Page 35 of It's Not PMS, It's You

“Exactly! I always say that if you want to be with me, you get the whole enchilada. And if not, I am out the door like albacore.”

The last time I checked, tuna live in the ocean and do not enter or exit through any door.

Thank God the waiter returned and placed our lunch orders on the table in front of us, grilled rainbow trout for Barney and Baja fish tacos for me.

The sooner I ate, the sooner I was out of there. Barney and I were not going to happen in this lifetime or any other lifetime. Normally, I would have already left by now, but I hated wasting food.

“Hey—how about a photo? Just the two of us?” Barney held up his phone.

“That’s quite all right.”

He would most likely have stuck it on social media and the last thing I wanted was there to be proof that I knew him or that the two of us ever went out on a date.

He shook his head. “No—I meant a picture of just the two ofus.” He gestured to his plate. “Me with my trout.” He handed me the phone and held the plate of fish under his nose, a big smile on his face like he thought this was just as fun as Disneyland.

Already bored out of my mind with this doofus, I zoomed in on Barney’s scalp to see if his hair was real. I snapped the picture, turned off his phone, and handed the phone back to him.

Barney glanced at his phone. “That’s weird. My phone is dead.”

“And your fish is cold. Eat.” I wolfed down my first fish taco in four bites and then picked up the second one to begin work on it, while Barney ignored his trout and began talking about another ex as he tried powering his phone back up.

“She was as thin as an Italian breadstick and—”

I held up my hand. “Please . . . just stop.” I set the taco down, in desperate need of changing the subject to something more enlightening while I finished my food and got the hell out of there. “Tell me something aboutyou. For instance, what’s your specialty in the kitchen? I know you’re a chef, but not much more than that.”

“Ahhhh. My specialty?” Barney smiled proudly. “Bagels.”

I waited for him to laugh and tell me he was joking, but the silence became awkward.

I jumped in to get some clarification. “Bagels? What do you mean?”

“I own a bagel shop. I told you I made a lot of dough. Ha!” He laughed and slapped the table, causing the trout on his plate to go airborne for a brief second.

I stared at him. “Bagels? Really?”

“Plain, asiago, blueberry, sesame, onion, garlic, egg, you get the idea. Over seventeen varieties and ten different spreads, everything homemade. With three locations to serve you.” He grabbed his wallet, took out a business card, and handed it to me.

I read the big bright red letters printed on the front of the business card. “Barney’s Bagels?”

He’s not kidding.

“That’s me! The king of bagels.” He gestured to the card. “Turn it over!”

I flipped the business card over to the other side. It had a frequent bagel bingeing program with ten small boxes, one for each visit. All ten boxes had an X stamped in the middle of them.

“Ha! What do you think of that?” He pointed to the card. “Didn’t I tell you that it pays to know people? You just got yourself a free bagel and you didn’t even have to butter me up. Christmas came early. You’re welcome!” He leaned back in his chair, proud.

I was about to leave, but then changed my mind, in the mood to call him on his bullshit. Men like Barney needed to be put in their place.

I pointed at him. “You said you were a chef.”

“Iama chef! Well, okay, apastrychef, but it’s the same thing.”

“Pastry chefs bake cakes and pies andpastries,hence the wordspastrychef. A bagel is not a pastry. It’s a bread. That makes you a baker.”

“Do you have a problem with me being a chef?”

“No, I have a problem with yousayingyou’re a chef when you’re not. You purposely withheld information on your dating profile, which is essentially lying. You called yourself a chef because it sounds better than baker.”