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Hadn’t I just told Linda I wasn’t interested in dating? What was wrong with me? Steve was right’ it had been a long time.
“Go talk to her,” Steve said.
I looked at him. “She can’t be more than thirty. What would she want with someone my age?”
“You’re barely forty, and according to Tina’s magazines, forty is the new thirty. Blondie might be too old for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Haha.”
“You should get her a drink.”
That was a good idea. But why couldn’t I get my ass out of the chair? And why were my palms sweating? “I don’t know, Steve. Ollie’s been kind of off lately, and with the house hunt, I—”
“It doesn’t have to be forever!” Steve said, exasperated. “Go have a conversation. You can do that, right?”
“Right,” I repeated, mechanically pushing myself out of the chair. I walked toward the dance floor, but a crush of people passed in front of me—college students from the look of it. But by the time they passed, I’d come up with a million reasons why she wouldn’t be interested in a guy like me.
Fuck.
I was a coward.
I drained my beer and went to the bar to get another one. Maybe three. Then I could bring her and her friend a drink.
I took my beer first, trying to work up the courage to talk to this girl. I’d never been this nervous before. Maybe because I was out of practice. Maybe because the way her curves filled out that dress had my body reacting in very inappropriate ways.
Either way, I promised myself I’d talk to her by the end of the night. And then I’d put the rest in her hands.
6
Birdie
Confession: I learned how to dance from Britney Spears music videos.
There are always those girls at the club. You know the ones. They’re beautiful, but even more so, they’re effortlessly sexy. When they hit the dance floor, the music takes over and somehow their body moves in a way that makes people look.
Me? I amnotone of those people.
No, I could be wearing a corset and fishnet leggings and have all the sex appeal of a potato.
That was kind of how my body was shaped anyway. While Mara’s curves came in all the right places, with an ample chest and wide hips, my weight was in my stomach. Right in the middle. One time a student told me I was shaped like an Easter egg. And well, they weren’t wrong.
Mara closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair, absolutely screaming sex with her dance moves.
I, on the other hand, had learned to dance from Britney Spears music videos (#FreeBritney). So I did the best I knew how and hoped no one was looking. I was getting too old for this anyway.
Wasn’t there some type of club for fuddy-duddies looking for rebound sex? That’s where I needed to go.
At the end of the song, my hair was sticking to the back of my neck and I had beads of sweat on my forehead. It was hot and humid, and I had never felt more unattractive in my life.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I told Mara, which was really just code for “I need to cry in a bathroom stall while contemplating my existence.”
As I walked toward the bathroom, I put my hand under my thick mane of curly dirty-blond hair so my neck would have a chance at drying off.
I ducked into the bathroom and dove into an empty stall, locking the door behind me. The entire place reeked of perfume and vomit, which just made my impending mental breakdown seem that much more fitting.
I leaned over my legs, wondering how on earth I’d gotten here.
I was nearly thirty. I had a graduate degree. I’d worked at an amazing school for three years. Many of my students were already attending Ivy League universities.