Lisa Cach - Dating Without Novocaine

“If you’re not seeing anyone,” Cassie said to Scott, “your own sex chakra might have a blockage.”

“I’m not going to try belly dancing,” he said.

“I don’t know the proper moves for men, anyway,” Cassie said. “The energies are different. Drinking a lot of fluids is supposed to help, though, for both men and women. It flushes you out.”

Apparently water was not only good for conventional constipation, but emotional, as well. I refrained from making note of it out loud, considering we were eating. I saw Scott’s lips twitch. Our eyes met briefly, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

“Where are we supposed to meet people these days, anyway?” Louise asked. “I don’t want to go to a bar, much less date someone who hangs out in one looking for women. Going through parents or friends is supposed to be what all the ‘experts’ advise, but my parents don’t know anyone of the right age—I’ve asked. All they can come up with is someone’s twenty-five-year-old, ultra-Christian son. And you all are no help. If you did find a single guy, you’d go for him yourselves.”

“I wouldn’t,” Scott said.

“You were supposed to find me a nice dentist. Where is he?” Louise asked.

“They’re all married,” he said. “And besides, they’re not your type. You need someone who’d be willing to talk all night about Jungian dream analysis, not some guy who’d rather be out boating on the river, cruising by Sauvie’s Island to spy on the nude sunbathers.”

“Is that what dentists do on their days off?” I asked.

“Only when they’re not polishing their Porsches or hanging out at The Sharper Image.”

We were quiet for a moment, each of us stewing over the perpetual adolescence of men, while Scott wrapped up another fajita.

“This really can’t be as hopeless as it all seems,” I finally said. “Even if there is only one man in a million who would be right for each of us, there’s what, two million people in the greater Portland area? So one million men, which means one guy who would be perfect. For each of us. And one woman for you, Scott. They’re out there—we just have to find them.”

“You can’t force these things,” Cassie said. “The universe—”

“I don’t want to wait for the universe to take care of it. I’m going to be thirty years old on September sixth—that’s four months away. I want to be engaged by then,” I said, resolved on the issue, all my angst of the other night suddenly crystallizing on this one point. It was as if making a declaration would take away all the uncertainty, all the worry about what my future would be. Nothing had changed, but it gave me a sense of control, however spurious. “I don’t want to turn thirty and still not know who I’m going to marry.”

“Hannah,” Louise said in a concerned, counselor tone, “getting married just because you think you’re the age that you should is setting yourself up for disaster.”

“Well, I’m not going to just grab some poor fool off the street. If I was willing to marry anyone there wouldn’t be a problem. No, I’m going to find Mr. Right—the one-in-a-million Mr. Right who is within a twenty-mile radius of us as we speak. Then it won’t be a mistake at all.”

“Why the big concern about turning thirty?” Scott asked.

We all looked at him. Again, his maleness was showing.

“I mean, I had a big bash when I turned thirty. It was great—you know, you were there. Yeah, I felt a little old, but I certainly wasn’t worried about getting married.”

“Tick, tick, tick,” I said.

He looked blank.

“The biological clock,” I said. “It’s ticking. You can have kids until the Viagra gives out, but we’ve got deadlines to meet.”

“Women are having children well into their forties—”

“I don’t think any of us wants to be eligible for social security when our kids graduate from high school,” I said. “I don’t want to worry that my husband is going to die of a heart attack while playing basketball with my son. I don’t want people to assume I’m my daughter’s grandmother. I’ve got an independent career, I make my own hours and my own money, now I want a husband and to start a family. It’s time, whether the universe thinks so or not, and I’m going to do something about it.”

“Jeez, Hannah, you sound like you’re about to start a military campaign,” Scott said.

“That’s no way to find love,” Cassie said.

“She’s right,” Louise said. “I don’t know about the universe knowing when the time is right, but guys can sense it when you’re desperate, and they run. Right, Scott?”

“You might as well have a trio of redneck brothers standing behind you with shotguns.”

“I’m not desperate,” I said. “I’m organizing. The universe helps those who help themselves. I can’t expect the guy to just turn up on my doorstep one day, can I? Don’t you all want to find your soul mates?”

A silence descended around the table, a pocket of quiet amid the voices and dish-clattering of the restaurant.

“Well, yeah, I want to find him,” Louise finally said. “But how?”

“That’s what I’m going to figure out.”

“Y ou keeping busy?” Robert asked, handing me the armload of pants and jackets that needed hemming. Robert was a salesclerk at Butler & Sons, an expensive sportswear shop where I got a lot of alterations work. He was six years older than me, tall and slightly overweight, with a fresh face that lit up whenever I came in. I suspected he had a crush on me, but I couldn’t quite come to grips with the idea of dating a guy in his mid-thirties who still worked retail. Ambition and confidence were attractive, and Robert had neither.

Or maybe he didn’t have a crush, and was just happy to see someone fairly near his own age. The clothes Butler & Sons sold looked as if they were meant for golfers and the country club set, or whatever passed for the country club set in Portland. The customers who came in for the taupe pants and boxy argyle sweaters were not likely to be young single women.

“Pretty busy,” I said, taking the clothes. “I’ve got three appointments lined up for this afternoon.”

“Have you had a chance to eat?” he asked.

I avoided his eyes. Any mention of food was a danger sign. It seemed to go back to some primitive time when Man bring Woman meat, good, eat, eat. Which was fine, if Woman want Man, Man kill many mammoth, make good fire. Not fine, if Man kill one old pigeon and have wet wood. I wanted a good provider.

“Joanne usually feeds me,” I said, which was pretty much the truth. She was my next appointment, and she usually did have muffins or coffee cake she encouraged me to eat. It wasn’t a meal in the traditional sense, but I’d been counting on it as lunch.

“Oh.” His face fell, and then he struggled to put the cheer back into his expression. “Maybe next week we can grab something to eat together. The food court has some pretty good stuff.”

I smiled, rather painfully. “We’ll see.”

It was as good as I could do, for a response. It was neither dashing nor encouraging his hopes, although dashing was what I knew I should do. “You have to be cruel to be kind,” and all that, which I think is almost harder on the dasher than on the dashee. But I got a lot of business at this store, and didn’t want to create bad feelings with an employee.

Maybe he’d get the hint when I was too busy next week, and the week after, and then we could both pretend he had never expressed anything but friendly interest.

Butler & Sons was in the lower level of Pioneer Place Two, the new addition to the upscale shopping center in the heart of downtown Portland. Pioneer Place Two was connected to its older twin by a sky bridge and an underground tunnel, and it was along this tunnel that I walked with my armload of sportswear, following the streamlike undulations of decorative blue glass under my feet. The stores on either side were mostly the same chains found in every other city: the Body Shop, Victoria’s Secret, the Gap, Banana Republic, Eddie Bauer. I much preferred to go to Saks to steal my ideas for clothes to make. Somehow everything looked just a little more beautiful there.