Who You Know by Theresa Alan Read Free Book Online Page A

awkwardly.
    â€œBallet?”
    â€œYears of it, but I was never that great at it. I was more into modern and jazz.”
    â€œCool.”
    I nodded. I nodded some more. “Well, I guess I should get going. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
    â€œYeah.” We looked at each other, then the ground, then each other. We nodded and smiled. I was just about to turn to leave when he said, “Hey, do you have plans for tonight?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œI was going to make spaghetti for dinner. Would you like to join me? I live just a few blocks from here.”
    I couldn’t believe it. After all my scheming and plotting to meet him, not only had we finally met, but he’d asked me out for a date. It was fate. We were meant to be. “That sounds great.” I turned to go, then turned back. “I’m . . . I’m a vegetarian so if you could leave the meatballs out of mine, that would be great.” I braced myself for him to say, “Oh, why are you a vegetarian?” or make some kind of smart-alecky comment. I’d been veggie since I was thirteen and I’d spent most of my lifetime defending what was apparently a very threatening alternative dietary lifestyle to some people. But all he said was “Cool.”
    I was in love.
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    F or us to meet like that—what were the chances if destiny didn’t mean for us to be together?
    My heart soared all afternoon with the knowledge that I had found my soul mate.
    The gods of destiny weren’t around to help me make the right decisions about what to wear, however. As soon as I got to his place, I wanted to run home and change. He opened the door in a blue silk shirt, meticulously pressed black pants, and expensive black leather shoes; I was wearing a long loose cotton skirt and blouse. He looked like he belonged on a runway in Milan, and I looked like I belonged in the parking lot of a Dead concert selling beads.
    Gideon didn’t say much over dinner. I asked him a lot of questions, and he told me that, just like me, he’d grown up in Colorado and had lived in New York for a while. He was there for nine months before going broke. He’d gone there to make it as a model, but it wasn’t until he came back to Colorado that he started getting any work. He did mostly ads for local department stores. Even so, the pay, he explained, was unsteady, and he’d taken a job at the boutique. He didn’t know anything about art, and he didn’t have any experience in sales, but the owner of the boutique thought he had the right look.
    â€œDo you like it, working at the boutique?” I asked.
    â€œYeah it’s okay. Rich people, you know, they’re a trip. They think nothing about dropping seventy grand on a canvas with some scribbles on it. The opening nights are fun. Afterward, I get to help Glenda, that’s the owner, finish up all the wine and finger foods. That’s my favorite part.”
    I spent the entire evening staring at him dreamily, awed by his beautiful, delicate grace.
    â€œWhy are you smiling? You’ve been grinning like, all night.”
    I couldn’t tell him that it was because I was just so happy. “It must be the wine,” I said.
    â€œWell, have some more.” He grabbed the bottle and filled my glass. “Your smile is beautiful.”
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    O ne year later we went to a justice of the peace and vowed we’d be together till death do us part. Two years after that, we got quietly divorced. There was no fighting, no arguing over who got what. In fact, we never argued during our marriage. But then we never really talked, either. My marriage with Gideon was a marriage of silence. I would’ve welcomed fighting; I would’ve welcomed any kind of communication at all. I’d never felt so lonely as when I moved in with him. I was so lonely in my marriage that making the transition from being married to being single was easy. I