Cheating on Myself by Erin Downing Read Free Book Online Page B

Heather character,” Lily said later that day, as we walked toward the cafeteria for a coffee. I was trying to convince her to come to water aerobics with me by sharing Heather’s comment about rinsing my lady bits. I wasn’t sure I wanted to face the regulars by myself again, and hoped I could lure Lily into the shark den. “I also think you should go out with this musician character. It’ll be good for you.”
    “How is a thirty-four year old aspiring musician good for anyone?” I ordered a decaf skim latte, wondering if Erik had been making coffee at home without me there. He usually didn’t drink coffee before leaving for work in the morning, but he’d gotten into the habit of preparing it for me every night before bed and I suspected he hadn’t yet broken with routine. “Besides, I don’t even know this woman. She could be a total nutjob and the grandson could be an Internet stalker, for all I know. Is it really smart to get set up with a stranger?”
    Lily moaned. “You really have been off the market for a long time. Perhaps you’ve heard of something called ‘online dating’? It’s fairly common. Something relatively new in the last decade, where people get onto something known as the ‘Internet’ and are matched up with possible partners?”
    “You are so funny,” I narrowed my eyes at her and swiped my latte off the service counter.
    “After you’re matched,” she continued, smiling smugly. “You meet a relative ‘stranger’ in a public place and either have an awkwardly fun time or figure out how quickly you can bail without feeling like a total bitch.” She grinned. “Bottom line, I think getting set up by a nice old lady you met in water aerobics is as safe, relatively speaking, as an Internet date.”
    “She’s not a nice old lady,” I grumbled. “They’re mean. And probably all chock full of advice.”
    “Good advice?” Lily bit into her bagel as we walked back through the halls to the elevator. She waved at someone I recognized from the “Winner’s Board” that hung in every floor lobby. The Winner’s Board was something James had conceived of, a recognition board where peoples’ extraordinary achievements were shared with everyone. Every few months the Winner’s Board featured photographs of new Centrex superstars, people who had either come up with a way to save or make money, or a creative new way to motivate customers to buy stuff. I’d never been featured on the Winner’s Board, and had given up trying. I didn’t want to be a winner at Centrex.
    “She told me to start sleeping around to get over Erik.”
    “Sound advice.”
    “We just broke up!”
    “You’ll just mope if you hang out at home alone.”
    “That’s exactly what Heather said.”
    “Do you think she’d want to get a drink with us sometime? Heather sounds like a hoot.”
    “I think it’s crass to jump into bed with someone new immediately,” I said. I sounded like a prude. Was I a prude? I’d never considered it—I had never needed to.
    Lily rolled her eyes as we rode up the elevator. “You’re starting over, Stella. You’ve got to actually start somewhere. So maybe you’re not going to hop into bed with the first guy that’s offered up, but you will—eventually—think about dating. Not necessarily immediately, but probably sometime. That’s the first step.”
    Starting over.
    “Oh, my God,” I said as the elevators opened onto the twelfth floor lobby. “I’m starting over at age thirty-four. I’m single, out of practice, unwaxed, and unfamiliar with the modern methods of protection, and here I am—” I waved my arms in the air, sloshing latte foam out the little lid blowhole onto the paisley carpet. “Just thrown back out into the single scene, expected to figure out how to start dating as an almost-middle-aged woman.” Lily started laughing, which I really didn’t appreciate. “It’s not funny!”
    “You do know both Anders and I are single and in the dating scene,