JENNY LOPEZ HAS A BAD WEEK

‘Jenny Lopez, you are a delight.’

It had been a really bad week. I was broke; I was bored and boyfriendless. At least I had been, until now.

My date sat back in his chair and gave me a beaming smile. I couldn’t help but smile back. This was going down in the record books as one of the best first dates ever. Brian Williams was 35 years old, single and so, so cute. We’d met a couple of weeks ago at my friend Erin’s birthday party and, even though I hated to admit it, I’d pulled out every weapon in my flirting arsenal to get this date. It had taken until we walked (staggered) out to get cabs at four in the morning, but goddamn it, I’d got his number.

We’d been hidden away on the tiny back patio of Brooklyn Social for the last hour, laughing over the trials and tribulations of our day, screwball subway adventures and the general ridiculousness of Brooklyn. Time was flying by and I was a delight. Who didn’t love being told that? I’d made a hell of an effort. My hair was freshly washed, a few strands pinned back to tether the curls away from my glowing skin – I’d bought a new bronzer – and sparkly, lots-of-rest-because-I-wasn’t-working eyes. On the ensemble front, I’d gone pretty low-key, but the girls were making an appearance. Skinny jeans, white button-up tank top and heels. I looked as good as I was gonna get. Not that looking good had helped since I’d gotten back from LA. At least not until tonight …

‘So what do you do?’ I asked, readying myself for the bad news. In days gone by, it used to be my first question, but these days it didn’t mean anything. Bankers were broke, musicians were loaded; the world was topsy-turvy.

‘I’m a writer.’ He nodded slowly as he spoke and placed his hands on his knees. ‘Wow, it’s taken me a really long time to be able to say that out loud and mean it.’

‘That’s great.’ A writer, OK, I could work with that. What I couldn’t work with was the fact that my drink had been dry for at least fifteen minutes. Red flag maybe, but hardly a strike. ‘What sort of stuff do you do?’

‘Yeah, so I guess I identify most closely with like, Nietzsche or Kierkegaard.’ He pushed his elaborate black glasses frame back up his nose. ‘And you know, Ayn Rand changed my life. Ayn Rand and Bukowski, you know?’

And there it was. Strike number one.

I nodded, staring into my empty glass before taking another sip of the gin-flavoured melting ice and closing my eyes. One strike in one hour, though – not too shabby really.

‘I guess it’s difficult for a woman to understand those writers,’ he said, before I could fathom a response. ‘So you’re not a reader; not a deal breaker.’

Strike two.

I thought about the stack of dog-eared books piled up at the side of my bed but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t need to defend my library of self-help guides, travel guides and each and every book in the
Twilight
series to my formerly awesome date.
Besides, I’d read Bukowski and Rand and, in my humble opinion, they were books for assholes.

‘It’s not great but,’ he lifted the dregs of his locally brewed beer to his mouth, ‘not a deal breaker.’

Something terrible had happened to the city while I’d been away. Five months in LA and all the eligible men had vanished. That, or I’d become invisible. Or a troll. And since I was literally running my ass off every morning in the ninety-degree heat, it couldn’t be that. I figured they could still smell LA on me. Nothing like some time on the West Coast to poison New York men against you.

I studied Brian Williams from across the tiny cast-iron table on the back patio of Brooklyn Social. Usually I refused to venture out of Manhattan for a first date, but I’d been back for almost a month and it had been slim pickings. He was cute. Tall enough (that is, taller than me in heels), short dark hair, the heavy framed glasses I’d thought were quirky at Erin’s party. Now they just seemed like some awful affectation. They were so non-prescription. This was what happened when you had nothing to say for yourself, I realized, you hid behind props and buzzword authors. Saved a lot of time and effort in becoming a useful human being.

‘So, who do you write for?’ Ten points to me for at least trying. There was a vague, vague, vague chance he was just a little awkward and not a total ass-hat after all. ‘My best friend writes a column for
Look
magazine.’

‘
Look
magazine?’ He smiled to himself. ‘Interesting. Well, my writing runs a little deeper.’

Because badmouthing my best friend was a sure-fire way to secure a second date. Strike three.

‘And you’re published?’ I asked with as much innocence as I could muster.

‘Uh, no,’ he was getting less cute by the second. Thirty-five? Really? ‘It’s about the craft, not the reward.’

‘So what do you actually do?’

What I really wanted to say was: ‘Then maybe you should stop introducing yourself as a writer, dickwad.’

‘Right now I’m spending a little time in photography retail.’ He waved his hands around a lot, the sleeves of his vintage Strand bookstore T-shirt rolling up his skinny arms. ‘That’s my other passion. I actually show my work in a real-time gallery, on tumblr. You should check out—’

‘You work in a camera store?’ I translated. ‘And you have a blog?’

He gave me a cool, level stare. Amazing how quickly things could go from great to ‘I’d rather gouge out my own eyes with splintered chopsticks than look at you for one more second.’

‘So what do you do with your spare time?’ He sat back and took a good look at my rack, apparently deciding my boobs made it worth hanging around a little longer. I was regretting my choice of tank top now. ‘And don’t say watch TV because I don’t even have one. Television is a cancer.’

And yet all I could think about was whether or not there would be a
Glee
rerun on when I got home. In thirty minutes.

‘You know, I’m gonna get a drink.’ I gave him a dazzling smile, pulled my long, loose curls into a ponytail and then let them drop around my shoulders. My best friend Angela referred to this as my signature stripper move, but hey, I might as well give him something to really regret. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘I thought you were never going to ask,’ he said with a smirk. Dates might have been thin on the ground but going Dutch on the first date? More like going douche. And now it was time for me to go home. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Generally speaking, I didn’t like to lie. It was bad for the soul and – way more importantly – it was bad for the complexion, but there was no polite way of saying, ‘Hey pretentious asshole, you’re wasting precious seconds of my life. I need them. Byesies.’ I didn’t care that he worked in a camera store and I certainly didn’t care that he wasn’t a published writer – if you refused to date everyone who had ever put pen to paper but never had their work published, you’d be limiting your dating pool to investment bankers and men without hands. And even the guys without hands probably had some sort of app on their iPad to type for them. Actually, a guy without hands might actually be a better bet than an investment banker these days.

What I cared about was that he was the kind of guy who would always think he was better than you, no matter who you were, what you did or how awesome you were at doing it. I could have told him I was Florence Nightingale and he would have taken issue with the fact I was working with the troops instead of impoverished kids in the projects.

It had been so long since I’d met anyone who, well, wasn’t. I knew it was possible – most of my friends had awesome boyfriends and husbands – but all I
seemed to find were the kind of sleazebags who thought they could slap you on the ass on the way to the restroom, or Brian Williamses.

I skipped up the steps out of the garden and sidled through the narrow bar, my heart beating harder with each step I took closer to freedom.

‘Hey!’ I turned around – as did everyone sitting at the bar – to see Brian Williams following behind me. ‘I was just going to change my order – where are you going?’

‘Home,’ I admitted. ‘Order from the bartender.’

Before he could reply, I leapt out of the door and into a passing cab.

Bye Brian Williams.

‘Thirty-Ninth and Lex?’ I asked the driver as I threw myself across the back seat. It wasn’t that I hadn’t come to love Brooklyn, I had. Sort of. Ever since my former roommate and current BFF, Angela, had moved out here, I’d kind of had to. But as soon as the tyres of the taxi hit the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan’s skyscrapers twinkled in the twilight, I felt better. It was as if a tightness in my chest eased, like I could breathe again. If only I weren’t headed home alone. Again. I dug my cell phone out of my eye-wateringly beautiful watermelon leather Mulberry Alexa and relaxed.

‘Pick up, Angie.’ I sang into the handset while slipping my foot out of my shoe and turning off the in-taxi TV. Worst invention known to man.

Angela Clark, my best friend and confidante, picked up on the first ring. She had just the right touch of OCD about things like that to make her near perfect. If only she’d had the same OCD about doing the dishes when we’d lived together.

‘Hi, are you OK? Is everything OK?’

There hadn’t been one phone call that didn’t start with that exact same sentence since she moved out a month ago.

‘Everything’s fine.’ I saw the Woolworth Building and knew that it was. ‘Just another bad date.’

‘It’s summer,’ Angela theorized. ‘The heat makes boys crazy.’

‘Maybe.’ I shucked my purple Jimmy Choo mules to the floor and held my toes up for pedicure inspection. Flawless. As toes should be. ‘I’m just kinda sick of it.’

‘Any news on the job front?’ she asked. ‘Did you hear back from anyone yet?’

The only subject I might have preferred not to discuss than my date was my search for gainful employment. I’d spent many happy years working as a hotel concierge until I’d finally given in, reached for the stars and spent six months in LA working as a stylist. Between a little natural talent (OK, I’m being modest, I was awesome) and a lot of luck, I’d managed to bag some pretty sweet gigs. But when you weigh that up against living with a high-class hooker, there really wasn’t a lot of choice when my lease came up for renewal. And besides, as I told myself at the time, it was
styling
. I could be a stylist anywhere. Except, uhh, no.

‘Everyone in New York hates me,’ I whined. Hyperbole? Me? Didn’t you hear, I’m not a reader. ‘They’re all like, oh, we were hoping to work with someone with more experience. The only place that called me back was MTV.’

‘To style
Jersey Shore
or
Teen Mom
?’ Angela asked with a laugh.

‘
Jersey Shore
,’ I whispered back.

‘Oh, Jenny.’ She didn’t know it, but on occasion Angela Clark sounded exactly like her mom on the phone. ‘You get out what you put in, you know that. If you’re putting negative energy out there, you’ll get negative results.’

And sometimes she sounded just like me.

‘Thanks for the pep talk.’ The Lower East Side was alive with people as the cab cruised through town. Well, it was a Tuesday. And wasn’t Tuesday the new Friday? Or was that Thursday? I was so out of touch. ‘I just don’t want to have to go back to the hotel.’

‘You loved working at The Union,’ she reminded me. ‘And they would totally take you back.’

‘But that’s just it,’ I replied. ‘It’s going back. I … I just can’t.’

‘I understand, I do. I just don’t want you to be bored and miserable.’

It was a uniquely English ability to know how to point out the obvious problem without being, well, obvious. I was bored. I was miserable. But I wasn’t going back to The Union. Besides, the lack of work was only half the issue. Both Angie and I knew the real reason I’d come back from LA, and it was six feet tall,
blond and went by the name of Jeff. Heartbreak beat out hookers and homesickness every time.

‘I know.’ I was too tired to get into it. At 9.15 in the evening. Jesus. ‘We still getting lunch tomorrow?’

‘Yep,’ she confirmed. ‘Twelve, Noho Star. Are you sure you’re OK? Do you want to come over?’

An evening in front of the TV with my best friend and her perfect boyfriend? I’d rather go back and apologize to Brian Williams. I was happy for Angie, I was, and it wasn’t like she and Alex hadn’t faced their ups and downs, but I still hadn’t figured out how she got to move here from England and hook up with one of the hottest guys in the city right away. Some of us had been putting in the groundwork for years. Actually, there was a chance I’d put in a little too much groundwork and that was part of the problem, but you know what they say: practice makes perfect.

‘I’m good,’ I gave her a yawn to demonstrate just how fine. ‘Just gonna take a bath and hit the hay. An early night won’t hurt me.’

‘No, but five in a row will,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re going out this weekend.’ It sounded more like a threat than a promise. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

I dropped the phone back in my bag just as we pulled up outside my apartment. Just two minutes and seven flights of stairs until I was snout deep in a tub of Chunky Monkey. Live the dream, Jenny Lopez, live the dream. Yeah, it had been a pretty bad week.