Kismetology (11 page)

"What’s a breaded calamari?" He asks me.

"It’s squid in breadcrumbs." I think that I should
be more sympathetic towards him. I mean, it’s (probably) not his fault that he
is on the dole. He would (probably) get a job if he could. I only know what
calamari is because my boyfriend is a chef. I decide to be a bit softer on him.

"You’d probably enjoy the mixed fish grill," I
say.

"Wooo-ah. Would you look at the price on that? Just for
a piece of fish that I could go out and catch myself in the river?"

I shrug. "It’s what they charge these days."

"I guess I’ll go for that then. Can I share your
dessert?"

"Don’t worry about it," I say, trying that new
softer outlook for size. "I’ll get an extra one for you." Now I feel
bad for not telling him the whole thing is on the house.

"Okay, cool."

Thank you? No?
Okay, cool
. Okay, yeah. You’re a real
charmer, you are. But no. I’m being sympathetic.

"Do they accept change here?"

"Change?" I ask, wondering what he means. Maybe he
wants to go change into a Superman costume in a phone box. Or was that Wonder
Woman? He wouldn’t fit in either anyway. The costume or the phone box. No room
for a beer belly.

"Y’know, change. Cash change."

Cash change… Oh hell. Oh no. He’s not going to… Oh, yes he
is. He bends over to a carrier bag that I’ve just noticed under his chair. He
pulls it up between his legs like he has difficulty lifting it and thumps it
down onto the table between us, knocking the single rose in a vase over. It
makes such a thunking sound that the couple at the next table cast us a
displeased look. I almost can’t bear to look, but I already know what’s in
there. The jangling is a dead giveaway. How embarrassing. He’s not going to sit
here and count it out, is he?

Sure enough, I was right about the bag. I look inside
nervously and, yes, it is full of coppers. All one pence and two pence pieces.
So many that it’s nearly overflowing.

"Damn," I say. "How much is in there?"

"About twenty quid."

"Twenty quid?" I ask disbelievingly.

"I haven’t really counted it."

"Twenty quid won’t get you far in a place like
this," I say without really thinking about it.

"It won’t?"

I shake my head.

"Shit. I left my chequebook at home, and I’m not
allowed a credit card. And the bank is shut now so I can’t go in and get money
out on my overdraft."

"Don’t worry about it," I say, trying to be nice.
"I’ll take care of it. I know the boss."

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure. It’s no problem."

But it is a problem, isn’t it, Len? I mean, who takes a
woman on a date to a posh restaurant with a bag of copper pennies to pay? I do
try, but to my surprise I find that I can’t really be angry with him. If it
wasn’t for Jenni getting me my job, no matter how much I hate it, I could very
well be in the same position as Len is in right now. And I most definitely
wouldn’t be eating here if I actually had to pay for it. And if I had let him
choose the restaurant, or even asked whether he minded Belisana, maybe he
would’ve said no, and taken me somewhere more his scene. Granted, we’d probably
be eating in Burger King right now, but still.

"Order what you want," I tell him.

"Thanks," he says.

I’m still reluctant to tell him it’s free for us, because I
don’t want to seem like I’m taking advantage of Dan, so I decide to leave it as
it is. He can order his dinner and a nice dessert, and then he can go home and
tell his mates about the great restaurant he ate in that didn’t serve fries and
supersized drinks.

CHAPTER 20

Len obviously wasn’t going to get a
date with my mum. I mean, I put up with him for the entirety of a whole hour, but
that was only because I felt sorry for him. Next on the hit list is Old Guy. I
speak to him on the phone and arrange a meeting the following night. I don’t
like to blatantly come out and ask his age, but I prepare myself for a fright
when I see him in person. The fright never comes. Old Guy is actually
fifty-eight. He has a rough, gravelly voice, which may be the reason I thought
he was a hundred years old.

He is the perfect gentleman. I have my chair pulled out for
me, and when I go to shake his hand, he takes mine and kisses it instead.
Points for effort. Okay, so if someone my age had done that to me, I’d have run
away screaming, but with Old Guy it’s kind of sweet. I guess it’s probably
appropriate for someone of that generation, and I can see my mum melting on the
spot when he does it to her. In fact, I should probably rename him Not Quite So
Old Guy. Or Nick, seeing as that’s his name.

"Nicholas," he says. "But call me Nick, it
makes me sound younger."

I smile. I hear "
call me Eleanor, Mum is for old
people
" in my head, and think that maybe I have found a match.

"So what do you do, Nick?" I ask.

"I’m a doctor," he says. "A GP. How about
you?"

I wonder if the whole possibly coming home with deadly
diseases every day aspect would put Mum off.

"I’m a nail technician," I say.

"That’s intriguing," he says. "I bet you see
some horrible fungi and infections in that line of work. I’ve always thought
anybody who worked in that industry should be on par with doctors and
nurses."

Okay. Points for the on par comment. Subtracting said points
for bringing up fungus at the dinner table.

Nick smiles, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
"Sorry, I should talk about something else while we’re eating."

Points re-added for being perceptive.

"What do you like to do?" I ask him. "For
fun?" I worry that I still seem too businesslike, but this guy is a good
possibility so far.

"I like to go driving, and I love to walk and play
golf."

What is it about golf lately? This is the second golfer I’ve
met. This one doesn’t have a personalised golf course in his backyard though.
Probably.

"Do you like animals?"

He nods. "I would love to have a dog of my own, but I
work nine to five and sometimes an emergency or two outside hours, I don’t
think it would be fair of me to have a pet and not give it the proper attention
it deserves."

"Eleanor has a Yorkie," I say.

"Oh, the little ones? They’re very cute."

Okay, now I’m just waiting for the catch. The fatal flaw. In
a minute he’s going to tell me that he’s a bigamist and has ten wives scattered
around the country or something.

"So," I say, wanting to get the truth out now.
"How come a catch like you is still single?"

"I was married," he admits. "But we were very
young, too young evidently, and we ended up getting divorced. It just fizzled
out. She was always working, I was always working, and the only time we saw
each other ended up being at the school parent meetings."

And there it is. "You have kids?"

"Just one. She’s about your age. Thirty-one in
August."

I’m about to protest that I am
not
thirty-one, or in
any vicinity of that age, but he continues talking.

"She lives in Paris now, she’s married but refuses to
give me any grandkids. We only see each other at Christmas, and for occasional
summer holidays. She’s busy working for some fashion designer or other. I
forget the name."

Okay, so I know Eleanor doesn't want to date men with kids,
but I wonder if it’s really that big a deal. I mean, she lives in
Paris
.
Paris, France. And he never sees her. Practically never anyway. And she’s older
than me, with a husband and a life of her own. It’s not like she’s going to be
some spoilt little brat who’s going to play the wicked stepmother card. And how
cool would it be to have a stepsister who lives in Paris and is some sort of
major fashion designer. Or can at least get me a discount on one’s advance
ranges. Did I mention that I would
love
a holiday in Paris?

I suddenly feel very Carrie Bradshaw. It’s like I am talking
to Aleksandr Petrovsky. Without the Russian part, obviously. And he’s a doctor,
not an artist. I can picture myself being the
American Girl in Paris
.
But British, instead. And Dan could play Mr Big, and come storming through
hotel lobbies to find me. But he’d need to be six inches taller and I’d have to
buy him a long, black coat, and hope it made him look like Mr Big, and not
Angel
.

Okay, so it’s not me I’m trying to find a date for. But Mum
could do the Paris thing just as easily. I could just tag along for the ride.

Okay, enough, I tell myself. No getting caught up in the
superficial things like with Joel the Millionaire. If the doctor is getting a
date, it’s because he’s a nice, compatible guy. Not because he has connections
to the most elite European city.

And he actually is a very nice guy, and he is getting a
date. He tells me to get Mum to choose the restaurant, and he’ll pick her up
the following night at nine. That’s all well and good, but there is one thing I
have to do first.

Mum's favourite flowers are peonies, and after searching for
way too long over something so minute, I have finally found a florist online
that sells bunches of them. I tell him to stop by my house on his way to get
Mum the next night and pick up the bunch I will have delivered during the day.
This is a good guy, and he is not going to get away.

She’ll be so impressed by the peonies that she’ll give him a
chance.

"Yes," she says when he drops her off on my
doorstep later that night.

I don’t believe it. Score!

"Yes?"

"Yes, yes, yes. Nick is great."

Yes, yes, yes. Nick is great
. I replay the words over
in my head, just to make sure I’ve heard them correctly. "So you had a
nice time?"

"I had a great time. We went to Dine Dee-Vine, you
know, my favourite restaurant, and then he took me to see a show, this thing
with lots of ice skating, and it was just fantastic, and I’m seeing him again
Saturday night."

"Really?"

"Really."

I still can’t believe my ears. A second date. An actual
second date. And just forty-eight hours from now. A second date. I mean, I knew
he was good, but even I wasn’t convinced he was that good. And I did briefly
wonder if the peonies might have been overkill, but obviously my mother is just
as shallow as I always thought she was. Even Dan is looking impressed.

Mum is excited about Saturday night, but I think it’s safe
to say that I am even more excited. What if this is it? What if Nick is
The
One
? Well,
The Second One
anyway? I briefed Mum about Dan’s
"being open to love the second time round" idea, but I think she
thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I have. I’m just really pleased that I have
made a match. Me. I have created success.

"We’re going to eat and see a ballet," Mum is
saying on the phone. "What should I wear?"

"Wear anything. He likes you, full stop. You don’t need
to package yourself up and pretend to be something you’re not. Just go as
you."

"I just shrugged, Mac, but you can’t see me. We should
get one of those video phones."

Yes. So you can
see
me banging my head against a
wall. Repeatedly.

"It’s over," Mum says, arriving home from her date
that evening. Yes, I’d been so excited about it that I’d agreed to babysit
Baby. Or should that be Baby sit?

"Over?" I ask, hoping to god and all in heaven
that she is talking about the date and not the relationship. "The date is
over, but you’ll see him again tomorrow, right?" I try hopefully.

"No, he’s not for me, Mac."

"Not for you? Not for you? He’s perfect. He’s great.
He’s like Saint Nick."

"No, Mackenzie. It’s just not going to work."

Not going to work
? "But he bought you peonies. I
don’t know who the fuck buys peonies but he did. He bought the peonies and it’s
not going to work
?"

She sighs.

"Why not? Why is it not going to work?"

"There’s just no chemistry."

"There was chemistry there the other night."

"Not tonight. Just nothing, Mac. I won’t be seeing him
again."

"But why?" I ask, pitifully. Why, oh why, oh why?
"Did he do something? Did he try something?"

"No, no. He was the perfect gentleman."

"Yes, I know. Perfect. So why not good enough for
you?"

"You don’t need to get angry with me, Mackenzie. It’s
not my fault that you decided to find me a nice guy and then couldn’t deliver
on the promise."

"Don’t give up," I warn her. "I’ll find you
someone before your fiftieth."

"Could you please not say that word around me?"

"Fine," I say, stomping to the door. "I’ll
find you someone before you turn into a half century." I storm out and
slam the door behind me.

"Not going to work," I repeat to myself in a rage
as I stomp home.
Not going to work
, then fine.

It’s time to get serious. Er, seriouser.

CHAPTER 21

Okay then, clients in work say try
online dating, Dan says try online dating, Jenni says that her cousin has been
dating a guy for two years who she met online. Guess how I’m spending Saturday
morning? That’s right, you got it. I’m filling out my profile on
Cupid-Waits.com. And paying stupid money for a subscription. This had better
pay off or I’m throwing in the towel and leaving the country.

I’m not really sure what to write in my online ad. I put a
photo of my mum and me together in. It seems a little weird to put a picture of
just her in, when I’m the one doing this, and there’s no way I’d just put a
picture of myself in, so I settle on one of the two of us. But the words are
proving difficult. I have a little more space to explain myself on here, not
just the twenty-five word limit of the personal ads in the newspaper. I want it
to sound normal—not like my mother wants to date twenty-seven-year olds or guys
who pay for dinner in one penny pieces. I draft it out in my notebook for ages,
kind of wishing Dan wasn’t working so I could check it off with him and get
some ideas back. But Dan is in the restaurant, as usual, which I know I
shouldn’t complain about but I can’t help it sometimes. Besides, I think Dan is
getting a bit tired of me and my dating.