What Love Looks Like (5 page)

        
“Kind
of?” she asked, perplexed, “Who is he?”

        
“I
met him at the restaurant. It was a few weeks ago on your day off. He had a
lunch event, and we immediately clicked. We’ve been texting ever since.”

        
“All
you’re doing is texting the guy and already you’re watching your figure? What’s
his deal? Where does he live?”

        
“He
lives in New York, and he’s thirty-one. Oh, and did I mention he’s
gorgeous?
He’s in sales for a software
company. And he comes to Columbus sometimes. I’ll pull up his Facebook picture
for you.”

        
“What’s
the point of a long-distance relationship?” Jenna asked as I navigated my
iPhone. “It’s not like you have much time off to travel.”

“Well, it’s better
than no relationship. Plus, that’s easy for you to say—you’re married.” I
enlarged Jay’s Facebook picture on the screen.

        
Jenna’s
eyes widened, and she nodded at his obvious hotness. “Don’t remind me.”

        
I
found Jenna’s frustration with her husband honest, refreshing, and at times
humorous, especially compared to the way my other friends spoke of their men,
with rainbows and butterflies dancing in their eyes.

        
“He’s
asked me to visit a couple of times now, but I want to take it slow,” I said.

        
“That’s
smart. Being that good-looking means he can’t be a good guy. It’s a universal
law.”

        
“That’s
not true. He
is
a good guy. He’s
handsome and sweet and texts me all day, every day.”

        
“Well,
good for you, Elle. Cheers! Oh wait, I’m drinking alone,” Jenna said
despondently. “Well, I won’t be for long. Adler’s on his way here.”

        
“Ryan?”

        
“Yep.”

        
“Great—thanks,
Jen.” I said, sarcastically.

        
“What
did I do?”

        
“You
know he makes me uncomfortable. He’s just so . . . so unapproachable.”

        
“Well,
today you two can finally get to know each other outside of work. Plus, Nick
and Gwen are coming too, so there are other people you can talk to.” Nick was
another assistant manager like Jenna, and Gwen was an assistant from the Dublin
location, and I was friendly with both of them. But Ryan was another story.

“Maybe I’ll have
that mimosa after all.” I flagged down the flamboyantly gay waiter.

        
Just
then, a text from Jay appeared. He was writing to let me know that he’d be back
in Columbus in two weeks for a one-day trip to follow up with a customer from
the luncehon. I wanted to scream ‘hurrah’ in the middle of the bar. Jay was
coming back! I was over the moon.

        
I
wrote back that I was free for dinner, to which he replied,
Perfect. Can’t wait to see you again.
My
stomach fluttered and my cheeks flushed. Jay’s text messages had the same
inexplicable effect on me that I'd experienced when we met, even though our
relationship had consisted of almost no face time at all.

        
Nick
and Gwen arrived at Union. I’d had drinks with them once or twice before
whenever Jenna arranged a work outing. Moments later, Ryan strode in. It was
the first time I'd seen him outside of work. I took note of his appearance,
which incidentally was a lot more laid-back than his suited-up, coiffed
professional look. His hair was more disheveled, and he wore jeans with a dark
blue wash and a black cotton track jacket and white Puma sneakers. It was a
sporty, stylish look, and I almost did a double take when he first approached
the table. His body looked a lot more impressive than I’d realized it was, and
I could actually see shoulder and chest muscles bulging through his top, though
not in a tacky, Jersey sort of way.

        
Ryan
was smiling when he arrived and seemed more at ease than I’d ever known him to
be. He was seated across from me and next to Jenna. Gwen and Nick were both to
my right. Each of them ordered a Bloody Mary, and Ryan asked for a light beer.
The four of them mingled and discussed the previous weekend at the restaurant,
a conversation that I couldn’t really take part in, as my position within the
company was a little different. Some of the wait staff saw me as a corporate
drone, which I suppose was technically true, but the reality was that I
couldn’t have cared less if their shirts were bleached and starched or if their
earrings were larger than the size of a quarter like the big bosses did.

“So how was your
weekend, Elle?” Ryan asked me with a straight face, as the other three carried
on talking shop. He was clearly trying to involve me in conversation, which I
thought was considerate.

        
“Relatively
uneventful.”

        
“Bummer.”

        
“Yeah,
I don’t have the most exciting social life. Almost all of my friends are
married now. I took my dog to the park a few times, got some things done around
the apartment, and that’s about it.” I was well aware how uninteresting I
sounded.

        
“A
homebody,” he said. “I like that.”

        
“How
about you?”

        
“Worked
twenty-seven hours in two days—nothing out of the ordinary.” He took a
sip of the beer from his frosty mug. “I don’t have much of a social life
either,” he said with a wink.

“Are all of your
friends married too?”

        
“Well
yes, but my lack of a social life is because I work all the time. But yeah,
most of my friends are married
and
have
kids now. Once you get to my age, they drop like freaking flies.”

        
“And
what age is that?”

        
“I’m
thirty-six.”
 

        
“I
would have guessed thirty-two,” I said.

        
He
smiled. We’d never had such an easy rapport before. I wondered if maybe we had
a shot at being friends after all.

        
“You’re
too kind. You must be what, twenty-six, twenty-seven?” He was probably rounding
down so he wouldn’t offend me.

        
“Twenty-eight,”
I was trying not to think about my twenty-ninth birthday in August. “So can’t
one of your married friends set you up?” I changed the subject back to Ryan,
knowing that he had the reputation in the restaurant of being a terminally
single guy. I was being nosy, but it was the first time we’d ever talked about
our personal lives, and I wanted to milk it as much as I could. The better I
got to know Ryan, the better our working relationship would become.

“I guess they
could,” he said, “but I’m not really looking to date right now. I work too
much.”

“You won’t be able
to use that excuse when the right person comes along.”

“I guess not. But
I was engaged three years ago, and when that broke off I just really didn’t
have it in me to start dating again. And now I’ve just gotten used to my own
routine.”

        
“I’m
sorry to hear that. Can I ask why it ended?”

“Well, technically
she broke it off,” he said, “When she decided to sleep with someone else.”

        
“Ouch!
I’m so sorry.”

        
“Don’t
be sorry. I should have seen it coming. My seventy-hour-a-week schedule drove
her into the arms of someone else. At least that’s what she told the therapist
she forced me to see with her.”

“What a lame
excuse.” I felt sympathy toward Ryan for the first time since I'd met him.
    

“What about you,
ever come close to getting married?”

        
“No,
not really. I lived with someone a few years back, but he had a drinking
problem that I couldn’t deal with, so I broke it off.”

“Yeah, that’s
definitely not something you should put up with. So,” he said, “you’re on the
market now?”

        
“Well,
technically yes.”

        
“Funny—I
always just assumed you were taken.”

        
“Well
I am kind of, uh, talking to someone.” I was excited to bring Jay back to the
forefront of my mind and to make him the subject of conversation with someone
other than Maureen and Jenna.

        
“Well
that’s great,” he said. “I hope this one works out for you.”

        
“It’s
really new, so we’ll see.”
    

        
Ryan
and I talked for nearly an hour while Jenna, Nick, and Gwen gossiped about
work. The only drawback to hanging out with coworkers was that professional and
personal lives tended to blend into one. Ryan and I talked about everything but
East Coast Prime, however. I learned that he too had a shelter dog and that he
lived a condo in New Albany, one of the nicer suburbs of Columbus. He studied
business management at Ohio State, and he was a Pisces. The five of us drank at
Union for another couple of hours before going our separate ways. Jenna went reluctantly
back to her husband, and I went home more buzzed than I’d intended and got cozy
with my iPad and Sunday night television.

Monday morning followed a long night of
uninterrupted sleep during which I dreamed about Jay for what felt like hours
on end. It was peculiar to dream about someone whose face you could scarcely
remember. I had fragmented recollections of his features but was having
difficulty trying to piece together the whole of his splendor. And I had a
strong sense that the whole was worth more than the sum of its parts. But Jay’s
energy alone was enough to fuel my visions while I slept and to keep me
blissfully unaware of the harsh wintry weather outside.

I used that Monday as a personal day and spent
the morning lounging around my apartment listening to music, drinking entirely
too much coffee, and savoring another day away from my office. I actually had
plans that afternoon too. It was my former roommate Erica’s twenty-ninth
birthday party. And while I didn’t fully understand why it was on a Monday
afternoon (though a few of the girls had quit their jobs after getting married,
which probably had something to do with it), I was grateful for the time off
and the chance to see everyone. Stacey, our other former housemate, had been in
charge of planning the party.

We were meeting at Jacob Neal, a spa in the
Short North, which was convenient for me because I just had to walk downstairs
and back up again when it was over (particularly convenient if I consumed too
much champagne). I was fairly certain that nearly everyone invited to the party
was either married or engaged, and at least half of the girls were pregnant.
And then there was me, Elle Coppola, who’d only had sex once in the past five
months, and who was stuck on the dream I'd had the night before of a man I
barely knew who lived 564 miles away.

The birthday girl was already there when I
arrived, and she greeted me warmly with a hug as I handed off her birthday
present—a Bond No. 9 Andy Warhol fragrance, which I purchased on Gilt so
I looked like a hero even though I'd only spent fifty bucks. Stacey greeted me
next, her enormous diamond glistening from the skylight hitting it in just in
the right spot and sending sparkle in every direction. It blinded me in the
left eye, making me wince.

“Did my ring just blind you? Oh my God, I’m so
sorry,” Stacey said, cackling.

“A little bit, but it's okay.”
 

Cutting me off, she said through laughter, “Erica, my diamond just
blinded Elle when she looked directly at it!”

Stacey was married to the son of Columbus’s most prominent plastic
surgeon. As a result, she had already received complimentary implants and
liposuction. I heard that shaving off the bridge of her nose before she got
pregnant was on the books too. Virtually all Stacey spoke about anymore was her
father-in-law’s high-profile status (apparently he’d invented some sort of
facial filler) and how lovely her life had become since taking on the family’s
last name.

The other girls arrived one by one. There was Jess, a pregnant
newlywed who, according to Erica, envied everything about Stacey, including her
diamond, her successful husband, her constant world travels, and most recently,
her boobs. Then there was Caroline, also married, though for a little longer
than the other two, and also pregnant. Megan, who I knew well, showed up next;
she was Erica’s sister. Megan had a boyfriend like my ex—a drunk, and I’d
tried desperately to convince her there was no changing him, but apparently she
hadn’t learned that yet because her Facebook profile still linked to his.

Serena, my other newlywed, newly pregnant friend, was there too. I'd
been a bridesmaid in her wedding the year before. Unlike the others, Serena wasn’t
obsessed with babies before getting married, but she had shockingly morphed
from a down-to-earth girl who smoked pot every day into a total bridezilla, so
I supposed anything could change with the drop of a garter belt. Then there was
Amy, the only other single person. She’d just exited a long-term relationship
and, according to Erica, was really bent out of shape about it. Judging by the
permanent scowl on her face, I believed it.