Page 30 of The Frog Prince
It could havebeen worse. He could have been an ax murderer.
These are my waking thoughts the next morning, and perhaps they could be a little more cheerful, but I’m depressed that Tom has intruded into my morning already. I don’t want to think about him. It was bad enough he took over my Friday night. He doesn’t get Saturday.
Still lying in bed, duvet pulled firmly to my chin, I know that Tom is the reason I married in the first place. The Toms of the world scare me. I don’t understand them. I don’t know what they want from me (besides my vagina), and that’s not a prize buried in a box of Cocoa Puffs.
Rolling over, I press my face into my pillow and close my eyes and will myself to think of happier things. And not a lot comes to mind.
Waking up and knowing I’m the only one here, that even when I get out of bed I’ll still be alone, and that unless I go out for breakfast I’ll continue to be alone, depresses me almost as much as remembering my night with Tom Lehman.
This is a terrible thing to admit, very immature and antiprogressive, but I’m not great at being alone. When I’m alone, I have too many thoughts and too many feelings, and I don’t know what to do with them.
I could shop. Lots of people shop. I could exercise. Lots of people run and work out incessantly.
Or I could try to get used to being alone and to how it feels to have more thoughts and more emotions than I want.
Eating is really a lot simpler, isn’t it?
Considering my options, I decide to go out for breakfast. Eggs and coffee are cheaper than shoes and still cheaper than my favorite reasonably priced Benefit cosmetics (which I love and wear almost exclusively because the company was founded by two cool chicks in San Francisco, which means you must ignore all the bad things I say about the city’s predilection for turtlenecks and my difficulty finding parking, much less successfully parking, on steep hills), and eating out means I get company of sorts.
So I throw on some jeans, much baggier, more comfortable jeans than I wore last night, a favorite oversize men’s shirt in a great shade of blue (of course it was Jean-Marc’s), and the cowboy boots I can’t give up even though I’m not in Hicktown anymore. The truth is, I like wearing my cowboy boots; I like that they’re not hip, not fashionable, not pretty. I like the pointy toes, the low stacked heels, the battered, faded brown leather. I also like the fact that Jean-Marc hated them and now I get to wear them. When I wear my boots, I feel tough and interesting and far more together.
Cow Hollow, like most neighborhoods in San Francisco, has its own little center of business, plenty of corner coffeehouses, cool restaurants tucked into the ground floors of various renovated houses.
I head for one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants, buy a Saturday morning paper on the way, and with the sun shining and the sky a wispy Northern California blue, I feel almost human.
A real person.
And the real-person sensation stays as I order coffee, juice, scrambled eggs. The real person reads the paper, savors a second cup of coffee, and suddenly feels so good about herself that she smiles, thinking that life’s not so awful, that maybe, just maybe, everything’s going to be okay.
“Can I borrow your sports page?”
It takes me a second to register that I’m hearing a voice, and that the voice is talking to me.
Looking up, I see Gorgeous Guy sitting at a table across from me. He’s leaning on the table, elbows braced, looking rough-and-tumble in a way you don’t often see in this city.
For starters, he’s big. Tall. He’s got shoulders. And from what I can see of his right-thigh—tight, hard quads—he must have tight, hard legs.
He’s wearing a denim shirt open over a white T-shirt and a pair of well-washed, well-worn Levi’s.
“You want what?” I ask, unable to focus on anything but his legs. I had no idea I was so damn visual, and for a moment I think thisiswhat it must feel like to be Tom Lehman.
“The sports section.”
I nod to show that something has finally registered, and quickly riffle through the paper. Fortunately, with Jamie for a brother, a rabid sports fan since his terrible twos, I know where to locate the sports page. “Here.”
I’m blushing as I give it to him, and I’ve no idea why I’m blushing, or adjusting my collar, or brushing the tip of my ponytail. But I know that the moment I adjust something, touch something like my ear, my hair, my mouth, I’m attracted. I’m sending out some physical, biological signal. I don’t know the specifics, but I’m transmitting “you male, me female,” hormones engaged. I’m sure my cousin who works at the Bronx Zoo could do a better job explaining this.
“Just for a minute,” he adds.
“No hurry.” And there isn’t. I’ve got no plans for the rest of the day, and so I just stare. His teeth are straight and white, and I swear, he’s a bona fide Gap model.
Why wasn’t I out withhimlast night? I would have been charming. I would have been eager, happy, funny. Candy-floss appletini? Why not? Al Unser Jr. behind the steering wheel? Bring it on. Hours between courses? Who needs to eat when your heart’s in your throat and everything in you is wishing for happily-ever-afters?
He’s far too good-looking for me. Far too sexy. Far too everything. But after last night, when I felt like a slab of meat in cold storage, I welcome the wash of heat.
“Damn,” he says, and shakes his head. He’s frowning now, and he closes the paper.
I take the paper back. “Didn’t like what you saw?”