Liar's Guide to True Love (10 page)

Wedding Planning Tip: I once had a bride who wore a
crown
at her wedding—against my advice, but she wanted something “fun.” It was not a tiara, not a veil, but a Miss Universe meets Miss America
crown.
Why would I advise against it, if that was what the bride thought was fun? It was because she was a triathlete who never owned a formal dress until she bought a wedding gown. Remember, you want to look your best at your wedding, but you still want to be You.

In case you didn’t notice, I intentionally made Saks our last appointment before my date so that I had a place with a bathroom, no one to notice how long I took in it, and if for some slight chance I didn’t have everything I needed in my bag, I could always purchase whatever clothing, shoes, jewelry, makeup, perfume I might suddenly need. In fact, I realize that since we skipped Kleinfeld’s I have enough time to get a little makeover at the Bobbi Brown counter. Now, before you think I’m just being
gauche
for doing this, let me remind you that I know all the ladies who work at this counter since I’m often bringing my clients here to try on colors for their wedding day. I see Melissa today, who I know
adores
doing other people’s makeup, and thinks it’s a kick to doll me up for a big date.

My mother calls again while I am in the cosmetics chair, and I try not to move my face too much as I answer. “Hello,” I say through gritted teeth, so it sounds more like “Hllurgh.”

“Cassandra, is that you?” Who else would it be on the other end of my cell phone? It’s not like she could have misdialed since I know I am preset number 1. “Oh, I thought I would just leave a voicemail since you didn’t have a signal, but I guess you have one now, isn’t that odd? Anyway, I was talking to Emma yesterday and she said you still haven’t called. You know she and Robert are trying to have a baby, and it’s been a few months now, and I think it is making her anxious. But between you and me, I think maybe they just aren’t being
intimate
enough, you know?” She is taking this Friend Mom moment way too far.

“Mom, I really can’t talk right now,” which is not an exact exaggeration since Melissa is done with my eyes and is trying to apply a lip brush to the portion of my mouth that isn’t obscured by my cell phone. Not to mention that the single, older sister really cannot comment on the sex life of her sibling
to their mother
in a department store. I am already amazed at myself for maintaining enough composure not to force Melissa into applying lip gloss onto my incisors. Once I’ve hung up Melissa finishes applying the gloss in Aubergine, and hands me a mirror. She has transformed me from my all-business daytime look to positively siren-esque. I love the smoky-eye look that I have never been able to do for myself, no matter what the magazines say. I am convinced her expertly applied mascara makes my eyes look twice as large. My skin looks flawless and luminescent. I am about as close to looking like a femme fatale as I ever will be—just perfect for showing Nick that I am not that shrinking violet that he met last week. In fact, I like the gloss so much that I purchase two of them—one for my bathroom at home, and one for my Prada arsenal, since that is the one part of my makeup that I can re-create.

It has started to rain now, and I don’t mean one of those little summer sprinkles. The sky has suddenly turned grey, and it is pouring so hard that the rain is jumping back up after hitting the sidewalk. Other customers are staring as people off the street are ducking into the Saks foyer. After I thank Melissa profusely, I duck into the ladies room to reapply deodorant, and to stick my shrug into my purse. I run a brush through my hair and put on the chandelier earrings. Even under the fluorescent lighting, I haven’t looked this good for a date in ages. Professional makeup can really do wonders, and not just for brides. I decide to change into my satin heels in the cab, so that they stay dry.

My luck is with me tonight. Even though it has decided to pour, I was able to duck into a cab just as someone else was getting dropped off at Saks. It’s only a few minutes’ ride to the little Italian restaurant in Chelsea where I am meeting Nick. So I have barely enough time to make sure my mascara was waterproof (more good luck!), to shake out my hair a bit and to slip on my heels.

When I get to the restaurant, the lighting inside is low, with a simple candle on each table—so romantic! It is the perfect setting for my look tonight. Nick has already arrived and is seated at a corner table for two. I straighten my shoulders and strut confidently toward him. I am wearing my best little black dress that shows off just enough skin, heels that are comfortable as they lengthen my look. What’s not to be confident about tonight?

Nick stands to greet me and he looks amazing. He has clearly just gotten a haircut recently, and is wearing a button-down blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to just below his elbows. He gives me the quickest once over, lingering a little at my legs. So he is a leg man, I think, glad to have worn a dress that comes to midthigh. I lean in to greet him with a quick air kiss by his cheek. He smells good. No cologne, just that clean, soapy scent of a man who has recently showered. We sit down and he orders a bottle of red wine without the pretentiousness of someone trying to impress a sommelier. “I like your earrings,” he says. “Nicely designed.” I am beaming—a man who can appreciate fine jewelry, not at all in an overly feminine way, just someone who can appreciate creativity and workmanship. He is an architect after all.

Naturally we start talking about how we each know Kate, and between anecdotes about her and the wine to relax me, just like that the ice is broken. I am positively Charming. I tell him about the time Kate and I crashed what we thought was a superchic, A-list-only downtown loft party back when we were in our early twenties and prone to do those sorts of things. It turned out to be a Bar Mitzvah. Kate pretended to be the thirteen-year-old guest of honor’s coming of age present, while charming his older male relatives into not caring about our crashing. I describe the two of us being lifted in chairs in celebration of our “superchic” night out, and Nick is laughing out loud. He sees how Fun I can be, see?! We are having such a great time we forget to order dinner, until the waiter comes over for the
third
time.

We finally start looking over the menu, and it turns out we enjoy the same foods, we are both squeamish about sweetbreads. He tells me a story about how his younger sister used to love sweetbreads as a teenager, and would order it every time their family went out for special occasions. And then she found out what they were, and since then has become a vegan. He tells this story with just the right amount of detail and humor. I learn that he has one sister and one brother, both younger. They grew up outside of Philadelphia, and his parents have been married for thirty-five years this past March. His eyes are actually hazel (I thought they were brown). He has a small dimple in his left cheek, but only when he smiles a certain way, and one of his incisors is just slightly crooked and completely adorable.

We share a caprese salad appetizer and Nick makes a comment about how he likes this restaurant because they get locally grown produce when the Union Square farmer’s market is in town. He goes on to tell me how he started at a large architecture firm right out of college, but just recently moved to a smaller firm that does a lot of work using sustainable/renewable resources and designs to use alternative sources of energy. Cute with a Conscience. His ex-girlfriend must be a fool, I decide. “So you’re not one of those people who is constantly obsessed with reducing their carbon footprint, are you?”

He chuckles. “Not at all. I like the idea of sustainable luxury too. Some of these apartment buildings that I’ve been working on have more amenities than you would think could work on solar power. Besides, I enjoy a great steak too much to worry about methane gas.”

“Mmmm, definitely can’t give up steak! People are amazed that I can pack away an entire porterhouse.”

“Well, we’ll have to get out to Peter Luger’s one of these days, won’t we?” A request for a second date before the entrée has even been served? A reference in first person plural? I look up from my piece of mozzarella, and yes, I gaze into his candlelit eyes like in the most clichéd romance novel. His expression makes it clear that he knows exactly what he said.

“My favorite place for porterhouse? Absolutely.” The entrées arrive. They look delicious. My date looks delicious, and I swear, this may just become The Best First Date Ever. Or at least in a long while. I start to think that I didn’t have to worry at all about my embarrassing purple polka dot underwear incident. He probably didn’t even notice after all. We get so absorbed in our conversation, and in tasting each other’s food. I feed him a taste of my gnocchi, and he wipes a little sauce from my cheek and it feels completely natural and at ease. I don’t even notice the other diners, what they are eating, if they are even the same people next to us as when I came in. So it’s not until I hear the telltale utensil clanking against glass that we realize that a couple just got engaged, and the maître d’ is toasting the bride and groom to be. I am grinning and raising my glass to them, until I notice Nick shaking his head as he turns back toward me.

“I have nothing against marriage,” he says, “but I sure hope they don’t have one of those over-the-top weddings that seem to be all the rage these days. I read somewhere that weddings can cost into the six figures in New York. Can you imagine? For a
party?
” He chews on a piece of lobster. “I went to one a couple of months ago where they released doves after the ceremony, and then did fireworks at the end of the reception. That was
before
the morning-after breakfast they brought in at 4 a.m. Unbelievable, huh?”

I swallow and take a sip of wine, as if trying to clear my throat to respond. Elton had told me about that wedding. Every detail had been
exquisite
even by Elton’s standards, and I had been envious that I hadn’t been the one to put it together. “Unbelievable,” I respond.

“It’s incredible really, how American society has come to support an entire industry around weddings. I mean, there are actually people who make a living off of party planning and exploiting people’s emotions to upsell them on flowers and cake?” He is so impassioned, if the topic had been anything else, I would be enthralled as opposed to sick to my stomach. “Sorry, a little too much on the first date, huh? You probably think I’m a total weirdo. It’s just that a good friend of mine got into a lot of credit-card debt and financial trouble trying to pay for their wedding…Long story. So change of subject okay? Should we order dessert?”

We decide to share a tiramisu, and I am starting to feel like our date is back on track. And then he asks, “So I felt like we talked so much about me tonight. What do you do for a living?” I don’t miss a beat.

“I’m an account executive in advertising. So I manage the client relationship and work with the creative team at the agency.”

“That’s amazing! Which agency?”

I swallow a bit of tiramisu. “Greyson Advertising.”

“Oh, do you work in that big building right there on 48
^th
Street? I pass it every day on my way to work. We’re right off of Third on 47
^th
. Not as nice of a building as yours, but you know, we’re growing.”

Does Mia work on 48
^th
? I
think
so. I swear, I think I’ve met her on some corner near there. “Yeah, it’s great. The hours are really long and I barely leave the building some days.”

“Do you have a demanding client? What account do you manage?”

I pretend to be chewing to buy a second to think. Oh gosh, Mia always has product samples of something. Mascara? Eye shadow? Lately it’s been cold medicine. She must be on a new account. But hell, if he asks me anything about pharmaceuticals, I will have absolutely no idea. Does he have anything against cosmetics? “Maybelline. You know, the makeup? ‘Maybe it’s Maybelline?’” He is nodding his head and smiling. He is impressed. I have impressed him with my fake job. With Mia’s real job. Mia has impressed my date.

We finish up dessert and are standing outside the restaurant in that awkward way when neither one of us wants to leave, but there is no reason to stay. It has stopped raining, and I have decided to walk home. He eagerly offers to walk with me, and then to catch a cab back to his apartment in Soho from there. I love that he wants to spend more time with me, but makes sure not to presume that he will be asked in. (And no, I never ask a guy back to my place on the first date, no matter how much Fun I’m trying to make him think I am).

We walk slowly across town—just slow enough to continue to enjoy each other’s company. He is just a couple of inches taller than me in these heels. I love that he is not overly tall, and that I can easily maintain eye contact with him. It has been a long while since I have been this excited about a first date and what it will end like. That flutter that comes from a new romance, when you know, just
know
that you have chemistry. I don’t even feel
that
foolish when I trip on an uneven sidewalk. It gives me a reason to grab a hold of his arm. “Those heels are…” He bites his lip, and I see that adorable crooked tooth again.

“High, yeah. Funny, I don’t usually have a problem walking in them.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m walking with you. I’d better hold on to you so that you don’t fall.” He takes my hand. His palm is a little sweaty, so maybe it’s been a while since he has had a great first date too?

“My building is just down this block, the one with the green awning.” I say. I want to give him plenty of notice. We are walking slower and slower.

“Nice building. Is there a doorman?”

“Oh yeah, one of those nice old guys who reminds me of my grandfather works the night shift. He likes to joke about my hours whenever I get home from a late
work event.
”