Max taps his fingers on the edge of the couch cushion. “Jules has never met Crystal, right?”
I nod.
“So your idea of finding a backup is good.”
“I just need to deliver someone kind of like who he expects.”29
“I’m pretty sure that you’ll be able to find a woman willing to go on a date with an underwear model tomorrow night.” He laughs. And when he phrases it that way, it does sound absurd.
“Oh, so you’re good at finding dates?”
“Never had a problem,” he says, with a look in my directionthat makes me believe him. I’d definitely sign up for some of what he’s offering. “I don’t know why that dude needs to hire out.” He looks at me like I’m the expert and asks, “Why is that?”
Like I know! But before I say that, some guesses spring into my head from the ether, or my subconscious mind—one of the two. “I can see why they want my help. I mean, if you could buy yourself out of the online dating game, wouldn’t you? I think some of these guys are just in it for the convenience. They probably think I know what I’m doing and will save them a bunch of bad dates, like I’ll just provide them with their dream woman on the first try.”
Max accepts that with a thoughtful nod.
“Also, there must be some narcissistic asses, guys with money who think they can just order a beautiful girl off a menu. I hope I charge those ones double.”
He squeezes me shoulder before pulling his arm back. I can’t help but notice that our relationship has been getting more…tactile. I like it, but the rapidly changing dynamic between us is a little too much for me to take in right now. I scroll through my home page on my phone and click on the Wells Fargo banking app. Thankfully my username is plugged in. I click “I forgot my password” because duh.
Obviously, I do not know the answers to the three security questions: mother’s maiden name, town of birth, name of cat. Speaking of which: “What if I have a cat?” I ask Max, panic edging into my voice again. Somehow, I just know that I don’t have a dog, which would require stability and consistency. Nooffense to me but…that seems like a long shot, especially if I have a boyfriend, a secret old boyfriend, plus a bunch of rich dudes looking for dates. Ugh. Who has that kind of time?
Max puts his hand over mine. “Don’t worry. If you do, I’m sure a roommate is feeding it or something.” With a confused look, he says, “Why don’t you ask JP? He probably knows all of this stuff.”
“I don’t trust him yet,” I say. “I don’t know why, but I don’t.” That’s not entirely true. The man apologized to me for something, and until I know what that is, I’m going to hold back a little—at least until we can meet in person.
I push thoughts of JP and my hypothetical cat aside and navigate to my Mail app. I see the email from Wells Fargo and click on “reset password.” It navigates me to a webpage and asks me to create an alphanumeric code that I will promptly dump into the void of things I’ve forgotten, along with the rest of my life. At the end of the process, a dialog box pops up:Unable to reset password. Please contact a bank representative.
I go through the process again. The same message appears. “Do I actually have to go to the bank? That seems so 1999.”
Max looks over my shoulder to read the message. “I think so.”
I make a puking noise. That’s how I feel about doing business in person. I’d rather get food poisoning. But it’s too late to do anything about this tonight; the banks are long closed. “I guess I know where I’m going tomorrow morning.”
27Men are so squeamish.
28I would be a great pimp, if I chose to go in that direction. But matchmakers aren’t pimps, are they?
29“Kind of like a supermodel who plays the harp” is a definition with a large margin of error, I think.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Saturday morning and it’s as if the failures of Friday have been washed away, some of them by dry cleaners. JP’s fancy dry-cleaning service dropped off my yellow dress at the crack of dawn, or at least I assume they did. I wasn’t awake then. Thank you for being rich and practical, JP! So glad I won’t start today smelling like old horchata. California is showing off with low smog and lots of sun. It probably looks the same as yesterday, but the sleep filter is a miracle. My mood = Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” featuring Snoop Dogg.
So hot I’ll melt your popsicle, I make an entrance into the living room where Max is already neurosciencing and eating a bagel like the amazing man he is. His uniform today includes a pink T-shirt that says theMILLENNIAL FALCON, with a schematic of theMillennium Falcondrawn into the outline of an avocado, which makes me think of an avocado hurtlingthrough space at warp speed.30I wonder if Max has paused from his quest for a Nobel Prize long enough to consider any of his T-shirts in depth. “So, Max, you were asking where those quinoa farms in outer space were going to be, right?”
He looks up, waiting for the answer, and I look deliberately at his T-shirt because that is the answer. “Max, where do you get your T-shirts?”
“Mostly at departmental functions.”
As I suspected, he’s not a shopper. These T-shirts just happen to him and he doesn’t question it. Sort of like me. I am now one of his T-shirts. He doesn’t know why I fit, but there’s no denying that I sorta do.
“So I was thinking,” he says, “let’s start at the bank today.”
“Let’s,” I answer.
