Twitterpated (4 page)

I burst out laughing. He was definitely funny. And unexpected.

“Well, that’s not work. And yet it’s the computer. It must be the lumberjack,” Sandy deduced as she entered the kitchen.

“You’re so wrong.”

“It’s not Ben?”

“No, it’s Ben. He’s not a lumberjack. He does computer stuff for the Forest Service.”

“And that’s funny?”

“Yep. Data analysis is hilarious. You have no idea.”

“Seriously, what’s funny?”

“He wants some data input.”

“Why is that funny? You can tell me to mind my own business if you don’t want me to know what’s going on, you know.”

“Will it work?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Ben’s asking for my phone number. It’s the way he did it that was funny.”

“Why are you talking to me then, woman? Type it in!”

“Really? You don’t think it’s kind of soon to be giving my number out?”

“No, I don’t. I think it’s premature to name your future mini Bens and Jessies, but I definitely don’t think it’s too soon to spill your digits.”

“But we just met.”

“No, you haven’t met. And you never will if you don’t give him a phone number.”

“What if he turns out to be crazy and calls me at all hours of the night?”

“What do I care? It’s your cell phone.” Sandy smirked when I glared. “You’re totally overthinking this. This sounds like a stable guy with a good job and a sense of humor, and he’s a Mormon. Does any of that scream stalker? Give him your number.”

“Okay, I will. But not because you told me to.”

“Of course not. You thought of this all by yourself.”

“Yes, I did,” I said. “Bossy pants.”

Sandy did not look repentant. “Sticks and stones, blah, blah. Give him the number.”

I sent off another e-mail.

To: [email protected]

I believe in solutions too. My number is (206) 555-5683.

“I hope you’re right,” I muttered to Sandy.

“Who cares if I’m right? Let’s hope he’s Mr. Right.”

“So far he’s just some guy,” I retorted.

“As long as you remember he’s not Jason Stewart, that should be more than enough.”

“Jason who?”

Sandy smiled. My e-mail alert dinged again.

To: [email protected]

That’s the piece of data I needed. Unfortunately, I also just got a call from work. Apparently the morning’s problems have made a repeat appearance, and I need to take care of them. But I’ll call you. Soon. Good night.

Well. That would teach me to get all worked up about giving my number out. At least I could be pretty sure he wasn’t a psycho. He definitely wasn’t in a rush to ring my phone off the hook. But I understood better than anybody how work could creep out of the office and pounce when no one was looking. I wondered how long it would take for him to get out from under it all. Looking at my own pile of payroll records, I had a bad feeling I knew how long it could be.

Chapter 5

S
EVENTEEN HOURS.
N
OT THAT
I counted how many it took before Ben called. But when my cell phone rang midmorning on Tuesday with an unfamiliar number, I had a hunch as to who it was. I swiveled my office chair to face the outside window and answered.

“This is Jessie.”

“Hi, Jessie. This is Ben.” He sounded warm and confident.

“Ben . . . Ben. You mean Ben of bathroom towel-cape fame?”

“No, this is Ben, president of the TWITs.” He sounded pretentious, and I smiled at his playfulness.

“The president? I feel so honored.”

“Normally I have my assistant call to invite new members, but she said you were a potentially
big
TWIT, so I thought I’d better call you myself.” I could hear a smile in his voice.

“Wow. Quite a club. But I have a question. Is tweeting required to be a TWIT? Because I can’t handle one more social network.”

“No tweeting. That’s for hipsters. We take ourselves too seriously for that.”

“Well, I’m impressed with your member services so far.”

“Oh, it gets better. It’s customary for us to treat new members to lunch in the downtown Seattle bistro of their choice.”

“Really? How do most of your new members feel about that?”

“I don’t know. It’s a new custom. I started this club yesterday.”

“I think I remember reading that somewhere.”

He laughed. “I’ll give our PR department a raise. How’d they do selling you on lunch?”

I hesitated for a minute and then answered, “That’s tempting, but I can’t.”

“I see,” Ben said, followed by a long pause. “Is this because you think my club is stupid?”

“No,” I said, laughing. “I have a lunch meeting today.” After a long breath, I took the plunge. “But Thursday looks good.”

“Hmm. Yeah, Thursday works for me. Do you have a preference, or should I pick a place?”

I frantically wracked my brain for a moment. I wanted to pick somewhere that sent the right message. Noodle Ranch? No. Great food but not a first date kind of place. Chez Shea? Candlelit tables would be too over the top. Finally I asked, “Do you know Trattoria Fredo?” It would be cozy without screaming romance and quiet enough to have a conversation without yelling.

“Near Pioneer Square?”

“That’s it. Sound okay?”

“Sounds perfect. I’ll meet you there Thursday at noon?”

“Yeah, Thursday.” Stupid Wednesdays, always getting in the way.

Silence hummed on the line for a moment. I wondered if he was trying to figure what to say next too. I needed to get back to work, but I didn’t want to hang up yet. When the quiet verged on uncomfortable, Ben spoke again.“We should work out a signal to be sure we recognize each other. Maybe I could wear a purple polka dot tie, and you could wear a big floppy hat.”

“That’s a good idea. Or we could double check each other’s pictures before then.”

“Yeah, that was my backup plan.” He hesitated. “Except I look kind of different from my picture.”

Uh oh. Had he gained fifty pounds or shaved his head or something? I had a bad feeling about this. But it’s not like I could ask him how he looked different because I didn’t want to come off sounding like it mattered. I went with a noncommittal, “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, that’s an old picture. But it’s the only digital shot I had when I filled out the profile questionnaire. Kinda lame, I know. So maybe one of us should still wear a giant hat.”

“I’d totally do it if it weren’t for the dress code here at work. It says to wear collared shirts and business appropriate trousers. No giant hats are allowed. Sorry.”

“No, you’re not. And I never wear trousers.”

“Excuse me?”

“I only wear pants.”

Ah. “That’s better than slacks.”

“It’s not a high bar.”

I noticed Craig lurking near my door. “Craig alert. I have to go rescue my assistant from him. But I’ll see you Thursday?”

“It’s a date.”

* * *

“Help! I have a date!” I called to Sandy as soon as I walked through the front door after work.

She whooped. “Yes! You’ve joined the living.”

“You are such an exaggerator. You keep forgetting all the dates I went on when I moved here.”

“No, I don’t. But they don’t make up for not going out at all for the last year.”

“It hasn’t been that long.”

“Name the last time you went out.”

“Six months ago. I went out with that Blake guy.”

“I quit listening after you said ‘six months ago’ and made my point for me.”

“So are you going to help me?” I demanded.

“Do what?”

“Get ready for my date.”

“Sure. When and where?

“Aren’t you going to ask who it’s with?”

“No, because I already know it’s Ben.”

“Wrong.” I said. She looked at me in surprise. “It’s with Craig,” I added.

Her look changed to disbelief for a moment, and we both burst out laughing. “It’s a double date,” I told her. “You get to go out with his ego.”

“Yeah right. There’s not enough room for both of us. Seriously, it’s Ben, right?”

“It is. We’re going to meet at Trattoria Fredo for lunch on Thursday.”

She sighed and shook her head. Now I was the surprised one. “Aren’t you excited? You’ve been bugging me about dating for . . .” I pretended to glance down at my watch, “ever. You got your way. This usually makes you happy.”

“I’m happy you’re going. But I’m saving the celebration for an actual date. Lunch is you sticking one toe in.”

“Don’t I get anything for that?” I asked.

“Yes.” She leaned over and patted me on the back.

“I’d settle for wardrobe advice instead.”

“Come on, then.” She dragged me toward her bedroom. “We’d better look in my closet.”

“What’s wrong with mine? I’ve got plenty of suits in there.”

“Exactly,” she retorted.

I happen to like my suits. I have some nice ones. A few black ones, a few gray ones, a few navy ones. Hmm.

A few too many suits. Good thing Sandy had a whole other closet for me to shop in.

She threw open the closet door and waded through the piles on the floor. It appeared to be mostly towels, more than I ever thought one person could need. Unless that one person is someone who hates doing laundry as much as Sandy does. I have personally seen her drive to the store to buy new underwear because she didn’t feel like doing a load of wash. And no, the argument that it takes more time to go to the store doesn’t work.

She yanked a dress off the hanger and threw it at me. “Try it,” she ordered.

“No way,” I said. “I’m not wearing pink to work.”

“Even men wear pink work shirts now, Jessie. Get with the program. And put it on.” I left her whipping through her rack of hangers and pulling more things out. I put the dress on in front of my mirror and grimaced. Cute dress, but if I wore it to work, I’d get double takes all day long, and I didn’t want to deal with it. Sandy walked in with a pile of more clothes over her arm and looked me over.

“Looks good, but it’s all wrong for work,” she said. She laid the clothes on my bed and dug through them, muttering. A moment later, she straightened with a brown skirt in her hand. “Try this.”

“Really? It looks kind of conservative. I thought you said I dress that way too much already.”

She grinned. “Try it on. I’m going to find some things to match it.” She took off for her room again, intent on her mission. I shrugged at my reflection and slipped the pink dress off and put the skirt on.

Whoa.

The deceptively simple cut and the deep shade of chocolate managed to look both sexy and classy. I checked the label. It was from an up and coming designer who had recently been featured on the local news for opening a boutique at Pine Street and Fifth Avenue, the trend hub for fashion-conscious Seattle women. It fit amazingly. I stared in surprise. The pencil cut skirt found and accentuated my invisible curves without being indecent. Quite a trick, that. The finding my curves part, I mean. Sandy and I wear the same size, but we’re not even close to the same shape. My Grandma Jean would have called Sandy “womanly.” She was built for dresses. I, on the other hand, could wear any pair of pants in the mall because I had no hips to interfere with the fit. Sandy insisted it wasn’t fair because she had to buy more expensive pants, but I’m pretty sure her hips didn’t make her pay more than two hundred dollars for her Hudson jeans. She just loved to shop. But I’d lost that argument so many times I didn’t even bother making it anymore. She definitely doesn’t think like an accountant.

Still, I had to give it to her. If paying extra meant I looked like an actual girl in a skirt, I might rethink my shopping strategy. I reached into my own closet and grabbed a new Gap shirt, a white cap-sleeved shell, to see how it looked with the skirt, but I frowned at the result. Boring again. Sandy popped back in. “Perfect.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“With this,” she clarified, and tossed me a pink cardigan.

I pulled the thin material over the blouse and buttoned it in the middle.

“Would you look at that,” she teased me. “It’s a waist.”

And that wasn’t all. The color did good things for my complexion, and the thin knit of the sweater looked feminine but work appropriate. “It’s so soft,” I said, rubbing the three-quarter-length sleeve unconsciously.

“It’d better be. That’s pure Tibetan cashmere.”

I tugged it off. “I’m not wearing it.”

“You have to! It looks so good on you.”

“We’re eating Italian. What if I spill marinara sauce on it before I can give it back to you? I guess I could hide it in one of your laundry piles. That way you’d never find it,” I mused.

“Ha, ha. Get their artisan meat plate with a side of cheese instead of pasta and you’ll be fine.”

“Is it easier to clean out of cashmere?”

“No, but it’s harder to spill. Try these,” she said and held up a pair of BCBG boots. The gorgeous deep brown leather ended in her signature four-inch heels.

“Those are your favorite boots!”

“Yeah, well, for some unexplainable reason, you’re my favorite roommate. Go ahead and try them.”

“No way. I’ll cry if something bad happens to your sweater, but I’ll lose the will to live if I screw up the boots too. Besides, I’d be almost six feet tall in those. What if he’s one of those guys who lies about his height?”

Sandy cocked her head and looked me over for a minute. “You’re right. You’d probably break your neck trying to walk in these.” She put them down and rooted through my shoe collection. I have a lot of great shoes; they just have lower heels than hers. She pulled out a brown pair with a slightly pointed toe and an ankle strap. “These will work. Wear your hair down and some lip gloss, and you’ll be good to go.”

Much like her belief in Oprah, Sandy also believed lip gloss could cure most of the world’s ills. I had a quick mental flash of her hawking her own line of lip gloss in an infomercial some day. “Fixes thin lips, weak chins, and poverty,” she’d say as she waved some of the wonder goo around.

I’d learned not to question her in matters of style though. It was like having the fashion police right across the hall. I looked over my reflection in the mirror once more. The girl I saw looked chic and fresh. I liked it. “You’re good at this clothes thing,” I said.

She lifted a dismissive shoulder and smiled. “You’re the one wearing them. Don’t sell yourself short.” She paused to consider the total effect for a moment. “You look Jennifer Garner-esque.”

I straightened my posture and looked down my nose at her. “You’re right. I’m fabulous.” And then I rubbed feverishly at my freckles. “If only I could do something about these.”

Sandy walked out, laughing. “Keep rubbing them,” she called over her shoulder. “That’s supposed to work real well.”

I leaned toward the mirror and glared at the seven offending freckles. “Is it wrong to pray for your freckles to go away?”

An emphatic yes echoed down the hall.

“What about for my roommate to go away?” I asked and ducked as a pillow came flying through the doorway.

Once I heard her door shut, I reached for my jewelry box. Time to figure out my accessories. As I sorted through my meager jewelry collection, I examined my nerves over this date with Ben. True, I hadn’t been on a date in more than six months, but I had gone on several before the pool had dried up. I wasn’t a novice. So why was I so nervous?