Chapter Twenty

Now

“I still don’t see how T.J. is relevant to anything.”

Matt tilted his head from side to side. “He is and he isn’t. I just … sort of realized something around that time.”

“What?”

“That we aren’t as … unaffected by all of this as we should be.”

I tightened my arms around myself. “I don’t think I understand.”

He sighed. “This isn’t as clean as it should be.”

“What isn’t?”

“This”—he moved his hand in the space between us—“us. It’s too blurry. Sometimes we’re more than friends, and in between, I don’t know what the hell we are anymore.”

I tried to make a dismissive sound, but there was a lump in my throat. “We’re friends, Matty. You know that.”

“The point is, it’s not so easy to separate stuff anymore.” He shook his head. “Not that it ever really was.”

Despite the chill in the air, my spine broke out in sweat. Did he know? Had he seen it on my face? Cover, cover, cover! “We can do it. We just have to concentrate.”

“No, we can’t. And besides, that’s my point. It shouldn’t be so hard to behave.”

“It’s not.” I looked away from him. “We do a great job of being friends.”

“Yeah, tell that to Christine and Josh.”

I scowled at him. “She was a crazy person.”

“And what about him?”

I was convinced he could hear my thoughts and my hammering heart. “He was—he was …” What? A casualty? An innocent bystander? A really good, decent guy who I ditched for you, Matt. For you.

One Year Earlier … Third Year Out of College

It is a fact that a single girl cannot get a date during the holidays. Men are all convinced that women are trying to get a date for New Year’s Eve, someone to spend Christmas with, and possibly even introduce to their families. Mostly, they’re right, which makes it almost impossible for a single girl without those motives to get a simple dinner date from early November until January 2.

So I was decidedly single in December when Matt and I met for brunch. It was just the two of us that Sunday morning, and the venue was one of our favorites. A bar in the hipster part of town—or as close to hipster as Milwaukee gets anyway—it was a cobbled together collection of storefronts with all the original brickwork exposed. It always wore the stale smell of old cigarettes and spilled beer, but the food was good and their Bloody Mary was the best in town for Sunday brunch.

We’d already ordered our drinks when Matt ran off to the bathroom. The waitress returned and set the mounded glasses on the table. The garnish outweighed the drinks by a long shot, but that was the fun of it.

“There you go …” she drawled as she eased away from the glasses. Triumphant, she straightened and looked at me. “And I’ll come back for your orders when your boyfriend gets back.”

I didn’t bother to correct her. “No, that’s okay, I know what he wants.”

“Oh!” She pulled her pad out, and I ordered Matt’s usual cholesterol fest, and my only-slightly-better-for-you favorite.

Matt arrived as I was finishing.

“I ordered for you,” I said.

“How did you know what I wanted?” he challenged.

“Because you have the same thing every time we come here.”

He grinned. “I should change my order just to annoy you.”

“Then you wouldn’t get to eat your precious breakfast burrito.”

“Good point.” Matt tweezed the shrimp from the edge of his glass. “You are a woman of infinite wisdom, Alvin.”

The waitress laughed. “Is there anything else I can get for you guys?”

“Did she tell you I want the potatoes on the side?” he asked.

“Of course, I did. And the Cajun sour cream.”

“She did.” The waitress smiled. “She knows you by heart.”

“She’d like to think so,” he said, making a face at me.

“No thinking involved—I know so.”

The waitress laughed again as she started to walk away. “You guys are adorable together.”

I only had her back to glare at, but I gave it my all until she rounded a corner. When I turned back to Matt, he was munching one of the mozzarella whips from his drink. “I’m going to find you a girlfriend,” I declared.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “No, thank you.”

“But I’ve been a student of the Mystery of Matt Lehrer for six years. I’ve watched you pick the wrong women time and time again. Surely, I can do better.”

“This has Bad Plan written all over it.”

“No, it’ll be fun!” I was really warming to the idea. “I’m sure I can find you the perfect woman.”

“What do you know about the perfect woman?”

I leaned back from the table, putting on airs of being offended. “Besides the fact that I am one?”

“Yeah, right. Besides that.” He fished an olive out of his drink and popped it in.

“Come on, Matty. Don’t you want to have someone special in your life?”

“I have lots of special someones in my life,” he said. “A mom, a dad, my brother … oh, and Dewey. Don’t forget Dewey.” He grinned.

“You’re being a punk.”

“Why do you care so much?” he asked.

“I don’t.” I went after my own olive with a miniature plastic sword. “I just want to help you.”

He stretched his mouth into an “I hate to ask this but …” grimace. “Can you not?”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Joss, if I wanted a girlfriend, I would have a girlfriend.”

“So what do you want?”

He shrugged. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“That’s very helpful.”

“I’m not trying to be helpful.” He raised his glass to his lips, but not before I saw his smile.

I shoved his chair with my feet, succeeding in sending my chair backward and failing to move his at all. “I’m trying to get you laid here, Matthew.”

He choked on his drink. Hard. His hand came up as he coughed, preventing the spray of tomato juice from hitting me in the face, but giving him a nice even splatter pattern across his shirt and the tabletop.

I tried to apologize and offer napkins, but I was giggling. We both knew I was responsible.

“Do you wait until I’ve got something in my mouth before you say things like that?”

I giggled, tried to sober myself, but broke down again. “I’ll pay for dry cleaning.”

He plucked at one of his buttonholes. “I don’t do dry cleaning.”

“I’ll wash it, then.”

He considered that for a moment, unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off before wadding it up and throwing it across the table at me. I caught it, but not before a wet patch of sleeve slapped my chin.

“Eww.”

“Serves you right.” Inspecting his revealed T-shirt, he found some damp spots and a few stains at the top where his buttons had been undone. “Great.”

“If you throw that one at me, I think they will probably throw us out.”

“Helping me like that, I’m sure you’ll find me my future bride in no time.”

I flinched at the unexpected reference to marriage. “I—I didn’t say I was going to marry you off.”

He smiled slowly. “Well, whatever your evil plan is.”

I shook my head, regrouping. “Does that mean you’re going to let me?”

“If you promise to stop ruining my shirts, then sure, go ahead and try.”

I clapped my hands and wiggled in my seat. “Yay!”

“You’re still washing my shirt.”

For the first time since I was eighteen, I decided to spend New Year’s Eve in Milwaukee. Nellie’s boyfriend had a friend in a band and we could all get VIP wristbands to the show. Nellie secured an extra one for me, hoping I would have a date to bring along. I didn’t, because no one in their right mind goes on a first date on New Year’s Eve. So after some serious cajoling, I got Matt to take the place of my date. He was supposed to be at a party hosted by some law school friends. Supposedly much classier than my offerings, but as I rationally pointed out to him, Matt was not exactly classy himself. Further, who wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with a bunch of lawyers, which was a point he couldn’t really argue with. He did, however, reserve the right to leave if things sucked. In turn, I reserved the right to follow him right out the door if things were really bad.

Arriving was surprisingly fun. Cruising past the line of non-VIPs to flash our wristbands, we felt like celebrities. On a very small, Midwestern, local-band scale. We divided forces to accomplish all the required tasks: Nellie and Jason were to elbow their way through the crowd to hold a place for us at one of the tables near the stage. Matt and I were to procure refreshments for the group.

It was a long wait at the bar, and people passing by kept jostling me into Matt. I don’t know if it’s a function of being the size of a twelve-year-old boy or just a certain je ne sai quoi about me, but people always seem to squeeze past me in crowded situations. In the rough approximation that was the next line over, I spotted another smallish girl being tossed on the human tide and made a commiserating face at her.

“I don’t know why I bother!” she shouted to me.

“No kidding,” I shouted back.

Matt turned to see why I was yelling. I stood on my toes to get closer to his ear and said, “A fellow chipmunk in danger of being trampled.”

He looked in the direction of my head nod and smiled at the girl. “She’s cute.”

“If you like small woodland creatures, sure.” I grinned.

“Which I do.” He elbowed me lightly.

“You’re not supposed to admit that in public.”

He laughed and we edged a little closer to the harried bartenders. Our line picked up speed over the next several customers and soon we found ourselves bellied up to the bar. Waiting for our drinks took another interminable period, during which I continued to be the number one person to squeeze by. Then, with two cups each in hand, we started on the treacherous path back to Nellie and Jason.

I squeezed past my fellow small girl and shouted, “Good luck!”

“Thanks!”

I’d only lost about a quarter of a beer total by the time we made it to the small area defended by our friends. I handed one cup to Nellie and steadied myself on her shoulder to scoot onto a stool. The music hadn’t started yet, so the seats were stable. The minute the standing crowds started gyrating to the beat, the tables would most likely be the outermost ring of the dance floor. I took the moment of stillness to slurp a few ounces from the top of my beer.

A few minutes later, I noticed the girl from the line making her unsteady way down the aisle toward us. She mounted a bar stool between some large guys just a few feet away from me. I indicated her to Matt, who leaned forward to poke her in the back. She turned, startled, and caught sight of me.

“You survived!” I said.

“You, too!”

“And now we won’t be able to see a thing!” I said, pointing as a guy came to stand directly in front of me. He appeared to be with her group, and had to be six foot two.

She laughed. “I know! I’m like a cocktail shrimp among lobsters!”

I glanced to my right and left. “It’s more like a shrimp among crawfish over here!”

“Hey!” Matt elbowed me again. He never failed to be sensitive about his five-foot-ten-inch height.

The line girl laughed as the crowd went wild for the arrival of the band, and then her attention was diverted to the stage. The stools began their persistent vibration at the mercy of the nearby amps and I decided to fight hoarseness by not talking for a while.

During the lull between songs, Matt leaned close and said, “She really is cute.”

“Oo-ooh!” I sang. “Matty’s got a cru-ush!”

He just rolled his eyes.

I waited until he decided to brave the men’s room, then poked the girl in the back again. She turned, looking surprised by the third contact.

“My friend thinks you’re cute!” I said.

“Him?” She pointed at the empty spot beside me.

“Yeah.”

“I thought that was your boyfriend!”

“No! Just a friend!”

“Oh!”

“Sorry, just thought I’d tell you!”

“Oh … okay!”

I turned my attention back to the stage and caught Nellie giving me a sour look.

“What?”

“Are you seriously trying to get Matt a date with that girl?”

“So?” I asked, confused.

“You are mentally ill,” she said, shaking her head.

It was my turn for an eye roll.

When Matt returned from the bathroom, the line girl turned around and smiled at him. “I’m Christine!” she shouted.

He grinned. “Matt!”

“Nice to meet you!” She wobbled on her stool and turned forward to regain her balance.

“See? I told you I could get you a girl,” I said in his ear.

“Yeah, nice screening process.”

“I still did it. I am an awesome wingman.”

“We’ll see.”

He bought her a beer, and she repaid him with her phone number at the end of the concert. And that was how Matt met Crazy Christine.

I’d heard the grocery store was a good place to meet guys, but I usually considered it an acceptable place to go when I was looking my worst. So, I was in my scrubs, just stopping in for a few essentials on my way home from work when I met Josh. I was covered in dog hair, with my hair held in a twist by a pencil and my glasses on. I’d forgotten I was wearing them when I got out of the car—I only used them for driving these days, and restricted them to that use since they made me look like a nerd. I cannot understand how some people look sophisticated and urbane in glasses. I have always looked like the girl who doesn’t get a date to prom.

Josh was behind me in line at the deli. I didn’t even notice him, distracted as I was by my serious deliberations between oven-roasted and smoked turkey breast. Dewey loved turkey with a passion bordering on zealotry. I intended to make my own sandwiches, but I knew he’d beg for a scrap or two the moment I walked through the door and I was wondering which flavor he’d prefer.

“You’re a vet.” The voice behind me startled me into spinning around, wide-eyed.

“What?”

“Scrubs and animal fur. You’ve got to be a vet.”

“Oh. Um … I’m a vet tech, actually.”

“I knew it.”

“Very impressive. Most people assume I’m a nurse.”

“I’m a dog lover,” he said, immediately winning my heart. The quickest way to a vet tech’s heart is through her animals.

“Do you have dogs?”

“Two.”

My heart pitter-patted. “Really? What kind?”

“A German shorthaired pointer, and a Chesapeake Bay retriever.”

“Aww,” I crooned. “What are their names?”

“Luke and Bo.”

I felt my eyebrows go up before I could stop them. “Like The Dukes of Hazzard?”

He let out an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, I know. It was this thing with my brother …”

“I should have known.” I wished I didn’t have my glasses on. Or a pencil in my hair. Or my hairy scrubs.

“I’m Josh,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Joss,” I replied, shaking his hand.

“No, it’s Josh. As in Joshua.”

“Yeah, and I’m Joss. As in Jocelyn.”

“Oh.” He flushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Right. Sorry.”

“Number eighty-seven!” called the deli worker.

“That’s me,” I said, holding up my little pull tab. I placed my order, deciding on the smoked variety of turkey for the day, and received my little packet of meat with a tiny flash of anticipation: I knew Dewey would love it, and I loved that stupid cat.

“I guess you’re up,” I said to Josh as I turned to go.

“Guess so.”

I smiled and started to walk away, but he put one hand on my elbow. “Can I take you to dinner sometime?”

My first instinct was to reach up and apologetically pat my disheveled hair and glasses, but I fought the urge. “That would be nice.”

“Number eighty-eight!”

I wrote my phone number on the back of a business card I found in my purse and handed it to Josh just after he accepted his packets of honey ham and Swiss cheese.

“Joss,” he read. “I’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

And that was how I met Innocent Bystander Josh.

He called me two days later, and we made a date for the following Friday. It was a nice conversation, and I could hear the chesty bark of one of his dogs in the background. The sound triggered all the mushy animal-loving buttons in my body and I was really looking forward to the date. We talked until I got a call interrupt from none other than Matt, and Josh excused himself to go run with his dogs.

I clicked over to my new call and greeted Matt with, “I think I’m in love.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I met a dog lover at the grocery store and I’m going to marry him.”

This was greeted with silence.

“Hello?”

“I heard you.”

“And?”

“I think you’re full of shit.”

I laughed. “Yeah, maybe. But I am going on a date with him.”

“Great.”

“Wait, what did you call for?” I asked.

“Oh, right. Do you think it’s too soon to bring Christine to Gavin’s birthday thing?”

“Why?”

“You’re a girl. Do you think she’s going to think I’m too serious if I bring her around to meet my friends right away?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. She already met me, right?”

“Oh, yeah. My wingman.”

“Exactly. So, I’ll see you on Saturday?”

Matt’s law school friend Gavin, who had a disturbingly nice apartment on the lake, celebrated his birthday like it was Mardi Gras instead of the middle of January. He reserved the community room on the top floor of the building, and gave all the neighbors immediately below the room gift certificates for dinner out. He came from money and knew how to use it. Inexplicably, he’d taken a shine to me through Matt—also a strange bedfellow for Gavin—and I’d gotten my own invite to the party, with instructions to attend come hell or high water. He’d declared the theme Early Summer, and was celebrating with tropical drinks, tacky palm tree decor, and a beach-attire dress code.

When I’d heard it was on the top floor of a building, I was ready to make excuses not to go, but Matt assured me I would survive. It wasn’t a high-rise building, and the windows didn’t go all the way to the floor—a major no-no as far as I was concerned. Who knew when the windows would suddenly disappear and I could plummet to my death? Fear of heights is not rational.

So I went, and he was right, it wasn’t that high relative to the rest of the buildings nearby. Still, I was into my second therapeutic mojito when Matt arrived with Christine and I ran over to greet them. I flung my arms around Matt’s neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi! You made it! Hi, Christine! It’s nice to see you again!”

“Simmer down, Alvin,” Matt said, unwrapping my arms and laughing.

“Hi, Joss,” Christine said, looking a little startled.

“Come on, Gavin’s got mojitos!”

In retrospect, my mental filter may have been loosened by the rum, and it’s possible I spent a little too much time trying to “sell” Matt to Christine. In fact, it would be fair to say that I gushed about how wonderful he was, and how great it was that she was with him. Some of my ebullience translated into a lot of touching of Matt. I put my arms around his waist a lot and trailed my hands over his shoulders when I was standing near his chair. I was determined that my matchmaking abilities would prove worthy.

Finally, Matt knocked my hand off his shoulder and gave me a small head shake. When Christine wasn’t looking, he whispered to me. “Back off, Cujo. Are you trying to scare her off?”

I saluted him. “Gotcha. Can do.”

He laughed and pinched my waist before turning his attention back to Christine, who was regarding me with a squint. I didn’t have time to consider the implications, however. My drink was empty.

The next week, I had my first date with Josh. I met him at a new steakhouse in town and we had a pleasant getting-to-know-you period while we sat at the bar waiting for our table to be ready.

“So, tell me about your dogs,” I said.

He grinned and reached for his pocket. “I have some pictures if you want to see.”

“Of course, I do!”

He produced his cell phone and played with it for a few moments, looking for photos. At last, he handed it to me. “Just swipe right to see the rest.”

“Oh, they’re great!” I’d learned from work that single guys didn’t appreciate hearing that their dogs were “cute” or “adorable.”

“Yeah, they’re good boys.”

I arrowed my way through a few more shots of the dogs. Sleeping, sitting in the back of a pickup truck, in a field … Then I came to the first shot of Josh in hunters’ camouflage with Bo and Luke at proud attention and a brace of pheasant in his hand.

“Oh … you went hunting with them?” I asked, heart sinking.

“Mmm hmm, they love it. Bo’s a hell of a pointer, and Luke can flush like nobody’s business.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t stand hunting.

“You don’t like that, do you?” he asked as I handed the phone back to him.

I tried a half-smile and gave a simple, “Oh, I don’t know.” As tempting as it was to mount my anti-hunting soapbox, I decided to keep my cool and learn more about Josh. Luckily, we were called to our table then, and the conversation moved into safer territory.

He didn’t forget, though. When our waitress left the table with our orders, he tapped this fork on the tabletop nervously. “Look, I don’t want you to think I’m a big sport hunter or anything. My dogs came from purebred hunting stock—my uncle breeds them, actually. He had me up to his place to check out Luke for possible studding …” He grinned with embarrassment. “Anyway, the dogs liked it, but, uh … it’s not really my thing.”

I was relieved. “It’s okay if it is.”

He smiled. “No, it’s not. I can see it by your face.”

I blushed. “Okay, yeah, not a fan.”

“Tell me what you are a fan of.” He tilted his head. “Besides oven-roasted turkey and keeping office supplies in your hair, that is.”

Oh, I like this guy.

He was from Minnesota, loved Monty Python movies, and thought red hair was adorable. By dessert, we were laughing over dog stories, quoting The Meaning of Life, and delighted to agree on cheesecake for a shared finale to an entirely pleasant evening. He picked up the tab and threatened to knock my wallet out of my hand if I attempted to contribute. We walked out to the parking lot together and spent too long standing in the cold beside my car. My nose was running when we kissed, but he didn’t say anything about it.

It was a good kiss. A kiss that made me consider violating my agreement with myself to leave him in the parking lot. I liked this guy. A lot. Enough that I was already steeling myself for the inevitable “I’ll call you sometime.” No way was I going to get lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for once.

Instead, he asked, “So, can I see you again?”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He kissed me again—runny nose and all—and I thought of Matt. Because I intended to call him and tell him I’d successfully matched us both in a matter of weeks.

I didn’t have to call him. He’d already left me a message, I discovered when I got in my car and checked my phone. I called him, eager to gloat.

He answered the phone mid-conversation. “I’ve got to break up with Christine.”

“What? Why? I thought she was so great!”

He made a snort-slash-scoff sound.

“No, Matty, you can’t do this! I just had the greatest date of my life. We were going to double-date.” I put my fingers on the wheel. Still too cold. I tucked my hand under my thigh.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be awkward.”

“Never mind that now, you’re going to ruin it anyway. Ruin a perfectly good relationship with a perfectly good girl.”

“She is not perfectly good, Joss, or should I say anti-wingman?”

I laughed. “All right, all right. Tell me your big whiny baby story.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s nuts. Like Fatal Attraction nuts.”

“What, did she boil your rabbit or something?”

He laughed. “No, not yet. But if I had one, she might.”

“What happened?”

“She’s a too-much-too-soon girl.”

“She didn’t tell you she loved you, did she?” I asked. They’d met three weeks earlier.

“No,” he said, but his tone was hesitant. “Not in so many words.”

“Tell me.”

“She’s just making so many plans … She’s talking about whose parents we’re going to spend Christmas with.”

“Oh!” It was January. She was planning for the end of the year already? “That’s, um, presumptuous.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe she just really likes you?” I suggested.

“She wants to get a cat.”

“So? I have a cat.”

“She wants us to get a cat. Together.”

“You have to break up with her.”

“And you are aware that this is all your fault?”

“I will only admit that I introduced you. I can’t be held responsible for her being crazy.”

“I would never have talked to her if it wasn’t for you.”

This was true. “I will consider taking a small portion of the blame.”

He sighed. “I’m gonna call her.”

“Good luck.”