But wasn’t there something wrong with the fact that I’d still have been paying for a college education that got me nowhere if I hadn’t stolen my way out of it? When all my life I’d done everything I was told?
My phone bleeped before I got very far in hypothesizing an answer. It was a text: Got your number from Emily. Hope you don’t mind. Just wanted to say lunch was fun, how about dinner this Saturday night?
“Oh,” Emily said. “I forgot to tell you something.”
“You gave Kevin my phone number?” It occurred to me that I was yelling. “Kevin asked for my phone number?”
“I know, right?” Emily shook her head in disbelief. “Though he’s kind of a pussy for not asking you for it himself, don’t you think?”
I was feeling a feeling, but I wasn’t sure which one. Shock? Doubt? Diarrhea?
“What are you waiting for?” Emily said. “Text him back before he comes to his senses.”
“I don’t know, Em. Don’t you think this has prison stripes written all over it? What if he starts asking questions?”
“You’re impossible.” Emily grabbed my phone and texted something with the lightning quickness of a late-millennial, then tossed my phone onto the bed.
I scrambled for it. “What did you write?”
Emily smirked. “I wrote, ‘Let’s skip dinner and get right to dessert.’”
“Are you kidding me?” I retrieved the phone and tapped furiously at its screen. “Is that supposed to be sexual innuendo?”
She was messing with me. What she actually wrote was: Yes!
“Damn it, Emily, you used an exclamation point? I would have never used an exclamation point there. Of all punctuation, it’s the neediest.”
“You’re so lucky I entered your life,” she said. And then waited a beat. “It’s the only way we’re gonna get Kevin to enter you. Right here!” She raised her hand for a high five.
“Or turn me in,” I said, passing on the hand slap.
7
WHAT DO YOU WEAR to dinner with the perfect man?
I Googled just that, but the top hits were all from ask-any-idiot-anything dot com, and they all suggested “comfort” as the most important component of a proper outfit, which I wanted to be true from the bottom of my heart but knew had to be false. My striped manjamas, as Emily called them, could not be the correct attire for my date with Kevin, so I went with my go-to black dress, which the salesgirl at Forever 21 had assured me was right for any occasion.
Hair down. Contacts, not glasses. Makeup? Regular. I’d learned the hard way on previous dates that trying something fancy with my makeup always ended in disaster. Keep It Simple Stupid, or KISS, which was a rule I also applied to kissing itself, though it was doubtful tonight would end anywhere near the arena of tonsil hockey.
I carefully applied my mascara with my mouth open, as I always did. (I’m not the only one who engages in this nonsensical act, am I?) No need for blush since I was already a little anxious-pink beneath the surface. For a full-blooded Italian, half-Sicilian on my mother’s side, I was implausibly pale and quick to go red. If not for my dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and penchant for rigatoni, I could have easily been mistaken for Irish—or, more likely, what some nefariously referred to as Black Irish.
My cell phone bleeped and I was sure it was Kevin canceling, but it was only Emily wishing me luck. Actually, her exact text was: don’t fk this up. But I knew what she meant. There was something suspect about this night, something I was missing and therefore bound to fk up. This may sound to you like the idling hum of low self-esteem, but it wasn’t. It was an indisputable fact that Kevin Hanson and I were not on an equal plane of hotness. Every eligible woman and half the eligible men at Titan would have entered the Hunger Games for the chance at a date with him. Why was he pursuing me?
We met at Nougatine, which Emily had explained to me was “the more casual sister of Jean-Georges,” which sounded not so impressive to me at first. Was I not good enough for the fancier, more formal sister? Should I read into the fact that Kevin had opted for the Edith Crawley restaurant over the Lady Mary? But Emily assured me that Nougatine was in fact a respectable and highly regarded first-date choice—and no, its name had nothing at all to do with the nougat of a Snickers bar.
Kevin was waiting out front when I arrived, which I appreciated because I was five minutes early. I would have been fifteen minutes early had I not ducked into a Duane Reade to check my hair in the cosmetics-aisle mirror. I also helped myself to a squirt of hand lotion, so what?
Kevin was wearing a tailored blazer over crisp jeans and a dress shirt. He waved when he saw me walking up the block, and I waved back, and then there was that terrible five or six seconds where you don’t know what the hell to do with yourself before you reach the person. I tried to smile wide enough so he could see it and fought the urge to do something goofy—a battle I lost when I goofily brought my hands to my mouth and called out, “Helloooooo,” as if he were very far away.