Absolute Beginners(55)

“Everything all right?” she asked politely, pointing to my coat pocket.

“Yes, everything is fine,” I lied, offering her a smile.

I would focus on Julia later. I couldn’t think about her anymore right now or I would get angry once more. Angry and aroused.

Lily and I picked up our conversation again easily. We shared a lot of the same interests; she also loved both classical music and opera, reading the classics, and so on.

“You know, you’re nothing like I imagined you would be,” she said when we were eating our dessert.

“Oh, how so?” I inquired, taking a sip of my coffee.

“Well, first of all, you look too young to be a tenured professor,” she said, motioning toward me with a well-manicured hand.

“I suppose I am somewhat younger than my colleagues,” I admitted. “I’m thirty-three.”

She nodded, scrutinizing me with her gaze. “You just don’t look like the typical academic type,” she declared. “Your hair, your clothes.”

Automatically, I ran my hand through my unruly hair and she smiled. I looked down. I was wearing a light gray suit and a white shirt, but I had decided not to wear a tie because I remembered that Matt once told me that I looked too closed up—“verging on constipated”—when I did.

“Which type do I look like?” I asked curiously.

“An actor, maybe,” she said. “Some sort of entertainer, definitely.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, feeling a little stunned by how she perceived me.

“You’re very confident and you have a certain air about you. You’re sure of yourself, and that’s very attractive in a man. You’re obviously used to talking to women and you’re not intimidated by a blind date.”

I think you might have me mistaken for my brother. I’m Stephen, the older, stuffy one, remember?

I couldn’t believe her description of me. I was confident and sure of myself? Since when?

Lily went back to eating her tiramisu while I sat across from her with what I was sure must have been a puzzled expression on my face. I quickly went over the evening in my head and it hit me like a ton of bricks: after I’d said hello to Lily, I hadn’t been nervous at all. There’d been no stuttering or scrambling around for words. I hadn’t been unsure of what to say, and the conversation had flowed easily.

I’m not the least bit intimidated by Lily.

I looked at her and wondered why she was so different from the other women I had dated. There was nothing about her that stood out, and I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t feel at all apprehensive talking to her. She looked up and smiled.

“So, Stephen, would you like to do this again sometime?”

No.

The thought came out of nowhere, but it was true. I didn’t care if anything ever happened between us. Lily was perfectly nice; she had a fine personality that complemented mine, and she hadn’t said or done anything that rubbed me the wrong way, so to speak. I just wasn’t interested in her at all. There wasn’t even a hint of attraction. She was pretty and well-dressed, but I had no desire to touch her. I remembered how nervous I had felt before the date started, but that had evaporated the second I saw her at the bar. I didn’t want her at all.

I looked at the woman across from me. She was exactly what my mother had predicted: perfect. She was perfect for me, and I didn’t care.

Lily had the right age, the right job, the right look. We had the same interests and goals in life. We were compatible. I should have been ecstatic about meeting a woman like her. And yet, I couldn’t have cared less if I ever saw her again.

She isn’t the one I want.

The thought completely floored me. How had this happened? What had that obnoxious, beautiful girl done to me? I was willing to throw away a woman like Lily, who was everything I should be looking for—for what? A girl who granted me access to her body, but was otherwise unobtainable?

“No, I’m sorry,” I said quietly, giving Lily a small apologetic smile.

Her face fell a little. I couldn’t even feel guilty about turning her down. Just thinking about going out with her again felt like a betrayal of Julia.

“You’re a very lovely woman,” I said sincerely. “But…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“That’s all right, Stephen. I appreciate you being honest with me. Sometimes the attraction just isn’t there.”

I nodded. There was definitely no attraction.

“Friends?” I asked softly.

“I’d like that,” she said.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t awkward at all after that. We talked about other things that we had in common, finished our dessert, and I walked her to her car.