo, but it’s hard to look good next to her. I have my mom’s light green eyes and dark brown hair like my dad. My sisters have all that plus perfect Kate Middleton complexions, but I am cursed with nose freckles. Seven of them. I pretend they’re endearing, but they’re so not. Grandpa Ray used to say I was pretty as a picture when I complained about them and that my freckles were angel kisses. I believed him until I turned eight and he told me Easter eggs came from bright pink chickens. I took everything he said with a healthy dose of skepticism after that.

I took in Sandy’s long-sleeved teal wrap dress and silver stilettos then answered her question. “How do you look? Honestly, you look like sin on four-inch heels, and yet I could wear that whole outfit to church. How do you do that?”

“It’s a gift.”

I shook my head and closed the door behind her.

An hour later, I wished I’d accepted her invitation. After trying to reconcile the same financial statement countless times and picking at my congealing sweet and sour chicken, the numbers on the computer screen refused to make sense. Maybe I was tired, but I felt that way about work too often lately. I majored in accounting in college because I’m practical, not because I love it. Pragmatism is a curse that ranks right up there with freckles. I knew I could make good money in accounting, but I also figured that two years out of college when I sat rocking my first baby and staring out at a white picket fence it would be easy to work from home doing people’s taxes. Now, three years out of college, I had the job but no one I wanted to share a white picket fence or babies with. Just me and my balance sheets. Good times.

“Okay, Jessie. Get a grip. This is easy. Think,” I lectured myself—because that’s not weird to do out loud when you’re alone. The screen blurred with nonsense. I gave up after another minute, in need of a brain break. Deciding to catch up on some e-mails, I winced to find eleven messages waiting in my in-box. Yikes. Two from my sister in Virginia, a couple from college friends, an ad for a new colon cleanser, and an announcement about an upcoming ward ice cream social (Really? People still did those?), and then I paused. A notice from Lookup reading, “Harold Crick has sent you a message” leaped from the screen.

Interesting. Taking the path of least resistance with Sandy, I had sent Harold Crick a wave, an icon which supposedly landed in his Lookup inbox to let him know I said hello. But apparently, instead of waving back, he’d sent a full-on message in return.

He probably couldn’t spell. Or worse, he probably wrote in all caps. I opened the link to find out.

To: JKT

From: Harold Crick

Hello, JKT. I wonder what that stands for? Just Killing Time, maybe? Are you the Junk King of Tacoma? Or maybe you’re depressingly positive, and it means Just Keep Trying. Tell me more. . . . . . . Please?

He signed it “Ben.”

Ben
. That didn’t sound like a lumberjack. Lumberjacks were named Big Red or Moose. Ben sounded like a guy who worked for the Forest Service and didn’t wear too much flannel. Ben also sounded funny. The Junk King of Tacoma. I typed a reply before I could second-guess myself out of it.

To: Harold Crick

From: JKT

Hi, Ben. JKT stands for Jasper Killed Terence. Those were my Chinese fighting fish. Terence is obviously gone now, but Jasper died soon after from loneliness. Very sad. Good guesses though.

I smiled to myself and picked up my chicken, choking down the last jellied bites. An unfamiliar “ping” from the computer startled me. I looked up to see an Instant Message Request from Lookup. It was Ben.

Why was he home on a Friday night? Um, why was I? Oh, wait. I was pathetic.

And in no position to judge.

I accepted the IM request and read his reply.

HC: Chinese fighting fish? I felt sorry for you until I remembered your profile says you don’t have any pets. So no Jasper and Terence. Okay. I’m going to go with Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope. A forty-ton telescope with CCD imaging? I’m impressed. You must have some serious astronomy chops.

I sat back with a furrowed brow. Jacobus what? Was he nerding out on me? Then I relaxed and reached for the keyboard.

JKT: You totally Googled that.

HC: Guilty. Nothing gets by you accountants. But if Google can’t crack it, what hope do I have? Can I get a hint?

JKT: How do you know I’m an accountant?

HC: I’d claim brilliance, but your profile said so.

JKT: Right. Sorry. Stupid question.

HC: So . . . your screen name?

JKT: I guess you’ve earned it. JKT are my initials.

HC: Jacinda? Jahzara? Jezebel?

JKT: No! My mother loved me. Guess again.

HC: January? Jasmine? Juniper?

JKT: Nope. Think June Cleaver, not hippie. I’m Jessie.

HC: Hi, Jessie. Nice to meet you. So what drove you, um, I mean brought you to this site?

I admitted the embarrassing truth.

JKT: My roommate signed me up.

HC: Seriously?

JKT: Yep.

HC: Did you kill her?

JKT: Still trying to figure out how to do it without leaving any evidence linking me to the crime.

HC: You’re smart. I don’t think I’d have thought it through that far. But you’re going along with the online thing?

JKT: For now.

HC: What changed your mind?

JKT: The guys in my singles group scare me.

HC: I don’t know how to spell the sound I just made. What’s halfway between a snort and a laugh?

JKT: You lorted? Sounds like a personal problem.

HC: I did an unambiguous snort this time.

JKT: To answer your question, the last guy who asked me on a date had a daughter in Mia Maids. I’m only 25. No thank you. What about you? How can you live in the Seattle area and we haven’t met yet? Are you new around here?

HC: Yes and no. I grew up here, but my family moved to Idaho during my mission. I spent a few years in Arizona doing postgrad stuff and working, but I got a work contract here a few months ago. I’ve been laying pretty low as far as the singles go. And I’ve sort of been ducking matchmakers in my family ward since I moved back. That left the Internet, aka the Final Frontier in the LDS social wilderness.

JKT: Oh, yeah. Ward matchmakers. Two bad experiences almost put me off of dating for good. Maybe this website is a first step toward healing.

HC: Only two bad experiences? My ward matchmakers must be overachievers.

I laughed. Again. This
so
beat work. Speaking of which . . . I glanced at the time. Almost eleven thirty. How had that happened?

JKT: Thanks for making me laugh, but I should go. It’s almost pumpkin time, and I need to get some sleep.

HC: No problem. Good night.

Smiling, I shut the computer down and headed for bed. I would have to get up early to catch up on work, but for once, I didn’t mind. The look on Sandy’s face would totally be worth it when I told her I’d spent the night with the lumberjack.

Chapter 3

“
W
HY ARE YOU UP ALREADY?’’

I looked up from my latest spreadsheet to find my disheveled and grumpy roommate standing in front of me wearing ratty old sweats with “Go, Banana Slugs!” emblazoned across her chest.

“Good morning, sunshine. Nice pajamas,” I said.

“I got in late last night, so I grabbed the first thing I could find.”

Considering the chaos of her room, I could understand how she’d ended up in a shirt dedicated to homeless snails.

“It’s lunch time,” I said. “A better question is why are
you
barely getting up?”

“I got in late,” she repeated then thought for a moment. “Wait, is two a.m. late or early?”

“It’s crazy.”

“You’re just jealous because you didn’t meet
him
,” she said.

“Who him?”

“Him. Mr. Right. The one you said couldn’t be found in a club. But I found him. Tall, blond. Think Brad Pitt.”

“Okay, is this like creepy
Interview with a Vampire
Brad Pitt? Or old guy
Benjamin Button
Brad Pitt?”

“Yuck. No, more like
Ocean’s Eleven
Brad Pitt. Or maybe
Troy
.”

“I saw the posters for that. Your guy rocked a toga and sandals?”

She glared at me. “Yeah, you know my type so well. A guy in a sheet in the middle of winter made a style statement I couldn’t resist.”

“Was the statement, ‘I can’t afford pants’?”

“Laugh it up, Jessie. Even you can’t get to me today. He’s perfect. Smart, good looking, well dressed. In an expensive suit. And he was a total gentleman.”

“Well, good. He sounds nice,” I said.

A beat of silence passed.

“That’s it?” Sandy asked suspiciously.

“Uh . . . I’m glad he wasn’t wearing a toga?”

“No, I mean . . . no lecture? You’re supposed to tell me how I can’t meet a guy with my standards in a club.” She looked at me in disbelief. “You always give me that speech.”

True. Sandy wasn’t active in church, but she walked the line on most stuff.

“I don’t give speeches. Only unsolicited advice. And it’s only payback for your nagging. Besides, I mean it. He sounds nice.” I turned back to my spreadsheet. After a moment, she padded over to the kitchen and began foraging for breakfast, probably in the form of unnaturally textured low fat egg substitutes. She has an unhealthy obsession with health food. I settled in to study another column of numbers when the fridge door slammed and Sandy’s feet raced back across the wood floor.

“Something’s wrong!” she burst out.

“With the fridge?” I asked, confused.

“No. Something’s wrong with
you
. Cough it up. Why are you so mellow this morning?”

I studied her for a minute and grinned. “It’s the lumberjack.”

“What about him?”

“He e-mailed me back.”

She looked at me blankly. “Wait. One e-mail de-stressed you and turned you back into a regular girl?”

“Well . . . maybe it was more than one e-mail.”

Sandy cocked her head. “Tell me.”

“We ended up IM-ing a few times last night. He’s funny. I didn’t even get all my work done.”

“I love this guy already!”

“What about your antilumberjack prejudices? You’re in favor of them now?” I teased.

“No, but the fact that he actually distracted you from your work for an evening means I’m totally on his team. Did you make a date?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “No, we just talked. I don’t even know him.”

“Yeah, but you want to know him. So what’s the next step? Are you going to e-mail him again?”

“I guess.”

“That’s the kind of thing that’s pretty easy to know.” She studied me. “You’re doing the Jason thing again.”

I winced at the mention of my first boyfriend. “Whatever. No, I’m not.”

“I don’t believe you. You had a great conversation with a funny, interesting guy, and suddenly you’re not sure again. That’s got Jason written all over it. Who needs Seattle rain when you’ve got his cloud hanging over your head?”

“Who needs Broadway when I’ve got a live-in drama queen?”

Sandy looked at me and said nothing.

“I’ve got to work on my comebacks,” I muttered. She walked off toward the kitchen again as I called after her. “This has nothing to do with Jason!”

She ignored me, passing me on the way back to her bedroom with a bowl of granola in her hands. “You still have a Jason problem,” she said. And she shut her door behind her with a decisive click.

I sniffed and turned back to my desk, but before long, I gave up and threw the file down. Sandy was right. I did have a Jason problem. I was so over not being over him.

I needed some heavy artillery.

I pulled up the IM log with Ben on my computer and reread it. Even as I smiled over the conversation from the night before, I could feel the Jason shadow hovering. Stupid shadow. Really stupid Jason. The relationship had ended four years ago. It shouldn’t still be getting in my way. I pushed away from the desk, too distracted to get any work done.

I stood in the middle of the living room, looking around for a minute, taking it all in. A soft sand tone covered walls, and shots of apple green pillows and throws brightened the brown sofa and oversized arm chair. The chair sat under a wide window with a small table beside it, a pile of books I meant to get to stacked on top. The whole room felt bright without being overwhelming, and the green made me happy on the frequent Seattle rainy days.

I’d saved my signing bonus from Macrosystems, plus hoarded my generous salary and lived cheaply for two years to buy it. Sandy and I used to share an apartment with two other girls, but when one got married and the other moved the year before, I took an uncharacteristic risk and bought a condo while the slumping real estate market held prices down. With Sandy paying rent, I could afford the modest townhouse in Capitol Hill, the zip-code magnet for aspiring Seattle hipsters. It wasn’t the cozy cottage I’d dreamed of in high school, but it felt like home.

I wanted to believe there comes a point when a string of accomplishments, like owning my own place, would sort of tip the success and failure scales back to even. Right now, though, I still saw Jason as a black mark on the record of Things I’ve Done in My Life. Education? Great job? Home? Promotion? Check. Healthy relationship? Not so much.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to put it behind me. After our breakup, I changed colleges, moved to two different states, and dated dozens of guys in my quest to move on. Well, dozens at BYU and a few here before I ran through the limited options in the Seattle dating pool. Nothing stuck. I read in a magazine once that the average recovery time from a breakup is twice the length of the relationship. I hoped—no,
prayed
—it wasn’t true, or I was in real trouble. I’d met Jason in Primary, for pity’s sake, and we’d started dating when we were seventeen. For four years. I was not on board for an eight-year recovery.

An unexpected whisper in my ear made me jump. “Jjjaaasssooonn,” Sandy hissed in a ghostly voice. I shot her a dirty look.

“I knew it,” she said. “You have that lost puppy look on your face. He’s the only thing that does it.”

“That’s—” I began to protest.

“Ridiculous?” she challenged me.

“No. Sad. I’m so lame.”

“You’re not lame. More like emotionally crippled.”

“Thanks. That helps. You have a special touch.”

“I wasn’t finished,” Sandy said, unperturbed by my sarcasm. “I’m staging an intervention. Come on.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hall.

“Wait, no. I can quit on my own. And this can’t be an intervention. You have to have more people than this.”

“You’re right. I should conference call your mom and sisters. Good plan.”

“No! I surrender. Don’t sic them on me. One is a good number for an intervention.” I’m the youngest of four children, all girls, all convinced they know better than I do how to run my life. Dante couldn’t imagine a circle of hell lower than the one where they and Sandy gang up on me over my relationship issues.

“I thought so. We’re going to take care of this, starting now,” Sandy declared as she threw open my bedroom door and dragged me inside. “Where is it?”

“Where is what?” I asked, confused. Trying to figure out what she wanted, I scanned the double bed centered against one wall, topped by a down comforter in a soft cream duvet. A few blue and chocolate brown throw pillows lay on top, reflecting the same colors in a simple window valance and some scattered area rugs on the wood floor. Two bookshelves full of my favorite books, photos, and CDs lined the opposite wall. “What am I looking for?”

“The box. Full of Jason stuff. Where is it?”

I jerked my arm away. “How do you know about the box?”

She shrugged off my glare. “We all have that guy, Jess. The one whose pictures we can’t throw away. The more toxic the relationship, the longer you hold on to the box, so you for sure have one full of his stuff. Get it out. Every last bit of it.”

Our stare down lasted for a full ten seconds before I glanced away. “It’s not a big deal. I never even look at it.”

“And why would you when it’s all burned into your steel trap of a brain? That box is a pit of bad feng shui, and you need to get it out of here.”

Now I rolled my eyes. “Feng shui?”

“You mock, but it works. I wasn’t sleeping well, so I changed the direction my bed faces, and now I have good dreams.”

“Wow. How did they ever penetrate the dirty laundry fortress at your footboard?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m counting to three, and then I’m calling your mom. Move it.”

I trudged to the closet and reached into the back. I pulled out a battered shoebox and tossed it on the bed. “See, it’s even dusty. I told you I don’t look at it.”

She ignored me, grabbed it, and marched out of the room while I followed like a lemming until I figured out her destination. I hustled to jump in front of the fireplace. “You can’t burn all that! It’s my personal history.”

“Oh, it’s history all right. But I’m not going to burn it. You are.” Dropping the box at my feet, she headed back to the kitchen. “Stay there,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m not done with you yet.” She returned with the fireplace matches and my phone. Handing me the matches, she pretended to study the phone. “Let’s see, your mom’s speed dial number is one, right?”

“No,” I gritted out through clenched teeth. “That’s 911, but you’d better hit it because I’m going to kill you.”

She held the phone out of reach, unfazed. “So your mom is on two. Do I have to count to three again?”

When I glared, she softened. “It’s for the best, Jessie. You have to exorcise the bad Jason juju if you’re ever going to get anywhere in your relationships.” She sighed when my expression didn’t change. “Think of it this way. Does he deserve even a corner of your closet?”

I blinked. Then I did it again. And then I was blinking back tears. “I’ve worked so hard to be done with him. Why can’t I get rid of this box?”

She took my wrist again, only this time she led me to the sofa. “Come on; sit down. We’re not getting through this without chocolate.” Her phone blared “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne, the ringtone she used for her mom. I used to think it was mean until I met her mom and realized it was merely accurate.

“Go ahead and get it,” I told Sandy.

“Nah. She’s probably having another meltdown.”

“Well, so am I.”

“Yeah, but this is your first. This won’t even be her first this week. She’ll have another one tomorrow, and I’ll talk to her then.”

She disappeared for a moment, and thirty seconds later I found myself holding a carton of fudge ripple and a giant serving spoon. “This can’t be good,” I said. The bigger the spoon, the worse the problem. I took it and asked, “Am I this messed up?”

“Start eating, sister. We’ve got years to untangle.”

I grumbled but dug into the ice cream while she retrieved the box and yanked the lid off. She riffled through the items, forming them into a heap on the sofa cushion. Movie tickets, a concert stub, mementos from hiking trips. While she examined a Kit Kat wrapper, “Crazy Train” went off again, but she sent it to voicemail.

I picked up a photo from a barbecue with my family and the Stewarts, Jason’s family, sending waves of memories washing over me. My parents had moved into our ward on the California central coast before I was born, and the Stewarts had immediately befriended them. Jason had always been one of my buddies growing up—until somewhere along the line he’d decided he wanted to date me and made me realize I liked the idea.

I sorted out a couple dried-up corsages from high school dances, feeling silly for keeping the long-dead carnations.

Sandy flipped through my high school graduation pictures. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why didn’t it work? As girls go, you pretty much rock. What else did he want?”

“If I knew the answer to that, do you think I would be so emotionally stunted?” I asked. Sandy shook her head and almost sent her ringing phone to voicemail for the third time when I stopped her. “I’ll be okay. The ice cream’s working. Go see what your mom wants.” She hesitated, scowling at her phone. “It’s fine, I promise,” I reassured her, waving the nearly empty ice cream carton as proof. She sighed but grabbed her phone and headed for her room.

“I’ll listen as fast as I can,” she called over her shoulder.

I picked up the graduation pictures she left behind. It felt like seventy years, not seven, since I had smiled so hopefully into the camera, sure I knew what would come next. I had always had a clear direction for my life, even as a kid. My sisters teased me about what they called “the plan,” as if it loomed in front of me in capital letters. Because of my dad’s teaching position at the nearby university in our town, all of us got half tuition, so I would earn a scholarship for the rest. I’d graduate without debt, get married, and pursue a career until I had kids.

As our relationship evolved, my plan became our plan, and I followed it exactly. I got the scholarship, sent Jason off on his mission to Italy, and studied hard while I waited. We wrote every week. At first. But somewhere along the line, his letters grew farther apart, and so did we. He explained that he was immersed in the work and apologized for not writing more. But the letters, previously full of the challenges and rewards of missionary life, grew terse as the months passed.