The Best Medicine (10 page)

“I can play golf. I just don’t like to. So if I list it and end up with some golf lover, he’ll want me to play all the time. I’d be bored. And if I’m going to be bored, I may as well be single.” I felt my jaw going stern, and I’m sure I was frowning.

Gabby pushed my wineglass closer to my hand. “Relax, I’m not trying to pick on you. I just feel like it’s my duty to warn you that this profile is going to land you on some dullsville dates.”

“No, it won’t. It’s scientific, Gabby. That’s the beauty of the computerized profile. It’s like my weighted list of criteria, only even better. It’s a carefully crafted algorithm designed to find me men I have things in common with. Like . . . guys who realize golf is boring.”

Gabby rolled her shoulders and rubbed out a knot with her hand. “Yes, fine. I get that. You need things in common, but you also need a little razzle-dazzle. A little humina, humina, humina, you know? Seriously, you ranked sense of humor as irrelevant and civic awareness as essential. Are you looking for someone exciting to date or someone you can vote for?”

I reached up and rubbed my own neck, because this husband hunting was starting to become physically painful. “First of all, I would never date a politician. And second, I’m looking for a guy who’s right for me in a big-picture scenario. Somebody who I’ll still want to hang around with once we’re old and gray. Well, he can go gray. I never will. But I want a guy who likes me for who I really am, so I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.”

She looked at me with an expression I’d seen on colleagues’ faces when a patient’s test results were ominous. But I knew what I was doing. I was going to be honest and trust the data. I was going to go about this methodically and logically. I wasn’t going to put my future into the hands of something as intangible as chemistry or as whimsical as fate. Fate was for people without a plan. The Bell Harbor Singles website was scientific.

“All right,” she said after a moment. “We’ll try it your way, but I hope you can do CPR on yourself, because these guys are going to bore you to frickin’ death.”

She turned back to the computer and typed. I couldn’t see the screen now. The wine had made my vision a little blurry. “What are you putting on there?”

“That you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.”

“Very funny. And thanks, because now I’m going to have that song stuck in my head.”

“Serves you right.” She typed for another minute and then turned back to me. “OK, are you ready for the moment of truth? Once I push this button, your profile goes live and they can see you, and we can start searching the database for your Mr. Rhoades.”

I gulped down the last bit of wine in my glass and hiccupped. “Yep. I’m ready.”

There should have been a drum roll or something, but all we had was the tiny, almost silent, click of a keystroke.

We leaned in together as a scattered assembly of pictures filled the screen with squares of text beneath each one.

“Are those all matches?” I asked, amazed at my good fortune. This was a jackpot! There were so many. Then I looked a little closer.

Tobias Fitzhammer, forty-seven, exterminator’s junior assistant. Eugene VanderBosch, forty-four, Reiki master and martial artist. Franklin Bluth, fifty-seven, sex god.

“Does that say
sex god
as his occupation?” I asked, blinking to clear my vision.

“Yes. It does. And is that . . .” Gabby adjusted her glasses. “Is that a monkey on his shoulder?”

It was. A monkey wearing a sombrero. There were men in mesh tank tops, men holding various animals, tools, or sports memorabilia. There was a man in a top hat and tails—which should have made him look dapper, except he was also holding a ventriloquist’s dummy. This was not the cream of any crop. Thankfully, the pictures scrambled to bring others to the forefront.

“Oh, wait! Here’s one. He’s cute.” Gabby moved the mouse and clicked on the picture to bring up a full profile before I could object.

David Hill, forty-one, architect. Silver hair. Brownish eyes. I didn’t find him that physically appealing, but he had a nice smile, and he wasn’t holding a monkey or a dummy and he was wearing a real shirt, so that put him at the top of the list thus far.

We went through a dozen or so profiles until the second bottle of wine was gone, and so was I. I never could hold my liquor. It was time to call it a night.

“Take two ibuprofen, a B-12, and drink a big glass of water before you go to bed,” Gabby said as she got up to leave. “You’ll be fine. Tomorrow, with any luck you’ll have e-mails from some hot prospects.
Boa noite.
”

“What?”

“That’s Portuguese for good night,” she said, picking up her purse and fishing out her keys.

“No, I mean the other thing you said. About the e-mails.”

“Oh, well, now that your profile is live, you should start getting e-mails from interested men. That’s the fun part. It’s like shopping.”

E-mails? From total strangers? Total strangers with names like Jeremy Laramey, Chuck Luckey, and Khaled Formichelli-Pugliese? Men who thought we might be suitable life partners? Oh, no. What had I done?

My stomach roiled, and I wasn’t sure if it was the wine rebelling or my sense of hope circling the drain.

Chapter 8

“IT’S LIKE WE’RE NOT EVEN
friends anymore. Why are you keeping so many secrets from me?”

Hilary was back in my office, another enormous coffee in her hand, and from the stern expression on her face, she’d obviously heard all about my visit to Bellharborsingles.com.

“I tried to tell you the other day, but you had to leave for surgery.” My voice was petulant. My head was still aching from the wine I’d drunk last night, and her scolding did not help, but I was glad she was there. I had eleven e-mails waiting in my dating profile that I’d been too chicken to open without someone holding my hand.

Hilary sat down in the chair, careful not to spill any of her daily caffeine. “Well, you should have made me listen so you didn’t have to go to Gabby. My God, Evie, if you follow her advice, you’ll end up with some tattooed biker dude or a starving artist sculptor who sells his plasma to buy groceries. She has terrible taste in men. Hers is even worse than yours.”

Now I was less glad she was here. “I don’t have terrible taste in men.”

“Well, maybe not technically, because you avoid them altogether. But when you do pick one, it’s always somebody who’s grossly inadequate, and then you just let the relationship die of natural causes. You’re a classic commitment-phobe.”

I’d heard this song a dozen times before. Hilary was convinced my lack of matrimonial interest was pathologic in nature. Not just a healthy decision based on my needs at any given stage of my life.

“You know, as much as I enjoy these little pep talks,” I said, bristling, “I’m clearly demonstrating an effort here. A little support might be nice.”

She nodded once, conceding my point. “You have my full support. I’m just wondering why you asked Gabby for help instead of me.” She got that sad, wounded look in her eyes again. The same one she’d had when saying her husband wanted a fresher model, and I realized I’d hurt her feelings. I’d spent more time with her sister lately than I had with her. No wonder she was feeling left out.

The apology was evident in my tone. “I’m sorry, Hil. I just knew you were busy with family stuff, so I didn’t want to pester you. But you’d be proud of me. I made a list of criteria just so I
wouldn’t
fall for the wrong guy.”

“You made one of your infamous lists? Let’s see it.” Now she sounded more amused than supportive. Apparently, no one trusted me to know what I wanted, or what I needed.

A fast knock sounded on my office door, interrupting my response, and Gabby joined us, bright in a sunshine-yellow maxi dress.

“Hey. Good morning. Do you have any messages in your profile mailbox, Ev?” She took the coffee from Hilary’s hand and tasted it. They both looked at me expectantly. Waiting. Wondering. Hoping. Their eyes were practically watering in suspense.

“I do,” I answered reverently. “Eleven of them.” It suddenly felt like some sort of score, and maybe I should have gotten more. More was always better, right?

But Gabby smiled. “That’s a good start. Any promising ones?”

Hilary moved forward to the edge of her chair. “Yes, any good ones?”

A whoosh of anxiety and exhilaration flooded my senses. The point of no return.

“I’m not sure yet. I haven’t opened them.”

“What? Why?” Hilary demanded, any residual hurt feelings swept away by impatience.

“I was waiting for you guys.” I didn’t explain I was actually postponing it out of fear and dread. There was no harm in letting them think I just wanted to include them in this glorious experiment I was performing.

“Well, open them,” Hilary urged. “Let’s see what your list of criteria buys these days.”

“And hurry up. We’ve got patients showing up in about fifteen minutes,” Gabby added, closing my office door as if we were about to surf for porn.

I stared back at my computer and swallowed down a football-sized lump. My fingers twitched as I logged on to the website.

Hilary caught sight of the bubblegum-pink screen and chuckled. “Oh, wow,” she whispered.

“Shut up,” I murmured back. “You’re already married. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

She drowned out the next chuckle with her coffee.

My pulse sped up while my breathing seemed to halt altogether. I clicked on the first message.

Phil Carter.
That name seemed innocuous enough. His picture came up with his note, and I recalled seeing him last night, although the wine had fogged my memory. He was nice looking, in a soft, middle-management kind of way. A little frayed around the edges, but being a plastic surgeon, I was hypersensitive to that sort of thing.

“He’s cute. Ish,” Gabby said.

“He’s cute-adjacent,” Hilary said. “Is that a bowling trophy he’s holding?”

“It looks like it,” I answered. I wasn’t much of a bowler, but just because he was didn’t mean we wouldn’t have other things in common. Right? At least he wasn’t holding a golf club.

“Read the note,” Gabby whispered, as if asking me to chant some magical incantation.

I took a big breath and blew it out.

Hi, Evelyn. I see you are new to BHS.

Using an acronym for Bell Harbor Singles was worrisome, indicating he’d been at this rodeo for a while, but I kept on reading.

Your profile is a seventy-two percent match to mine. I’ve found that anything less than seventy-five percent is not a good fit but I think we should meet and see if we can beat the odds. You’re very pretty. I hope you look like your picture. Would you like to meet for dinner at six o’clock at Arno’s today? Let me know.

“Today? He wants to meet today? That seems kind of rushed and desperate, doesn’t it?” I looked at them over the desk. Hilary took a sip of her coffee and avoided eye contact, but Gabby was more enthusiastic.

“Don’t be silly. It means he likes what he sees and he’s decisive. Just like you,” she said. “And that perspective on percentages sounds good, right? I bet this guy has a weighted criteria list too.”

I looked back at his picture. “I guess so. I’ll think about this one. Maybe.”

I clicked on the next message, and the three of us gasped in unilateral horror at a photo of a very chubby man in a very tiny thong. At least I think it was a thong.

Hey, baby. U R one hot babe. Let’s hook up and—

Click. Instant delete.

“I feel dirty,” Hilary whispered.

Gabby flicked her on the arm. “Give it a chance, OK? This isn’t like shopping at a boutique. Some of us have to sort through a lot of tacky stuff at the discount store to find something good.”

Great. I was looking for a man at T.J.Maxx. I selected the next message and prayed the photo would be less offensive. It was. In fact, this guy was kind of cute, in a Matt-Damon-wearing-glasses kind of way. He was wearing a green shirt and sitting on a sunny patio.

Gabby and Hilary both leaned forward as I read.

Hello, Evelyn. I am new to the Bell Harbor area having just returned from being stationed overseas. I haven’t lived in the United States for a couple of years and so I’m looking to get reacquainted with old friends, and hopefully make some new ones, too. I’m thirty-nine, and now own a landscape design firm. If you’d like to meet, send me a note. I hope to hear from you.

Sincerely, Zach Parker

“Not bad,” Hilary said, nodding with enthusiasm. “A soldier and a businessman. This guy has some potential.”

He did. My optimism took a leap from dismal to definitely, maybe.

A loud knock at the door made the three of us jump and then giggle like preteens at a slumber party telling scary stories.

Delle’s voice penetrated through the wood. “Dr. Rhoades? Dr. Pullman? Patients are arriving.”

Hilary stood up and pointed at my computer screen. “Give that guy a go, for sure. But if it were me, I’d stay away from the other two. Especially the lard-ass in the tiny underwear.”

The day went by painfully slowly. I was double booked for most of it, and the wine hangover didn’t help. Neither did the fact that I had more e-mails coming in and no time to check them. The curiosity was killing me, although I couldn’t ignore the irony. Men were suddenly distracting me from my job. That’s exactly the reason I hadn’t dated before—because I wanted to focus on my patients. Maybe this whole Bell Harbor Singles thing was a big mistake. Maybe the reason I was thirty-five and single was because I liked it that way. I was satisfied with my life. Most of the time, and right now, these men were taking time away from my career.

I’d nearly decided to scrap the whole thing when Gabby approached me in the hall. It was nearly closing time for the surgery center, and all I wanted to do was to go home, take a hot bath in my tiny apartment tub, and read some medical journals until I fell asleep.

“Great news, Ev,” she said, grinning with unrestrained glee. “I made a date for you. Tonight.”

I skidded to a halt. “You what?”

“I made a date for you with the percentages guy. He’s expecting you at six o’clock at Arno’s.”

“Why? Why would you do that?” My pulse sputtered and jumped like I’d been zapped with resuscitation paddles.

“Because you have to get this first one out of the way. This is your practice date.”

I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”

“When’s the last time you were on a date? Like, a year ago? Longer? You need a refresher, and this guy is perfect. He’s available, he wasn’t naked in his profile picture, and you’ll get a nice dinner out of it.”

I tried to walk away, but she followed me like a bad aroma.

“I’m not going out with him tonight, Gabby. Call and cancel.”

“I can’t. It’s nearly six now. You’ve got just enough time to freshen up and get to the restaurant. I’m doing you a favor, Ev. You asked me to help you find a man, and that’s what I’m doing. Pushing you from the nest, baby bird.
Voe para longe.
Fly away.” She gestured with her hands, shoving me from her imaginary nest.

“I can’t do it. I’m exhausted.”

She turned to walk back to her own office. “Yes, you can. Stay for at least one drink. You’ll be fine. And you’ll thank me for this later, Ev. I promise.”

I would not thank her for this. Not ever. Not under any circumstances. My date, Phil Carter of the 72 percent, sat across from me at Arno’s restaurant wearing an orange-and-yellow striped shirt that reminded me very much of a circus tent, and since his bulbous nose was bright red with rosacea, he looked just like a clown to go with it. I bet he even drove a tiny little car.

My distaste wasn’t a product of his appearance, though, nor was it because his eyebrows looked as if they could take wing at any moment and lift off in flight. No, it was because he was an insufferable bore, chewed with his mouth open, and never stopped talking. I wasn’t sure I’d even introduced myself yet, but I knew all about him. He made quite a production of informing me his family had been in the Michigan lumber business, as if that was supposed to mean something to me.

It didn’t.

“I’m into plastics manufacturing these days, though,” he said, stuffing a hunk of rump roast the size of my fist into his cavernous mouth. “Toilet seats, to be exact. We use a new polymer that’s indestructible. You can bet your ass our seats will never break. They could survive a nuclear blast.”