Mr. Wrong Page 6

  It also does not escape me that my body fits perfectly against his, which is weird because he’s got to be seven or eight inches taller than I am. But we just sort of fit together, like puzzle pieces.

  Which is literally the worst analogy I could have come up with, because now I’m thinking—

  “Jenna, this is Angela,” Mitch says.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I say.

  “Very pleased,” she replies, nodding regally at me.

  She’s frosty, but not rude. I can live with that. I can live with a lot, if he’s going to hold me all pressed up against him like this. He smells very, very good. Like something spicy, but with an undertone of clean.

  Angela gestures to the empty room. “Wherever you like,” she tells him. “We do not open until seven.”

  I look at Mitch again, and this time he answers my unspoken question. “For me, she opens early.”

  Angela’s gaze sweeps him from head to toe, lingering on the good parts. “Yes,” she says. “For you, I am always open.”

  I just bet. I have to resist the urge to spit and hiss. What is wrong with me?

  Mitch leads me to a table in the back and pulls out a chair. I sit, and he helps me push my chair in, then takes a seat across from me.

  “Do you want a cocktail or something?” he asks. “Or should I order wine?”

  “I’d prefer wine,” I say. “Your choice.”

  “Okay,” he says. “For dinner—allergies? Anything you hate?”

  “What are we eating?” I ask. I don’t have a menu, so I’m at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to deciding about dinner.

  He smiles again. “Let me take care of that. Since I don’t want to kill you, allergies?”

  I laugh. “No. And I like pretty much anything.”

  He gestures to Angela and she comes over; they put their heads together and have a brief discussion. I don’t hear what they’re saying; I’m far too busy watching to make sure Angela’s hands aren’t doing anything they shouldn’t be. They’re not, exactly, but I’m not thrilled about them either.

  And even once she’s hurried off to order the food or whatever, and Mitch and I are making small talk, she keeps stopping by the table to ask one thing or another, and on each visit she finds a reason to smooth down a stray lock of Mitch’s hair, or brush imaginary lint off his shoulder.

  It’s not that I’m jealous or anything; it’s just that it’s rude. He’s obviously on a date with me. I mean, not a real date, but she doesn’t know that.

  The crazy part is, he doesn’t even seem to notice. I mean, he notices—obviously you notice when someone is touching you—but he just doesn’t really have much of a reaction. It’s like he doesn’t even consider that it’s … whatever it is. I guess I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what’s between them—now or in the past.

  But now I’m starting to wonder why he sat all the way over there instead of over here next to me. Maybe he doesn’t want her to think that we’re together? I mean, obviously we’re together, but maybe he doesn’t want her to think that we’re together together?

  Why does that thought make me so mad? After all, we’re not. But still.

  Our appetizers arrive and they’re delicious—some kind of cheese torte and crab cakes. I’d do just about anything for crab cakes; it’s a damned good thing they’re legal. These ones have some kind of spicy red pepper coulis or something on them, and I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted anything this good. It’s all I can do to put my fork down between bites.

  “Good?” he asks, wiping his mouth. He must have to be really vigilant about napkins, I think, with all that facial hair.

  “Beyond good,” I take a sip of my wine, which is also delicious. The guy sure knows how to pick a restaurant.

  The doors have finally opened, and other diners are starting to trickle in. I notice that they all get menus when they sit down.

  “Ready for more?” he asks.

  I polish off the last bite of my crab cake. “Absolutely.”

  He beckons to Angela; she comes over immediately and starts smoothing invisible wrinkles out of his sweater. It’s obviously just an excuse to put her hands all over his broad shoulders, but he either doesn’t know that or doesn’t care. They have another confab—I stifle another stab of jealousy—and apparently whatever he says meets with her satisfaction, because she graces him with a beatific smile and bustles back off to the kitchen.

  “What am I getting?” I ask.

  “The best dinner of your life,” he assures me.

  I suppose he’s probably right—he’s been right about so many other things. I decide to just sit back and let him take charge. He certainly didn’t steer me wrong with the crab cakes.

  “So,” he says, “let’s talk about this engagement-party-slash-ex-boyfriend thing.”

  “It’s not a particularly enjoyable topic for me,” I say.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, I wasn’t saying we couldn’t talk about it.” Now that I think about it, it’s probably best if we do. That way he can understand about the kind of guys I date, understand why things between us really can’t get serious. “It’s really okay. I just wanted you to know if I was testy about it or whatever, it wasn’t because of anything you did. It’s just a touchy subject.”

  “I understand.”

  I give him a quick rundown to start. “Drew and I met when I was in my last year of my Master’s. I was getting my MBA and he was just finishing up his internship—he’s a veterinarian. A friend asked me to go with her when she took her dog to be put down, and Drew was working that day. He was so kind, so incredibly gentle, both with my friend and the dog. I think I fell a little bit in love with him right there.”

  Mitch doesn’t say anything at all, and I take a nervous sip of my wine before picking the story back up.

  “But the thing about Drew is, he’s much better with animals than he is with people. And the short version of our relationship—which was actually pretty long—basically goes like this: I wanted a lot more commitment than he did, and when I pushed him for it, he … oh, I don’t know. He pushed back. And I got mad and left.”

  “What do you mean, pushed back?” he asks. “Did he do something to you?”

  “Oh, good God, no,” I say, astonished at how steely and angry he sounds. “Drew would never—no. He just….” I don’t want to think about it anymore. I have tried not to think about any of it since the night it happened, and I’m not about to start thinking about it now. We both said a lot of things that we should have thought better of. “He basically told me that I wasn’t the girl for him, that’s all.”

  “Sounds like you’re better off.”

  “But the point—at least for me—is that Drew is exactly the kind of guy I should be with. So it hurt to hear that he didn’t want me.”

  “The kind of guy you should be with?” Mitch sounds … skeptical, I guess. “What kind is that?”

  “Perfect in almost every way.”

  “What ways would those be?”

  “He’s … he’s Mr. Right, you know? Handsome, accomplished, well-educated.” I tick them off on my fingers. “He’s from a good family, he has a great job, he has plenty of money—should I go on?”

  “No, I get it,” he says. “Sounds like some kind of checklist.”

  I’m a little taken aback by that. It does sound like a checklist, and I’ve never thought of it that way. “Yes, I suppose it does,” I say. “But it’s irrelevant because he’s marrying someone else now. So it really doesn’t matter how good a catch he is. And anyway, I said it did hurt. It’s ancient history. I’m so over it.”

  Mitch looks pretty unconvinced, but he lets it lie, which is good. Real date or not, it’s rude to talk about your ex the whole time.

  “So tell me about your folks,” he says. “What do they do for work?”

  “Oh, my mom stays home. She always did, first to take care of me, and then just because she could, I guess. My dad’s a janitor. I didn’t see him much.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  I shake my head. “No, I totally understand it. He had to have his priorities, you know? He had a kid to take care of, and we didn’t have much money.”

  He thinks about it for a second. “Still, it’s a shame.”

  “I don’t really look at it that way,” I protest. “He just had things he had to do.”

  He drinks his wine, seems to think about it some more. “You seem like a very forgiving person.”

  “It’s not that, really.” I shrug. “I don’t talk about it much, but things were pretty difficult and he didn’t have much choice.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about it, but I’m interested.”

  And, oddly, I find myself telling him. “It’s not that he didn’t want to be with us more often. He was just really busy, trying to keep us afloat. My parents are reasonably comfortable now—they don’t have a kid to support anymore, and Dad’s union got him some wage increases. But when I was a kid my dad never just had a job—he always had a day job and a night job, so my mom could stay home. We lived in a broken-down old house in a town that didn’t have many of those, because the schools were better there, and it was all my parents could do to pay the mortgage. So it was tough, that’s all.”

  He nods. His face is serious—probably more serious than it needs to be, because it’s honestly not a big deal. My dad wanted me to have every opportunity, and he worked like a dog to see that I had a chance. He was so proud when I went off to college in New York City, of all places. He doesn’t even give me too much trouble about not coming home enough, and when he does it always seems to be on my mother’s behalf.

  And yeah, this informs the way I feel about who I should date, and who I should settle down with—not because I need a man to take care of me, I can take care of myself—but because I need so badly to make good on everything my parents sacrificed for me.

  But I don’t know how to say these things to someone who’s obviously feeling bad for me when I don’t feel bad for myself.

  Well, not on this topic, anyway.

  There’s a long silence—so different from our ease in the cab—and I sneak a look at my nail polish, which I should really have redone before going out in public.

  “So,” he says.

  I look up to find his eyes on me. It’s discomfiting to have someone just look right at you like that.

  I can’t help it; I have to know. “So how do you know Angela?”

  “I knew her in LA; she used to be on DN. She’s the one who got me my audition, actually.”

  “Were you, like, a thing? She seems very … comfortable with you.”

  He grins at me. “Angela’s comfortable with everyone,” he says. “That’s just sort of how she is.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, exactly, so I decide maybe I should get down to business. “So, speaking of Doctors and Nurses, are you excited about the move, or…?”

  “I am. It’ll be cool to play something different.”

  A waiter appears beside us with two plates full of something that smells exquisite, and in this moment I could not possibly care less about Angela or Doctors and Nurses or anything but this food. I take stock: there are huge scallops, blistered grape tomatoes, and asparagus, plated on an absolutely decadent-looking cream sauce that somehow also smells of citrus. Mitch’s dinner appears to be the same thing.

  “Dear God,” I say. “I don’t even dare to eat this; I’ll gain twenty pounds.”

  “I had Angela take the calories out,” he counters.

  I laugh and try a bite. It tastes even better than it looks.

  “By the way,” he says, “speaking of calories—”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want to hear it.”

  He flashes that marvelous grin at me again, and his shaggy hair falls forward onto his forehead. I’m so drunk on delicious food that I forget to think he’s anything but astonishingly sexy. “I just wanted to remind you to save room for dessert.”

  I groan. “You’re kidding, right?”

  He shakes his head; he’s really not.

  I dig in with gusto, forgoing conversation in the interest of overeating. It’s a nice silence, though, not awkward like the one earlier. I feel really at ease with him. It’s wonderful to stop being uptight and just have a good time.

  It’s not long before I’m so full that I have to slow down—I would say I regret the crab cakes, but it would be a dirty lie—so my food is barely half gone when Mitch and Angela start conferring about dessert. Soon after, the waiter spirits our dinner away—I’m very sad to see it go—and replaces it with an enormous dish of crème brulée and an even bigger piece of tiramisu.

  “I can’t eat even one bite of this,” I protest. “I have nowhere to put it.”

  He laughs. “Sure you can.” He stands up and moves to the chair on my left, then scoops up a spoonful of crème brulée and holds it out. “Just try it.”

  I hesitate, then lean forward and let him feed it to me. I know right away that I’m in trouble. I’m going to snatch it away from him and eat the whole thing, and I’ll never fit into my black sheath dress again. “Oh. My. God. That is not normal.”

  He takes a bite for himself. “That is good.”

  “I know.” I try the tiramisu, and it’s everything I could have wanted and more. I offer him the plate; he takes a forkful, and I laugh because he’s got mascarpone cheese on his upper lip now. I lean forward without thinking and wipe it off with my napkin.

  “Hey, thanks!” he says.

  I laugh again at his genuine surprise and gratitude. “No problem.”

  “Man, this stuff is great,” he says, shoveling in another spoonful of crème brulée. He’s becoming steadily less eloquent as the food gets progressively better.

  “It’s heavenly.” I fork up another bite of the tiramisu before pushing the plate away. “I can’t eat one more bite.”

  “Okay with me.” He gives Angela a little wave, and she heads toward us. “The camera adds ten pounds and all that.”

  “Is that true?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I never watch myself.”

  I ponder that while he deals with the check. If I were an actress I would watch myself obsessively, I think. I’d probably TiVo it and watch it over and over, finding some new fault with every viewing. I’ve been known to be hard on myself. I’m amazed all over again at how totally confident and comfortable with himself he is.

  “Okay,” he says, standing and pulling me to my feet. “Where to?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “There’s a cool-looking indie film playing a few blocks over, or we can go to Jacks, play some pool. Let Luis give us free drinks.” He smiles. “I’m happy with whatever.”

  I realize I have yet to ask him even one of the questions Kari gave me. “Let’s go to Jacks,” I say. “I don’t know how to play pool, but we can sit and chat instead of being quiet at the movies.”

  “Sounds great.”

  We head back out to the street, where the line has, if anything, gotten longer. I catch a couple of women looking at me with open envy. Is it the dinner, or my date?

  Except this isn’t a real date.

  And I kind of wish—just a little—that it was.

  Chapter Eight

  Jacks is crowded. The jukebox is loud and apparently someone is having an 80s flashback, because Bon Jovi is playing when we come in. We slide into the last two seats at the bar, and while Luis pours us Guinness drafts I get down to business and start asking questions.

  I find out that Mitch started filming this past Monday. His character, Blake Ratcliffe, is the recently-discovered long-lost son of the show’s matriarch, Lucille, a formidable woman both in and out of her role. Mitch speaks of her with enormous respect, and insists she’s very well-liked by everyone.

  I file that away for Kari but I know that’s not going to hold her. I try another tack. “So, if you’re so long-lost and everything, does that mean they didn’t know you existed at all?”

  He shakes his head. “They had no idea. Grown children you never knew you had are a soap staple. I get to be the black sheep and shock everyone in my very proper family, especially my mother, with my wild ways and womanizing.”

  “Womanizing?” I echo.

  “Yeah, they’re hooking me up with this character named Cassie—she’s Lucille’s husband’s daughter.”

  I think about that for a moment and say, “Wouldn’t that make her your sister?” Kari will love this.

  “Stepsister,” he corrects me. “But yes, it’s terribly scandalous. Apparently I’m the sort that doesn’t care what other people think.”

  “Typecasting?”

  “Damn straight,” he says. “I can’t remember the last time I cared what anyone thought about me.”

  Must be nice, I think.

  Luis drops off our beers, and I take a sip, flipping through my mental rolodex of Midnight Confessions questions. What should I ask next?

  He heads me off, though, by saying, “So tell me about this project at work that’s got you so frazzled.”

  And to my surprise, once again it seems like the most natural thing in the world to talk to him.

  “We’re launching this new savings and investment product. My boss wants to call it Grow; hopefully I can talk him out of it, but only if I can get my people to come up with something better. The idea is to market it to college students, who are kind of an untapped market in that they’re not generally looking to save or invest anything; they’re too busy taking out student loans.”

  “So,” he says, “the problem is, how do you get someone who’s so broke that he’s borrowing for school to make a long-term investment decision that won’t show any results for years?”

  “Exactly. The plan is to offer some very good opportunities for a much lower initial investment, and to give preferential rates to people who have other accounts with us.”

  He smiles broadly. “Including student loans?”

  “Especially student loans.” Man, he’s quick. I can’t help but slip into my marketing persona, and sell it to him like I would anyone else I was trying to convince. “The basic rationale is that kids that choose to go to college are going to go on to get good jobs where their investment potential is much greater. And these kids are already predisposed to understanding the value of saving and long-term investment, by virtue of the fact that they’ve decided to pursue a higher education in hopes of a better job—and, one can reason, enough money to prepare adequately for retirement.”