We talked for a while more and then I changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed with my well-deserved dessert, wanting nothing more than to put this night behind me. I was drifting off to sleep a half hour later when an alert sounded on my phone. I opened it to a picture of me and Alex Clarke outside the restaurant.
“New Couple Alert?” the headline said.
I pasted the link into a text to Jessa.
“You owe me,” I typed.
“Sorry!!” she said. “If it’s any consolation, he also texted me and said the date was ‘brilliant. He thanked me for the connection.”
“I hate you.”
“I’ll make it up to you. Any interest in Graham Forrester? He’s single and I know for a fact he’s not a jerk.”
I stared at the message. Unable to find the words to respond, I turned off my phone, set it down, and went to sleep.
Chapter 9
Graham
“So, Francesca said you’re a writer?”
Francesca was my agent. And Cara, the woman sitting across from me at the sunny little spot I’d picked for this blind-date lunch, was delicately picking at her salad as she asked about me. A salad that wasn’t on the menu but one she’d explained in very specific detail to the waiter.
“I’d like the greens from the mixed green salad, as well as kale and spinach from these other two salads on the menu. And then, instead of chicken I’d like salmon. Three ounces, roasted. And no sauce or dressing.”
When it had come, she’d finished off her third glass of water, signaled for more, and then removed a small container of pumpkin seeds from her purse and sprinkled them on top of the salad while launching into a speech about eating enough greens and protein. I’d responded by taking a large bite of the toast that came with my quiche, to which she’d said:
“Do you know what’s in that bread?”
“Tiny flecks of heaven?” It was delicious.
My answer had apparently given her license to school me on additives. But the joke was on her – my ex-wife had already scolded me numerous times during our marriage for eating bread, so the information she was giving me was old news. Also, I didn’t care. But I was smart enough not to say any of that and instead we ate in silence for a few minutes before she returned to asking what I did for a living.
“What kinds of things do you write?” Cara asked.
“Novels,” I said. “And a weekly article for the Brooklyn Tribune. Francesca is actually my literary agent. Do you enjoy reading?”
“Ugh,” she said, clearly not since she wasn’t reading the room. “No. I’m not into sitting for hours reading made-up stories.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering exactly why Fran and her wife, who were known in their circle of friends as “the matchmakers”, had thought this would be a good match. Unless the match in question was the kind you lit and then paired with a bin full of trash, doused in gasoline. “Well… there are always audiobooks.”
But she wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
“I’m just not into this mass consumption of fiction that our society seems to be devouring. People are absolute slaves to it. They’ve become zombies. It’s no way to live. I prefer to be outdoors, interacting with nature, seeing new places and learning new cultures. Do you like to hike? Do you travel much? What do you do for exercise? How do you keep the blood flowing and the brain alive?”
When Fran had told me Cara was a yoga instructor I’d thought, great! Yoga was a peaceful practice. She must be a gentle soul. But I’d never felt more stress around a person as I did with her. And after Nadia, that was saying something.
“I do like to hike,” I said. “Though I don’t go often. I do travel, though in the past few years it’s been mostly for work, and I’ve basically bounced from one city to the next and haven’t had much down time to explore much. As for exercise, I walk my dog Brontë every morning and lift weights.”
Again with the nose wrinkle.
“I mean,” she said. “Lifting weights is good and all, but truly, you should really consider yoga instead. It’s gentler on the body and you become more in-tune with it the longer you practice.”
“And the studies that say lifting weights is good for bone density and has numerous other health benefits?”
She waved a hand. “I’m not saying it’s bad. Just overrated. Anyways… Brontë. Is that a family name?”
I nearly spit out my gulp of Bloody Mary.
