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I keep reading until I suddenly stop cold. “Under greatest fear, you said developing a sixth toe? What kind of thing is that to say?”
“Don’t you remember that dream you had last year?” she reminds me. “You talked about it a lot.”
That’s right, I did. I dreamed I woke up with a sixth toe, and it wasn’t some innocuous little nub next to my baby toe, either. It was another big toe, only it was like three times the size of my real big toe. It was awful. “While that may be, I don’t think that’s something I want to share with strangers.” It doesn’t make me sound very sexy.
“So, change it to something else.” Anna shifts in her seat so she can hang her legs over the edge of the chair.
I delete the sixth toe thing, but then sit immobile while trying to decide on something that makes me sound less quirky. I can’t tell them about my fear of tap water ever since seeing that movieInfestation. My fear of alien invasion would make me sound like a lunatic. After considerable thought I finally type in spiders. Spiders are nothing if not a reasonable phobia.
I continue reading through my profile until I come across the final topic: What are you hoping to achieve by using Catch.com? Anna wrote world peace, which makes me snort loudly. “What’s your idea of the perfect date?” I ask in my best William Shatner voice, all the while trying to keep a straight face.
She appears to really consider the question before answering, “April twenty-fifth. You know, because it’s not too hot and not too cold and all you need is a light jacket.”
We both take a minute to laugh. “Miss Congenialityreally was fantastic, wasn’t it?” I ask. “I mean it had everything, the makeover we all secretly long for, and attention from the hot guy who’d previously kept us in the friend zone.”
“Don’t forget the scene where Sandra Bullock beats the crap out of said guy on stage as her talent. I’m always a big fan when the karmic wheel turns.”
For some reason, Jamie Riordan’s face pops into my head—dark hair, blue eyes, chiseled jaw. Yet his most attractive feature was not physical. Nor was it his personality. It was his obvious love for his daughter that almost caused me to ovulate on the spot.
“What in the world are you thinking about?” Anna demands. “Or should I say who?”
I scoot off the chair so I can lie directly on the floor. “A girl came into the shop today and sort of became my new employee.” I spend the next several minutes telling Anna about Sammy.
“And then what? Because that look on your face clearly says there’s something else.”
I inhale deeply. On the exhale, I tell her, “Her dad came in to pick her up.”
“Her incredibly hot, single dad?” Anna guesses correctly.
“Yes. But not yes.”
“I’m confused.”
“He’s hot and single, but he’s super grumpy which is not at all attractive.”
“That’s my favorite romance trope!” Anna practically yells. “Grumpy/Sunshine for the win!” She enumerates, “The Love Hypothesis,The Soulmate Equation,The Hating Game…”
She’ll go on for hours if I don’t stop her. “Yes, but those are books. This is real life.”
“What’s your point?”
“Anna, romcoms are great, but they’re also pure fantasy. While Jamie Riordan might make the perfect rom-com hero, in real life he probably clips his toenails at the dinner table.”
The look of disgust on her face says it all. “Gross. Why can’t he just be a misunderstood hottie looking for his love match?”
“Because he walked into my shop,” I tell her.
Anna flips her legs onto the floor and stands up before wielding her pointer finger at me like a particularly sharp letter opener. “Stop with the pity party, Missy. There’s no reason in this world this guy isn’t perfect for you.”
“His wife left him to raise their child on his own. There must be something wrong with him for that to have happened,” I declare while smarting at the pity party comment. I see red every time my mom says that to me. The truth is, I’m not feeling sorry for myself so much as I’m building a spectacular résumé of dating failures.
“Maybe there’s something wrong withher,” Anna suggests.
I glance at my friend’s still-flat stomach. “Can you think of one reason you would leave your child and move across the world?”
“No, but that’s because I’d take my kid with me. If there was something bad going on with Chris, I wouldn’t trusthimto raise her. Which clearly says the problem lies with the ex and not him.”
She’s talked me into a corner.Could she be right? Could Jamie be the injured party?“It doesn’t matter either way,” I tell her. “He wasn’t interested in me. Plus, he has a kid. I don’t want to be a stepmom to a twelve-year-old.”
