Page 3 of Unrealistic Expectations

Yesterday, after a good hour of crying in the shower, Jessica had called her publicist and insisted that she would not answer questions about her personal romantic life. As a therapist, she dodged questions about her own life like a boxer during the first round of a fight, and she wasn’t about to put all of her personal business out in public. Not now. That would be something her mother would do, and her mother was the world’s best counterexample.

“I don’t think it’s helpful to use my personal relationships as fodder for the work I do. In individual therapy, being client focused is key, and this book is reader focused.”

“So you haven’t experienced the behaviors that you describe in the book?” Diana really wasn’t giving up on this, was she?

“All of the experiences that I talk about in the book happen to real people every day. I think my strength is breaking down what’s happening psychologically when things go wrong in relationships.”

There were a couple of tense moments, when Jessica was pretty sure the host was going to probe further. But then, miraculously, she moved on.

“People really do still send other people unsolicited pictures of their junk?” Diana asked.

Relieved that she could talk about something that she’d never, ever experienced, Jessica said, “Believe it or not, they do.”

—

Galvin Baker had been single for most of his life, but he’d never felt as single as he did when he was buying groceries to cook for one. In the before times, whenever the threat of a sad desk salad as an evening meal loomed, he’d opened a dating app or texted a buddy or lady friend to eat with him. But now, his buddies would give him endless shit about his newly toxic reputation, none of the women in his phone would answer, and the dating apps would be barren.

The worst part was that he hadn’t done anything truly wrong—he’d only dated one of the most famous-for-being-famous women in the world for a few months and then tried to end things respectfully.

So, he’d gone from never having to deal with a sad desk salad to rooting around the farmers’ market so he could dice cucumbers for one and hide from the world. In the past few months, he’d gone from never spending an evening at home to getting very familiar with his own company.

He must have been doing what his grandmother would have called “gathering wool”—thank goodness she couldn’t work Instagram and therefore didn’t know that he’d been humiliated—because he didn’t notice a woman staring at him from across the vegetable bins. She had shiny hair and a nice smile. She did the thing where she kept looking down and then up at him—flirting.

It had been so long that Galvin fought the urge to look around to see if she was flirting with someone else. He’d gone over the numbers enough to know that not everyone in the world was on Instagram. Not everyone in the world had seen the video and thought he was trash in bed.

So he took a risk and smiled back at the woman. He wasn’t used to this being awkward, but he found himself searching for something to say. They were in Southern California, so the sun was shining. The sun was shining every day, and not having to talk about the weather was one of the best things about living in Southern California. But, right now, he really wished the weather was some sort of hot topic.

They could also talk about vegetables, he guessed. “What are you planning to make?” he asked. She looked confused, and he wanted to die a little inside. But instead, he opened his mouth again and said, “I’m making a salad, which I guess is probably as boring as talking about the weather in Southern California.” He felt like an idiot. He’d never felt like an idiot with women. Sure, he wasn’t the marrying kind who would grill in the backyard and toss the football with various niblings, but he’d never had a hard time making simple conversation before.

The woman cocked her head to the side and asked, “I know you from somewhere. Are you friends with my idiot ex-husband?”

Seeing as he was short on real friends, he doubted it. And most of his friends were single. He would have remembered her. So, she probably recognized him from the video and was going to make another video talking about how he’d blathered like an idiot about salad when they met. Kennedy would probably share the video, and he would never have a dinner companion again.

“I promise we’ve never met before. And, if I had one of those Men in Black memory erasers, I’d use it right now so you could forget that I am truly a chump.”

After that, she laughed. Maybe he wasn’t totally hopeless. “Recently divorced?”

He felt the color rise on his cheeks. He definitely had the stink of someone who hadn’t talked to strangers in a long time. “Nope. Never married.”

The woman grimaced at that. “Late thirties and never married?”

She must have been talking to his mother. “Judge much?”

“Well, you’re not bad looking, so it kind of must mean that something is wrong with you.”

How did he get into this conversation? Now all he wanted was to find salad ingredients in peace.

“I’m sure there are plenty of things wrong with me, but I’m not really looking for a diagnosis from you.”

He grabbed baby lettuce that probably cost more than a pair of high-quality cashmere gloves and an organic cucumber that had probably been cultivated with Perrier and the prayers of monks in a mountain paradise and walked away.

His real problem was that he’d probably been alone for too long. The only solution was that he probably had to get out more. He hated it.

—

Galvin Baker couldn’t believe his luck. He hadn’t been out to this bar in almost a year—the last three months of which he’d virtually been in hiding. And yet, the very night he emerged from his self-imposed isolation, the perfect woman appeared in front of him.

He rolled his rocks glass between his palms as he took in her long blond hair and million-dollar ass. She hadn’t looked at him yet, and he wasn’t sure how to rectify that. The old Galvin would have had her in a coatroom, sucking his dick, in the next ten minutes. The old Galvin was charming and successful, and no one knew who he was. He could sleep with whomever he wanted, in the way that he wanted—no names, no strings, no emotions. The old Galvin didn’t do emotions. Emotions were the road to ruin, and he’d do anything in his power to stay off that road. And if his feeling-free existence caused harm to other people, that really wasn’t his problem. He was totally up-front about what he could offer. He certainly wasn’t going to take the blame when they expected more from him. He’d been clear that he was good for sex, a few months of fun, and nothing else.

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