“I kind of… sort of… pledged to give up men for the month of February.”
Jack looks like I’ve just handed him a calculus problem. “You don’t like men?” he asks.
“No. I mean, I like men too much. I love them. Can’t get enough of them,” I say. Okay, not what I mean, exactly. “I’ve just sworn off dating for February.”
He squints, still not sure what the hell I mean. I don’t even know what I mean anymore. Not with Jack’s big brown eyes in front of me, pools of warm chocolate.
“So, it’s not me, it’sall men?” he asks, trying to wrap his big sexy arms around this rejection. Real disappointment flashes in his eyes. I hate that. I want to immediately reverse course.
“Just for February,” I say, hoping that tinge of sadness in his eyes goes away. It doesn’t. Crap. He thinks I’m rejecting him permanently. He covers up his dejection with a flat smile.
“Oh. Okay. I get it.” He flips up his wool coat collar, not meeting my gaze. “Well, uh, then I’ll be going. Stella, nice to meet you.”
She nods at him. “You, too, Jack.”
I watch him as he exits the restaurant, my stomach twisting painfully in knots. Why do I feel like I’ve blown it?
“Who the hellwasthat?” Stella hisses when he’s gone. “You, my friend, have a lot of explaining to do.”
Seven
JACK
Valentine’s Day began as the Roman festival Lupercalia. The festival included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men, usually by lottery. By lottery! Tell me how that’s at all romantic? Also, I believe the sacrificing of goats was involved.
—SOLO FEBRUARY CHALLENGE
Okay, so that went well. No, it’s not me. It’s all men on planet Earth. I just can’t believe I read the room so wrong. I kind of thought… we had a connection. Clearly, I’m wrong.
I slide the tray of unbaked raspberry tortes into the oven at Margo’s. It’s a relatively slow Friday. It’s been a few days since Sora blew me off. I hate to admit this, but I still look for her to walk in the sliding automatic doors of the store. Stupid, really. I should give up. I’m like Charlie Brown and that damn football. Every single time Lucy holds it, he runs full speed toward it. Only to have it swiped away at the last second. Again.
My phone dings and I pull it out of my pocket.
The Spark dating app tells me I have more than a dozen new matches. I aimlessly look through them. There’s a woman on her patio with a fish face. “Kissy face” might be the technical term, but they all look like fish faces to me: lips puckered, cheeks sucked in. Fish face with sunglasses. Fish face without. Woman in a bikini staring off into the distance. Fish face and cleavage shot. Cleavage shot and fish face. Another bikini. More cleavage. More fish faces. And a long list of new messages from interested parties, all consisting of one-word openers.
Hey.
Hi.
’Sup?
Hey.
Hi.
All gorgeous enough to pique my inner Neanderthal’s interest. But my inner Homo sapiens craves a conversation. A connection that goes beyond one-syllable answers. Because I’ve had enough of the casual swipe-right circuit. I want more. I want something real. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone with substance. Someone who understands the concept of an inside joke. Or, hell: humor, period. Someone who doesn’t spend hours trying to get the perfect fish face and semi-tasteful cleavage shot for their social. Someone who eats food on dates, instead of nibbling on the edge of a piece of lettuce like a guinea pig.
Someone like Sora.
Confession time.
I might have noticed her at Margo’s in the produce section, maybe back near Christmas, looking pretty damn crisp herself. I’d recognized her instantly. Those sweet brown eyes and perfect pink bow lips are impossible to forget. Plus, she has that little beauty mark, to the left of her mouth, and the dimple on the right when she smiles. She’d been wearing a plaid scarf, knee-high black shiny boots, and a red wool thigh-length coat with lipstick to match. Like the perfect Christmas present I wanted to see under my tree. Red—the color of good luck, the color Po Po, my Chinese American grandma, said scared away bad spirits. But then, I realize, she’s not alone. Some guy is tagging behind her, an ugly version of Lance Bass, that she called Dan.
I guess if she really has vowed to go solo this month, then that means no Dan, either. I guess that’s a consolation prize. Still, Solo February could’ve just been an excuse to let me down easy. Sora’s nice like that. Of course, the rejection still stings. More than I’d like to admit.
The timer of the oven at Margo’s goes off, letting me know the raspberry mini tortes are ready. I shove my phone in my pocket, grab a couple of oven mitts that are too small for my hands, and open the oven. Heat blasts my face as I grab hold of the tray of desserts and slide them out. They look perfect, if I do say so myself. I glance around, but I’m alone in the grocery kitchen that looks out to the glass cases of the bakery section. I sigh. It’s no Alestra, the fancy Michelin-star restaurant where I worked last year, making dessert delicacies that got five-star reviews in theChicago Tribune.Ah, how far I’ve fallen.
I shake my head. No need to dredge up bad memories now. What’s done is done. Can’t remix a cake that’s already baked. I glance up from the counter and see a woman debating whether or not to come up and order something. Two others stand behind her, whispering. I sigh. I know I’ve become the local single ladies’ (and some men’s) obsession. It’s just all kinds of embarrassing, really. I don’t want that kind of attention.
