Once and for All

“Well,” he replied, “I don’t consider it busted. I didn’t lie to anyone, nor did I make any promises about exclusivity.”

  “But it was clearly assumed.”

  “That’s on them, not me.” I cocked my head to the side, making it clear I doubted this logic. “Look, I like hanging out with girls, plural. Commitment doesn’t really work for me.”

  “Maybe because you’re always hanging out with girls, plural?” I suggested.

  “No,” he countered, “because it’s too serious. Everything gets, like, heavy, immediately. And all the questions: Where are you going? Who with? When will you be back? Why haven’t you called? What’s that glitter in your hair?”

  “Glitter?”

  He sighed. “Let me put it this way. You know that feeling, when you very first meet someone and there’s a spark, that undeniable attraction, and everything about them seems new and interesting and perfect?”

  A boy on a beach, his hand outstretched. White shirt billowing in the dark. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”

  “It’s the best, right? Like magic, that awesome.” I nodded. “So why, if you could, wouldn’t you want that all the time, every time?”

  “Because,” I said, then realized immediately this was not an answer. I swallowed, taking a breath. “Then you only have beginnings, over and over again. Nothing substantial.”

  “But substantial is complicated. Substantial,” he said, pointing at me, “is questions about glitter in your hair, or why you won’t tag along shopping, or whether you find her friends annoying.”

  “So you don’t want anything that lasts,” I said, clarifying. “Only a bunch of magical first nights and days, strung along one right after the other.”

  He smiled. “Doesn’t sound bad, does it? All the upsides of dating, none of the down.”

  “Except when you get a drink thrown at you,” I pointed out.

  He shrugged. “Shirts can be washed.”

  We started walking again: it had been over an hour for each of us, and while my mom wasn’t exactly a bear, she would notice.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You think I’m terrible.”

  “Not necessarily. It’s just . . . not my way, I guess.” I thought for a second. “What’s funny is that Jilly was just saying, basically, that I need to be more like you.”

  “Really?” I nodded. “How so?”

  I paused, wondering how exactly to say this, what I wanted to reveal. “My last relationship—my boyfriend—it was basically all one perfect early beginning. We met at the beach, clicked immediately, spent a whole night talking. Then we were long distance, so there was never a chance of anything getting old.”

  He was quiet, listening to this. “Sounds nice.”

  “It was.” I swallowed again. “Anyway, I haven’t dated since. I haven’t wanted to. And she maintains it’s because my expectations were set so high, right off the bat. Like no one will ever compete.”

  “Do you think that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. This was the truth. “But maybe going into things hoping they will is the wrong approach. Like, if I date someone expecting nothing, I’d be better off.”

  “I don’t expect nothing of the person,” he corrected me. “Just the relationship.”

  “You’re just having fun, though,” I said. “No ties. No forever.”

  “Ugh, no.” He winced. “And who wants to be tied?”

  “I didn’t mind it with my boyfriend,” I said. “Which is exactly why your way wouldn’t work for me.”

  He considered this. “Sure it would. You just have to do it.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Because it would be that easy for you to change your ways, totally.”

  “I could,” he said, confident.

  “Ambrose. You’re seriously saying that it would be no problem at all for you to decide to date only one person, with an eye toward the long term, starting right now.”

  “Yeah, if I wanted to. Easily.”

  We were at the office door now. Through the glass, I could see my mom and William at the conference table, that week’s bride, Elinor Lin, between them. She was smart and gorgeous and had already had a dramatic, vocal meltdown about napkin holders. It was mid-June of my last summer doing this job. If I couldn’t sell cucumbers or sling coffee, maybe there was another way to endure.

  “Want to bet on it?” I asked Ambrose.

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

  “What about this,” I said. “For a set period, I agree to date the way you do, multiple people, no commitment. At the same time, you find one girl and see her exclusively. We see who bows out first.”

  “Oh, it’ll be you,” he said confidently.

  “We haven’t even set the stakes,” I said, offended.

  “I’m very competitive,” he explained. “Okay, specifics. What’s the time period?”

  “Three weeks?” I wasn’t totally sure, but I thought I saw him waver. “What, too long?”

  “I was thinking maybe not long enough,” he replied. “If I’m going to commit, I need to really go for it.”

  “Four,” I said.

  “Seven. That will get us to Bee’s wedding.”

  I had to admit, I was surprised. “Agreed. Other fine print?”

  “You can’t just go on a couple of dates and call it multiple because that’s what it would be for you. If you’re going to be me, you have to be all me. Lots of dates. Like, every night.”

  “Ambrose,” I said. “I have to work.”

  “I work!” I just looked at him. “Let’s say you have to do at least three a week.”

  “Three?” I said. “One.”

  “Please,” he replied, looking offended. “Two or no deal.”

  I sighed. “Fine. Two it is. And what does the winner get?”

  “Hmmm.” He leaned against the door, rubbing his chin like it actually helped him think. “If I win, I get to decide who you go out with next. And it can be anybody, you can’t dispute or refuse, no takesies backsies.”

  “Takesies backsies? What are you, twelve?” I said. “And what about if I win?”

  “You won’t,” he said, again so confidently. “But if we’re talking hypothetical, that would mean I couldn’t be a one-woman man, so you also get to pick my next prospect.”

  I stuck out my hand. “I have to admit,” I said, “I’m not totally sure why you’re agreeing to this.”

  “Because you think I can’t do it,” he replied. “And it’s only for seven weeks.”

  “After which,” I said, “you’ll go back to dating the entire town and getting drinks thrown at you.”

  “While you,” he added, “will be stuck with the person of my choosing, demanding the origin of the glitter in your hair.”

  We shook. It was a rare thing for me, lately or otherwise, to feel going into something that I already had an edge. But this time, I did. It was just dating, all beginnings, no endings. He was right—it did sound nice. And anyway, how hard could it be?

  CHAPTER

  12

  “OKAY,” DEVON said, holding up his hand. “LEGIONNAIRES.”

  As Tyler thought for a second, then jotted on his napkin, I tried to catch Jilly’s eye. But she was studying her water glass, or pretending to. “Got one!” he announced.

  “No way,” Devon said.

  “Yep.” Tyler cleared his throat, loudly. “REASONING LIE.”

  “Nice!” Devon said, reaching across the table for a high five. The tenth, since I’d started counting soon after we sat down. Each one sounded a louder slap than the rest, but again, that might have just been me.

  “My turn.” Tyler looked at me. “You want to get in on this yet? Run with the big dogs?”

  When we’d first arrived at the table and found them deep in an anagram competition, I’d actually thought
it was kind of cute. After it became clear they played this game with intense focus and pride riding on every exchange, I started to see it differently. Never before had I seen such smack talk over wordplay. And that wasn’t even mentioning the fact they’d basically entirely ignored us.

  “I’m good,” I said, taking another sip of the coffee drink I’d ordered to help me stay awake.

  “Suit yourself. Are you ready?” he asked Devon, who was hunched over his own napkin, pen in hand. “To get your clock cleaned? Your ass handed to you? Your—”

  “Just spit it out, Stevenson.”

  “Okay.” Tyler grinned at me. “REVOLUTIONARY. Go!”

  As Devon began scribbling, Tyler cackled, draining the last of the soda from his own glass with a slurp. When our waiter, a bodybuilding type, walked by, I watched Jilly’s eyes follow him. This time, she saw me watching her and mouthed an apology.

  I just shrugged. Sure, the guys were kind of duds, but it wasn’t like anyone was groping me. And I’d gotten a decent dinner out of it, plus got to hang out with Jilly, something I was realizing I needed to do as much as I could before we both headed off to school in August. Not focusing on the dating aspect of, well, dating was actually a good approach. Who knew?

  “Got it!” Devon yelled, hitting the table and making my fork jump. “UNTO REAL IVORY.”

  “Nice,” Tyler said. Another five. “You girls have to join in! Unless you’re scared. . . .”

  “You don’t scare me,” Jilly said flatly in response. She pushed out her chair. “We’re going to the bathroom.”

  “All right,” said Tyler, then signaled to Devon to pick up his pen again. We were almost to the restroom when I heard one of them yell, “A THIGHBONE GROOM TOT!”

  “Keep going,” she said from behind me, as palms slapped again. “Do not turn around.”

  Once inside the restroom, I went into a stall, while she leaned against the sinks, contemplating her reflection. After a moment she said, “I can’t believe I picked these guys. Normally my judgment in these things is aces.”

  “It was the sport coats,” I told her. “They blinded you.”

  “Probably.” I heard the water running. “I’m just sorry for you. I finally convince you to go on a real date with me and this happens. Now you’ll never agree to anything again.”

  I flushed, then came out to join her, pumping soap into my hands. “No, I will. My pride is at stake now, remember? Or at least for the next seven weeks.”

  “Oh, right.” She fluffed her bangs. “I guess I have Ambrose to thank for that, huh? I finally got my wingman. Or woman. Or whatever.”

  “And it only took our entire lives so far,” I told her.

  “True. Watch, though: while you specifically aren’t looking for someone great, you’ll find them. I’m out here digging for years and you will just stumble over a gold nugget by accident.”

  “Is that what you think is happening tonight?” I asked. “Because Tyler is no gold nugget.”

  “I’m just saying there are types,” she replied. “Those of us who are always seeking, like me, and those who get found, like you. That’s why I think, no offense, that Ambrose might win this bet. He’s a seeker, too.”

  “Who has to commit to someone,” I reminded her.

  “For seven weeks,” she said, flipping her hand. “My point is that to win, all he has to do is be himself with one person. You have to be someone else with many. The math doesn’t work for me.”

  “If he’s himself, he won’t last with the same person for seven weeks,” I reminded her. “In his default setting, he’d flirt with a parking meter.”

  “This is true.” She opened her bag, taking out a lipstick. “But I just worry about you suddenly plunging into the dating pool. I don’t think I’ve taught you enough.”

  I looked at her through the mirror. “Then why have you been encouraging me to do just that for all these months? Are you forgetting that you said I should do this earlier today? What happened to swine before pearls and rolling the dice?”

  “It’s not the same thing, though,” she said. “What I was suggesting was just getting back out there and seeing what happens, with the knowledge that it might not be Ethan all over again. This is aiming for that. It’s totally different.”

  “But it’s something,” I pointed out. “Which is more than I have been doing.”

  She sighed. “Look, you know I’ll support you no matter what. But is it so bad that I do want another big, perfect love for you? I feel like it’s the least the universe can do, after what you lost.”

  “I’m only seventeen, Jilly. This is seven weeks. The universe has plenty of time.”

  With this, she bit her lip, a rare emotional response, then put out a hand, squeezing my arm. “Well, if you need a lot of dates that will probably not be great, you came to the right person. I have sort of a knack in that department. And I would like to see Ambrose go down, if only for the sport of it.”

  “I’ll let you help pick whom he has to date when I win,” I promised her. “I’m thinking maybe a Tyler or Devon type girl. Lots of high fives.”

  “Too bad for now that’s what we’re stuck with.” She dropped her lipstick back in her bag. “You know, that waiter’s kind of cute and he’s been super friendly with me. Wonder what he’s up to later?”

  “You’re going to ditch the sport coats right here at dinner?”

  “Oh, please. I doubt they’d even notice if we didn’t go back to the table.”

  I pushed open the door, glancing back into the restaurant. Tyler and Devon were now building structures with the silverware and leftover plates, both of them clearly focused. “We can’t just leave,” I said.

  “Spoken like a true person who gets found,” she told me. “Us seekers have no patience for lost causes.”

  Maybe this was true. But in the end, she would give them another thirty minutes—during which time we as a group exchanged about six words—before pleading a headache and early morning the next day and getting us out of there. When Tyler asked me for my number, I was surprised to say the least, and almost told him I didn’t see the point. We had zero chemistry and the last thing I wanted was a repeat of this dinner or some variation of it. But Jilly was more right than I’d known: when you’ve only been found, you can’t become a ruthless seeker just like that. So in the end, I gave it to him anyway.

  “Seriously? Anagrams?”

  I looked around me, wondering if I’d misjudged how loudly Ambrose had asked this question. Nope. Even Phone Lady, at a table a few feet away, had given us her attention, briefly pausing her own high-volume conversation.

  “Yes,” I said in almost a whisper, like this would compensate. “Aggressive ones. It was cutthroat.”

  “Whoa.” The line inched forward, slowly. Lately, the coffee order had become Ambrose’s job, but with Elinor Lin and her mother back for yet another meeting, it was that much more important, so I’d come along for backup. “So I’m guessing the night did not end with a hot make-out session.”

  “No,” I said flatly. “He barely spoke to me the whole dinner, actually. But then he asked for my number, which was weird.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did he ask for my number?”

  “No,” he said, “I know that. You’re a hot girl and he loves word games. What I’m wondering is why you think it was weird.”

  I barely had time to process being referred to as “hot,” which was a first, before answering. “Why would he want to see me again if he had no interest in me when I was right in front of him?”

  “Well, I wasn’t there,” he replied as the line moved up a bit more, “but if I was a betting man, I’d say he had no idea you didn’t have a good time.”

  “I think it was pretty obvious.”

  “Maybe to you. But some people—guys in particular—are oblivious. It’s what makes dati
ng so easy when you aren’t that way. It’s like having a secret power.”

  From behind me, I now heard Phone Lady talking, saying something about steep vet bills and highway robbery. “And that’s you,” I surmised. “Superman.”

  “No,” he said, tossing that curl out of his face. “But the bottom line is, all anyone really wants from another person is their attention. It’s so easy to give and counts for so much. It’s stupid not to do it.”

  Hearing this, I thought of all the times I’d seen Ambrose leaning into a girl while she talked, his interest rapt and evident. Starting with that very first night in the parking lot of the club when he was AWOL for his mom’s wedding, all the way up to . . . well, moments earlier, when he’d made Emily, one of the stationery store owners, blush when he complimented her dress. Would I have felt differently the night before if between word games Tyler had focused entirely on me? I couldn’t say. But it wouldn’t have hurt.

  “I think I’m going to win this bet,” I announced as we moved up in line. “If you give attention to every female you meet, there’s no way you’ll be able to keep a girlfriend.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with attention,” he said easily. “I just can’t openly flirt. Luckily, I know the difference.”

  I turned, facing him. “Does this mean you’ve already met someone with possible life-partner potential?”

  I was pretty sure he winced at this last part, but he recovered quickly. “First of all, my life is not seven weeks. Or at least I hope it isn’t. Second, finding one person to be with for that time isn’t as easy as a dinner date. It takes time and focus.”

  “Or,” I countered, “you could just take the first girl you would have that one perfect first night with and see if she can go the distance.”

  “True,” he replied. “But the only girl I met last night was a total train wreck. I basically had to dodge out the back door of a club and take off on foot. Long story.”

  “Was this before or after you gave her your full attention?”

  He ignored this, instead moving up to the register, where we’d finally arrived. The Lumberjack was behind the counter, in red-and-white plaid this time. “Long time, no see,” he said, giving me a nod. “Where’ve you been?”