Eye Candy (3 page)

6

Check out this guy,” Ann-Marie said, poking her finger at the laptop screen. “Oh, wow. A snake tattoo on his cheek. This guy's your type, Lindy.”

“Look at his eyes,” Luisa leaned over me, one hand on my shoulder, the other hand holding a can of Budweiser. “He is totally trashed. I'll bet he hasn't been sober since junior high school.”

Ann-Marie grinned. “I dare you to go out with him, Lindy. How about it?”

“No way.” I scrolled down to the next one.

A few days after the Eye Candy ad went online, I had dozens of answers. Now I sat in front of the laptop, my roommates huddled around me, reading the replies, the three of us hooting with laughter, sometimes shaking our heads in disbelief.

I scrolled past a boy who looked about fourteen but claimed to be twenty-five and bragged that he drove a red Hummer.

Luisa sipped her beer. “Maybe he has a red Hummer tricycle.” She and Ann-Marie burst out laughing.

“You two are enjoying this too much,” I grumbled. “You think it's some kind of game. But it's my
life
!”

“We're only trying to help you,” Ann-Marie insisted. “Whoa. Stop. You're going too fast. Look at this one.”

“Celebrity I Most Look Like: ‘Tobey Maguire
.
' ”

Luisa leaned closer to the screen. “Ohmigod. Poor guy. He
does
look like Tobey Maguire. Hey, what if it
is
Tobey Maguire and he replied to your ad and said the celeb he resembles most is Tobey Maguire. Wouldn't that be pitiful?”

I laughed. “Lu, we know you're from another planet, but you should try to hide it sometimes.”

She pressed the cold beer can against the back of my neck, and I let out a squeal.

Ann-Marie was gazing at “Tobey.” “Here's your chance to go out with a movie star—or a movie star lookalike,” Ann-Marie said.

“Pass,” I said. “Too short. I'd have to lift him over big puddles.”

Ann-Marie put on her serious face. “Okay, okay. We're looking for tall here. Stop. Check out this guy.”

R U HOT ENUF?

“And look. He has it right on his T-shirt.” I jabbed my finger at the screen. “R U HOT ENUF?”

“Bet he had that done special for him at the mall,” Luisa said. “I like the spiked-up hair. Where's his skateboard?”

“And read this,” Ann-Marie added.
“Reason to Get to
Know Me: ‘9 inches.' ”

“Too subtle,” I said.

I scrolled down to what had to be the most pitiful one of all. I let out a moan. “I don't believe this.”

BIG FAT LOSER.

I stared at his photo. Well, at least he was honest.

And underneath the photo, he had written:
“Won't
you help me find my good qualities?”

“It makes you want to cry,” I said. “The guy's looking for a sympathy date.”

Luisa snickered. “A mercy killing would be better.”

The next one was a possible.

“Jack Smith?” Ann-Marie narrowed her eyes at the screen. “That can't be his real name, can it?”

“It might be,” I said, scanning his reply. Very normal and sincere. He didn't seem crazy.

I sighed. Ben suddenly flashed into my mind. Like he was watching me. And how did I feel? Embarrassed. Looking for guys on the Internet while he . . .

Ben was gone, except for those moments when I saw him smiling at me from somewhere. Here's a secret: I kept the car-chase video game. I have it in my underwear drawer. Part of him is still with me, or something like that. I know it's stupid.

Luisa drained the beer can and crushed it in her hand. “What if your name was Jack Smith, and your whole life no one believed you?”

“And what if you looked like Tobey Maguire?” Ann-Marie added. “And had nine inches and drove it around in a red Hummer? Then you'd be totally cool, right?”

I sighed. “You two aren't helping me at all.” I nodded to the screen. “This guy is a possible maybe.”

Luisa made a face. “He's so straight. Like he works in the towel department at Bed, Bath & Beyond.”

Luisa is a strange girl, but I mean that in a good way. I'll never forget how we met. Someone at her office gave Ann-Marie tickets to a blues concert at the Beacon Theatre on Broadway. We weren't really into blues, but we had nothing better to do, so we went.

The show started about an hour late, and Luisa was sitting next to me and we started talking. She was really funny and seemed nice, and was really into blues music, which she talked about with amazing enthusiasm.

Ann-Marie and I were looking for a third roommate. We already had an ad in the
Village Voice
and on
Craig's List
. We had this big apartment at Seventy-ninth and Amsterdam, and our other roommate went home to Ohio, so we desperately needed a third person to help pay the rent, or we'd be hitting the streets.

Luisa had a sublet in the Village that was almost up. So, it seemed karma was on our side. She's been with us for nearly a year. But we don't see her that much since she works such long hours at the bar.

“You're really going to email Jack Smith?” Ann-Marie asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I think so. Check him out. There's something nice about his eyes.”

And that's how I ended up at
O, America!
as Jack's freebie date, watching him do the Whisker Dance and thinking about
101 Ways to Kill a Cat,
a book my older brother thought was hilarious.

Besides Jack, I found two other guys to reply to.

Colin O'Connor was really good-looking, with wavy dark hair, a great smile, and a dimple under his chin. He wrote that he was a mortgage banker, but
“please don't
hold it against me.”
He was one of the few guys who'd replied who wasn't wearing a T-shirt in his photo.

I also wrote back to Brad Fisher. He said he had been a journalism major and was working as a reporter for one of the weekly give-away newspapers. His note was really funny. He wrote that he was looking for
“someone who hates long walks in the moonlight, can't
dance, has no sense of humor, and doesn't care about
the whales.”

Kind of irresistible.

“So it's Jack, Colin, and Brad,” I said to my roommates. “I don't have high hopes. But maybe one of them will turn out to be fun.”

Luisa snorted. “You're crazy. You picked the three most boring guys.”

“Don't listen to her,” Ann-Marie said. “You'll find someone terrific, Lin. I know you will.” She hugged me from behind.

“Maybe you should go out with all three of them at once,” Luisa said. “That might make it more interesting. Or maybe pick five or six of them. Big Fat Loser, too.”

“Luisa, please—”

“Yes! This is awesome. You tell them it's a TV show. Like on Fox,” Luisa continued. “You chain them all to you, and they follow you everywhere. That way, you really get to know them. And then each week, you have a vote. Everyone votes, and you eliminate the most obnoxious one.”

The idea had us all laughing. It was a riot.

But the fun ended quickly.

It ended with one phone call.

7

I went out with Brad Fisher first. He was almost as tall as me, a wiry, thin guy, lots of energy. He had a birdlike look to him, a beaky nose that had been broken a few times in playground fights, he said. He brought it up—I didn't. His round brown eyes were perched very close together, close to his broken nose.

I liked his crooked smile. He talked out of the side of his mouth, like a gangster, and he could dangle a cigarette from his lips and talk at the same time, something I know he learned at the movies.

We got along pretty well, even though we didn't have a chance to talk much. He took me to Blondie's, a loud sports bar on Seventy-ninth Street, just a few doors down from my apartment. We split a huge platter of buffalo wings, very hot and spicy, and he had three beers to my one.

We had to shout to be heard over the crowd and the music, so we mainly smiled across the table at each other and kept wiping the barbecue sauce off our cheeks with our napkins.

Then we jumped in a cab, and Brad took me to Caroline's Comedy Club near Times Square to see Colin Quinn and a bunch of other stand-ups complain about their girlfriends and airline stewardesses and how stupid the mayor was.

Brad had another three beers to my one. And before I knew it, we were back uptown in front of my apartment saying goodnight. And I'd hardly learned a thing about him. His parents were Russian immigrants and he grew up near Coney Island, and his first after-school job had been taking tickets for the Cyclone, the famous roller-coaster there. And . . . what else?

What else about Brad? He was working as a reporter at the
New York Weekly,
a free newspaper filled with local news and politics and grocery store ads. But he said he was just doing that for experience. He knew someone at the
Daily News
who had offered to give him a try-out soon. After working in newspapers for a few years, he planned to move to TV news.

And what else?

I can't think of much else.

It was a chilly, damp evening. Spring just refused to arrive, even though it was May. I climbed out of the cab. Brad followed me out and stood with the cab door open behind him, saying goodnight. A car rolled by, one of those huge Suburban SUV's, blaring rap music loud enough for the whole block to enjoy, and I still couldn't hear what Brad was saying.

And then the SUV moved past. Brad held my hand. “You know, guys stare at you wherever you go,” he said. “Do you realize that? I mean, guys really look at you.”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said, “Does that bother you?”

He got this strange smile on his face but didn't say anything. And then he raised both hands and grabbed the back of my head.

He wrapped his hands tightly around my hair, and he pulled my face to his. Not gently, but hard. And he kissed me—a hard, dry kiss, pressing his mouth against mine so tightly I could feel his teeth.

It hurt. And I hated the way he held my head in place, like a wrestling hold. And when he opened his mouth and his tongue started to force my lips open, I jerked back. Grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands off my head.

I stumbled over the curb, gasping for breath, my heart pounding. My lips throbbed. Were they bleeding?

Brad stood with a crooked smile on his face. Almost as if nothing had happened. But he was breathing hard, too.

My whole body tensed. I balled my hands into fists. “Listen, Brad—”

“Sorry,” he said. “I . . . slipped.”

Slipped?

He reached for my hand, but I pulled it away from him.

“I'm a total klutz,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “Sorry.”

I stared hard at him. Was he for real?

“You coming, Mister?” the cab driver called.

“Hey, I'll email you,” Brad said. He didn't give me a chance to reply. He ducked back into the cab. The door slammed shut, and the cab pulled away.

I stood at the curb, licking my cut lip. It throbbed with pain.

Did he really slip? Was he just nervous?

I hurried into my building. Riding up the elevator, I thought about Brad's laugh. Such a loud, showy, angry laugh.

At Caroline's, Brad had laughed loudest at all the totally sexist jokes. He howled at every joke putting women down. And a guy who told joke after joke about blondes—
What kind of word-processing program can a blonde use? A pencil!
Ha ha ha—that guy made Brad roar.

Did he think I was a dumb blonde, too?

Well . . . I felt all mixed up about Brad. I mean, he was cute, like a big stork with that bird face of his and that crooked smile. And he was almost as tall as me. But what was with that kiss?

Now, here we are, one week later, with Jack Smith. We had to get back to him sometime, didn't we?

He's been doing the Whisker Dance and telling me his ideas on how to market Cat Chow. And I've been thinking about Brad, and Ben, and Luisa, and Ann-Marie, thinking about how I got into this, and trying to listen to Jack. I mean, trying to be nice and concentrate on what he's saying, but, come on, Cat Chow just isn't at the top of my Most Fascinating list.

We get out of the restaurant. I'm gulping like a fish for fresh air. “It's such a nice night,” Jack says. “Let's walk back to your apartment.”

The play was free, dinner was free—and now he doesn't even want to spring for two bucks for the subway to get me back to Seventy-ninth Street?

“I'm feeling kinda wiped,” I tell him. “Maybe I'll just jump in the subway over there.” I point to Forty-ninth Street. “Where do you live, anyway?”

“Hoboken. Right over the river.” He points west. “My dad lets me use a condo he owns. Rent free, do you believe it? It has the greatest view. I mean, why live in Manhattan when you can see it all from the other side?”

“Sounds great,” I say, trying to sound convincing.

“Well, I guess this is it,” he says, blue eyes crinkling up. Even the crinkling eyes don't win me over now. “I'm heading downtown. You know. The PATH train.”

You mean you don't
walk
back to New Jersey? Wow. Big spender.

“Well . . . goodnight, Jack. Thanks for the play and everything.”

He nods. “It was great.”

Two taxis squeal to the curb. The drivers, both big, burly men in turbans, jump out and begin screaming at each other. They're both waving their fists in the air, bumping each other with their broad chests, cursing each other, screaming, spitting on the pavement.

“I . . . I'd better go,” I say.

Jack nods again. We take a few steps away from the battling drivers. A crowd has quickly gathered on the corner to watch the fight.

Jack has to shout over the screaming voices. “Can I call you?”

Oh God. Did I give him my number? I don't remember giving it to him. How did he get it?

I don't want to encourage him. And I don't want to hurt his feelings. He's not a bad guy, really. Especially if you're into marketing for cats . . .

One driver shoves the other onto his back on a taxi hood. They begin pounding their fists at each other. The driver on his back reaches up and pulls off the other's turban. Grunting, cursing, they begin wrestling frantically for the turban, pulling it apart as they struggle. Finally, one of them heaves it into passing traffic, and a speeding SUV rolls over it.

“Jack, I've really got to go.”

“So can I call you?”

“Maybe. Why don't you email me?”

I see the disappointment on his face.

Two very young-looking police officers are jogging across Eighth Avenue, holding up their hands to halt traffic, hurrying to stop the fight.

Jack lowers his face to kiss me. I turn my head so his lips brush my cheek.

Again, I see his disappointed expression.

“Bye,” he says. He spins away, glances at the battling drivers, then takes off downtown.

Cross him off the list, I tell myself. Dull, dull, dull. He's history.

But nothing is ever that simple, is it?