Excerpt 1 from Middle Ageish
I slouched
at my computer and peered at the screen. The letsclick.com dating site was
becoming my best friend.
The first
email in the lineup was from Luke. Soulmate Guy, I called him, because he was
the first who’d talked about the soulmate thing—even though there were 7,000
other guys online clamoring for a soulmate.
Cute, too,
with Jeff Bridges hair. Jeff still had hair, didn’t he?
A popcorn
sound startled me––newbie dater that I was––and a cartoon bubble appeared on
the screen with Luke’s image. Would you like to chat with Luke?
Well, that
was a dumb question. I hit the yes button. Yes, yes I would. Chat was
the site’s version of texting and this was my first time.
—Luke: Hey,
got a few minutes? This messaging is friendlier than old school emails. How
goes it? Back from vacation. Went to the island. So different there in the
winter. Beautiful in a different way. Just came home from doing a little bar
dancing. I stayed about an hour. Every once in a while, I do that on a tense
night. This was my tense night.
—Sunny:
Tense, shmense. What’s wrong?
—Luke: One
of those old girlfriend things. We have a lot in common—biking, riding, skiing,
and some total madness thrown in, but she doesn’t give me space. It’s
complicated.
— Sunny:
What’s with the old girlfriend thing? If you’ll be so kind as to be my dating
mentor, I have a question. Dating mentor, is it wise to redate old girl/boy
friends?
—Luke:
Absolutely not, are you nuts? My prob is I don’t like being alone. I like
sharing things with someone.
—Sunny: So
what is it you look for in a woman? Really, I’m not fooling around here.
—Luke: I
know you’re not. I’m taking your question seriously. Well, I’m past craving the
30 year olds with zero body fat and total flawless skin. That is a truly good
thing since I’m 54 and they wouldn’t want me anyhow. But our bodies are
important, the only one we have, so I can’t pretend I don’t care about the
shape a woman is in. I like smiles, legs, arms, necks. You get the picture. Oh,
can’t forget that erotic zone called the mind. That’s most of it.
—Sunny: Wow!
—Luke: I
can’t stand it anymore. I’m signing off here so I can call you. Give me your
phone number. Please. Now—
Excerpt 2 from Middle Ageish
I hadn’t
seen Noah since our kissy-face first meet. He’d taken on extra shifts, and I’d
been busy packing and meeting guys whose names I didn’t remember.
I checked
my email. A text blew in from Noah.
––To:
Sunny
From:
Noah
Subject:
Kiss my face
Dear
Sunny,
I’m a
programmer and an analyst and I figure our date was really three hundred dates
in one (1) and so the next will be #301. Here are the stats:
Canalathon:
6.0 hrs.
Eating: 2.5
Spot
decisions: 0.3
Communication:
3.4
Navigation
ie you: 2.5
Good
night peck: 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1…
Final
peck 9.0
I had a
very pleasant time on our date to see if we should date.
May I
accompany you to the theater Friday night?
Yes,
dear.
Our
seats are side by side
Sweet
sleeps
––Noah
To: Noah
From:
Sunny
Mr.
Noah: The theater? Such a delight. Thank you, yes.
I logged off and sat looking at my
half-eaten sandwich. Noah made me laugh. I was having fun for the first time in
a very long time. There was an upside to getting closer to Noah, concentrating
on Noah, letting it go wherever it would take me, whether it finished in a
dead-end or a long-term relationship.
The sandwich was tuna with mayo on rye
bread. I took a bite. A tad dry because I didn’t have lettuce or sprouts in the
house.
No
sprouts in the house.
The phrase
tinkled in my head. Noah would like that.
Even though
I’d known him a short time, I knew he’d like that.
EXCERPT #1 Eat Your Heart Out
In front of the monitor again, I
took another sip of wine, clicked on a drop-down menu and filled out search
criteria, then began my man-troll. Ten photos to a page. Third from the top, Monty55,
athletic body, his photo the size of a postage stamp. I clicked on his profile,
the better to examine the goods.
“Okay, ladies,” Marc announced
coming up the stairs and sticking his head in the room. “Ten minutes and
dinner’s ready. So, quick pick, a man who can cook,” he called in my direction.
“Someone who’s into wine. Can’t go wrong.”
“Your father and I cooked together.
Every night.” I eyed a second photo of Monty lounging under a weeping willow,
the drooping branches framing him, one dog in his lap, another at his side
gazing up with adoration. Had to be a female.
“I know, Mom, and you still got
divorced.” Sam was tired of hearing the old stories. “Marc means well, but it’s
a numbers game. You can’t pick just one.” She looked to Noelle for approval.
“Online dating is good for the old self-esteem, don’t you think?”
“Self-esteem? Uh, Sam, honey,”
Noelle said. “It’s obvious you haven’t done any internet dating.”
I was deep into Monty55, drinking
in his profile as if it were a superior zinfandel. Here was a man with
sensibilities close to mine, who’d choose a quiet, intimate place for our first
meet. My chest expanded with expectation.
“How do I write him?” Hands curled
over the keyboard. Ready.
Noelle showed me how to grab a
sentence or two from his profile, weave it into the email message, add a
question at the end. “Make it easy. Most men hate writing.”
I could do this, entice this man
with my email wit. Monty’s middle paragraph was all about cooking with his
honey after hiking a few trails, a love of the outdoors, the smell of the
forest. Searching for four leaf clovers. Clever thoughts skipped ahead. So this
was what all the excitement was about and why had no one told me?
“Stop!” Noelle and Sam shouted
behind me.
“What?” I jerked mid-word. “You
wanted me to do this. I’m doing it.” I wheeled the chair back allowing them a
clear view.
Sam breathed out in relief, hand
over heart. “You can’t tell this guy you’re ready for an adventure.”
“You can but it’s a lousy idea,”
Noelle added.
“Why not?” Folded arms across my
chest, the surge of energy evaporating. “Now you’re grading my writing? You
said I should have an adventure.”
Sam and Noelle exchanged looks.
Noelle made a face.
“Well, Mom, we hate to let you in
on the secret code of internet daters, but telling strangers you want
adventures? It’s a sexual come on.”
I opened my mouth to respond and
shut it.
Sam patted my head. “Hey, nothing
we can’t edit.”
“Why can’t I just meet a man in my
dance class or at the supermarket fish counter? Like Sunny.” Now I was whining.
“What dance class?”
“You hang out at the fish counter?”
Noelle peered at the screen, laid her hand over mine on the mouse and clicked.
“Where is that email?”
“It’s right there,” I drained my
wine glass, noting the email disappearance with little concern. “Maybe I
minimized it.”
“Your message to Monty55 has been
sent,” Sam read from the screen in a Bugs Bunny voice.
Excerpt 2 Eat Your Heart Out
Bora Bora on Chapel Street was the
best after work spot for people watching and enjoying beer on a splendid
afternoon. The kiss of the afternoon sun urged me closer to drowsy and relaxed.
It had been a while since Alex and I had been out together.
“Look. On the other side.” I
gestured with my chin. My mean girls, poised to cross the street against the
light, a trio of teenettes, primped and pouty and aware of their power. I
widened my eyes and slipped down my sunglasses, nudged Alex, who wasn’t paying
attention, with my elbow.
“Ouch—”
“Your ten o’clock.” I could almost
smell their perfumed perfection from a block away. “I’ll bet they ignore us. If
they come this way.”
The Snotties headed down the street
to our left, but I had no doubt we’d been sighted. Mr. Bethany and Ms. Narvana.
Together.
“Who cares?”
“You will. When they spread the
word. The whole school—”
“Enough shop talk, Ms. Narvana.
Don’t be an alarmist.” Alex chin-jabbed in the direction of two
twenty-somethings crossing the street. “See that couple there? Well, she hates
it when he sneaks a smoke late at night in the kitchen downstairs, wearing nothing
but his argyles and tighty-whities.”
I leaned over to whisper into the
crook of his arm, breathed in his faint piney scent with a hint of beer breath.
“When they’re at her parents’ place, house sitting, they do it in the master
bedroom, secretly hoping the parents will come home early and catch them en
flagrante.”
Alex made a face that gave him a
bedraggled look. “En flagrante, huh? You revised my story. I’ll let it
go this time because you added clever details.” Using his radio announcer
voice. “And she used foreign words.”
“My turn, smartass,” I said. He had
trouble keeping a straight face.
After Alex escorted me to that
fabulous dinner at Union League and kissed me, we’d spent a few weeks waving
hellos across the corridor. Two or three cancelled planning sessions later, it
was clear he was backing off.
Until today when he asked if I
wanted to go for a beer. So now, I needed to warm up to him. Again.
As it turned out, warming to Alex
was all too easy. This likability irritated me.
“Give me a target,” I told him.
“Your three o’clock.”
Two women walking, chatting and
laughing. “Former lovers,” I said. “The one in red has gone over to the other
team, but they’re still friends. Now she’s telling her ex-partner about sex
with her new man.”
Alex’s raised his eyebrows and
wiggled them, the classic bad actor, and I almost burst out laughing.
“May I change the subject?” Alex
asked. I shrugged, and he continued. “I read about this study done in
Massachusetts. On happiness. Questions as part of the census. People were asked
how happy they were, on a scale of one to ten, with the town, its facilities,
the police department. They even had feeling questions, such as whether people
ask for advice, bond with fellow workers, or how the environment affects their
mood.”
“Your point, Mr. Bethany?”
He stared ahead. “The little things
in life are the true happy moments.”
“Like taking a beach walk before
dinner or stir-frying chicken and vegetables in the wok,” I said. “Sam dropping
by unannounced. Role playing with you. Little things.”
“Are you saying I’m one of the
little things?”
I wanted to tell him he was
endlessly entertaining and non-judgmental. Refreshing. Hooked by Alex in the
brief time we’d worked together, ad-dict-dict-dicted to picking his brain. He
broke through my reserve, loosened my joints, especially my funny bone joint,
so I laughed more carelessly and eased up on the analyzing.
“You’re not one of the little
things,” I said without a hint of a tease.
So why a
book about a woman who starts over, moves from Paris, France to New Haven, CT,
goes back to school, and online dates?
Well, I
sort of did the same thing. I’d been living in Crete, Greece for eleven years
and my marriage was failing.
What
triggered my decision was a mundane exchange between me and my husband one
evening over what was the plan for dinner. Takeout chicken or souvlaki? In the
middle of that conversation I realized I no longer wanted to be married. A
realization that had been coming for a long time.
I moved
back to Connecticut to start over, went back to school and started dating.
While
writing the book––and talking about my characters as if they were friends––my
real friends asked questions. By this time, they were familiar with the book’s
heroine, Sunny Chanel, who was online dating. Over happy hour appetizers and
wine, they’d pepper me for answers. “How much is autobiographical?” “Was that a
true story about the 300-pound man Sunny dated?” “Did you really go on six
meets in one week?”
Sure,
there’s a bit of me in Middle Ageish, because making fiction and turning
experience into a belly laugh is much more fun than humans should have. And I’m
having the time of my life, pumping my checkered past for “copy” as Nora Ephron
(or was it her mother?) called everything that was story material.
Starting
over is a real thing. It resonates with happily married women because they have
no idea about how tough online dating can be. And they’re fascinated and glad
they aren’d dating. Divorced women, on the other hand, are intimated by the
pitfalls and stories they’ve heard.
Lucky
for them I’ve got a website chock full of tips and suggestions for anyone
started over. There are articles for men, too, such as how to entice a woman to
email him back, written with Peter, a friend of mine who’s been around the
dating block a few times. These days he’s distance dating, so I’m planning on
interviewing him now that the world of online dating has shifted.
Thinking
about venturing out there? When it comes to online dating, remember that
nothing counts until you meet. Emailing and zooming aren’t dating, but they’re
a good start.
You’re
never too old to start new.
This is a fabulous spread you've done!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the intro to Middle Ageish and Eat Your Heart Out. My characters are thrilled to be guests on your blog. Sunny’s loving the diverse collection of books in different romance genres, and Dana’s scrolling through the archives. Alex goes for the giveaways every time. So great being here, thank you!
Lovely blog you have heere
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