With a Little Luck: A Novel (16 page)

“No kidding. But you both riled up a bunch of listeners. Great cross-promotion. Plus, we got seventy-five emails and counting from people saying they want you to go on a date.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say.

“You were already gonna go on a date with the winner.”

“He’s not the winner!” I say.

“He is now.”

“Is there not some law against this? Something that says you can’t pimp your DJs out for ratings?”

“Berry,” he says as he pushes his greasy strand of hair out of his left eye and back over his barren scalp. “What’s the harm?”

“There’s just general harm,” I say, really making no sense at all. Then I stretch the facts a tad for effect, adding, “There’s harm in you treating me like a prostitute.”

But the truth is that under normal circumstances there would be no harm. The truth is he’s actually really cute and smart and funny, and maybe in some other circumstance I would really like to go on a date with him. Ryan, that is, not Bill. But not these circumstances. First of all, he’s going out with me only because my date turned out to be in high school, and second, if I make one mild-to-extreme faux pas, his entire listenership will hear about it, in detail and embellished, I’m sure. No, thanks. And third, this technically makes Ryan Guy Number Three. Which I don’t necessarily want him to be. This cannot mean good things.

“Berry,” he says. “I really don’t understand your reluctance. This is someone you know. A colleague, if you will.”

“See, Bill,” I say, at my wit’s end. “That’s just it. The phrase you just uttered, ‘if you will,’ hasn’t come up at all—not once in this whole situation. Nobody has actually asked me if I will go on this date. It was assumed that I would go when it was some random caller, and again it’s assumed that I’ll go if it’s with Ryan. You even semi-threatened my job rather than just saying ‘Berry, will you go out on this date?’ ”

“Berry,” he cuts me off. I know where he’s going, and technically it’s my fault; now, if he asks nicely, I pretty much have to say yes. “Will you go out on this date?”

“No.”

“Berry …” he says.

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

Bill walks out, looking satisfied, and I shake my head, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.

Nat is practically jumping out of her skin with excitement when I meet her at the diner.

“Oh my God, you should have heard yourselves,” Nat says.

“Were we embarrassing? Was I a total idiot?”

“No, you were hilarious!”

“Really?” I ask, surprised because I don’t even remember exactly what we said, it all happened so fast.

“High-larious,” she reiterates. “Seriously. And you guys have amazing chemistry. Kind of like Joe and Mika, except you’re both single so it’s not icky. I felt like I was listening to two people fall in love. In the ‘Hate-at-First-Sight’ version.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t falling in love.”

“It was definitely falling in serious like,” Nat says.

“No,” I say. “He’s too full of himself.”

“He is not,” she says.

“Oh, you suddenly know him?”

“He was just messing with you. You started it.”

“He started it by being on my floor and eating the cake!”

“He was on the floor? Eating cake? Not gonna lie, Ber. Kinda hot. Very
9 1/2 Weeks.
”

“No, not on the floor. On the floor I work on and not hot. I mean … I guess technically he is pretty good-looking, and I suppose what would qualify as ‘hot’ if you were—”

“You totally like him,” she interrupts.

“What are we, thirteen? I do not.”

“Dude, I heard it in your voice,” she insists. “I know you.”

“You heard nothing. You know nothing.”

“Yeah, okay,” she says.

“So did I tell you the worst part?”

“The worst part about this terrible situation where the good-looking, smart, and funny guy wants to take you out on a date? No, by all means, tell me. Because I’m on three online dating sites, and the only guys who’re even remotely interesting are in jail. And can’t spell.”

“You’re lying,” I say.

“I’m not!” she says. “His headline said ‘Will Be Released from Prison Soon. Need a Date.’ So I thought he had our kind of sense of humor. ‘Ha ha, how clever,’ and we wrote back and forth for a bit before I realized that he was actually an inmate and wasn’t kidding. Nor was he trying to be cute when he used ‘California Penile Code’ in his subject line. I prefer it when men talk dirty to me on purpose.”

“Oh …”

“Yeah,” she says. “So from where I’m sitting, your ‘unfortunate’ date seems pretty exceptional, so all I can imagine being the ‘worst part’ is—what?—he’s taking you horseback riding at sunset?”

“Well, now I feel like an asshole for complaining.”

“What?” she goes on. “He’s flying you to Paris for dinner?”

“Actually you’re not too far off. We have to go in a helicopter around the city.”

“Oh my God, it’s like an episode of
The Bachelor
, except he’s not creepy, you’re the only girl, and I’m now starting to sort of hate you like I hate every other girl on that show.”

“I don’t want to go on a helicopter, and it’s not like a real date! It’s a fake date, made doubly fake because my first fake date still wears Underoos. Anyway, the date is really annoying in its forcedness and publicness—”

“And awesomeness?” she interrupts. “I’m sorry, I’m just not seeing the downside here.”

“You don’t understand, and I don’t expect you to, but let’s just make it about the helicopter. Helicopters are scary.”

“I disagree,” she says. “I think you’re going to have an amazing time, and I’m going to be completely jealous.”

“Then we’ll agree to disagree.”

“Agreed,” she says. “Or disagreed. Whatever.”

There are few things more exciting or more traumatic than getting ready for a first date. What do you wear? Does your apartment need to be clean in case you bring the guy home? Do you tempt bad fortune by cleaning in the hopes you’ll bring the guy home? Will the gods of fate find that presumptuous? Do you shave? Do you tempt bad fortune in the hopes that you’ll want him to discover you’ve shaved? Will the gods of fate find
that
presumptuous? These are all things that need to be considered. Clothes? Always stressful. I try on five different outfits and model them for Moose, who finally gets up and leaves the room, strongly suggesting the blue dress is a no.
Apartment cleaning? Sure, you always want your apartment clean, but the stress of having to do it in a mad rush at the last minute makes you get sweaty and need to take a whole other shower before getting dressed. Which leads us to the shaving thing. A lot of people say don’t shave. That way you will force yourself to behave and come across as less of a slut. But then Murphy’s Law will guarantee that you end up naked with the guy and he’ll think you’re a filthy Sasquatch.

Not that this is a real date.

Because it’s not.

When Ryan and I are seated at our table at Pace, the conversation flows naturally. So naturally, in fact, that the waiter comes to our table three times before we’ve even looked at the menu.

“What made you get into our not-so-glamorous business?” he asks me as he wrestles with a piece of bread that doesn’t seem to want to separate from the rest of the loaf in the bread basket.

“Music,” I say, and shrug. “There’s just never been anything I’ve had a more visceral reaction to. Memories, experiences … Pretty much everything in my life has a soundtrack that I can call up. I always just knew I wanted to work in music in some capacity, and I have no musical talent whatsoever, so … radio.”

“No musical talent?” he balks. “I find that hard to believe. In fact, didn’t I see you do a rendition of ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ at that charity karaoke event two summers ago?”

I’m completely taken aback. He knew who I was two summers ago? I pretend I’m not excited to glean this little tidbit.

“You have quite a memory,” I say. “That’s my go-to karaoke song. I don’t remember you singing that night.”

“That’s because I didn’t.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because unlike you, I actually mean it when I say I have no
musical talent. I had a blue plastic recorder when I was in grade school, and that was the beginning, middle, and end of my music career.”

“So what got you into radio?” I ask.

“My dad,” he says. “He worked as a sound engineer, and one day he came home from work and said, ‘Son, whatever you do … don’t go into radio.’ So of course I went into radio.”

“Are you close with your dad?”

“We lost him,” he says.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, I mean we don’t know where he is,” he says.

“Oh,” I say. “Did he go out for the proverbial pack of cigarettes and not come back?”

“Worse,” he says. “Ice cream. I’d just had my tonsils out, and when we got back from the hospital, he promised me all the ice cream I could eat. He never came home. To this day, I cry when I see the number forty-eight.”

“Why the number forty-eight?”

“Baskin-Robbins,” he explains. “Forty-eight flavors.”

“It’s thirty-one flavors.”

“Fuck.” He bangs his hand on the table. “I’ve been crying at the wrong number this whole time?”

I can’t help but smile. “None of this is true, is it?” I ask.

“I did get my tonsils out.”

“Was your dad a sound engineer?”

“Yes,” Ryan says. “And he did tell me not to go into it. And I was gonna listen. I got my degree in psychology and was going to be a therapist of some kind, but then my college radio show took off on a lark and … here we are.”

Our food arrives, and I cut off a piece of my cedar-plank-grilled salmon and put it on his plate. He feeds a piece of his chicken directly
to me. I’m trying not to like him, but he’s making it increasingly difficult.

“You have great teeth,” he says.

“Teeth?”

“Yeah,” he says. “They’re perfect. I’m sure everyone compliments you on your hair or your eyes—and don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of those, too—but those are some nice-looking chompers you have.”

The solicitous way he says “chompers” makes me burst out laughing, and I accidentally spit out a shard of salmon.

“I’m still learning to eat,” I say, completely embarrassed.

“I have that effect on women. They spit at me constantly.”

“I believe it,” I say, and wink, still mortified.

“But I like it,” he says. “Sometimes when I’m lonely I’ll go to the zoo and see if I can get a llama to spit at me.”

“You’re a weirdo,” I say. “Stop trying to make me feel better.”

“We should go to the zoo on our next date and see if we can get a large animal to spit at us. Make it a theme.”

Our next date? Did he mean to say that? Is he thinking this is really a date? A real date?

“Are you calling me a large animal?” I ask, but then quickly add, “Don’t answer that. I withdraw the question. But can we pick a different theme for the next date?”

“If you insist,” he says.

For the most part, Ryan is completely unlike who he is on the radio. He’s sweet and charismatic, he’s interesting and interested—he’s not just waiting for me to finish talking so he can speak, he really listens. I find myself totally engaged yet sometimes totally distracted and missing what he said completely because I’m thinking,
Oh my God, I might actually like this guy
.

Which would be bad. Because he’s Guy Number Three, and Guy Number Three, we know, is gonna be bad news. Already I’m regretting having told the restaurant that it was Ryan’s fortieth birthday. I know the fake birthday is an old gag, but I was going for the “old gag” in its most literal sense—saying he’s ten years older than he actually is.

When the waiters bring the cake over and start singing a fancy jazz version of “Feliz Cumpleaños,” he doesn’t miss a beat.

“C’mon, guys,” he says, all charm. “Look at me. Do I look like I could be forty years old? It’s
her
fortieth birthday.” And all eyes go back to me. He’s a wily one, this Ryan Riley. “And you don’t know this woman and cake. If you don’t bring her a bigger piece, someone might seriously get hurt.”

We’re still laughing as we exit the restaurant and walk to the valet. Ryan offers to drive us to the heliport, and I don’t refuse.

“I’m actually excited,” he says. “I’ve never been in a helicopter.”

“Me neither,” I tell him. “And to be honest, I’m a little scared.”

“Really?” he says, and places his hand on my knee and squeezes. His hand lingers on my knee, and I don’t want him to move it. “Don’t be nervous. It’s totally safe. We’re gonna be just fine.”

Somehow, when he says it I believe it. Plus, what are the odds of our parent company losing two DJs in one night?