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“So, what about you? You’re from Brooklyn, right?”
Maybe it was the yuppie entitlement of the restaurant, or maybe it was the golden retriever named after a U.S. president, but suddenly I felt shy about my family history. Jared was a nuclear-family WASP to the nth degree, and I was an Irish-Jewish garbage collector’s daughter whose mother had abandoned her. I felt like a piece of foggy quartz compared to a diamond.
“Um, yeah,” I said as I speared a bite of egg. “Flatbush—that’s a neighborhood in Brooklyn, close to Prospect Park. My dad works for the city, and my mom’s an artist.”
Of course, Jared latched onto her profession, which was, to types like him, charmingly bohemian. I didn’t mention that I hardly knew her.
“That’s so cool,” he said. “What kind of art?”
“Installation, mostly.”
“Oh, like Jeff Koons?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sort of. I’d say her stuff is closer to Man Ray and Nancy Spero.”
“Oh.”
Jared blinked, and I could tell he had no idea who I was talking about.
“I went to an exhibit on Andy Warhol once,” he offered weakly. “His stuff was pretty out there. Do you like it?”
I shrugged. “Art is my mom’s thing, not mine. I just appreciate the major stuff like Da Vinci and Michelangelo.”
Jared nodded in agreement and obvious relief. “Yeah, me too. Can’t argue with theMona Lisa, can you?”
“Nope,” I said, even though I actually hated theMona Lisa. I didn’t think he’d want to know that. “Have you seen it?”
“Oh yeah!” Jared said enthusiastically. He seemed grateful that I’d given him another familiar topic to discuss. “When I was traveling in Europe after college. Backpacking with some friends.”
He then launched into a story about the hostel where he stayed in Paris, and I listened, relieved I didn’t have to answer any more questions about my family.
* * *
Jared walkedme back to my building, holding my hand loosely as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I only wished thatIfelt like it was a natural thing to be doing.
“I know I’m not saving the world or anything,” he was saying as he talked about the job he was planning to take at his grandfather’s firm next year. “But I don’t know if that’s so important. If we give away our hard-earned dollars, it makes other people lose the desire to work hard, don’t you think? In a way, I’m helping them more by helping myself.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Jared was nice, but his ignorance of his own entitlement was becoming more irritating by the second. I also didn’t see how being handed a job at your father's congressional office demonstrated work ethic.
After two hours of listening to him, I was more than ready to be done with this date. I wanted to get out of these tight jeans and talk to someone who didn’t make me feel like I had to censor myself.
“Skylar?”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
“I said, I had a really nice time."
“Oh!” I said. “Yeah, me too. Thanks for brunch. You didn’t have to pay, you know.”
“I didn’t mind.”
Jared pushed back a stray lock of brown hair that had fallen from his neat coif. He took my other hand and tugged me closer. I watched with distant fascination as he closed his eyes and leaned in, his lips in a half smile with the knowledge that he was going to kiss me and that I would like it. He was so expectant that I didn’t have the heart to avoid it. It wasn’t until his lips were pressed on mine in a chaste, closed-mouth kiss that I finally closed my eyes too.
It wasn’t the worst kiss in the world, but there was something missing.Or someone, my conscience niggled. Someone blond. And tall. And with incredible blue eyes and soft, passionate lips. Someone who was not kissing me now.
I counted the seconds until it was over. It took four.
Jared smiled. “So, when can I see you again?”
