The Woman Before You: An intense, addictive love story with an unexpected twist...

But I guess those poems prepared me for how I would feel about The Customer. For the sheer terror that I would turn around—and that he wouldn’t be there.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through to a folder of apps I’d labeled ‘auditions.’ It hadn’t been easy to abandon acting. But the truth is I’d found a small workaround, for the time being at least. One drunken night, Marcy, Luke, and I all downloaded Tinder on our phones. It started out as a joke. We would each go on three dates and report back. ‘Come on, nice girl,’ Luke said. ‘Join the modern world. You’re not in Iowa anymore.’ We’d spent the rest of the night swiping left and swiping right, laughing out loud, screaming every time we had a match. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good when a hot guy matched with me. We switched to beer and took a sip every time we landed on a picture of a guy with a puppy or a guy with a guitar. We were all hungover the next day.

I was surprised by how little effort it took to ‘match’ with somebody. But when I actually started texting with one of these so-called matches, I understood the old ‘plenty of fish in the sea metaphor’ on a whole different level; it was a big sea filled with a lot of creepy fish. The first guy made a joke about how cheesy dick pics were, told me he liked butt play, and then sent me a dick pic. Then there was the guy who sent me a picture of a paddle and asked me what I wanted to do with it. Or the guy who opened the conversation with ‘do u like to be choked?’ Finally, I matched with a guy who had just moved from Connecticut to work in marketing at some greeting card company in Midtown. He missed his mom and had a dog (the adopted, shelter variety—included in his Tinder profile) and lived just a few blocks away from me. Pretty vanilla. But after so many conversations with gross guys about the size of my chest and euphemisms for penises, I could do a first date with Mr Vanilla.

The date was pretty basic. We met at a bar around the corner from his apartment in Williamsburg that had just opened and he’d been meaning to check out. The bar was dog-friendly, so he could have brought his dog, he told me, but he didn’t want us to ‘move too fast.’ I wore a yellow knee-length dress and he wore a button-down shirt and khaki shorts. I could tell he’d gotten his hair cut for the occasion.

We talked about his hometown of West Orange; about what he studied in college, and his favorite TV shows. But when he started to ask me about my life a funny thing happened. I told him I grew up in Ohio, had two brothers, and two parents who were crazy in love. My dad was a historian and my mom was a lawyer. Dad was a total romantic and my mom was a real-life superhero. I had a grandmother I was really close to (actually my great-aunt, but I called her Nana—‘a long story,’ I told him), who passed away last year. The best Christmas present I ever got was my Labrador-mix named Juno, when I was nine. I met my best friend when we were in kindergarten, and I lived with her now.

I watched his eyes light up as I pulled out the props for my character. I could feel how excited he was to know me—this girl with so much potential who knew where she had come from and where she was going. I had written a different script for myself. I became the girl he would want to see again, someone who would meet his dog, his mom, his best friends from home.

After a chaste kiss at the corner, I walked home alone. I deleted our conversation from the app on my phone. I didn’t want a second date. I wanted to preserve that moment. The look on his face when he thought he recognized me, when I became the perfect girl. It was almost like acting except better. I wasn’t just memorizing lines, I was writing them, too. And in real time for an audience of one.

I wanted to feel that way again. To meet someone, figure out who they were and what they wanted, and become the person they needed, then watch them fall in love. Now I was the one not giving callbacks. I’ll admit, it felt good to finally have some power. When Tinder started to feel stale and flooded with perverts, I made profiles on Bumble, Thrinder (even more of a challenge), OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel—and each with a slightly different character. On Bumble, I was Riley from Portland, Maine. On Thrinder, I was Lorrie from the Bay Area. On OkCupid I was Amanda from Manhattan. All I had to do was make a new email, and a new Facebook profile (back when Facebook made it easy to do such a thing). I never went on more than a first date—and never took more than a sweet goodnight kiss on the cheek. I was still a good Midwestern girl, after all, and one date wasn’t enough time for anyone to get hurt. I thought of it as more of an ever-evolving character study game. I loved keeping all the scripts in my head at once, remembering which app I met so-and-so on, which backstory to pull out.

That day, I was going on a coffee date with a Mr Matthew from Bumble. I pulled up Bumble and scrolled through his pictures. From what I could see, he was tall with broad shoulders, and dark hair. There were no puppy pictures. There was Matthew on the beach in a tank top and American flag shorts, all square chest and tight, tan quads, Matthew sitting at the center of a group of guys, his thick shoulders wrapped around the two closest to him. But the one I kept swiping back to was a picture of Matthew standing on a pier, the sunset behind him framing his face. His head was thrown up to the sky and his eyes were closed, like he was in the middle of the greatest laugh. He had the best jawline I’d ever seen.

I grabbed my stuff and prepared to leave for my lunch break date. Steve told me to ‘have fun’ as I walked out the door. As I was walking to the coffee shop to meet Matthew, I kept thinking about that laugh, that jawline. I didn’t know why, but something about this date made me want to ride the line—maybe show him a little more of the ‘real’ Isabel. A new character challenge, or so I thought.

When I walked into the coffee shop, I spotted him immediately. Our eyes locked and we both grinned, mirroring each other’s delight as we moved closer to each other. When I got to his table, he stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He smelled expensive—all sandalwood and vetiver—and my knees buckled as I tried to remember what he thought my name was.

‘Excited to meet you, Riley,’ he said, watching me as I sat down.

I laughed and said something about the pleasure being all mine. This was a new role for me—the fumbling girl who couldn’t get the words out of her mouth in the right order. I blushed every time I looked at his smile, and had to look away.

He glanced at his watch and said something about having to be back to the office for a meeting later in the afternoon, then asked me what I did. I opened my mouth to start talking about my uncle’s lobster boat on the coast, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had this strange feeling that telling Matthew who I really was would make him like me even more.

‘Okay, so here’s the deal,’ I said. ‘My name isn’t Riley, and I’m not from Maine.’

He smiled but didn’t say anything. And so I did. I told him about growing up in Iowa and about moving to New York to be an actress and about failing at being an actress and about my ‘acting game’ with the dating apps and finally my sad life working for creepy Steve at Doctor Sleep, just down the street.

I laughed as I finished my confessional monologue, and leaned back in my chair, waiting for him to react.

He was quiet for a beat but his eyes were bright and working fast to take me in.

‘So that’s it? Any recent ex-boyfriend killing sprees? Any fetishes you want to confess?’

I laughed. ‘No. No. That can wait for our second date.’

‘Well then,’ he said, smiling as he leaned in closer to me. ‘I’m excited to meet you, Isabel.’

It was liberating to let someone in on my secret game. I had gotten the feeling that he would be okay with the story, but I was still surprised to realize that he was not only okay with it, he was thrilled by it. I was working hard to look cool and unfazed, but the way he said my name made it hard to stay composed.

‘Now your turn.’ I said. ‘Is your name really Matthew?’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘That can wait for our second date.’

We both laughed.

He looked at his watch. I looked at my phone. My lunch hour was up and I had to be back at Doctor Sleep in a few minutes.

Before I had a chance to say anything, Matthew said, ‘Hey, I have a crazy question.’

‘Go for it,’ I said.

‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me you have to go back to work. But I feel like I’ve only just met you, Isabel-formerly-known-as-Riley. And the truth is, I don’t want to stop being with you just yet.’

I was floating. I definitely didn’t want to leave him either. ‘So what do you suggest we do?’

‘Well, I don’t feel it’s fair to deprive the poor mattress shoppers of their favorite Sleep Doctor, so what if I came back to the store with you and pretended to be your customer? I’ll wait for a minute to come in so your boss won’t suspect a thing.’

I smiled and shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not?’ I knew Steve would be going on break when I got back from mine, anyway. It was probably the first time I had ever been excited to race back to the store from lunch.

When I walked back my whole body was buzzing. I was kind of okay with the idea of slipping on my uniform today.

I walked into the store and Steve said, ‘I’m going on break.’ The timing was too perfect. I wondered what Steve did when he left. I didn’t ask and I didn’t complain even though his breaks were getting longer and more frequent.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Take your time.’ The truth was, I usually hated being alone in there in plain view of every passing maniac who might think, Hey! Look! A young woman all by herself with a cash register and a lot of mattresses! But today, I was excited to be alone. Today, I wanted him to take his time.

The doorbell rang its fake sleigh-bell chime. I looked up. Matthew—or should I say, The Customer—stood in the doorway, back lit. Tall, thin, broad-shouldered.

I walked toward him, slipping into character; welcoming and friendly, but not pushy, hungry, or aggressive. That was what the mattress professional instruction manual said to do.

Close up, he was so handsome I had to look away—but not before I noticed his glossy dark hair, dark eyes, eyelashes longer than mine. His features were chiseled. He looked a little like Gary Cooper, a little like Robert Mitchum—like old-school movie stars used to look before actors began to look like the guy next door who’s going to get fat and bald and jowly the minute he turns forty.

In other words: He was hot.

I said, ‘Can I help you?’

He said, ‘I hope so. I’m moving soon, and I don’t see any point in taking my old mattress with me.’

If I had ten dollars for every time I heard someone say those exact words, I could have quit and lived on the money for the six months it might take me to find a better job. But sex and beauty change the conversation. Things you’ve heard a million times sound interesting, fresh and new.

I wanted to know everything. Where did he live? Why was he moving? Who would be sleeping on the new mattress? I loved this adaptation of my game—for two players now instead of one.

‘What sort of mattress are you looking for?’

He smiled and shrugged. He had a beautiful smile, a charming shrug.

‘A comfortable one,’ he said.

I said, ‘Okay, let me ask you.’ This was on script. ‘Do you like your current mattress?’

‘My mattress is ten years old, what would like mean?’ He smiled again.

I smiled back. So there we were.

I asked him the standard questions. Side sleeper? Back sleeper? Skeletal problems? Sleep issues? He slept like a baby. He closed his eyes and fell out, slept straight through the night. I wanted to lie next to him, with my head nestled on his chest.

I had never felt quite like that before. Certainly not about any other mattress store customer. It threw me off script.

‘Lucky you,’ I said.

He didn’t respond. He was making me do all the work.

‘I think I know what you might like. We have one on the floor that I can show you. Please come this way.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

I walked down the aisles lined with mattresses, looking back from time to time, as if to make sure that he was still behind me. I thought of Orpheus—don’t look back!—mostly to avoid thinking about how self-conscious I was, how aware that a man was following me, looking at me, at my back, my ass. Sometimes I wondered how a customer was responding to Steve’s weird medical decor, but now I wished The Customer would actually look at the gurney, at the bizarre medical stuff—at anything but me.

I stopped at the foot of the most expensive and luxurious mattress we had, twelve thousand dollars’ worth of organic German cotton, French wool layers, inner hand tufting. The celebrity movie star mattress, the Executive Deluxe Comfort Natural Pillowtop Set. As far as I knew, Steve had never sold a single one of them, but he insisted on having it on display. He said it improved the look of the ‘establishment,’ like my shorty jacket, I guess.

I could read The Customer’s mind well enough to know that this was the mattress he would want. But I also obviously knew he wasn’t going to buy it. I had no idea what he was thinking right that second. It was as if those circuits—my mind-reading window—were jammed by how sexy and handsome he was.

He asked, ‘Is this the best one you have?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I mean yes. Would you like to try it?’

‘No. You. I want you to try it. I’d appreciate that very much. If you wouldn’t mind lying down for a moment.’

It wasn’t that this never happened—that people asked me to lie on the mattress. But mostly it happened with very old people, or people with some physical damage, who came in with their caretakers. They couldn’t, or didn’t want to, risk being a spectacle, struggling to lie down. Or they couldn’t lie down without help. In that case, they might want to see me lie on the mattress, to see if I looked comfy.

‘Comfortable?’ they’d ask.

‘Totally,’ I always replied, though nothing could have been less comfortable than I felt at those moments.

In the ten months I’d worked at Doctor Sleep, not one—not one!—young, handsome, hot guy had ever asked me to try out a mattress for him.

Actually, I did mind. I felt sort of queasy and flushed. I wanted to say that this wasn’t my job.

I could tell that he wouldn’t have insisted. He was too polite. But I was a nice Midwestern girl. I wouldn’t want to be rude to a customer…

And besides, I wanted to do it.

‘Lie down,’ he said. ‘Please. Let me see.’

That please did the trick. ‘All right.’ I couldn’t look at him.

I climbed onto the mattress. My white jacket rode up. I had to lift my ass to tuck the hem of my dress around me. All this time I was conscious of how intently he was watching me. I saw myself through his eyes. The mind-reading corner of my brain was glowing red.

When I saw myself through his eyes, I realized that I was already shaking.

I lay the way all the customers did, on my back, with my arms crossed, like a mummy.

I was so nervous that I started babbling. ‘Do you know anything about feng shui? It’s an ancient Asian … I don’t know … science, I guess you could say. What matters is not only which mattress you buy but also how and where you set it up in your room. It’s important for how you sleep and how healthy you’ll be. There are principles, guidelines…’

I stopped. I sounded like an idiot. He didn’t seem to be listening, and I didn’t blame him. Why was I blabbing on about all this to the last guy in the world who would be interested? I lay back and stared at the ceiling.

‘No one sleeps like that,’ he said. ‘Like you’re lying now. On your back with your arms crossed. Do you?’

‘No,’ I told the ceiling.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Show me how you really sleep.’ His voice was low, gentle but firm and insistent.

I rolled over on my side. I reached back and yanked down my skirt. He walked around to the other side of the bed so he was looking straight down at me.

Was I ashamed? I was ashamed to think that I would never have done this if The Customer hadn’t been drop-dead handsome. I thought: What a shallow person you are, Isabel.

‘How does it feel?’ The Customer asked.

‘Comfortable,’ I said, automatically.

‘I think not,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you look comfortable at all.’

‘Okay, not really.’

‘You don’t have to lie to me,’ he said. How did he know? I was the mind-reader here.

‘It feels weird,’ I said. ‘But good weird.’

‘That’s a step in the right direction.’

He just stood there, looking down at me. I heard my breath get slightly ragged. I willed it to stop, but it wouldn’t. My breath came faster.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Good. Now roll over on your back.’

I rolled onto my back.

‘Lift your jacket,’ he said.

I tried. It was awkward and clumsy.

‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’re very beautiful, do you know that?’

‘Thanks.’ How stupid I sounded.

‘Now spread your legs a little,’ he said. ‘Just a little.’ His voice was so calm, so even, considering what he was asking.

I moved my legs apart, just a few inches.

‘Okay. Now I want you to do you one more thing for me. I want you take your underwear off,’ he said.

I didn’t think: What? I didn’t think: Who is this sicko and what sick game is he playing?

Here’s what I thought: What underwear am I wearing?

I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching up my skirt. I felt an edge of lace. Thank heaven.

‘No, wait. Stop. Keep your hand there, where it is,’ he said. ‘Put your finger inside that lace edge, just underneath…’

‘I can’t,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ he said flatly. ‘I know you can. Please don’t tell me you can’t.’ We were almost whispering now. He leaned closer down over me, to hear.

‘Steve could be back any minute,’ I said. ‘My boss.’

I didn’t say: I don’t want to. I didn’t say: Are you crazy? How can you ask me to do this? I didn’t say: Go fuck yourself, pervert.

I said: ‘Steve could be back any minute.’

‘Just a little,’ he said, even more softly ‘Just raise your knees and spread them a little. And touch yourself.’

I closed my eyes. It was the only way I could do it. I couldn’t look at him. I could feel my face burning. I wanted to hear his voice with my eyes closed.

‘Please.’ His voice had a funny sound, not pleading exactly, but almost.

I pulled my knees halfway to my chest and let them slowly drift apart. My body felt hot and weirdly sleepy, as if I were dreaming, as if I’d lost my power to resist.

I didn’t care if Steve came back. I didn’t care what happened. It was the not caring that let me say, ‘Want to join me?’

I had never said anything like that in my life.

Even though most of my dating in New York had been of the online-dating game variety (with no sex, only chaste first-date goodnight kisses), I’d still managed to have my share of brief sexual affairs, and thought of myself as someone with a little experience—certainly I’d had experience taking my clothes off in front of a stranger, which, if you ask me, is a big part of what hangs people up about sex. I could count the number of guys I’d slept with: seven. But none of them had made me feel what I was feeling now in the middle of a public place, a mattress store, alone on a bed with all my clothes on.

Even then, right away I knew that I would do whatever The Customer told me. The pure electric pleasure flooding every nerve—I wanted to feel it forever. Exhibitionism, voyeurism, consensual, harassment. There were no words for what I was doing, for what was happening to me. It was just a feeling.

‘Sit up,’ he said, sharply, suddenly.

I sat up just in time to see Steve outside, slithering into the frame of the window. I was surprised to notice that I was on the edge of tears. What was that about?

I jumped up, slightly dizzy. The blood was taking its time, flowing back from between my legs to my brain. I stood beside the bed. The Customer stood beside me looking down at the mattress. We both looked at it. There we were, for anyone—including Steve—to see: a mattress professional and her customer engaged in a simple business transaction that might or might not occur.

I put my palm out toward Steve. Stay away. But Steve didn’t. He couldn’t. This customer, this mattress. It was like showing honey to a bear. This was the big fish Steve had dreamed of reeling in.

‘Have you made up your mind?’ I asked. I wanted to keep my job, so I included Steve in our conversation. ‘Do you think you might be interested in making a purchase today?’

‘No,’ said The Customer. ‘Not yet. For the moment I’m just looking. I need to think it over. Can I have your card?’

Steve was gloating, triumphant. He’d insisted on printing up business cards for me and making me carry them in the pocket of my little white jacket. I didn’t want strangers having my name and the phone number of the store. I’d fought against it, but he’d won.

Now I was glad I’d lost. I took a card from my pocket. It flipped out from between my fingers. Steve and The Customer watched me scramble to pick it up from the floor. I felt my short dress ride up, and I yanked it down. With Steve there, nothing was sexy, just pitiful and clumsy.

‘Thank you,’ The Customer told me and Steve, his gaze focused midway between us. ‘I’ll call when I’ve thought this through.’

‘Perhaps you’d be interested in something that was less of a … financial commitment,’ said Steve.

‘No,’ said The Customer. ‘I wouldn’t.’

And with that, Matthew left the store.

***

The weather turned drizzly, a chilly, watery taste of the winter ahead. I sat at my desk at Doctor Sleep and read a novel about zombies. Sometimes I stared out the window, past the fat cold drips blurring the world outside.

I wished I had never met Matthew.

Until that day he walked in, I’d made my peace with life. No boyfriend, no real job, no career track, a crappy walk-up apartment in Greenpoint next door to my landlord, who screamed at his wife all night. But still I had no major complaints. Hope for the best, my mom always said. Look on the bright side. Something will come along.

Now something had come along, and I’d let it slip through my fingers. I should have done any sex-maniac thing he wanted. I should have made him promise to call me. I should have humbled myself—right in front of Steve—and begged Matthew to stay.

The days dragged on. I could hardly fake the interested smile for the few customers who came in. Once I practically nodded off in the middle of a sale.

Steve hissed, ‘Isabel! Look sharp!’

Look sharp? How sharp did Steve think he looked?

I worked Saturday and got Sunday off. I slept till eleven, then sat in a café and read, like I did at work. Every so often I thought: I am the loneliest person in New York.

I was about to call my mom in Iowa when I got a text from her that said, ‘Faculty potluck. Yuk. Talk later.’ Even my mom had something better to do than talk to me.

At five I met my friend Luke, and we got mojitos at Cielito Lindo, the Mexican restaurant in the East Village where Marcy worked. If we got there early and left early, Marcy let us drink for half price. She’d sit with us for a few minutes, taking sips of our drinks when no one was watching. But around six-thirty she got busy, and after a while she gave us a look that said, ‘You guys better leave.’

Luke was still going to auditions. He’d gotten so thin and dyed his hair such a flashy platinum-blond color that it limited the parts he could get. But I couldn’t tell him that. It wasn’t my place.

We sat in Cielito Lindo, with the late afternoon leaking into the windows, a salsa beat thrumming, everything revving up for maximum deliciousness and fun. But just when things began to get good, Luke and I would have to make room for people who could pay actual money.