Romantically Challenged Read online

  * * *

  As soon as the valet closed my mom’s car door she turned her attention to me.

  “Where were you last night?”

  “With you and Dad at the wedding,” I said. “Remember?”

  “Don’t be a smart ass” my dad said, but smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

  “We were looking for you,” my mom said. “You missed a real scene. Peter, the groom’s younger brother, was sneaking beer all night and passed out under the table. No one even knew he was gone until he woke up during the cake cutting ceremony and started vomiting all over the table. The other groomsmen had to carry him out with an ice bucket under his chin.”

  I’d escaped just in time.

  My mom continued, “Of course his parents were mortified. Sharon said she thought you were keeping an eye on him, but you were nowhere to be found.”

  “I wasn’t his baby sitter. I just sat next to him at the table.”

  “Where were you when they were cutting the cake?”

  “I must’ve just left. I was tired, so I went upstairs a little early.”

  “Your sister said you got mad at her when she tried to talk to you. She told me you were yelling at Maureen too.”

  Thirty-six years old and Deborah was still tattling to mommy. “Mother, can we please not discuss this right now.” I didn’t like discussing my love life (or lack thereof) with my mother even when I wasn’t hungover.

  “Okay,” my mother said. “All I’m saying is you can’t get upset every time you go to a wedding.”

  “I don’t get upset every time I go to a wedding,” I said, trying and failing to remain calm. “I get upset when everyone hounds me about getting married.”

  “Well, you know, dear”—Here it comes—“you’re not getting any younger…” I mouthed the words along with her.

  At this point my dad spoke for the second time that hour. “You know what the alternative to aging is don’t you?”

  My dad’s favorite rhetorical question. I looked out the window and saw the first sign for Newark Airport. Only two miles ahead. Thank God.

  Chapter 4

  And So It Began

  I was just happy to be on the plane. The airline could even lose my luggage and I wouldn’t care. My weekend of humiliation was over and I had five hours to read the new Jennifer Weiner novel I’d started on the flight out. This time I had an aisle seat and the woman on my other side was listening to her i-pod on, so I was in the clear.

  I was standing in line for the restroom when I heard, “Boy this plane is crowded.” I turned around and saw a skinny guy with a deeply receding hairline smiling down at me.

  “It’s summer,” I said and turned forward again to watch the end of the Office rerun playing on the video monitor.

  “Have you seen this one?” the skinny guy asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but it’s funnier with the sound.”

  He nodded. “I’m John, by the way.”

  I introduced myself and we continued with meaningless airplane chitchat until the restroom opened up.

  I didn’t see John when I returned to my seat and happily went back to my book.

  Five minutes later I heard, “So do you live in L.A.?”

  John was standing in the aisle next to me. I held my place in my book with my finger. “Yeah,” I said. “Do you?”

  “I just moved there.”

  I nodded and went back to my book. I guarantee that if I was even remotely attracted to this man, he would not be talking to me. It was my cosmic karma. Lucky finding parking, unlucky in love.

  “Did you grow up out there?” he persisted.

  “No,” I said. “I’m originally from New Jersey. I moved out to L.A. ten years ago.” Maybe if I don’t ask him any questions in return, he’ll figure out that I’m not interested.

  “I’m from New York myself,” he said.

  I nodded. Would it be too rude if I read while he talked? I was still pondering this question when John sat down in the middle of the aisle. I, along with everyone else in the vicinity, just stared at him. Surely this had to violate some sort of airline regulation.

  I glanced at the man sitting across the aisle. I was almost positive he was listening to every word, but he kept his eyes pinned to his crossword puzzle. The woman on my right took off her headset. When I looked at her, she just smiled and pulled a magazine out from the seat pocket in front of her.

  “So what kinds of things do you like to do in L.A.?” John asked.

  Was this guy actually going to ask me out? Didn’t he realize all of these people were listening? Apparently, my weekend of humiliation was not quite over.

  “Oh, the usual things. Movies, the beach, hanging out with my friends.” Just pick one and get this over with!

  “I like movies,” he said. “Why don’t I give you a call sometime and we can catch a movie together.”

  “Sure.” I still wasn’t interested, but I couldn’t just reject the guy with everyone watching. It was too cruel. I’d blow him off later, in private.

  “Why don’t you give me your number,” he said.

  “I don’t have a pen,” I replied, hoping he didn’t either.

  Before he could respond, the guy across the aisle ripped off the corner of his crossword puzzle and handed it to John with his pen.

  I knew he’d been listening.

  * * *

  I waited in baggage claim for my suitcase and my friend Kaitlyn, who’d promised to pick me up. Kaitlyn would be easier to spot than my black luggage. With her mass of wavy, red hair and her minimum four-inch heels, she always stood out in a crowd.

  “So how was the weekend?” Kaitlyn asked after a perfume-infused hug. “I bet it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.”

  “No, it was worse.” Then I spotted John on the other side of the luggage carousel. He’d retrieved his bag and was scanning the crowd. I positioned Kaitlyn in front of me and said, “And it’s not over yet.”

  “Who are you avoiding?” she asked, scanning the crowd.

  “Brown hair, blue jacket, dark green suit bag.”

  “I don’t see him,” she said, still scanning.

  “Good, maybe he left.” I spotted my suitcase rolling down the chute and stepped out from behind Kaitlyn to retrieve it just as John rounded the carousel from the other side. He rolled his luggage over to us, not caring that he was blocking access for several people who were forced to maneuver around him.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I thought maybe I could give you a ride home.”

  “Actually, I have a ride.” I introduced John to Kaitlyn.

  He looked dejected for a moment, but quickly rebounded. “Then I’ll give you a call this week. I thought we could do something Friday night.”

  This time no one but Kaitlyn was listening, so I didn’t have to feel guilty. “I’m not sure I can make it Friday night.”

  “Then how about Saturday?”

  “I know I have plans one night next weekend,” I told him. “I’m just not sure which one.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll take whichever night you’re free.”

  Some people can’t take a hint.

  * * *

  John walked us to the exit, then left to catch the shuttle to long-term parking. I followed Kaitlyn to her car in the short-term lot. I waited until we were buckled into her Mustang convertible before I filled her in on the wedding and how I’d met John.

  “I didn’t think he was bad looking,” Kaitlyn said as she sped down the 405 Freeway. But Kaitlyn liked bald men. “At least you have a date for next weekend.”

  “I’m not going out with him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Besides the fact that I’m not attracted to him, he’s pushy and annoying.”

  “He likes you,” she said.

  One of Kaitlyn’s most annoying traits. She insisted on seeing the good in everyone. “But I don’t like him.”


  “You’re just scared.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You haven’t gone out with one guy since you and Scumbag broke up.”

  “Not true. I had lunch with that auto broker last month.”

  “That wasn’t a date. He was trying to sell you a car.”

  Kaitlyn was right about that. As soon as I told him I still had a year of payments left on my Acura, he asked the waitress for the check and never called again.

  “It’s been over a year Julie. It’s time.”

  “It’s only been eleven months and you know I spent most of that time working on the trial. I didn’t even have time to sleep, let alone date.”

  “I know, I know.” I was sure she was rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “All I’m saying is you need to get back out there.”

  “You should’ve been at the wedding.”

  Chapter 5

  Monday Morning Depression

  Even after a bad weekend, I still get Monday morning depression. It usually starts as an anxious feeling on Sunday evening, which turns into a mild unhappiness the next morning when the alarm clock rings, and blossoms into a full-blown depression the moment I pull into the office parking garage. My only consolation is that I know all of my coworkers are afflicted with the same disease.

  I arrived at the office at 9:25 a.m., my usual time. Six years ago when I’d started at Rosenthal & Leventhal right out of law school, I arrived at 9:00 a.m. But I quickly learned that any time I spent in the office prior to 9:30 was a waste. The Rosenthal of Rosenthal & Leventhal never arrived before 9:30.

  A few of the firm’s senior attorneys arrived at 9:29, but they’d already made partner so they could afford to be bold. Occasionally my friend Simone, who occupies the office next to mine, would sneak in at 9:45 a.m. But she always called her assistant in advance and told her to turn on her lights and computer before Rosenthal arrived so he would think she’d just stepped out to the ladies’ room when he made his morning lap around the office to count heads. My assistant Lucy, besides being completely incompetent, was also Rosenthal’s step-daughter, so I couldn’t get away with anything.

  After unlocking my own office door, turning on my own lights, and retrieving my own mail (this was one of Lucy’s mysterious illness Mondays), I followed my usual morning routine. I turned on my computer and checked voicemail while I waited for it to boot up, then I checked e-mail, snail mail, and skimmed Variety while occasionally admiring the view of the Santa Monica Mountains from my thirty-second-floor office window. By the time I finished, it was 10 a.m. Since this was Monday, and Rosenthal left the office every Monday morning for his weekly 11 a.m. appointment with his shrink two floors below us, that meant I only had to work for an hour before I got a break.

  * * *

  Simone walked into my office promptly at 11:02 for our Monday morning depression-reliever/bitch-about-our-jobs/weekend-catch-up session. She must’ve had a court appearance earlier that morning because she was wearing her conservative (for her) outfit – black summer- weight wool Armani jacket with matching skirt that stopped short four inches above her knee, four-inch pumps that brought her 5’8” frame to a full six feet, and her long, silky-straight, chestnut hair pulled back in a clip.

  “I could think of a million places I’d rather be today than here,” Simone said, flopping down in my guest chair.

  “So could I, but Jersey wouldn’t be one of them.”

  She sat up. “I almost forgot. How was the wedding?”

  I gave her the highlights.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Simone said after I’d finished, “but I think your mother may be right.”

  First Kaitlyn and now Simone. What was this, a conspiracy? “Consider yourself my ex-friend.”

  “Just hear me out,” she said. “Your sister was telling the truth about that article. I read it myself.”

  Before I could object to what I would’ve argued were the obvious flaws in the analysis, she put her hand up to stop me. “Assume for the sake of argument that the article is correct. That means you need to be married by the time you’re thirty-five.”

  “You’re supposing that I want to get married and have children.”

  “You know you do, so don’t bother denying it.”

  “Not true.” Simone leaned back in the chair, folded her arms across her chest, and puckered her lips. “Okay,” I said, “if you swear never to tell my mother, I’ll admit that I really would like to get married some day. But I’m still undecided about the kids.”

  “Agreed,” Simone said. “But since you haven’t affirmatively decided not to have children, you’ll want to keep your options open. Therefore, you’ll need to get engaged by the time you’re thirty-four so you can plan a nice wedding, or, in your case, so your mother can plan a nice wedding. And you’ll want to know the guy for at least a year first, which means you’ll have to meet your future husband when you’re thirty-three.”

  “I’m already thirty-two.”

  “Plenty of time to find a husband,” she said.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re engaged.”

  She stretched out her long, shapely legs. “Yes, but that’s only because I did lots of dating first. It’s really just a numbers game. You just haven’t met enough men.”

  “Meeting men,”—or at least ones I’m interested in—“isn’t as easy for me as it is for you. I don’t look like a model.”

  Greg, the other sixth-year associate in the firm and the only natural blond I know, leaned against the doorway to my office. “What is that I heard about models?” he asked.

  “You were standing outside the door listening, weren’t you?” Simone said.

  “Of course not,” Greg replied. “I was just walking by when I thought I heard you say some models were coming in and I wanted to offer my services—in case they needed an escort or something.”

  Simone stood up. “I don’t know how your wife puts up with you.”

  “I’m sure she considers herself a very lucky woman,” Greg said to Simone’s back as she walked out. To which Simone responded by slamming her office door shut.

  Some day I was going to figure out what made those two so combustible.

  Greg sat down in the guest chair Simone had just vacated and put his feet up on the corner of my desk. It was a good thing I hadn’t planned on getting any work done this morning.

  “What’s up, Greg?”

  “Nothing much,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you not to sell yourself short. If I were single, I’d go out with you.”

  “So you were listening.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but you’re missing the point.”

  “Which is?”

  “That it’s actually easier for women who look like you than for women who look like Simone.”

  This ought to be good. “How do you figure that?”

  “Because you’re approachable. A lot of guys don’t ask out the beautiful women because they’re afraid they’ll get rejected.”

  I knew I wasn’t a goddess, but I didn’t need Greg to confirm it for me. “So what are you saying? Men ask out ugly women because they think the ugly ones are so desperate there’s no way they’d turn them down?”

  “No,” he said. “What I’m saying is that a guy is a lot more likely to ask out a cute girl, like you for instance, rather than one who’s knock-down gorgeous, because he thinks he actually has a chance with the cute one.”

  I wasn’t sure which was worse, Greg’s theory or my desperately wanting to believe it was true. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. I’m sure if you put yourself out there you will have no trouble getting dates. You just need to get out more.”

  I was still skeptical.

  “Trust me,” he said and flashed me his reptilian smile.

  Before I could come up with a snappy response, the reminder window on my computer popped up. It was 11:50. Rosenthal’s fifty-minute hour with his shrink was up, which meant that it was time for the rest of us to
go back to work.

  Chapter 6

  The Scintillating Single Life

  I felt guilty for wasting almost the whole morning, so I paid penance by spending the entire afternoon on the most boring task imaginable: reviewing documents. By six o’clock, I’d sifted through seven banker boxes, over ten thousand sheets of paper, and I still hadn’t found the smoking gun. Probably because there was none. There never was, except, of course, in the movies and on TV. But I was still required to look.

  I was calculating the odds of getting caught if I snuck out early (less than 50% since Lucy wasn’t there to flub my excuse) when my computer dinged and my e-mail message indicator popped up on the screen. It was from Rosenthal. My and the rest of the litigation attorneys’ presence was required in the conference room at seven o’clock.

  * * *

  Simone and I groaned simultaneously. The long, narrow conference room table was covered with trays of sandwiches and bowls of salads. If Rosenthal was buying us all dinner, it meant he was planning on a late night.

  Simone, Greg and the other three litigators in the firm all went back to their respective offices to call their significant others. They wanted to warn them not to worry if they didn’t arrive at their usual time.

  I stayed in the conference room, alone. I didn’t miss Scumbag, he was a liar and a cheat, but I did miss having someone to call. That was the worst part about being single. No one worries about you if you don’t come home.

  * * *

  We ate all of the pastrami, and half of the turkey and roast beef sandwiches, and finished off most of the Caesar salad. Rosenthal showed up twenty minutes later with a specially prepared high protein, low-fat grilled salmon concoction, and we all had to breathe in the garlic fumes for ten minutes while he ate.

  After picking his teeth at the table and checking his hair in the reflection from the empty foil container, Rosenthal was ready to begin. “I called this meeting to tell you all about the barnstorm I had on the way to work this morning.”