A Tale of Two Love Affairs

The routines were as familiar to him as old jeans grown two sizes too small.

If sex wasn't Jane's idea, then it didn't happen. And it was her idea only two or three times a month. He was lucky if he got laid every ten days.

The only relief that his aching balls would get tonight was what he could give himself in the bathroom after she fell asleep.

The shortest and surest route for him to get to sex with a woman would be to convince Candace to ask Alan for a date and pray that Stella would keep her promise.

The phrase,a great piece of ass on the side,blazed circles around his brain like a lighthouse beacon. The piece of paper with Stella's email address written on it was the magic key to that great piece of ass. It felt like a sheet of red-hot steel burning in his pocket.

When he undressed, he tucked the email address into the innermost pocket of his wallet. The pocket that zipped closed. The one that he never used.

In the morning, he knocked on Candace's bedroom door.

He interpreted her sleepy grumble as permission to enter, so he poked his head in and asked her if she was working today.

She said that her shift started at four. She liked the evening shifts because dinner tips were a lot better than the lunch crowd's. Even on a Monday.

"How about I take you to lunch, then?"

"Don't you work?" she said.

"I get a lunch break. I'll pick you up at eleven-thirty."

"What about Mom?"

"She's working. It'll just be you and me. A little father-daughter time. How about it?"

"Okay."

"Eleven-thirty."

"Okay. I heard you. I'll be ready. Just let me get back to sleep."

He got little work accomplished that morning. He spent his time trying to figure out how to convince Candace to ask a boy for a date when she couldn't even remember meeting him.

When lunchtime rolled around, he still didn't know what he was going to say. He would have to wing it.

The one thing that he did accomplish was to send an email to Stella telling her that he was going to ask Candace to go on a date with Alan. He got a woody while he was typing the message. Hardwood.

She emailed a phone number back to him within a few minutes. She was so quick that he still had his wood on.

When he walked into the house at eleven-twenty-five, Candace was coming down the stairs, still in her nightgown. "You're early," she said.

Her smile was so disarming that he said only, "I'll wait for you to get dressed."

It was after twelve before she was ready.

"Dim sum?" he asked, knowing that his daughter had an affinity for strange Asian food.

"Sushi," she countered.

Sushi it was.

Half an hour later, as he picked over a plate of seaweed-wrapped rice stuffed with various species of raw fish and difficult-to-identify vegetables, he began nibbling around the edges of the subject that dominated his thoughts. "I haven't seen you going out with any boys recently."

"No, I guess you haven't," she replied, the twinkle in her eye telling him that she was deliberately giving him nothing.

He watched her smear a thick green paste onto a piece of sushi, then pop it into her mouth. He did the same and took an experimental bite.

Horseradish. Killer green horseradish. His mouth surged with pain and his scalp tried to crawl right off his skull. Then his sinuses emptied themselves into the back of his throat like emergency fire extinguishers. Ineffective fire extinguishers.

He grabbed a glass of water and downed the entire contents.

"Wasabi," she said. "Japanese mustard. It's pretty hot. You might want to be careful with it until you get used to it."

"Gaahh," he replied.

"Yeah," she said. "I went out to a Green Day concert with a guy named Paul a couple of weeks ago but he was pretty much out of it. He thought that Green Day was still cool. That's what I get for going out with an old guy like him. He must have been almost thirty. He didn't call back so I guess that's not going anywhere."

"Have you ever thought about going out with a different kind of guy," Peter tried to say, but, coming from his burning throat, it sounded more like, "Gah gu ha aught agut gaging gu..." He emptied Candace's water glass and tried to speak again but had no more success.

"Have a piece of California roll without the wasabi," Candace suggested. "The rice will absorb some of the heat."

He scarfed two pieces of the roll in quick order and finally managed to utter an intelligible sentence. "I was saying that you might think about going out with a different kind of guy." It hurt to talk and he sounded like he'd had a botched larygectomy but he forced the words out anyway. Getting a chance at a great piece of ass on the side was worth a little pain. "You should sample the variety of life while you're still young and free."

Candace frowned. She had a pretty frown. "I've already dated a lot of different guys. I mean, not alotof guys. I'm not like that. But I've dated enough to have some idea about what's what."

"I know. But most of the guys that you've told me about have been kind of..." He searched for the right word; he didn't want to say that she dated assholes. "Kind of the same in some ways. You've never dated any guy who's shy or introverted, for example."

"You mean a total bore?"

"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean."

She laughed. "You're funny, dad."

"I try," he said. "But I'm being a little bit serious about this. You might think that men who work hard and can hold a job are boring but there're some real advantages to going out with a man who doesn't need you to pick up the check every time. He can be more interested in you than in your wallet."

"You think that I've been dating men who aren't all that into in me?"

"Haven't you?"

Candace lowered a piece of spider roll from her mouth and looked thoughtful for a minute. Peter could see her conducting a mental inventory of the guys that she had dated.

Finally she said, "Adam." You remember Adam, don't you? He took me to my high school prom.

Peter nodded. "He was a nice guy. Whatever happened to him?"

"Two weeks after the prom, he came out of the closet. He said that he couldn't tell anyone that he was gay while he was still in high school so he waited until the day after graduation." Candace laughed. "He told me that he couldn't go out with me any more. Then he said that it wasn't me, it was him. Guys always tell that lie when they dump you, but when Adam said it, I had no trouble believing it. The problem really was with him."

"Is that what put you off nice guys? You're afraid that they'll turn out to be gay?"

"No. I'm afraid that they'll turn out to be boring. Adam was the only nice guy I ever met who wasn't boring. I guess he was interesting because he was hiding a big secret. Big secrets make guys interesting."

"Secrets make guys untrustworthy."

"But interesting."

Before this conversation could get any further sidetracked. Peter decided to get right to the heart of the matter. "If you're not dating anyone at the moment, there's someone that I'd like you to try. That boy, Alan, from the party last night. I'd like you to go on a date with him."

There was a long pause while Peter waited for his daughter to answer. She stared at him with the strangest expression. Waves of puzzlement, anger, and amusement swept across her features in random order, sometimes co-existing and sometimes fighting for dominance. Finally she settled on amusement.

"Daddy, dearest," she said, "are you trying to play matchmaker? With me?"

He wanted to be honest and say,No, daughter dearest, I'm trying to pimp you out so that I can get a great piece of ass on the side for myself,but he kept the ugly truth to himself and simply said, "Yes."

"Why?"

"It's an experiment. Aren't you curious to find out what will happen if you go out with a different kind of boy? A kind that you've never considered before?"

"And then what?" she asked.

"And then nothing. If you don't like him, don't go out with him again. All I ask is that if you drop him, drop him gently." Peter smiled at his daughter. "He seems fragile."

She smiled back. "Do you think that I'd want to be responsible for a fragile boy?"

"You're only going to be responsible for yourself."

"Okay," she said.

"Okay?"

"Okay. I'll go out with him. When he asks, I'll say, 'Yes.'"

Peter paused. It was his turn to show a strange expression. "Well, about that. There's a slight hitch there."

"What hitch?" she asked with a frown.

Peter took a deep breath. "He's shy. He's not going to call and ask you out."

"Well," she said, laughing, "that solves that problem, doesn't it?"

"I'd like you to call him and ask him to take you out." Peter pushed a piece of paper with a name and phone number across the table.

She looked at it without touching it. "What's that?" She could see what it was but she wanted to hear her father say it out loud.

"It's the boy's name and phone number."

"I don't ask boys for dates. They ask me. I've never asked a boy for a date in my life."

"Then it'll be a new experience for you."

"It would be humiliating for me."

" No, just for him. He should find it humiliating that this is the only way that he can get a date. You're being an angel of mercy."

"I won't do it."

"Please."

"Go on a mercy date? Give the poor loser dork a good time for once in his life because he such a pitiful case?"

Peter didn't know what the right answer to that so he avoided the question and attacked the underlying premise. "Alan's not a loser. He was his class valedictorian and he's got a full-time job with Google. He'll be the most successful young man that you've ever dated. His only problem is that he's shy about women."

Candace sighed and picked up the paper, dangling it from two fingers like it was contaminated with the plague. She turned it around to peer cautiously at the far side, as though she should be afraid of what might be lurking there.

"You'll call him, then?" Peter asked.

"I don't even know him."

"You met him at the party last night."

"That's what you keep saying. I still say that I don't know him."

"But you'll call him?"

"Yes," Candace said. "I'll call him."

She had never seen her father look so happy as he did at that moment. She couldn't figure out why he would want so badly that she let some dork take her out for dinner.

But, if that was what made him happy, it was the least that she could do for him.

After all, it was just a date. No big commitment or anything.

Later, though, as she was dressing for her evening shift at the Pig's Tie Pub, she began to wonder if she was supposed to plan the date before she called the boy. Usually, she had only to answer the phone, listen to the boy's suggestion, and then sayyesornoin more or less polite terms, depending on how sincere he sounded. This time, because she was calling the boy to ask him out, she would have to have something to say if he asked,Where?

Never before had she realized that it took effort to ask someone for a date.

Then she chided herself for worrying about it. She liked the Roxy Shox Club. If this Alan creature didn't have a suggestion then he could take her dining and dancing at the Roxy Shox. Her call, her choice. That was the way the world worked. If he didn't like dancing to a techno beat, then he better be ready to suggest an acceptable alternative.

She dialed the number, expecting to leave a message, but a man answered on the first ring. "Alan."

"Hi, Alan. This is Candace. We met at that party last night? I don't know if you remember me."

"Oh." Pause. "Sure." Pause. "I was sitting almost next to you for most of the evening."

If you say so, but I'll have to take your word for that,she thought but said, "Yeah. That was me all right. Anyway, we didn't get a chance to talk much so I thought that it might be nice to go out to dinner and chat one-on-one a little."

There was a long pause.

"Alan?" she said. "Are you still there?"

"God, yes. Yes. I'm still here. Sure. Sure."

There was another pause.

"Sure, you're still on the phone or sure, you'd like to go out for dinner?" she said.

"Sure both. I'd love to take you out to dinner. You mean like on Saturday?"

"Oh. No. Sorry. I work on Saturday nights. Friday nights, too. My next free evening is tomorrow night. Wednesday. How does that sound?"

"That sounds great. I'll make a reservation somewhere?" He turned his statement into a question.

"Sure. You want to make it early?"

"Um. Can't be too early. I work during the day. I don't get off until five-thirty. Can I pick you up at six-thirty?"

"Okay. You have a car?"

"I will by tomorrow night. Even if I have to go out and buy one tomorrow afternoon."

She laughed. She wouldn't have guessed that he could be funny. Maybe he wasn't going to turn out to be as weird as she had feared. "Okay."

"Okay."

He hung up.

Not thirty seconds later, her phone rang. It was Alan again. "I forgot to ask where you live."

She gave him her address.

"Okay. Great. I'll be there at six-thirty tomorrow."

"In a car?"

"In a car for sure."

He hung up again.

Maybe he was going to be weird after all.

She forgot about her date almost as soon as she hung up the phone. She was out shopping on Wednesday afternoon and saw an adorable dress at American Eagle. It was casual enough to look comfortable so she tried it on. When she saw how good she looked in it, her first thought was that she should wear it on her next date. Too bad that she didn't have any dates coming up. Then, with a start, she remembered that she did. She glanced at her watch. That boy from the party last Sunday – what was his name? Oh, yeah, Alan – would be coming to pick her up for dinner in less than two hours.

She had to get home and get cleaned up. It was never a good idea to stand a man up on the first date. Some of them tend to get discouraged easily. Even some of the self-centered jerks that she usually dated could be uncertain on a first date. Unfortunately, they tended to hide their uncertainty behind a façade of macho posturing. She hoped that Alan wouldn't try that dodge.

Alan was on time. In fact, he was weirdly punctual. When the doorbell rang, Candace glanced at the clock on the cable box and it said that it was exactly six-thirty. Not six twenty-nine or six thirty-one but exactly six three zero.

By the time she came out to the living room, her father had already opened the door and was stepping back to admit the young man.

Candace searched his face, expecting to find something familiar in his features. After all, everyone claimed that he had been sitting in the same room, practically next to her, for more than two hours.

She didn't register the slightest glimmer of recognition. She felt like she was looking at a stranger.

Alan was not particularly good looking. There was nothing seriously wrong with him, just a collection of little flaws – a nose too big, eyes too close together, lips too thin, a slight droop on one side. If you didn't look at him too closely, he was all right.

Most of the guys that she dated were more handsome than him. She didn't think of herself as choosing men for their looks, it just worked out that way. She was exceptionally good looking so ordinary looking men were less likely to ask her for a date. They were afraid that she would turn them down and nobody likes that.

She didn't realize that, even though she tried to be equally friendly to everyone, unconsciously, she did choose men by their looks. She automatically made herself appear more accessible to handsome men. She give them more eye contact, stood closer to them, smiled more readily when they spoke.

A homely man would have to badly misread her body language to think that she welcomed his attention in any way other than as a casual acquaintance. And, if an ugly one did give her the wrong kind of attention, she would not hesitate to set him straight, gently but firmly.

"You remember Alan," her father said, gesturing to the young man.

"Of course," she replied, stepping forward, taking his hand and brushing her lips against his cheek. She always did that at the beginning of a first date because a little light physical contact did wonders to help break the ice. "Let's go," she said, leading him back out the door.

She was in a hurry to leave with Alan because there was something a little bit strange about the way her father was looking at the two of them. It was a bit creepy.

It was not until they had almost reached the street that she realized that Alan had not yet spoken to her; had not even looked at her. She hoped that he liked her new dress. Maybe he planned to take her somewhere that was too formal for American Eagle. It wasn't too late for her to go back and change.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I know this pub that's pretty good," he said. "I eat there a lot."

A pub was good. Her dress would be completely appropriate.

Then he added, "It's called the Pig's Tie."

God no! She spent forty hours a week there; she wasn't going to spend her evening off there as well. "The Pig's Tie is a good pub," she said, "but, if you don't mind, I'd rather go somewhere else."

"What's wrong with it?" he asked.

"Nothing. I'm just not in the mood for it tonight."

"Umm. Okay. How about Chili's?"

"Okay. Let's go to Chili's." Chili's wasn't her favorite place by a wide margin – it was too middle-of-the-road – but anything was more acceptable than the Pig's Tie.

He said little as they drove across town.

She tried to remember serving him at the Pig's Tie but drew a blank. She wanted to ask him if he recognized her from there, but didn't want to tell him that she was a waitress. She didn't think that there was anything wrong with being a waitress and, most of the time, wasn't shy about telling people what she did for a living. But that conversation always included saying that she was taking a break from college and intended to go back after working for a year or two. Knowing that this guy had been his class valedictorian made her worry that she would sound lame. Like she was making up the going-back-to-college-soon story because she was afraid that she wasn't as smart or as accomplished as him.

She'd talk about her circumstances when he asked but she didn't want to volunteer that information this early in the date. Instead she was happy to ride to Chili's in silence.

Once they had settled into their seats, read the menu, and decided on food, there was nothing left but to actually talk to each other.

"I heard that you work for Google," she said to kick things off.

"Yes. I'm one of their technical writers. I'm documenting the API for a new mobile app. I'm afraid that I can't tell you much about it because it's all covered by NDAs."

That was a dead end. "So you work in the city?" she said, trying to kick the conversation in a new direction.

"Yes, but I report to a group back in Mountain View. Google has some offices here so I can work remotely but I fly back to California every month or so for one meeting or another. Sorry that I can't explain more about that but there's those darned NDAs to worry about."

"Okay." Another dead end. "So, how did you come to be at the Anderson's party on Sunday? Do you know Polly?"

"Polly?"

"Polly Anderson? Her parents hosted the party? It was her birthday?"

"Oh. No. I just met her that night. My dad knew Mr. Anderson from a long time ago. They used to work together."

Oops. This violated Candace's first rule of dating – no talking about parents. Nothing killed the mood on a date so quickly as parents on the mind. She scrambled to get the conversation back to something fun. "So tell me about your love life." She smiled angelically at him. "Broken many hearts lately?"

For a moment, he stared at her like she was speaking Vulcan. Then his ears turned bright red and he looked down at the tablecloth. "I don't have one," he mumbled.