By Monday I felt totally normal and not-self-pitying again.
I’d had fun with Diego, but I’d decided to see it as a wake-up call. A reminder of what dating could be, when it wasn’t terrible. If we’re being real honest, my last couple of boyfriends/girlfriends (and I use the terms advisedly) were just hook-ups who’d lingered awhile. Long enough for me to get used to having sex with them, but never long enough for me to fool myself into thinking it would be anything permanent. Tim was the first person I’d been with who hadn’t started off like that. We’d met on an app, but we’d talked about more than just how we got off and when we could meet up. He was interested in politics and the socioeconomic implications of GMOs and how to improve health care for people in poverty.
At least, those were the things he’d listed on the app. In practice we saw each other once a week and only for long enough to catch up over dinner and, when we were lucky, have sex. Not that I was complaining. Even in the aftermath of my bungling The Relationship Convo, Tim had been gracious. He’d sent a text the next morning that only said, Please don’t feel any pressure about anything! Which I really did appreciate. He was a good guy. And he was available. To be in a relationship. With me.
But Diego was an entirely different situation. He didn’t tick any of the boxes I’d been looking for in a partner. He had a job in fashion design, which was awesome, but weren’t jobs in creative industries a notoriously unstable way to earn a living? He was fun to hang out with, but didn’t that mark a sort of...frivolousness? I didn’t know how to classify our playful evening in terms of my previous experiences, and maybe that was fine. After all, Diego was in a committed long-term relationship already, so tricky feelings would not be involved. That should make everything so much more relaxed. He might come in to open an account, he might not. There was nothing at stake except amusing banter and, bonus, Claris could stop trying to set me up with her husband now. Maybe this was the upside to having bungled things with Tim: I was entirely free to live out a little fantasy with a grown-ass man who could talk about art and could also pretend to be a spy while talking about art.
I didn’t skimp on Monday morning. Deep purple shirt that looked fucking amazing on me, a diamond-point bow tie studded with little glitter bits like stars (which I’d bought from a local tie designer, #supportlocalartisans), all grooming meticulous. Maybe he wouldn’t even show, but if he did, I planned to look irresistible.
This was not a date. This was a man I’d met at an art exhibit who needed to open a bank account. And that’s if he showed up.
Spoiler alert: he showed up.
I’d been hired as a teller, way back when having a job where I wore a tie was basically peak adulting. These days I worked on the sales and marketing side of things, so I was the one who’d help with new accounts, investment options, basically anything we had a glossy pamphlet for. At first I’d loved it. I’d actually really enjoyed being the person customers talked to when they had no idea what they wanted. I liked being the one with the answers, the guy you could trust with your retirement savings or your kid’s college fund.
Maybe everything gets old eventually, or maybe I’d just gone stale myself. For the last few years it had felt a lot more like going through the motions than enjoying my job. I had some work friends who were decent—for work friends. And I didn’t mind my direct supervisor (though the general manager was the kind of blowhard my mother would call a “shit for brains” under her breath and then swear she’d never said any such thing). The benefits were great, the schedule was forgiving, my 401(k) looked good, and I had no logical things to complain about.
I was just, like, bored.
At least usually. Not so much on the day Diego came in. Make that: not after I looked up and saw him stepping tentatively through the door and looking around. Nope. He was a regular boredom eliminator, and not always in the way I expected.
I’d taken care with my appearance. Diego...looked like he’d just come out of a knock-down fight with a crafting room, and the room had won. I must have done a whole thing with my face because he was shaking his head as he approached me, already apologizing.
“This is the worst possible second impression. It’s a costume. Something like a costume. That is, I blame small children.” He shook my hand before sinking into a chair in front of my desk. “Sorry, I really wanted to go home and change but it’s nearly one and then I thought I’d be late and I figured it would be better to come here right after school or else I wouldn’t know when you were working tomorrow.” A pause for breath and I watched his eyes glide over my...something. What was he looking at? The shirt? The tie? It wasn’t the straight up-and-down appraisal I was used to from people checking me out, more of a meandering appreciative assessment.
“After school?” I asked, instructing my brain to ignore the look. “Do you have children?” How had I missed that? Married to a smart, gorgeous spouse, passionate about his career, volunteering at the kid’s school—the dude was basically my dream come true except I was supposed to be the smart, gorgeous spouse.
“Oh my god, no. Claris prefers kids to be someone else’s responsibility. I mean, we babysit sometimes, but in general, no. Not our kids at all. Not that I wouldn’t have kids, which I would, I think, but that it hasn’t happened at this point in my life and it may not? But it still could.” He seemed deeply flustered. Enough so I grabbed a mini bottle of water from the bottom drawer of the desk and passed it over. “Thank you. This is really not how I’d planned to—ah—be. When I came here.”
I raised my eyebrows and smiled, hoping the combination came off slightly—but not intrusively—teasing. “No? How did you plan to be?”
“I had an outfit picked out that would make me look quite dashing,” he said, voice low, leaning forward as if we were sharing a secret. “I was going to wear a scarf, because I have deduced that you enjoy playfulness. And colorful socks for the same reason. But well-made shoes because I think you appreciate quality.” His eyes held mine. “Well? Would I have passed muster?”
There was something seductive about the way he drew me in, the way he kept my attention. The way I could picture what he was saying as he spoke, and even the insinuation that he knew what I’d like didn’t bother me like it might have, coming from a less earnest person.
No man who shows up with dreams of dashing in his head but in reality wearing a paper doily glued to his shirt could really come off that skeevy. I gestured to the doily. “I think you’re losing some of your accessories.”
He laughed and, instead of pulling it off, which is probably what I would have done, he tried in vain to press it back into place. “I sometimes do a thing with one of the local elementary schools where I spend a morning talking to the younger kids about clothing and design and self-expression. It’s technically part of the anti-bullying campaign, and the teachers tell me it’s a good thing, but I’m really in it to mine the ideas of the youth.”
I tweaked a cluster of plastic googly eyes that had been attached to his watch. “Yes, I think this will be everywhere next season. You could call it ‘The Eyes of Time.’”
“Exactly! You get the youth, Mason.”
Since I was at work I couldn’t make any colorful allusions to how much (appropriately aged) youth I could get, but the obvious joke shimmered between us and both of us laughed.
“I will now endeavor to make up for my sartorial sins by arriving prepared for all manner of account opening.” He placed a binder on the desk and turned to a black folder at the front with silver writing on it that read: Personal Checking Account. “Not to give you the impression that Claris does all of my financial everything for me, but if you did have that impression, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. I try to hold up my end by keeping the bathroom clean, which she says is more than an even trade.”
Swinging between flirtation and odd domestic asides was giving me social whiplash, but I reached for the papers he’d held out. “You don’t need all of this to open an account,” I mused, taking a look. “Oh, I see. Money order for the opening funds as well.”
“Right. Precise amounts. We—by which I mean I—had planned to do all this in November, you know, start the new year off right. But then here we are, and it hasn’t been done yet. One of these days my personal finances will be separate from my business finances. Or so I keep promising Claris, whose financial life is in perfect order.”
“It’s still January, I think it counts.” He probably hadn’t needed to show me the entire folder, which had spreadsheets and bank statements from the business accounts and a profit and loss report that I did not allow my eyes to linger on, because it was none of my beeswax, as my mom would say. “So you keep your two businesses separate, then?”
“It makes the most sense. Claris is a consultant and makes oodles of money. I design quirky waistcoats and barely scrape by.” He paused, and there was a sense of awkwardness to it, a slight hesitation that made me look up, to where Diego’s eyes were staring quite intently at the folder in my hand. “I’m starting to do better than that. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s beginning to feel like I might someday make real money as a fashion designer, which is exhilarating and also unsettling because I didn’t think dreams actually came true in real life.”
The baldness of the confession, the near-reverence of his tone, touched something in me I’d almost forgotten existed. The part of me that also once believed dreams came true. I cleared my throat and said, “Your secret is safe with me. Even if I get taken by a hostile foreign power, I will never tell.”
“Thank you. I do like working with people who understand that the future of the world is at stake.”
“And it all comes down to this account.” I grinned.
“If you heard Claris talk, you might genuinely think that was true. I’m lucky she introduced us at last, Mason. Or else my finances might have never been sorted out.”
I felt weirdly exposed, his playfulness almost jolting me out of myself. “Speaking of which,” I said, a cowardly subject change I justified because I was, after all, at work. I began to page through screens and ask him questions, occasionally checking the folder again. I’d worked with Claris on enough bank-sponsored fundraisers to know how well she managed projects, and this was no exception. She’d picked out the exact type of account that I would have selected for him, which, coupled with the spreadsheets and organized file, made me feel an odd sense of intimacy with her.
It didn’t take long to finish the details and open the account. I let him know how to set up the online portal and gave him the usual rundown on our services. Blah blah blah, don’t hesitate to contact me, you might find X, Y, Z interesting, here’s a big packet of things you won’t read. I set his own folder on top and settled it on the desk in front of him.
“That’s it? That was...relatively painless.”
I couldn’t help allowing the hint of a smirk into my expression. “Did you think it would be painful?”
“Not exactly. But when you put something off for years before doing it, I think it tends to collect an...air of morbid dread around it. When it’s then accomplished in thirty minutes sitting across from, uh, you, I guess it seems a little silly to have worried about it for so long. Of course until recently I wouldn’t have had a you to take the edge off.”
“I’m...glad I could help. In all the ways.” Which felt true. All the ways. The account. The alleviation of dread. The...mutual appreciation.
He patted down his pockets, pulling out a crumpled receipt, keys tangled with a piece of jewelry made of red yarn and Cheerios, and finally a wallet. “I hope I’m not being too forward, but I realized after the other night that we hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers. And I do love Claris, but I’d rather not leave her in charge of arranging all of my playdates. If you will.” He didn’t immediately hand it to me. “That is—as long as you are also in favor of potential future playdates. No pressure, of course.”
If he’d straight up asked me out, I would have known how to react. But phrasing it like that, like it was all in good fun, disarmed me. “Playdate” and “future” were both concepts I thought I understood...until you put them together. Wasn’t the future for seriousness? Maybe, with Diego, it wasn’t. And maybe I wasn’t mad about that. “I am open to potential future playdates,” I said after a moment of deliberation. Realizing he now looked like he regretted saying anything, I leaned in very slightly and lowered my voice. “The question is: would it be too forward of me to write my cell number on the back of my card? You might think I’m something of a tart. And I’m already concerned for my marriage prospects so I wouldn’t want word to get around that I was fast.”
His lips twitched while I kept my expression as serious as I could. He placed a hand over his heart. “I promise not to think you...unappealingly tarty if you give me your number. And me? What if I give you mine and you’re terribly turned off by the impropriety of my doing so while you’re engaged in your job?”
I mimicked his hand-over-heart. “I promise not to be turned off.” After considering a qualifier of some sort and deciding against it, I just let the statement stand.
Diego lost the battle with his Serious Expression and grinned. “Oh good. I would hate to be responsible for that.” He began patting down his pockets again while I picked one of my cards out of the container on the desk and wrote my number on the back. Since he was still searching for something, I offered him my pen.
“Thanks. I try not to bring a lot with me when I’m being made over by little kids.” He used the pen and handed both it and the card to me. “Respectfully, sir, my card.”
“And mine in return.” He tucked mine away immediately but I glanced at his. I have a thing. About handwriting. There’s something intimate about it, about someone’s imprint on paper. Almost like in a way you could touch them through the shapes of their letters, the pressure of their pen.
I realized I was just sitting there staring at his phone number and quickly pocketed the card. “Thank you.”
“Of course, of course.” His smile was full of mirth. “It has been a very good meeting, sir. I hope to renew your acquaintance as soon as is convenient for us both.”
“As do I, as do I.” I held out my hand, which he grasped in both of his. I didn’t know if that was an old-school handshake, or just the thing that felt natural in the moment, but whatever it was, I liked it. “Let me know if you have any questions about the account.”
“I will...call the bank if I have questions about the account. I will call you for other things. If that’s all right. So as not to further mix business with pleasure.”
I knew I was blushing. It seemed ridiculous to be blushing, but I was. “That is acceptable,” I said with dignity.
He stood. I stood. We stood there.
“I’m resisting the urge to walk you to the door like a gentleman,” I confessed, keeping my voice low.
“It’s the thought that counts. Until we meet again.” He bowed. Legitimately. Bowed at me before turning and walking regally to the door, and somehow without losing a single doily.
Maybe I couldn’t lead him out, but I could certainly appreciate the view.
I looked around, expecting everyone to have seen the whole thing, to be ready to rib me mercilessly for a dude bowing at me over my desk. But no one was paying attention. This is what happens when you have the Motherfuckers as your friends: you expect everyone to tease you as a way of showing their affection. Not that my coworkers had affection for me. Not that they didn’t.
Not that it mattered. Diego Flores had just flirted with me in the manner of a hero from an old romance novel. And he’d bowed. Like. That was a little bit wacky.
And I was a little bit swoony over it. Le sigh. Swooning over Claris’s husband was potentially dangerous, but what the hell, he was fun to talk to and I definitely wanted to do more of that. Talking. Not swooning. Well...maybe swooning. It was practice swooning. Preparatory swooning for some eventual person I’d date who wouldn’t already be married. Like Tim. Who would be an excellent candidate for swooning.
I pushed the thought away. Tim could be swoony, too. Probably. This was just new-person-swoon. It was a different type of swoon. No pressure. All fun. Charming. With that one dimple. A little new-person-swoon never hurt anyone or damaged any boyfriend prospects.
At least, that’s what I was telling myself as I waited for my post-Diego flush to fade away. He really was charming, though.