On the Rocks(87)

“You’re funny. Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff? You know a lot for someone with limited dating experience.”

“Trying to understand the inner workings of my brain is an exercise in futility. That said, I’ve always been mature for my age. Maybe that’s the problem. It would explain why I hit spinsterhood at the ripe old age of thirty-one.”

She chuckled, just a little. I was proud. I felt like if I managed to make her laugh for even just one second while she was going through this mess, that was something. I realized that while my own near-marriage collapse wasn’t exactly pleasant, it was nowhere near as bad as this.

“Well, I think you’re great. You don’t have any baggage, you’re funny, you’re a nice person, and even you can’t find a guy to be normal to you. I mean, your last date lit your check on fire. Maybe there aren’t any normal ones out there.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that if my social experiment was any indication, then no, there definitely weren’t.

“Yes, there are. You’ll meet someone, I’m sure of it.”

“I’ve been listening to you tell me about your dating stories, and I’m worse off than you are. I haven’t dated in over fifteen years. I don’t even know how to do it at this point. Things have changed a lot. Like what the hell is speed dating? I heard some southern belles talking about it in Atlanta, and I thought it sounded awful. Have you ever tried that?”

“If you count talking to a guy for three minutes before I decided that he was a complete and utter loser as a speed date, then yeah, thousands of them.”

“I’m serious Abby,” she said as she grabbed my hand from across the counter. “I don’t know the first thing about anything. I’m not ready for all of this.”

“Lara, you only removed your wedding rings a few hours ago. I don’t think you need to be ready for speed dating, online dating, or dating of any kind. But you aren’t out of the game entirely. When the time is right for you to reenter the murky, diseased waters of the dating pool, you’ll know. Though I strongly advise against speed dating or giving anyone your phone number who compares your looks to that of a celebrity. Trust me on that one.”

I squeezed her hand quickly when the bell over the door rang, and a customer entered the store. I recognized him instantly, even though he was now wearing board shorts and a backward baseball cap, but it was definitely Tom Marsh, holding a plastic bag from the convenience store across the street.

“Hey, Abby!” Tom said as he kissed me on the cheek hello. “I was hoping I’d find you here.”

He was still so very cute, but I was a little unsure as to why he was looking for me. I had just given him my phone number. He knew how to get ahold of me. Unless, of course, he had programmed me in his phone under a memory device and couldn’t remember which one I was. If there was one thing I’d learned it was that sometimes Bobby actually knew what he was talking about.

“Hey. How was the rest of your weekend?” I caught Lara looking at us out of the corner of her eye while pretending to be busy behind the register.

“It was good, but it got a little crazy, and I lost my phone.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I went through a phase where I lost three phones in as many months. There’s nothing worse.”

“Well, it’s not so much lost as destroyed. My buddies and I were on a boat yesterday, and I ended up getting thrown overboard with it still in my pocket. It’s toast.”

“Boating hazard, I guess.”

“Which is exactly why I was never big into fishing.”

“Though the sign you bought would suggest otherwise.”

He laughed and glanced at an I’D RATHER BE FISHING sign on display, a mate to the sign he had bought when he was trying, and failing, to work up the nerve to talk to me. “Exactly. Anyway, I obviously don’t have your number anymore, and the end of summer can get a little crazy, so I wanted to come by and see if I could convince you to give it to me again. I’ve decided no more water sports for the rest of this summer, so I should be able to hold on to it.”

I was just about to give him my number for the second time in three days when I had a thought. “You know what? Why don’t you give me yours? I’ll call you.” It was time I took some of the power back. I didn’t have to sit around and wait for people to reach out to me. If I wanted to talk to someone, I could just as easily call them.

“Okay, sure. I’d like that,” he said, seemingly intrigued by my suggestion.

I pulled out my phone and stored his number under his real name. I may have understood the male of the species a little better by the end of the summer in Newport, but that didn’t mean I wanted to play their games.

“Great. So, I’ll call you,” I said. “And thanks for coming by to tell me you lost your phone. I’m glad you did.”

“Me too. I’ll let you get back to work, but hopefully we can catch up soon.”

I waved good-bye as he left, and I felt so empowered I had to resist the urge to jump on the counter and start singing “I Am Woman.”

“He’s cute!” Lara said after he had passed the store window and was out of sight. “Like super-cute!”

“He is, yeah. And now I have his number, so whether or not I see him is entirely up to me.”