Liar's Guide to True Love by Wendy Chen Read Free Book Online Page A

wear the Cathy Waterman pendant—a well-dressed guy like him might appreciate the classic yet fashionable design.
    And in the second it takes for me to get to the stall, I realize he was grinning at the purple polka-dotted underwear peeking through my unbuttoned jeans.
    (Hey, it was supposed to be just the girls tonight, remember? Was I supposed to endure a thong for them?)
    Okay, breathe. Maybe he didn’t see my underwear. In my mind I replay our interaction second by second. I look in the mirror as if I am talking to him again. He lowered his eyes. At what angle? I look back and forth from my reflection to the button fly on my Joe’s jeans. Yep. It was the right (wrong!) angle. Did he grin before or after looking down? After!
    As I wash my hands I determine a POA—Plan Of Action. Step One: I will politely thank him for waiting. Step Two: I will walk back to our table and completely ignore him. Step Three: I’ll beg off with a headache and head straight out the door. Step Three Plan B: If Nick is already here, I’ll finish my drink and then beg off with a headache. It wouldn’t be right to be rude to a friend of a friend. (My mother would be so proud of my propriety).
    Are you thinking that the cute, tall, gentlemanly stranger who prematurely saw my underwear is Nick? Of course it is. I realize this when I am halfway through Step Two. When I am fully mortified that he is following me . When Kate looks up and says, “Oh, I see you’ve already met! You took so long, Cassandra, I thought you’d fallen in!” And part of me wishes that I had.
     
     
    The next morning I of course tortured myself by thinking of all the possible conversations that could have occurred after my thoroughly ungraceful exit. (Instead of going with my headache idea, I said I had to get up early the next morning. How dull does that sound!) And since I left the bar at 9:00, I actually am up by 5 a.m.—too early to call Kate and see what was actually said about me. I lie in bed, fiddling with the necklace I am still wearing (aquamarine briolette on a sterling silver chain), trying to think of how I shouldn’t care what happened last night. Nick is no one to me. So what if he was cute? He is Kate’s friend, whom she hasn’t seen in a long time, whom I probably will never see again. Since when did I embarrass so easily anyway? Who cares if he thinks I’m a bore who goes to bed early?
    At 5:37 I am convinced that Nick thinks I am halfway to lunacy, a homebody who is so socially inept that she undresses for strangers in order to gain access to a urinal.
    At 5:38 I decide it is late enough to call Kate and wake her up.
    I can just see her, trying to find her cell phone on the nightstand without opening her eyes. It takes three rings before she does it.
    “We didn’t talk about you at all, Cass.”
    “Are you sure? He didn’t say anything weird about me?” I may have known Kate for four years now, but I still wasn’t about to say anything more about my old lady underwear than I absolutely had to.
    “No. As soon as you left we ordered another round of drinks and had a few laughs. Nick even got Suzanne out of her sour mood after a few stories about me in college. I think she felt like I evened the score for womankind or something.” Could it be? Is it possible that he didn’t notice? It wouldn’t be the first time I had totally gone off the deep end about an imaginary embarrassing moment. “So why the urgency at the crack of dawn, anyway?”
    “Oh, no reason. Just thought…well…I left so early…”
    “Are you… interested? He is pretty cute. Why don’t I set something up? This weekend, maybe?”
    Well, this is a pleasant turn of events. At the very least I’ll be able to redeem my dullness of last night. “Sure. But I have a wedding on Saturday, and the rehearsal dinner on Friday. How about Thursday? Oh wait, I already have a date on Thursday…”
    She groans. Clearly too early for her to deal with my odd schedules. “Look,