Has Anyone Seen My Pants? (8 page)

“True. But he wants me to meet him in his hotel room. That seems like a weird place to meet for the first time, doesn’t it?”

“Not for a
Major League Baseball player
,” Stephanie yelled.

“You’re breathing funny,” Tara said. “You aren’t massaging that stupid cream onto your body again, are you? There’s no way that stuff works.”

“Of course I’m not, Tara, Jesus,” I said as I rubbed another layer onto my belly because, again, why not? “I don’t know; I feel like if I go see him tonight we won’t hang out tomorrow night.”

The girls told me that seemed silly and I should just go with it. “You’re already there—maybe this is even better! Your body wrap may wear off before tomorrow,” Tara said.

They were right. I had already put so much into this; why not just let it play out however he wanted it to?

On the way out the door, I noticed I’d developed a large pimple right on my cheek (the cheek on my face, you guys).
What the fuck? Really? I’m fucking thirty-seven.
I did my best to cover it and prayed Baseball Player wouldn’t be looking at anything above my neck.

So at eleven thirty p.m. I knocked on his hotel room door, which was ajar.

“Come in,” Baseball Player yelled out.

I realized up to that point I hadn’t ever really heard him talk.

I walked into his room to find him snuggled up in bed, under the covers, watching ESPN.

Oh my God, he’s even cuter in person.

He motioned for me to come lie next to him, so I did. My heart was racing.
What the fuck am I doing?
I slowly took off my
shoes, with my head turned just so to hide the pimple, hoping he’d notice the cute outfit that I’d labored over for three hours before it came flying off. (Cute top, tight jeans, and motorcycle boots. Hello?! What says “laid-back cool girl” more than that?) He didn’t notice.

He pulled me close to him and put my head on his shoulder. He apologized for ESPN’s being on.

“Oh, that’s okay, I watch it all the time.”

“I’m super hungover from last night,” he told me. “Some of us went out and I’ve felt like shit all day.”

“You can play baseball hungover?” I marveled at this like it was a serious talent.

He smiled. “Let’s watch a movie.”

A movie? Okay. Maybe we are going to just hang out tonight. Maybe my plan is still intact and drinks and dinner tomorrow night would be next,
then
we will do it . . . just like I planned
.

I’m not sure why, in my head, putting sex off for one more day made me look less slutty, but let’s not try to rationalize a horny and slightly lonely thirty-seven-year-old woman’s thoughts when there’s a hot Baseball Player involved . . . deal?

Together we selected a movie, but that was really the only conversation we were having. Other than that, he was pretty quiet. It was weird . . . we didn’t know each other. But at the same time, it felt like we did; it was kind of awesome. Or so I thought. It’s very easy to rationalize awkward silence as some kind of comfortableness when trying to romanticize a situation you’ve built up in your head.

The movie-ordering feature wasn’t working, so I called down to the front desk. The clerk confirmed what room I was in, then said, “So . . . are you with the baseball team?”

I laughed. “Yes, yes I am.”

When I hung up Baseball Player asked me what was so funny. I told him the guy asked me if I was “with the baseball team.” “It sounded kind of accusatory,” I giggled.

He giggled, too, but he didn’t quite seem to know why.

We watched the movie in its entirety. I can’t remember the name of it now or what it was about. My adrenaline had taken over, and I couldn’t focus on anything but trying to see the pimple on my cheek out of the corner of my eye.

Once the movie ended, he turned his face toward mine and laid one on me.

Okay, maybe we are going to have sex tonight.
I could hear Steph and Tara in my mind: “Just go with it.” So I did. ( Just to be clear, I didn’t continue to hear their voices during the sex.)

I won’t lie; it was enjoyable. No fireworks went off and no bells sounded, but everything felt nice and everything was working properly. There was only one problem: he was on top of me the whole time. No, that wasn’t the problem, although I prefer to be on top (sorry, Mom, I should have told you to skip this chapter).

The problem was, he was wearing a gold chain and it kept hitting me in the chin. I tried to maneuver my head around the chain, but there was no dodging it. Then I tried to let him know that his jewelry choice was kind of getting in the
way of my completely enjoying myself by subtly jerking my head from side to side. He probably just thought I had a tic or something, because he didn’t seem to catch on and continued pounding me while his necklace continued pounding me in the face. Eventually, I took my index finger and pressed the offending accessory up against his chest and kept it there until we both finished.

At least we
both
finished.

Afterward, he got up and went to the bathroom. I then took my turn, threw some more concealer on the pimple, and came back to find him once again snuggled up under the covers. He pulled me in again and fell asleep. No talking.

I figured he did have an early game tomorrow and he needed his rest, so I let him have it. I, however, lay there with my eyes wide open, unable to fall asleep. I was trying to figure out how visible my pimple would be in the light of the morning. There was also some sort of band playing on the street below that was so loud that at one point I got up to make sure they weren’t playing in the hallway. Baseball Player’s sleep was affected by neither the noise nor my insomnia.

The next morning he got up, showered, and put on a nice button-down and pants. I marveled at the fact he got dressed up to go to the field.
Who knew?

We spoke a little, but not much.
Okay, maybe verbal communication just isn’t our thing.

I lay on the bed with my head propped in my hand as my newest maneuver to hide my adult acne. He asked if I wanted
to go to the game that day. I said yes and he let me know he’d leave two tickets for me and explained where I should pick them up.

Two tickets?
I was by myself. I was there to see him. I thought we had discussed that. I didn’t have any friends who lived in the city to call last-minute and invite so that I didn’t sit there alone like an asshole. But instead of reminding him I was there this weekend to see him and only him, I just said:

“Perfect! One of my girlfriends will come with me.” Then, to cover for postgame when he and I would meet up again and my friend wouldn’t be with me because she didn’t actually exist, I said, “But she has a kid so she has to go home right after the game.”

Now not only did I have a fake friend joining me for the game, my fake friend had a fake baby.

I thanked him for the tickets, wished him a good game, and headed for the hotel elevators. As I got on, so did a couple, whom I immediately recognized as one of the other players for his team and that player’s wife (I saw her giant wedding ring, there was no missing it). They looked at me curiously. Well, he did. She looked at me like I was a big fat whore.

God, this is by far the sluttiest thing I have ever done,
I thought. I was both humiliated and proud.

An hour later, as I was getting super cute for my new boyfriend’s baseball game, I decided none of it mattered. He
wouldn’t see me at the game; I knew where the players’ guests sat. He’d never even know I was there alone.

I arrived at the stadium and picked up my tickets. They were there waiting, with my name spelled correctly and everything. That made me happy, although all he really had to do to get that right was look at my Twitter handle. The envelope read “guest of Baseball Player,” along with “Family Section.”

I took a picture of the envelope and texted it to him along with a note that said, “Family section? Slow down, Tiger.” I was proud of my funny little joke; I knew Steph and Tara would be, too.

He wrote back, “Oh, no—that’s the section they put all our guests in.”

Ugh. He didn’t get my funny little joke. This seemed like a pattern.

The game was fun; his team lost but not without his hitting a solo blast in the ninth and scoring his team’s only run.

I immediately wrote him after the game: “Nice homer. My friend and I had a blast, thanks for the tickets, she says thanks, too.” My fake friend was so polite!

“You’re welcome.”

I went back to my hotel room and showered. I assumed we’d meet for drinks in a couple of hours, after he got back and got settled from the game. A couple hours later, when I hadn’t heard from him, Tara and Steph instructed me to just write him and say, “What’s the plan?”

At this point, I had nothing to lose; I had already had sex with him, made up a friend, given her a baby, and failed at getting him to laugh at my jokes, plus I was sporting a tiny bruise on my chin from his gold chain.

Silence. Kind of like after my first bold text to him months ago on opening day, but much, much worse.

I was panicking. I had a long, detailed, three-way phone call with the girls in which we tried to decipher why he was now blowing me off.

“I told you guys I had a feeling if I saw him last night I wouldn’t tonight! Why don’t I ever listen to my gut? It’s so much smarter than my vagina.”

We didn’t come up with much; they admitted I had been right, which was at least one saving grace, and encouraged me to go to the hotel bar, have some fun, and make the most of it. After all, I had come there to have sex with a
Major League Baseball player
and I had, they reminded me.

“Yeah, what a conquest,” I said sarcastically, thanked them for being so supportive while I cried into the phone, and hung up.

I tried to shake off my humiliation and went down to the hotel bar. I ordered a giant hamburger and fries, no longer concerned about what I looked like naked, and drank five martinis. I then went back up to my room to watch TV and feel sorry for myself. At about ten p.m., I got a text.

“WTF! I just woke up!” Baseball Player wrote.

My embarrassment suddenly turned to rage, which is a
much more fun place to come from. “Whatever,” I replied. Fuck it; he wasn’t exactly a wordsmith either.

“I’m serious! Look!” he wrote, and attached was a photo of him in his hotel bed.

God, he is so cute
,
I thought. Then I spotted the gold chain in the photo and got annoyed again.

“I don’t have time for this,” I wrote back.

“What do u mean? [frowny face]”

I didn’t respond. I was over it. He knew I’d flown up there to see him; that was the whole plan in the first place. I also knew he was telling the truth; he’d fallen asleep. But if someone really wants to see you, they probably will put more effort into staying awake. I know; I aim high.

Quite frankly, based on our correspondence thus far, I had determined he probably wasn’t even smart enough to be mean. He was just tired and worse . . . thoughtless. Or that’s what I decided, anyway. I don’t even know if it’s fair to call him thoughtless; for all he knew I was fine and dandy, out having a lovely night with another one of my fake friends.

I fell asleep, woke up the next day, and hauled my bloated ass back to L.A. Maybe he wasn’t at fault; after all, I had set myself up for this. My communication with him was just a bunch of text messages. I flew to San Francisco to have sex with him. I couldn’t really expect him to garner a bunch of respect for my time or me. We both wanted to do it with each other and we had. How was he supposed to know that along the way, I had spent thousands of dollars?

When I landed back in L.A., the first e-mail I saw was from 1800Flowers.com. “Send something nice to someone you care about today,” it read.

“How many fucking times do I have to unsubscribe from this? ”
I yelled, louder than expected. I looked up to see a plane full of people staring at me. Oh well, at least it wasn’t a hotel elevator . . .

Weekend Get-Away from Me

A
fter the Baseball Player incident, I attempted to move forward in my dating life with more realistic goals—like not dating a baseball player
or
anyone I met on a social networking site.

I met a guy, Alex, via Facebook (oh, I only hit one of those goals, but at least it’s progress), who worked in the business side of sports. I’d like to clarify what I mean by that, but I can’t—not because I’m trying to protect anybody, but because I have no idea. I knew his name, I knew he was successful, and I knew he worked in sports, but that’s all the information I was ever able to come up with, even after we met. And after you’ve been talking to someone for a certain length of time, asking them what they do for a living is just awkward. I have this same issue with my sister. I know she has a job, I know where it is, and I know that she’s really, really good at it. But if a nuclear bomb were about to go off and the only way to stop it was for
me to tell the guy with his finger on the button my sister’s job title, we’d all be fucked.

Alex and I started a little dialogue that, much like my conversations with Baseball Player, eventually led to an exchange of each other’s phone numbers. Our initial chatting was something along the lines of: “Oh hey, cool that you are so into sports, so am I,” and “I’ve seen you on TV, you’re funny” (always bonus points for a guy who notes that I’m hilarious), then gradually progressed from there. It wasn’t a quick cut to flirting or talking about shirts ending up on the floor like my previous social networking affair. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that he was flirting with me at all. I just thought maybe he thought I was cool and wanted to make a new friend. This is an issue I have had my entire life. I always assume a guy is not flirting with me and just wants a new BFF, then all of a sudden their penis is inside me and I’m like, “Oh, you didn’t want to just go to the mall?” Which is always a relief, because I hate malls.

What I did know from my texting conversations with Alex (I understand a gentleman should offer to call, but when they do I say, “Nope, text is good,” because I hate talking on the phone) was that he was handsome and charismatic and seemed to have a really good sense of humor—unlike most of the other men in his field (whatever that was). And much like me, he traveled a lot for work. So one night when we were innocently texting as usual, he suggested that I come to Chicago the following week—because he would be there, not because he just thought I needed more deep-dish pizza in my life. This was the
moment I figured out that he had been flirting with me . . . or if he hadn’t been before he
definitely
was now. I think. Right?

As had become the norm, I was going to be on the road doing stand-up the very same weekend he was suggesting I come to Chicago and have what I assumed was hot, dirty hotel sex. Why does sex always feel so much dirtier—in the good way—in a hotel? Even my married friends agree that when they have sex in a hotel it feels so much more exciting than at home. I guess it just makes it feel like you’re doing something that you shouldn’t be doing. Or maybe I just get really turned on by the thought of room service and fresh towels.

“I’m going to be out of town that weekend, but unfortunately not in Chicago,” I texted in response to Alex.

“Bummer,” he replied. “It would’ve been great to get to actually meet you.”

I’d almost forgotten we hadn’t even met yet. We had now been friendly texting for a couple of months but we hadn’t met in person, which was kind of weird because he only lived about forty-five minutes away from where I lived, but we both traveled a lot, so I guess he figured meeting up in another city was the only way we’d ever actually meet.

“Well, hopefully we can figure out another time for that . . . ,” I texted. As much as I am gone for work, I find that after I meet a man I’m interested in, once I’m out of town and unavailable to see him, he decides that I’m
not
interested in him and the whole thing is over before it even starts. So I did my best to let Alex know that I wanted this “meeting” to happen.

“Definitely,” he replied.

Mission accomplished.

During this time, I had been working really hard on the television show based on my book that I’d sold to NBC. Alex took a lot of interest in that aspect of my life, and I appreciated that. Not to say the other people in my life, like my friends, family, and coworkers, didn’t take an interest in it; of course they did. But it was nice to be talking to someone who didn’t do what I did yet was very interested in what I did. And vice versa for him. I mean, he didn’t know I didn’t know exactly what he did, but he knew I listened when he talked (texted) about it, so that was good. I assume it’s like this for everyone, regardless of their job; meeting someone who in no way is in your field of work is refreshing and exhilarating. It brings new life into your own career for you—suddenly someone is truly interested in what you do, which in turn brings new excitement to it for you. So both personally and professionally, Alex was making me feel interesting and wanted. I liked Alex.

My show didn’t end up going any further than NBC’s buying the script, which needless to say was incredibly disappointing. But it’s really hard to sell a show, much harder to get them to shoot the pilot, and even ridiculously harder to get it on the air. So after getting really hammered at noon the day I found out the bad news and waking up at six o’clock p.m. on my bed wearing only a pair wedges, I picked myself up and moved on. You have to allow yourself a day of mourning, but then you have to get over it. About four years previous to selling that
show to NBC, I was bartending and barely making ends meet. I knew I had come far and I knew that things could always turn on a dime as long as you never quit trying to reach your goal.

“I’m so sorry, I know how hard you were working on that,” Alex texted me when I told him the news about my show.

“Thank you,” I responded, very touched/horny that he genuinely seemed to care.

“So what’s next?” he asked.

“Next I come up with another idea and sell that.”

“I like your motivation. It’s sexy,” he replied.

“I just drank a bottle of wine and now I’m watching
Road House
—is that sexy?” I asked. Sometimes when I’m nervous I try to be funny. I mean, I really was drunk and watching
Road
House
, but I probably could’ve come up with something sexier than the truth.

“It is if you’re thinking of yourself as Kelly Lynch and me as Patrick Swayze . . .”

Oh, it is on!
I thought. No doubt he was flirting with me now!
HE COMPARED US TO KELLY LYNCH AND PATRICK SWAYZE.

“I certainly am,” I wrote back coyly. “But not the part where he rips the guy’s throat out. That’s not sexy.”

Silence.

If I didn’t get into comedy I could’ve been a professional mood-killer.

“No, it isn’t,” he wrote back about thirty minutes later.

Note to self: stop trying to be funny or you’re going to die alone.

The next day, I was texting with my friend Jackie and I told her what Alex had said about
Road House
.

“He asked you to meet him in Chicago, and you think the
Road House
reference is when he really made his move?”

“Well, that’s like the most romantic couple in the history of cinema,” I explained.

“Patrick Swayze played a bouncer in that movie.”

“Bouncers can’t be romantic?”

“He ripped someone’s throat out with his bare hands.”

“I specifically told him I was not referring to that part of the movie, Jackie. I’m not a moron.”

“I feel like you have weird ideas of what is romantic . . .”

“Me? You and Brandon go camping all the time, which, in my opinion, is something you suggest when you want to punish the other person.”

“Ha ha, fine. I’m just saying, I think it’s pretty clear this guy wants in your pants so you don’t have to get hung up on a movie reference. Instead, why don’t you set a time where you can actually meet him and get some penetration? When was the last time you had sex?”

“Ugh, like, eight months ago. I’m basically a virgin again. I’m afraid it’s going to close up like an earring hole does when you forget to put earrings in for too long.”

“Can that happen?”

“I think so.”

“Well, in that case I better go find Brandon, it’s been like a week. Wait, Alex lives here, right? Why can’t you just meet up with him in town?”

“He lives north, like an hour away.”

“That is a little bit closer than Chicago. Why doesn’t he just drive to meet you? Wait . . . are you sure this guy isn’t married?”

“Huh?”

“I’m just saying, it’s kind of weird. If he really wanted to meet you, it seems like he could’ve by now.”

“No, he isn’t married. He can’t be, he texts me all the time. And he certainly didn’t say he was married.”

“Did you ask?”

“Was I supposed to? That seems like something people let you know right away.”

“Well, not all people. Just make sure. Something sounds off.”

I wasn’t sure. And now that Jackie had mentioned it, things did seem kind of weird. But seriously, is that how life was now? Had I been out of the normal dating game for so long that I didn’t get the memo that when someone asks you out on a date you have to first ask them to specify whether or not they’re married? Jesus.

Clearly the easiest way to get an answer to this question would be to ask Alex whether or not he was married. But I decided to try to get an answer on my own. I had two reasons for not wanting to flat-out ask him: (1) If he was not, he would probably think I was a little insane for asking that out of the
blue. (2) If he was, and hadn’t told me yet, who was to say he’d tell me the truth now?

So I decided to launch my own investigation. Unfortunately, his Facebook page was simply for work and revealed nothing about his personal life. So I typed his name plus “wife” into Google. Within seconds, I had my answer.

According to Google, Alex was, in fact, married. So easy to find out that way, you’d think I would have done that before, wouldn’t you? Well, trust me, when I meet someone now, it’s the first thing I do.

Since Alex isn’t in the public eye, I wasn’t able to get a ton of information. What I did get was a photo of him and his wife (who was very lovely) at an event about two years prior. I immediately called Jackie with my revelation.

“Ugh, I knew something was fishy,” she sighed.

“The problem is, all I could find was a picture of them at an event a couple of years ago. Maybe he’s divorced, which would mean he’s single, which would mean he isn’t doing anything wrong.”

“The only way to find out is to ask him,” Jackie said. “You have to ask.”

I knew she was right. It seemed so easy to just pick up my phone and send him a text that said: “Hey, quick question, are you married?” But it wasn’t that easy. I liked Alex. I know I hadn’t met him in person yet, but we had been talking for a few months at this point and I
felt
like I knew him. Every relationship in my life was being maintained via text, so I guess
the one I’d formed with Alex didn’t seem that weird to me. He was smart, funny, and interesting. And he felt the same way about me.

Although I was incredibly grateful that my career was finally growing into what I’d always dreamed it would be, I was traveling all the time, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to feel the void of not having some romance in my life. I’d come home from a weekend on the road to unwind and find myself having one too many drinks on my balcony and staring at my cat. In short, I was pretty fucking lonely.

I lay in bed that night, phone in hand, trying to figure out the best way to get the answer to what seemed like such a simple question. I didn’t want Alex to turn out to be an asshole. I’d worked so hard to not date assholes, to not settle. And if I was going to hang out with an asshole, it needed to be for sex and a good story, like with Baseball Player. Alex’s turning out to be married wasn’t a good story, especially since I actually liked him.

I woke up the next morning, my phone on the floor next to me. I guess I’d overthought myself to sleep. When I picked it up, there was a text from Alex waiting for me.

“I’m going to be in Seattle next weekend for work. Meet me there? I have the whole day and night free on Saturday.”

Seattle made me think of those stupid sunflowers I’d sent Baseball Player and I made a mental note to unsubscribe from 1800Flowers.com again. Seriously, I was still getting e-mails from them.

“Actually, I’m free next weekend,” I replied. “Sounds fun.”

I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I say, “Sure, I’ll be there, as long as you don’t have a wife, LOL!”? But I wasn’t ready to ask him yet. I wanted to spend one day fantasizing about a romantic weekend in Seattle. I’d ask him tomorrow.

Three days later, I still hadn’t asked Alex the big question. I booked my hotel, I booked my plane ticket, and I bought a new outfit (but I didn’t book any body wraps, so that’s progress). I was forging ahead with the idea that the man who was constantly texting me and had asked me on more than one occasion to meet him in other cities was single, as presented. But I couldn’t get the image of that photo stupid Google shoved in my face out of my head. So I decided it was time to find out.

“Oh, hey, I was thinking: I’m performing here in L.A. next month, you should come down for it. I can put you and your wife on the list.”

I know that sounds like a very strange way to ask, but it was all I could come up with. I figured if he wasn’t married, he’d say, “Wife? I don’t have a wife! I’m divorced!” Then I could say, “I know, I was just joking! Ha ha.” And if he was married, he certainly wasn’t going to ask me how I found out. (Look, I never claimed to have a degree in logic.)

“Sounds good,” he responded.

My stomach sank. I was four days away from meeting this man in Seattle and he had just confirmed, via text, that he was married. And not only did he not ask me how I figured it out, he didn’t even address it. Did he just assume that I
knew all along? And if so, why? I stared at his text for like forty minutes, completely stumped as to how to respond to it, or if I should even respond at all. I mean, I guess I had my answer. Didn’t I?