The Last Single Girl (6 page)

"Of course you didn't. You're not the type of girl who goes out with married men."

Well, at least
someone
realized that.

"And your poor tea tray. I can't believe she broke your stuff."

"Don't worry about that. I bought everything in bulk. I have at least two boxes of stuff in the basement I haven't even opened."

"But you charged them for it…"

"Of course I did. I wasn't going to let them off the hook. You can't reinforce crazy behavior with dismissive attitudes."

That made sense, in a weird John kind of way.

"I think maybe I'll start doing my meet-ups somewhere else."

Because I didn't like the idea of putting John out like this again. And also because I couldn't stand the thought of him seeing me in yet another humiliating situation. He was seeing me at my lowest, over and over again, and then once more.

"Absolutely not. You'll meet the rest of those guys here. I don't want you out of my sight until we know you're not meeting up with some crazy person. This could have been far worse. That guy was just a jerk and his wife was just ticked off. What if they really were nuts?" He stood and shook his head. "No. You'll meet them here."

I could all but hear the
Where I can keep an eye on you
he didn't say. I'd never had a big brother, but I suspect they eyed you like that quite often.

"Alright. But any structural damage done is strictly your fault. You've been warned."

I waited for him to change his mind, to take the out. Instead, he grinned. "I think I can handle it. Now, why don't you head home before you incite a full-on riot?"

He was giving me far more credit than I deserved.

NINE

DATING TRUTH #5: The best way to put a bad date behind you is doing something you love… unless the something you love is just more dating. Don't do that.

THE HOLIDAY SEASON WAS coming to a head—only two days until Christmas. Everyone was rushing around with shopping bags of gifts to wrap and food to cook. I had one gift I was really looking forward to giving, and it meant going to the coffee shop.

I got to The Brew an hour early, a box securely tucked under my arm.

Once again, John was nowhere to be seen. But Abby—lucky me—was front and center at the counter looking like she'd remembered to bring popcorn for today's potential fiasco.

"Is John here?"

"Yes."

"Can I talk to him?"

"No."

I really hoped he was working on her counter-side manner.

"Why not?"

"He's on the phone with someone he keeps calling sweetheart."

Sweetheart? Interesting.

"Why didn't you just say he was on the phone?"

"You didn't ask."

I wasn't even going to argue the point. I was already learning when it came to Abby to just stay as far away from actual conversation as possible.

"Can you bring me a ladder?"

Luckily, Abby was more interested in what kind of mischief I was up to than creating trouble.

I unpacked the box, pulled out my toolbox, folder, and the hardware I'd bought and set it up on a table where I could reach everything easily.

Abby came back, toting an eight-step. Perfect. She eyed the table with its tools and then glared hard at me.

"I'm not sure I should let you do whatever you're about to do."

"And yet you let a woman hit me. More than once. Shocking." I unfolded the ladder and pushed the step locks into place. "Don't get in the way. This is my Christmas present to John. If he's on the phone, then it could be a surprise. So just… do what you do. Over there."

I pointed back toward the counter, too tired and too anxious about Date Five to be more polite.

Plus, polite had gone out the window when she'd watched my assault as if it were the latest
Housewives
show.

"Sarah?"

"Yes?" I glanced down from where I was measuring the lights on the ceiling.

"John told me I have to tell you I'm sorry for not helping you out or getting him or calling the cops or something the other day."

As apologies went, that one was pretty much a failure.

"Are you?" I shouldn't have asked. I should have just said okay and went back to work.

Abby looked at her feet, one finger twirling a pink-tipped lock.

"I'm sorry if you got hurt."

Well, that was a little better. The girl was painfully honest. Not to mention tactless and unkind. The exact opposite of John. How long could this mentorship last? And did her honesty extend to her own actions? I could only hope so. Because if she wasn't, John's soft heartedness could come back and really bite him in the rear.

"So, what are you doing with the lights?"

I was about to say,
changing them,
before I looked down and saw she was actually paying attention.

"I bought lighting fixtures that will allow him to showcase the art better. He had the wrong fixtures and the wrong bulbs. The wattage was way off. A large part of what sells art is how it's displayed."

"Because people are so superficial." She stated it. It wasn't a question.

I took in a deep breath and prayed for patience. Abby had been rubbing me wrong since the beginning and I couldn't figure out if it was that or the surety of her attitude that annoyed me.

"No. Because art that isn't lit well, doesn't show well. It would be like picking out music on an old cell phone. You wouldn't know what it really sounds like. Here," I motioned at the wall. "People don't know what the art really looks like. The lighting will help them see it. It will also look more professional without creating a spot-like focus or an overly bright area and ruin the feel of the room."

I took one of the paintings off the wall to see how they were hung, checked the fixtures, and climbed back down.

"But first, I need to lower all the paintings. They're hung too high. It's like dating a guy you always have to look waaayyyy up at. You get a crick in your neck no matter how hot he is."

I could have sworn she almost smiled.

"If you want to help, you can take the paintings down and lean them against the wall. I'll start moving the set-ups."

I tried not to show my surprise when she did.

With Abby's help, I moved all the paintings, switched out the four lights, and hung the new matte cream placards I'd made next to each piece.

We were already cleaning up when John came out of the backroom, mid-sentence through his next thing for Abby. "What are you guys doing?"

"Merry Christmas!" I was so excited I jumped off the last two rungs of the ladder and rushed over to pull him forward. "I relit your wall. You now have a museum quality wall with placards. Check it out." I pointed to the fresh new descriptions hanging beside each painting.

"Wow." He stared—just stared at the wall.

It dawned on me he may not have liked someone coming in and changing his shop around, even if they were paid a lot to do it professionally.

"Um, it's okay, right? That I changed it?"

"I helped." Abby stood next to the ladder with a weird expression, halfway between hopeful and defiant, bringing her lips together in what looked like it was trying to be a grin.

She hadn't waited. She'd stepped up to take the heat with me, or the thank you, but she hadn't left me out there on my own.

That apology—the really lame one she'd given me twenty minutes before—I mentally accepted it right then.

"No. This is great. I just… I just didn't expect it." John walked past me to stand a few feet from the wall. "It really does make a difference, doesn't it?"

I stood back, enjoying my work.

"This is great. Thank you." He turned, looking down at me with that soft smile of his.

It must have been the light because I hadn't realized how dark his eyes were, or that he had a bunch of freckles over the bridge of his nose, or how tall he was. Okay, so I'd noticed he wasn't my type of tall, but I guess five-ten was taller than I gave it credit for. Poor five-ten.

Plus, my world was filled with hard-polished guys. They just typically felt… bigger, larger than life.

"Not a problem. You've been great about the mess of dates I've had here. I figured it was the least I could do. Maybe you'll get more artists coming in if they see how strong your wall looks now."

"This is, truly, the nicest gift."

"I really just wanted to do something nice for you… a
thank you
."

"Best thank you ever. But, Sarah, you don't have to thank me."

Awww…

"What are friends for? And cafes? If you can't have crazy first dates in a café, where can you have them?"

This was true.

But they were so much easier when you shared them with a friend.

TEN

DATING TRUTH #6: When you can't get any lower, there's always a smug girl with a boyfriend there to knock the emotional step out from under you.

"I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO meeting this guy of yours." Claire had barely let me get my coat off before she started.

"How about you ladies? I'm looking forward to meeting all your guys too." Deflect! Deflect!

All the girls shifted to look my way. I half hoped one of them would come to my rescue. But Claire was driving this boat and no one was going to get in the way. I'd already talked to Becca anyway. She'd called me Christmas Eve to wish me happy holidays.

I was counting on Angie to have great news.

Or not.

"Yes," Claire drawled. "But you never talk about your mystery man."

"I'm… I don't know. You know when something feels too good to be true? It just comes out of nowhere and, Bam!—hits you over the head? I keep waiting to find out I was making it all up in my overactive imagination."

Claire mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'me too' before she was interrupted by the waiter.

"Why don't you guys tell me about your dates?" If I couldn't divert Claire, I could at least get the others chatting. Plus, I was actually interested in how things were going for Becca and Angie.

Becca launched into a description of the perfect holiday weekend. Airplane Guy had gone to visit her on the twenty-sixth and then flown the New York leg again. Everything was joy and happiness and mistletoe.

Angie was disappointed Jonathan wasn't able to spend Christmas with them, but she convinced her brother they weren't just sleeping together. That they were both serious. A call from Jonathan solidified that, and there was joy and happiness and unused mistletoe in the Brockman house.

Claire spent Christmas with her family and Marcus. I can only assume she found her version of joy and happiness shopping while he worked. I didn't want to know about the mistletoe.

As we wrapped up the meal, I handed Claire a check for the additional seat at our New Year's Eve table. Part of me hated to do it, but I knew if I waited till that night it would be even worse.

"Oh, honey. Why don't you keep your money until we see if you need the seat?"

"I need the seat." I said it as nicely as possible, pretending I didn't know what she was really saying. Also pretending that she wasn't right. "Plus, it's not like we can cancel a seat at this point anyway."

As soon as I said it, she got that look. That my-life-is-so-great-I-feel-bad-for-you look.

"Right. So, I'll see you on New Year's."

With Mr. Right. As soon as I found him.

ELEVEN

Love Again – I'm a widower who is looking to start the next part of my life. I know what a blessing a good relationship can be and want to share that knowledge and feeling with the right woman.

I WAS A LITTLE NERVOUS about Date Five. So many worries. Could I—if we got serious—deal with being with someone who had loved another woman that much?

There was such a difference between losing someone and leaving someone. I just wasn't sure.

But Date Five, otherwise known as Dave, sounded like a great guy. We'd been emailing since the first week and had moved to talking on the phone the second. He'd sent me a lovely little email while he'd been out of town for Christmas.

Now, December twenty-eighth, I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever find anyone, let alone a date for New Year's Eve.

I swung into The Brew feeling as if I'd come home for the holidays myself. I hadn't seen John—or Abby for that matter—since I'd given John his Christmas gift. After the day trip down to see my mom at her condo with her current husband—number five—where I sat through a meal where she counted my calories for me—six-hundred-and-twenty—and played with her collection of cats—three—I basically counted the hours till I could head home again.

Needless to say, my mother wasn't the highlight of my season.

Three days later I was still trying to recover from hearing about everyone who was married, how my career was boring, and how size eight was the new size twelve so maybe I should drop some weight.

I considered dropping one hundred and forty pounds in the form of my mother.

But The Brew? It was peaceful and easy. It was a comfy escape where I could chill out and be myself. It was—

"You look like you gained five pounds in your face over Christmas. What exactly did you eat?" Abby stood behind the counter, eyeing me as if I was trying to slip something past her.

"I'm sorry. Mom, is that you?"

"Whatever." She turned around and started putting my tea tray together while I stripped my coat and mittens off and hung them over a chair by the fire.

Glancing around, I was surprised to take in three filled tables. This was exactly the holiday cheer John needed for his business.

"Where's John?"

"Do I look like his keeper?"

"Kind of. You definitely like to keep track of everyone's business."

"Fine. He's out back doing something on his computer."

Huh. Probably some Numbers Guy finance stuff to reboot his new year.

I paid for my tea and carried the tray to my regular chair. On the coffee table was a little sign that said
Reserved at 3pm.
How sweet.

I checked out the art wall and saw someone had added a sign-up sheet for the artist's mailing list. I wished I'd thought of that myself. There were even two names on it that weren't John, Sarah, or Abby, so huge win.