The Magnolia Chronicles: Adventures in Modern Dating(3)

I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. "I—oh, god—I don't want to put all of these things in the same category. Brother penis doesn't live in the same world as date penis. Separate and distinct categories, please."

"Whatever you want," she replied.

"Then—wait." I peered at her. "You want my New Year's resolution to be giving you control of my online dating profiles? That sounds like a project for you and a punishment for me."

"It is not a punishment," she argued. "But no, that is not the resolution I have in mind for you." She ran the belt through her fingers again. "This year, I want you to commit to finding someone who sees you the way I do—beautiful, smart, amazing."

"And compostable," I added.

"Compost is magic, Mag." A thin frown pulled her lips down. "Promise me you'll try."

"You just want to plan a wedding and start shopping for baby baptism gowns."

I didn’t want to admit it to her or even myself but after attending twenty-two weddings over the past six years, I’d socked away enough plans of my own. I knew I wanted a beachy summer wedding on the southeast coast of Massachusetts and I had some ideas about ornamental cabbage centerpieces.

She lifted her shoulders. "That's a fringe benefit," she admitted. "Your happiness is the goal."

"And I'm finding happiness in a man? That's what you're telling me?"

Another shrug. "The happiness won't come from a man."

"No?" I challenged. "Then where is it coming from in this experiment?"

My mother grinned. It was the same grin she used when insisting she knew us as fetuses. She was right about that, about us. Ash's moods were volatile, Linden couldn't be more introverted if he tried, and I had a dramatic moment or two.

"You'll find out, my girl. You'll know."

I wished I shared my mother's confidence.





Chapter One





My date was picking his teeth with a steak knife.

It wasn't a quick thing either. No in, out, done. He was halfway to giving himself a root canal right here in the middle of the restaurant.

The best part was when he struck gold and dug out a bit of food. He'd give it a thorough inspection and then pop it back in his mouth. Maybe I was wrong about it being the best part. None of this could qualify as the best of anything. I didn't know how it could qualify as the best when it seemed like increasingly dark shades of awful. The dating world knew no connection to logic. This had to be the worst part.

He'd ordered the largest steak on the menu and requested it "blue and mooing." There was something about the purposeful wink he'd shot in my direction as he'd said those words, as if his capacity for red meat was somehow indicative of his penis size.

But I couldn't get past the dental exam.

I watched, my fingers frozen around the stem of my wineglass, while he engaged in this ritual for full minutes at a time.

My first instinct was to drown the flames of this date with Pinot Grigio, but I was oddly entranced by this guy's knife-swallowing act. I didn't want to be caught unaware when he sliced off a chunk of his tongue.

In the two months since diving headfirst into the dating game, I'd learned one thing: it shouldn't be this difficult. The human race had millions of years of existence on its side, and it wasn't supposed to be so complicated to find a decent guy. That was all I wanted: a decent guy. I didn't need a prince, a white knight, a billionaire, an athlete, or even an architect.

Another thing I'd learned: I wasn't asking for much. I wanted a guy who knew how to wear a pair of jeans and fix a leaky faucet and enjoyed big family dinners on Sundays. I wanted a guy who returned text messages and remembered birthdays and never made shady comments about his exes being crazy clingers. He didn't have to be perfect. He could leave his dirty socks and underwear right next to the laundry hamper and keep porn on his computer. Hell, I loved porn and didn't even own a proper hamper.

And another lesson: I was convinced I'd met all the men metro Boston had to offer. There was the wandering millennials, the affluent assholes, the man-shaped children, the chronically misogynistic mansplainers. I wasn't positive where the knife swallower fit in this phylum but I knew these savage teeth-cleaning rituals met the criteria for automatic disqualification.

Next, please.

"What do you do, Margot?" he asked, his gaze trained on the half-chewed bit of god-only-knew-what on the tip of his knife.

Since meeting him at the restaurant an hour ago, he'd managed to butcher my name into an endless string of nonsense. Maisey, Margot, Melanie, Mackenzie. Without my name and profile pic front and center on the dating app in which we'd matched, it seemed he was lost in the sauce.

Damn dating apps. As promised, I was going along with this crazy scheme of my mother's. She'd signed me up, loaded the photos, wrote the pithy profile, and breathlessly waited for me to meet the man of my dreams.

Easy enough, right?

Not so fast.

The presumed anonymity of the internet stripped back layers of formality and pleasantry—and humanity. This algorithm-fueled existence reduced many men—not all, but a good share—into vagina-seeking drones who led with their penises and defended themselves with a war chest of insults. Despite my mother's insistence she could survive a dick pic or twenty, I'd shielded her from all manner of messaging. It was the Wild West out there.