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She clicked.
Her disappointment must have rippled through her body, because Seamus huffed a little on her leg. Mr. Swoony wasn’t an English professor. Or a poet. Or a playwright—a pale imitation of a poet, but it would match the curls in his hair.
Mr. Swoony did say he was a journalist, though. That was a type of writer and somewhat swoony. And he liked biking. That was interesting. Long bike rides down some of the trails in The Research Triangle area. Maybe they would plan a complete Rails-to-Trails ride from the mountains of North Carolina to the coast. She could picture his hair curling out from under the rim of his helmet along his neck. And, oh yes, there would be picnics.
Beck could make a mean picnic. After years of working events and in restaurants, she knew how to choose food that would be easy to eat no matter the circumstances. Bride wearing a dress with long bell sleeves that brush across the table? No problem. Bride with a healthy décolletage who doesn’t want to fish food out from between her breasts before the honeymoon starts? No problem. Food that packs nicely, is good at room temperature and easy to eat with your hands? No problem.
She put her hand on Seamus’s head while she considered her next move. Mr. Swoony looked like he would enjoy a nice picnic. And the kind of guy she would like to make a nice picnic for.
And Beck missed making a picnic for people. Neil hadn’t been interested in picnics. Of course, she hadn’t thought she’d be interested in picnics, either, until she’d clicked on Mr. Swoony’s picture. It didn’t matter what he called himself on his profile. She was going to think of him as Mr. Swoony. And she was going to click.
A wink, to start. Messages on the first night of exploration seemed a little forward. She still didn’t know the rules of the online-dating world. She didn’t even know if there were rules. Heavens, despite all this data and Marsie’s insistence that online dating could be hacked with the perfect algorithm, online dating still seemed like the Wild West of meeting men. Which was why she was starting small, with one site, even when there were newer, flashier dating sites available.
Though, Beck considered as she evaluated the next picture on the screen, online dating couldn’t be any more Wild West than going to a bar and trying to look pretty.
Not that she would admit doing either to anyone right now. Everyone from her mom to Marsie to the servers at Buono Come Il Pane said she should wait a little longer before dating again.
“Get that husband of yours out of your head.” That bit of advice she rejected out of hand. Neil had been her college boyfriend and the only man she’d ever seriously dated. How could she get him out of her head if she didn’t have an idea of the kind of man who could replace him? Or even if a man should replace him? Seamus might fit in that companion spot nicely. And then there was the option of empty—empty could be good.
“Find yourself.” Which was stupid, because Beck knew where she was and she had a dog who snored in her bedroom to ground her to the fact that she was here, in her house, and Neil—the dog hater—wasn’t.
“You’re young. Take your time.” She paused a little every time that objection came up. Not because it was one hundred percent valid, but because it wasn’t a hundred percent invalid. She was thirty-two. Not young, unless she was being compared to her parents, but not old, either.
Maybe the biological clock existed. Maybe it didn’t. But something in her head had been ticking nonstop since Neil moved out—and before then, if she was going to be honest with herself, here in the privacy of her own home. She wouldn’t let the annoying noise of others run her life, but she wouldn’t ignore it, either.
Enough.
Marsie’s single piece of advice had been not to let online dating be the way she measured anything about her life, and it was the one piece of advice Beck had listened to. Getting responses wouldn’t determine her self-esteem level. She wouldn’t only look for dates. And, while she generally rejected Marsie’s insistence on all things scheduled, she would at least set up a schedule for checking her profile responses. No reason to have online dating become another Facebook that she trolled because she was bored.
On the other hand, she thought while Seamus sighed for his dinner and a walk, winking at one guy felt like a tacit admission that the men online weren’t all that interesting. Or that she felt over her head. Or that all those people were right and it was too early for her to be here.
With only a quick glance at the pictures and a more cursory look at the profile information, Beck winked at a few other guys. Then she logged out, snapped her laptop shut and put the thing someplace inconvenient while it charged, just to lessen the incentive to obsessively check if any of the men had responded to her wink.
When she stood, Seamus hopped on his hind legs. He didn’t jump on her—they’d been working on that—but he bounced. When she reached for the leash, he bowed and barked once, sharply, before running to the door and trying his doggy-darnedest to sit at the door through his excitement and get his leash attached to his collar.
Once she and Seamus stepped into the fading winter sunlight, online dating was forgotten. Mr. Swoony included.
* * *
THE PROBLEM, CALEB Taggert thought, with scheduling dates anytime during when the General Assembly was in session was that you couldn’t control when the men—and it was mostly men talking—would shut up. In theory, everything and everyone had a time limit. In reality, the battles of the General Assembly waged on and on and on. And had for years now.
The guy talking now had been talking for hours. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t hours, but Caleb had stopped taking detailed notes and was letting his recorder do most of the work. The representative had stopped saying anything new or interesting at least ten minutes ago. The bill under discussion was this man’s pet project and he was going to say what he wanted to say. For reasons Caleb didn’t know, but probably had to do with some backend deal he wanted to know about, committee leadership wasn’t cutting this guy off. Of course, half of what he said was bullshit. Caleb’s copy for the Sunday paper would include a lot of fact-checking and reminding the people of North Carolina about the rules regarding voter registration, IDs and the history of poll taxes.
The Civil Rights Era had a long tail, with battles like gerrymandering and voting rights seeming to stick to his beloved home state like dog shit to a shoe. The only bright spot—if one could call it that—was that debates like this one reminded Caleb why he’d become a reporter and who he was responsible to. The representative blathering on would be an entertaining guy to have a beer with, but there wasn’t much else good Caleb could say about him. But the constituents whom the man shook hands with when he was home deserved to know what he did with the faith they put in him.
Caleb’s article would also include some nice details regarding the recent polling about gerrymandering and one-voter-one-vote done in his home district. Stark comparisons like that made good copy.
Finally, the guy stopped talking about voters counting twice, voting in districts where they weren’t registered and—the money shot of scare tactics—undocumented immigrants voting. The session was about to be wrapped up and then all the people crowded into the committee room would spill out onto the lawn for a rally in favor of election-map reform. He’d need to stay for that, too, and talk with some of the protestors. The paper was sending a photographer over—there were bound to be some good signs and probably an arrest or two.
Politics in North Carolina hadn’t been boring...well, they’d never been boring, but they’d certainly gotten more interesting in the past ten years. Power grabs tend to do that, no matter which party has its grasping hands out.
Caleb had a date in thirty minutes and a twenty-minute drive looming before he could hope to park. Of course, the representative who had driveled on about voter fraud had no knowledge of Caleb’s personal life and wouldn’t care if he did. The paper didn’t care about his personal life, either. He had other reps to interview, copy to write and deadlines to meet. None of which was conducive to his evening plans.
Caleb gave in and pulled out his phone.
Diatribe about made-up voter fraud or not, he tried to adhere to the current research about phones, distraction and meetings, and he usually kept his phone hidden when he should be paying attention to someone else. Especially on a day like today, when the rumor was that a bill limiting the people’s right to protest was going to be snuck onto the end of this bill—not quite in the dead of night, but they would certainly try to do it when no reporters were watching.
Besides, the research said loud and clear that “people can’t multitask.” It’s just that researchers never established whether boredom to the point of drool counted as multitasking.
Plus, he had his recorder going. If the guy slipped and mentioned that he had just bought a house outside of his district—well, Caleb would have that shit on tape. And the rumor about the rider with limits to protesting had come from an excellent source, one who would get Caleb the rider as soon as she saw it.
Power grabs also made for strange bedfellows.
Swiping down on his phone screen brought a list of notifications, most of which weren’t a surprise. Twenty work emails, three of which promised information in exchange for keeping the sender’s identity a secret. Ten personal emails. And a text from his dad.
Whoa-hoe... What was this? A notification from one of the dating apps he used. A wink—so a passive sign of interest from someone, rather than anything active.
Before he clicked to see who the wink was from, he texted his current date with information that he’d be late because of a work meeting and that he would bow to her wishes whether she wanted to wait, reschedule or call him an ass and kiss him goodbye.
After a quick glance up to make sure he wasn’t missing anything, Caleb flicked the notification open. Dogfan20895 was cute. Square jaw, but a big, toothy smile that more than made up for it. Dark brown eyes. A wicked way of lifting her eyebrows—wouldn’t that be fun to see her do in real life. Given that she had one photo of her with a brindle hound and one picture of the hound itself, she wasn’t kidding about being a dog fan.
But...she had a nice set of breasts and he couldn’t get over how arched those brows looked, so he winked back. Then he looked at her pictures again. Her smile was nice. The way she was laughing in that picture of her with her dog was even better. Caleb clicked the message button and typed out something quick.
Hey. Cute smile. Cute dog, too. What’s his name?
It wasn’t his best opening line, but he was working, supposed to be meeting another woman for a date and hadn’t read her profile yet. She’d either bite or she wouldn’t.
The world—especially the online-dating world—was full of women. If she didn’t at least nibble, well, there’d be another woman along with a smile that suggested she knew what he was up to.
CHAPTER TWO (#uc8205a00-018e-573a-9ffe-d67265e0bf47)
“I DON’T LIKE the wall color,” the statuesque blonde with her hair up in a neat French roll said as she swept her arm around at the creamy, peachy beige that made up the walls of Buono Come Il Pane. “It’s too...bland. My wedding won’t be bland. It will be different,” the prospective bride said with the same finality she’d used for every proclamation she’d made about her wedding.
Different. Special. Unique. Memorable. All a lot of requests for something special out of a woman named Jennifer. Not that there was anything wrong with the name, but...
But the name was on every tenth woman, or so it seemed. Being one of a hundred Jennifers in any given square mile probably contributed to her desire for a unique wedding. Beck could be more forgiving.
Maybe.
Buono Come Il Pane hosted events of all kinds. Graduations. Retirement parties. Anniversaries. Birthdays. And weddings. Beck loved weddings the most—she really did. Her divorce hadn’t changed the fact that she loved happily-ever-afters and romances and engagement stories. But there were particular brides she didn’t love, and this woman seemed likely to walk down the aisle as one of them.
“Buono Come Il Pane’s decoration evokes the warmth of Tuscany,” Beck said. Buono Come Il Pane translated to “good as bread” and it meant something like “good as gold.” They served a small menu of finely crafted Tuscan food. They didn’t boast of the size of their wine list, letting the quality of their selections speak for themselves instead. The interior design was much the same—not spare so much as elegant.
“Its simplicity isn’t for everyone, of course. That’s a decision you and your fiancé have to make.” Beck glanced at the groom, Tanner, who’d come to the appointment with his future bride. He’d come—Beck would give him that. But that seemed to be the only nod he’d make to participating in planning the event that would cement his life to another’s.
Maybe he had a stressful job, she thought. Or perhaps he was worried about a friend of his. Or had something else on his mind, other than the wedding. There, Beck thought, satisfied that she’d turned her irritation with his silence around. The prospective groom was here to support the love of his life, but they both knew he had a lot on his mind because...work. Work was a nicer reason than a sick friend he might be worried about.
Beck smiled charitably at the man before turning back to the woman, who was standing with her hands on her hips, looking thoughtfully at the walls.
“I don’t suppose you could paint the walls...” Jennifer said, trailing off.
“No. It is important to us that we make our brides happy and that their wedding day is special, but we can’t repaint the walls.”
“Well, rats,” the woman said. Beck tried not to laugh. The woman was high-maintenance and, despite all her talk about special, unique and different, had no idea what she wanted her wedding to look like. But she had said “rats” with such honest disappointment that Beck couldn’t help but try to like the woman.
“Buono Come Il Pane has a specific look and a specific feel. Might I ask why, if we’re not what you wanted, did you make an appointment? And why are you still considering us? We’d love to be the right place for you, of course,” Beck hastened to add, “but we know we’re not the right place for every bride and it’s important that you’re comfortable with the location you choose.”
“This is my dad’s favorite restaurant,” the future groom chimed in from his spot against the wall. “If we pick here, he’ll chip in half of the wedding costs and her parents will give us the difference for a honeymoon.”
“Our house down payment,” the bride said. “That’s a better long-term decision.”
See, Beck’s inner nice chided. It’s good that you decided to like the woman. She’s like all the other brides, trying to plan her future in the best way she knows how.
Even if she wants you to repaint and will probably want different linens. And different silverware. And won’t like the wine options. Or the food.
But she was a woman who was trying to figure out what she wanted and was determined to make it happen. That was worth a nod of respect, if nothing else.
“Money is important to consider when deciding on wedding venues. It’s easy to spend more money than you’d planned on and then be strapped later. I can’t tell you what to do, but we offer a basic set of options for brides, things that we think best show off our restaurant and the beauty of the occasion. If those aren’t what would make your wedding day the party you’ve always wanted, then perhaps we’re not the best place for you.”
It was easy enough for Beck to turn down one bride. Buono Come Il Pane was booked for June over a year in advance and the rest of the year’s availability was usually gone eight months in advance. When she was done with this appointment, she had a bridal event to plan for and she usually came out of those events with a couple more bookings.
Plus, a happy bride was the best possible advertising. An unhappy bride was the worst. If the woman was going to be unhappy with her wedding at Buono Come Il Pane, it was worth the money to pay her to go away.
“We might be willing to accept this restaurant’s style,” Tanner said, interested in the conversation now that money was on the line. “Right, honey? It could be worth our time.”
Jennifer smiled indulgently at him. “We want to honeymoon in Belize, and we have our eye on those private suites on stilts out in the water. Right now, it’s a wee bit out of our price range. Though, a down payment for a house would still be a better investment.”
“Well,” Beck said with a clap of her hands and quick glance at her watch. “You both have a lot of thinking to do before you decide on anything. Personal opinion, spend a lot of time—separately—thinking about what you each want. Then come together and make sure you overlap on the big stuff. That you’re not giving up anything that’s important to you. That’s really life advice—” the kind Beck wished she had taken “—and a wedding is a good place to start. It is the beginning of your life together.”
“Huh,” the groom said as he turned to stare back at the walls and art, clearly no longer interested in the conversation.
But his bride evaluated Beck more closely before asking, “Are you married?”
For most of her career, she’d loved to answer “Yes” and tell the bride that she’d had the most beautiful wedding under the sun. To say that they were blissfully happy. That she wasn’t always a bridal and events planner, but a bride. That she had been the magical bride, happy enough to walk on water, and had known what it was to come home to a loved one, share a glass of wine and chat about your day.
But those days were over. “I’m not,” she said, not willing to go into any details with a customer and a stranger.
“Divorced?”
“Well, yes. So I know of what I speak when I say you need to think about what’s important to you and make sure your fiancé feels the same.” She and Neil had always felt perfect for each other, until they weren’t.
The bride leaned in close to Beck, like they were teen girls sharing a confidence. “Tanner and I met through online dating. It’s possible, you know. The trick is to make sure you pick the right dating site. Some are for people looking for easy...” She paused, words rolling through her eyes before she settled on, “Companionship. The good sites attract men looking for marriage and commitment. Pick one of those.”
“Thank you,” Beck said surprised. The woman wasn’t giving her new advice, and she was a stranger, but she meant her advice honestly. Sincere, much like Beck had been when telling this couple to think about what they want before settling on a wedding venue.
“I’m looking,” she said, hesitant to confide too much to a stranger and prospective—though unlikely—customer. “I’ll admit it’s hard.”
Though, there was that message waiting for her when she’d come home from the walk yesterday.
She’d thought about that message all through making her dinner of roasted beets, blue cheese and pita bread—all things her ex-husband hadn’t liked. Eating her dinner, she’d still been thinking about that message. At that point, the amount of time she had been putting into thinking about the message had seemed excessive. And a little scary.
So much portent put into a little message by someone she didn’t know and might not even like. So much power in that little notification at the top of her cell phone.
She understood now why people said that you couldn’t take online dating personally. She hadn’t even been twenty-four hours in and already that message felt like life or death.
So, she’d made a deal with herself. No checking the message until she hadn’t given it a thought for at least five hours. By her count, when the bride had mentioned online dating, it had been four hours and fifty-seven minutes, not counting the hours she’d spent sleeping.
Close enough.
Jennifer patted her on the back. “You’ll get there. It’s hard, but it will happen. You’ll get your Prince Charming,” she said with a loving glance at her fiancé, who was looking too closely at the art on the walls to really be looking at them at all.
“Thanks. I hope you’re right.” Beck had only been separated for a year and divorced for twelve days, but she knew she wanted to get married again eventually, even if she occasionally pretended otherwise. The saying about fishes and bicycles was all well and good, but what if the fish wanted a bicycle? What if coming home to a bicycle had been better than coming home to nothing?
Take your time. Learn to love yourself alone. Spend time looking at all those couples you work with. Then you will know what you want out of your next husband. Get right into that dating pool or all the good ones will get away. Make sure to use a good moisturizer. Once you start getting wrinkles, it will only get harder.
All the advice was well-meant and none of it helpful. The fact that one piece of advice often contradicted every other piece of advice, sometimes out of the mouth of the same person, only muddled her already muddy mind more.
“You seem like a good person,” the woman said, giving her another long look. “So, I’ll give you a little more advice. Stay away from the handsome men.”
It was rude, but Beck couldn’t help glancing at the woman’s fiancé. He was good-looking enough—on the cusp between someone she thought would look good on someone else’s arm and who would look good on her arm.
“Tanner’s good-looking, but not handsome,” Jennifer said under her voice. “And as my grandmother used to say, handsome is as handsome does.”
Beck wasn’t entirely sure how to take this piece of advice, so she said, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and decided to leave it at that.
If his picture was anything to judge, Mr. Swoony was handsome. She smiled to cover up the desire to beat her head against the wall. The message might not even be from Mr. Swoony. It could be from someone else altogether. Mr. Less-than Swoony, for example, or Mr. Rotten Eggs.
“Thank you, to the both of you, for coming in today,” she said, her hand outstretched for the prospective bride to take. “Even if you decide that Buono Come Il Pane isn’t for you, I’m glad to have chatted with you and we appreciate you thinking of us.”
“Oh, of course. Tanner’s father insisted. And this does look like a nice place.”
Nice place, hah, Beck thought, the advice and comments about the wall colors and thinking about handsome men getting to her.
If only getting remarried didn’t have to involve dating, this process would be much easier. Meet a nice guy. Fall in love. Get married. That’s what she’d done in college, with Neil.
And here she was, newly evaluating what she wanted out of her future. That, at least, was a lot like college.
Once the happy couple left, holding hands and whispering to each other as they walked out the door, Beck went back to the tiny room they called her office and sat in front of her computer. Before she got back to her planning document for the bridal event she was working on, she pulled her phone out of her purse and checked the message.
Hey. Cute smile. Cute dog, too. What’s his name?
Mr. Swoony had written back. Her shoulders fell with a relief that she would be embarrassed to admit to anyone. Whether or not she should need validation from a stranger on an online-dating service, getting it felt better than not getting it and that was the darn truth.
Before writing back, she checked her other notifications. No other messages, just a couple of winks and a couple of likes for the pictures she’d posted. She held the phone up a little closer to her face to see those likes of her pictures.
Well, she thought as she sat back in her chair. There’s a fine how-do-you-do. All three likes on her photos were on pictures of Seamus.
At least men seemed to like her dog. She hoped he appreciated how popular he was among the men online. Mr. Swoony had even taken some of the precious real estate in his short message to say he was cute.
