Eva, my date, is filling the awkward silence by telling me a story about glow-in-the-dark skeletons the kids in her neighborhood had put up.
“I can’t walk into my building without running into someone who’s staring up at the skeletons. You’d think New Yorkers wouldn’t notice something like that, being too trapped in their phones or whatever but no, there’s always someone who spots them, especially at night. I think putting the skeletons up this early in October is a hazard to foot traffic.”
Normally, this is one of the things I like about Eva. It’s our eighth date, and I’m not the best conversationalist, but I like having someone to eat with, someone to share a really fantastic meal with and get me out of my take-out-in-front-ofthe-computer-screen rut.
So every other week, I take her to an amazing restaurant, one I know she could never afford herself, and enjoy the way she lights up over each dish and chats with the waitstaff or our neighboring table.
And then at the end of the night, I put her in a cab without so much as a good night kiss and hand her a few hundred dollars for her trip home.
That’s how this matchmaking works. I’m a rich, peculiar recluse and Eva’s a down-on-her-luck server in the big city looking for love. I told our matchmaker that I wasn’t looking to fall in love. Odessa Bloom shrugged and said, “My clients never are.” But she also said that I’m her niche—wealthy and looking for something simple, transactional. She also didn’t explicitly say that her clients are socially awkward, but if they’re anything like me . . .
All I wanted was a little human interaction. And so far, it’s working.
Unfortunately, I’m about to change the deal.
The server comes, introducing the next course—the eighth? I’ve lost track. “Jerusalem artichoke three ways,” he says.
“Excuse me,” I say. “How many courses are left?”
“Four, sir.”
“Thank you.” Okay, four more courses left to get my shit together and pop the question.
I’ve had Jerusalem artichoke before, but I could not pick the vegetable out of a lineup to save my life. Apparently, I’m being served it smoked and pureed, confit, and flash fried. There are these tiny dark balls that the waiter calls caviar, but we’re at a vegan restaurant, so I’m guessing it’s another fancy faux-something-or-other.
“Thank you,” Eva and I both say at the same time. We pick up our spoons, and Eva takes the tiniest scoop of pureed Jerusalem artichoke and tastes it.
She wiggles a little in her seat. “Oh my god.”
I take a bigger bite—it is really good.
We eat in silence—it’s almost the only time that Eva is actually quiet, and I like that about her—and Eva chases the last bite with a sip of her wine. When I glance up, her eyes are darting over my face.
And then she squints at me—well, slightly above me. “You have paint in your hair.”
I reach up to pat my hairline.
“No, right here,” she says, and extends her arm across the table to touch the hair in question and gives it a tug, her finger brushing against my forehead.
Then our fingers overlap while I find the hair she’s talking about. Her skin is soft, and after a heartbeat, she yanks it away, her cheeks turning red before she clears her throat. “That one.”
I tug and roll my eyes up, but can’t see it, and excuse myself to the bathroom. Sure enough, there’s one very white hair. The base is still dark, nearly black, making it obvious that it’s paint and not a sign of my age.
I’m only thirty.
Using my fingernails, I scrape the paint off the hair and return to the table.
“You paint?” Eva asks.
After eight dates, I know Eva well enough to know that she’s going to pull this thread, and the answer is more complicated than I really want to admit. “Yes.”
“What do you paint? Landscapes? Abstracts? Do you take classes? Are you any good?”
“I paint . . . walls.”
“Oh. Wait, but why are you painting your own—”
She’s interrupted by the server clearing our empty plates. I sit back as invisible crumbs are swept off the table and new silverware is placed in front of me. The end of this meal is looming.
Just ask her.
I pick up the new knife and fiddle with it. Then I set it down and push it to the side. I plant my hands on the tablecloth—they’re sweating, Jesus—and take a deep breath.
“What are you doing for Christmas?”
“Uh.” Eva sits back. “Well, my parents. Oh. Right. My parents will be out of town visiting my uncle, and I’ll be, uh . . . working.” Her eyebrow lifts quizzically.
“My sister is getting married . . .”
“Congratulations!” She beams.
“. . . and my family expects me to bring my girlfriend.”
I stop talking and watch as my words sink in. First, her expression is completely blank. Then she blinks. Then her eyes widen. “Me? I’m your GIRLFRIEND?” She says it too loudly, pointing a finger at her chest. It draws my eye down to the deep V of her dress—a dress that she picked out from a collection I sent over a few days ago. I’ve been trying all night not to stare at her breasts but now her manicured nails—also paid for by me—have left a crescent-shaped indent in her skin, and it’s very distracting.
I look away, trying to avert my eyes. “Yes,” I admit. “Or at least, that’s what I told my family.”
Eva leans forward over the table. “Why would you tell them that I’m your girlfriend?” She hisses, much quieter now.
She sounds . . . angry. That’s enough to get my full attention, and I meet her gaze. “Are you dating anyone else?”
“Well, no—”
“It’s not like I’m going to tell my parents that I’m your—” I hesitate. I think the best way to describe our relationship is to say that I’m her sugar daddy, and my parents would have a fit. Well, my mom would, and that’s really only because you don’t acknowledge those kinds of things. Of course, Odessa never uses the word sugar daddy either. It’s all very euphemistic.
Eva doesn’t need me to finish my thought. She nods. “How did I even come up?”
I glance down at my hands, which have resumed fidgeting with the knife, and I set it aside again. “I have to tell them something, and I prefer to tell them the truth—or something close to it.”
“You have to tell them something about your dating life?”
“About my life.”
Even I can hear the hurt in my own words. My parents and I don’t see eye to eye on many things, but they’re still my parents.
Eva considers me. Sees through me, probably. She leans forward, steepling her fingers. “Well, I do have to work.”
Right, her job. I know the holidays are the busiest time for the restaurant industry—big parties, big tips. Our relationship is transactional by design. I’m taking care of her until we tire of each other or until, if Odessa has her way, we fall in love.
Unlikely.
“It’s a wedding, and you’d probably need a whole new wardrobe,” I add. A few dates ago I saw that the dress Eva was wearing still had the price tag on it. I’m betting she returns most of the items for the cash. “And, uh. Nails and hair done. Stuff like that.”
Odessa explained to me how these types of relationships work. It’s not like sugar daddies hand out wads of cash as a thank you for dating them: there’s always a reason we’re giving them money. Gifts. New outfits. Nails and hair appointments—or better yet, gift cards.
That cash to get her home safe in a taxi after our dates? I’m not deluded enough to think she doesn’t pocket most of it. After all, I don’t have a sparkling personality, a loving set of parents, or an accomplished career.
But I do have money.
“Do you have a car?” I ask.
Eva blinks and stares at me for a moment. “What? No, of course not. Why would I have a car in the city?”
Eva probably doesn’t haul paint cans or building supplies like I do.
“Well, I don’t want to take my car up to the Berkshires for the wedding,” I say. “So why don’t we take your new car?”
Eva’s mouth falls open. This is a big ask, I know. And this definitely makes our relationship more transactional than before.
But Eva’s the only woman I’ve managed to date—and I use that term loosely—for this long. I don’t like people, I definitely don’t like the women my family tries to set me up with, and if I have to spend my sister’s snowy winter wedding deflecting my mom’s pointed questions and my dad’s distracted disappointment, I just might do something stupid.
Or at least stupider than offering my “girlfriend” a car.
Plus, the novelty of my bringing a woman to my sister’s wedding will keep the focus on Eva instead of on the topics that are a landmine in my family.
Especially ones I’m avoiding.
Across from me, Eva narrows her eyes. I always wonder what it’ll take to get her to be honest with me. Honesty, like “I can’t afford to take the holidays off” or “don’t you dare saddle me with a car loan because I’ve got enough on my plate,” but she never does. Eva side steps these topics with a practiced ease that even my WASPy mom can’t manage.
Instead, she says, “A reasonable car.”
Reading between the lines: something she can sell easily that isn’t too outrageous.
She’d probably laugh if she saw my car—a 1999 Dodge Ram with a giant rust spot on the passenger door and more shades of paint speckling the bed than I can count.
Maybe it’s the thought of my own vehicle that makes me ask, deadpanned, “Practical as in a new Toyota Tacoma Limited Edition Turbocharged?”
Eva laughs, and I realize this is probably the first time I’ve made her laugh. She smiles and laughs all the time, comfortable with service staff and laughing at her own jokes. But finally, I’ve cracked one. I take a sip of my wine.
“Practical for what? Mowing down pedestrians?”
The wine goes down the wrong pipe, and I choke. I cough into my fist, trying to clear my airway, while Eva turns from concerned to proudly amused.
I switch to my water and take a hearty swig. “That’s what my future brother-in-law drives.”
“Oh, uh . . .”
I wave away the new concern on her facethat she’s put her foot in her mouth. “I agree with you. It’s not like he’s a cowboy or anything.”
The server comes to refill my water, and the break gives me time to sit back, breathe, and assess.
Most of my dates with Eva are really more of an obligation. I have no friends in the city—at least, not the kind I could go out to dinner with—and since my real job and my hobby can all be done from within the walls of my house, this is an excuse to get out. I know I need to. I don’t want to become the elusive recluse that my family already accuses me of being, but I also know it’s good for my mental health to get out and talk to someone face to face.
To have, for lack of a better word, a friend in real life.
Plus, my arrangement with Eva through Odessa means that it’s a simple, uncomplicated relationship.
“Eva’s practical, so she won’t get emotionally invested before you do,” Odessa had said. “Good conversationalist, so you don’t have to worry about carrying it yourself. Gracious, friendly, easy. You’ll like her.”
Of course, Odessa didn’t mean easy like she’ll have sex with me—that’s off the table.
I’m not under the illusion that Eva gets anything out of our relationship beyond the money. But asking her to take a week off, to spend 24/7 with me and my family . . .
That’s a big deal.
“I have to think about it,” Eva says, shaking me out of my thoughts. The server returns with the next course, and Eva beams at them as if I haven’t just changed the entire foundation of our relationship.
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