“Law school guy I got tiramisu with last weekend.”
“I thought you didn’t feel a spark.”
“I didn’t, but his follow-up was impressive. And I really want to break the third-date curse.”
Ellen was convinced she had a curse that prevented her from getting past date three with anyone. Whenever Ellen really liked a guy, he pulled a spectacular disappearing act, and whenever a guy really liked Ellen, she vanished with equal gusto.
“It’s not a curse,” Rae said, for what must have been the hundredth time. “You’re just prudent with your emotional investments.”
Rae’s phone buzzed. It was the app letting her know she had a new message from Tim.
Heyy! Ya lets do it. U free Tues nite?
“That’s the fastest reply I’ve ever seen,” Ellen said. “Told you you’d be a natural.”
“I’m not dating someone who texts with bad spelling,” Rae said, eyeing Tim’s reply with disgust. “Clear deal breaker.”
“Don’t be so picky,” Ellen said. “Guys are rarely this decisive. We can’t let this opportunity slip by.” She snatched Rae’s phone and sent a reply.Sounds great!!! 9pm @ Bathtub Gin?
Rae grabbed the phone back. “What’re you doing? You know I’m not a three-exclamation-points person.”
“That’s just how the game is played. He needs to know you’re excited, or he’ll choose one of the dozens of other girls he’s matched with instead.”
“Joy.”
“Once he meets you, he’ll obviously realize your unrivaled amazingness. If he has a full-sized brain, that is.”
“That’s a lofty assumption for guys in New York.”
“True. But to speak your language—you have to diligence a lot of duds before you find the one. It’s a numbers game, really.”
Rae had a mind for numbers, but she was a words person at heart, and even the idea of getting rejected left her feeling cold and small. She admired Ellen’s persistence, the way she kept putting herself out there again, one letdown or fizzle after another, but she wasn’t formed from the same mold.
“It only takes one jackpot,” Ellen said. “And who knows? Maybe it’s Tim. He seems really great.”
“Let’s just hope I can recognize him.”
“Watch it,” Ellen warned.
There had been a recent debacle where Ellen had shown up at a bar and not been able to find her date because she’d been looking for the athletic, thick-haired person from the dating app pictures instead of the rotund bald man waiting for her.
“Just wait,” Ellen said. “You’re going to have your share of horror stories too.”
Rae must have blanched, because Ellen added quickly, “But they’ll make for good material for us to laugh over at our bachelorette parties one day. We’re in this together, Rae-bae.”
Theweinjected Rae with a surge of warmth, or maybe it was just the way Ellen’s socks felt like earmuffs. “Promise?”
“Popcorn promise,” Ellen said, tossing a kernel of popcorn into the air for Rae to catch with her mouth. Rae missed, and the popcorn fell behind the couch, into a crevice they’d never attempt to reach with the vacuum.
Then they both looked back at their phones and kept sourcing dates with the work ethic of bankers sourcing deals.
CHAPTER THREE
FIRST-ROUND INTERVIEW
“Does natural deodorant actually work for you?” Rae asked Ellen through the phone as she walked, cloaked in sweat, up Ninth Avenue through the bustling streets of Chelsea.
Chelsea was a vibrant cross between West Village charm and Midtown crowds. Quaint three-story brownstones with character-steeped stoops were jammed right next to high-rise glass skyscrapers with edgy hexagonal windows. The mishmash of architecture coexisted with such confidence that it gave the impression it had always been this way, that the city had in fact been designed like this right from the start. A faint garbage-and-sewage scent permeated the air—Manhattan’s signature perfume that Rae had been breathing for so long that she hardly noticed it anymore.
