Page 24 of Swiped
Eric shrugged, as if discussing the weather. “It’s an influencer retreat,” he said. “They have all kinds of crazy shit at those things.”
And with that, his monologue seemed to run out of steam. He pulled the last cherry off a skewer with a heavy sigh. Nat felt the silence grow thick between them. She knew Eric would not be her heart’s match, or even a way to win the competition with Rami without driving herself insane. But she was here, she was slightly buzzed, and she was not one to ever let a research opportunity go unused.
“Cool.” She leaned in and tossed her hair. “So, what made you message me?”
Eric blinked at her with confusion. “Come again?”
“What about my profile piqued your interest?”
Eric’s eyes took on a faraway sheen. “I don’t know, it’s all the same girl out there. Just a blur of yoga poses and sunsets and,” he held up his fingers in air quotes, “‘casual’ bikini pics of thesestraight-hair hot chicks who will probably be voting Republican in two years. And then you.” He shot her a glance with an edge. “I mean, the fact that you used the word ‘philosophy’ and knew how to spell it? It was like fucking water in the desert.”
Nat scoffed. The cocktails and her actual personality reared up through the objective of her date. “Well, thanks for noticing that I graduated high school.”
Eric nodded, genuine and still morose toward his empty cocktail. “You’re welcome.”
Nat frowned. She wasn’t sure yet if she would die on this hill, but she’d certainly endure a few hits. “I mean, it’s a pretty normal word, right?” She watched as he seemed to remember her existence and looked at her. “It’s not like most women aren’t smart, right?”
“They’re not.” Eric sat up straighter, suddenly energized. “It’s a bell curve. That’s why I list myself as a sapiosexual.” He stroked his patchy chin beard and squinted at her. “You know what that is?”
Anger flashed heat into the back of her neck. Somewhere in her mind, neurons were already sharpening their knives. But before she could respond, Nat heard her phone chiming in her purse — long and steady for an actual phone call.
“Hang on,” she said to Eric, digging in her purse.
It was Jo, and either she was in trouble or, more likely, she knew Nat might need a rescue call.
Relief and gratitude hit her chest in a warm, sparkly wave. This wasn’t the job of a publicist, but rather the move of a friend. “Oh, I have to take this,” she said with a stage wince.
Eric rolled his eyes. “Classic. The rescue call.” He glared at her. “I knew this wasn’t your first rodeo.”
She hopped off the stool. “No, it’s not like that.” She grabbed her purse, wondering if Justin was with his sister. “It’s my — it’s a work thing!”
Eric gave her an exaggerated wink. “Sure. Smart thinking.”
“Sorry!” Nat cried as she picked up the call and rushed into the lobby. She plugged her free ear as she dodged people on their way in. “Jo? Hello?” But it was too loud. She could hear her voice, but not what she was saying. “Hang on!” She squeezed past a trio of laughing women in cocktail dresses. “Everything’s OK, right?”
“I know, I just feel kind of trapped, you know?” Jo’s voice was tinny and small.
“I can’t hear you!” Nat shouted as she ducked into the empty corner behind a large plant. “Are you doing a rescue call? Because I swear to God you are psychic and I love you so much right now—” She froze at the sound of Jo’s cackling laugh.
“Oh, she is for sure gonna get eaten alive on these dates! Listen, Nat is amazing and I love her, but she’s a lot. Total genius, but sometimes people are their own worst enemies and they can’t even see it.”
Nat sank against the wall. A pocket dial. She knew she should hang up, but she couldn’t. She heard Jo take a drag of a cigarette, and she knew she had more to say.
Jo’s voice came back. “But it’s good for me to see, like, the kind of person I don’t want to become, you know?”
Nat ended the call so fast she almost dropped the phone. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears, and her hands shook. She stepped out from behind the plant.
From the lobby, she had a full view of the bar and the empty stool waiting for her return, and Eric, who was leaning over, waving a fully extended arm to signal the bartender. Tears pricked in her eyes, and her mouth drooped. A sob swelled into her throat as she ran for the ladies’ room.
Inside the well-lit glare of the bathroom, Nat leaned against the sink and let the tears come. Gray, mascara-tinged drops hit the white marble. Her heart ached in her chest like it was avacuum trying to suck her whole body into its dark void. She told herself she was overreacting because Jo was her assistant, and their relationship was professional. She scolded herself for being so needy. In theory, it should be fine that Jo didn’t like her, and as the overheard words pinged around her mind like deranged moths in a lamp, it was painfully clear that Jo didn’t like her.
Still, Nat’s mind flashed back to the hundreds of laughs she’d shared with Jo over their meme-and-emoji shorthand, and the hundreds of times the intimate details of her life had spilled out in their conversations on the way to lunch or while they tried on online shopping purchases for each other over a coffee break — really, the ways in which she’d let her guard down around Jo were countless. Because she’d thought that she could. She’d thought Jo enjoyed her company, not just heractual company,but of course that was impossibly naive. Nat was Jo’s boss, not her friend — even if Nat had believed otherwise.
She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and dabbed at her red eyes. There was a kind of comedic cruelty to this all happening when she was in the middle of an absolute nightmare of a date. More tears ran onto the paper towel.Eric. The rude, self-absorbed conversation, the bait-and-switch of his height (like she wouldn’t notice him being almost a full six inches shorter than he’d said?), not to mention the painfully obvious fact that she had willingly chosen to go on a date with this guy, supposedly an above-average match. It was humiliating to her person and her algorithm.
She looked at herself in the mirror. The paper towel was rough and stabbed into her puffy skin, only making it angrier. Her eye makeup was melted into black creases and smears. Her cheeks were blotchy, and her nose was red. At this moment, she could see why Jo didn’t want to be anything like her. Who would?
Maybe she had been looking at her dating search all wrong. Maybe the hard part wasn’t finding someoneshecould like. Maybe the real feat would be trusting that anyone could ever likeher?
