Write It Up!: Rapid Transit / The Ex Factor / Brewing Up Trouble

According to the rules of the game—which the hostess had handed to Julia as she registered for the event, and which Julia had researched even before she arrived—she would have the opportunity to meet twenty-five men tonight. Each “date” would last approximately four minutes, starting and ending at the sound of a bell, with another minute in between for people to move from one table to the next. For the first half of the event—which was being held in the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria—the women would be seated at tables and the men would flit from place to place. Then there would be a short intermission for “mingling,” followed by another round of “dating,” this time with the men seated and the women flitting. It would either be a lot of fun or phenomenally irritating. Julia had yet to decide which.

But she got her first clue—not to mention a jolt of disappointment—when Randy 6 sat down. He looked more like Somethingthecat 8. And then deposited in the litter box. Somehow, Julia managed to curb the urge to strike a line through his name in his presence.

“So. Randy,” she began after they’d introduced themselves, already mentally counting the seconds. Just how many were there in four minutes, anyway? She did some quick math. Two hundred and forty? That many? She’d never survive. “Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

There. That ought to kill a few dozen seconds at least.

“I don’t get out much,” Randy 6 said, thereby killing roughly two. Not to mention Julia’s appetite. On the up side, her desire for a drink was skyrocketing.

“Well,” she tried again, her fingers inching toward her appletini, “you’re here now, aren’t you?”

“My mother made me come,” Randy 6 said. “She’s over there.”

Then, to Julia’s amazement, he turned in his chair and waved at a middle-aged woman on the other side of the room, who, like Julia, was sitting at a table speed-dating. The woman waved back, then made a spinning motion with her hand and mouthed something that even Julia could read as, Turn back around and talk to her, you big jerk.

Wow. Speed-dating with one’s mother. That gave new meaning to the term “Keeping it in the family.” A really icky meaning, too.

“I see,” Julia said.

Hard as it was to believe, the conversation only deteriorated after that, and she worried that her session with Randy 6 was going to set a precedent for the entire evening. Sure enough, her next three dates—Ryan 4, Ernesto 18 and Jack 24—were only marginally more scintillating than Randy 6. But the next two, Armand 13 and Michael 19, were relatively interesting. Unfortunately, it was relative to Randy 6. In spite of that, Julia made a quick, surreptitious notation in her notebook about each of the men between rings of the bell, as she awaited the arrival of her next victim…ah, date, she meant, of course. For the two allegedly interesting candidates, she wrote, respectively:

If he were the last man on earth, there might at least be hope, if not an actual likelihood, that the human race could continue.

Says Angelina Jolie is too good-looking, but I’m pretty sure he’s lying. Still, could just be being ironic, so might be worth a second look.

She took a second to flip through her notes. If Armand 13 was as good as it got tonight, the survival of the human race might be a problem. So far, Julia hadn’t met anyone she was eager to check off her list as a potential meet-again. Which was what she was supposed to do at night’s end—identify any of the men she’d “dated” this evening as someone she might want to see a second time.

The men had a similar list of the participating women and were supposed to do likewise. Their hostess—in this case, a woman who owned a Manhattan dating service—would then compare the lists and see whose names corresponded with whose, and anyone who showed up on both lists would receive notification that there had been a spark of interest on both sides and given the opportunity to make further contact via e-mail.

So if, at the end of the night, Julia put a check mark on her list of men’s names by, say, Armand 13—as if—and if Armand 13 put a check mark on his list of women’s names by Julia 6—oh, please, God, no—then they’d both be given each other’s e-mail addresses so that they might continue with their conversation, and, ideally, a romance. The way things were looking so far, however, Julia was reasonably certain tonight was going to be a bust. Which was okay. Sort of. Because she’d arranged to attend four of these things this month in order to get as full a view as possible for her story.

Gee, had she actually been thinking at first that it might be fun? Julia was beginning to wonder. Had she actually attended the story meeting with their editor in chief, Tess Truesdale, discussing the idea—three writers, three styles of alternative dating, no waiting—she could have won one of the other topics. Or maybe changed Tess’s mind. Maybe—

Oh, who was she kidding? Had Julia attended the meeting, the outcome would have been no different. She and Abby Lewis and Samantha Porter—all in-house writers for the magazine—would have ended up with the same assignments. Once Tess decided to go with something, there was no stopping her from getting it. Woe betide anyone who thought she could change Tess’s mind. No matter what went down in Tess’s office that morning, Julia would still be sitting here, nursing her appletini, perusing her notes about unremarkable men, and wishing she was anywhere but—

“Hi. I’m Daniel 9.”

She glanced up from her notes with a glib response on her tongue, but it dried up completely when she got a look at her next date. Mostly because there were better things to put on one’s tongue than glibness. Like, for instance, Daniel 9.

His sandy hair was thick and tousled, unruly and long enough to let her know he wasn’t obsessed with excessive grooming, but clean and combed enough to make clear his desire to look good. And, baby, did he look good, dressed in slightly faded but form-fitting blue jeans, a white oxford shirt open at the collar and a black blazer. His hazel eyes, an intriguing mix of gray and blue and green, reflected intelligence and good humor, as did the scant smile that curled his lips. Even seated as she was, Julia could tell he easily topped six feet, and that every last inch of him was lean and solid.

Oh, yeah. Continuation of the species was looking better and better. As was the species itself.

She extended her hand and hoped her palm wasn’t as sweaty as the rest of her suddenly felt. “Julia 6,” she said, introducing herself with her first name and her assigned number, as each of the fifty participants had been instructed to do.

Daniel 9 smiled, something that made Julia want to purr and rub against his leg. “Six and nine,” he said as he slipped his hand into hers. “Now, why do I think those numbers would go so well together?”

She was so besotted by his dark, velvety voice, and so agitated by the frisson of heat that charged up her arm when her fingers connected with his, that she didn’t even care he’d made such an adolescent remark. In fact, she was starting to suffer from a case of overactive hormones herself.

“Have a seat,” she told him as she reluctantly released his hand.

He sat immediately, and she made a mental note of how obedient he was. They were off to a very good start as far as she was concerned.

“So what brings you to tonight’s event?” she asked.

Daniel 9 smiled again, and Julia did her best not to swoon. “It sounded like fun,” he told her. And, to his credit, he actually sounded as though he meant it. “I haven’t dated anyone seriously for a while, and I’ve been missing the companionship.” He shrugged as if that weren’t a big concern of his, but something in his eyes indicated otherwise. “A buddy of mine heard about this thing tonight,” he concluded, “and invited me to tag along.”

“And how’s your evening been so far?” Julia asked.

He pretended to give that some thought. “Actually, I don’t think my evening started until I sat down at your table.”

Oh, good answer, Julia thought. She was ready to start working on that continuation of the human race right now. She wondered if there was room for both of them under the table.

She smiled, and he smiled back, and suddenly, two hundred and forty seconds wasn’t nearly enough. And then she realized she was wasting them by just sitting there ogling him. Oh, wait, no, she wasn’t. There was no way a second could be wasted, provided she was within viewing range of Daniel 9.

“So tell me a little bit about yourself,” she said.

“Well, I don’t like piña coladas,” he told her, “or getting caught in the rain.”

“Excellent,” she concurred. “I’m not much for either myself. So what do you like? Raindrops on roses? Bright copper kettles?”

“I can handle those,” he said, “as long as you don’t make me go bicycling through the Alps with a bunch of kids wearing lederhosen made out of curtains.”

So he was familiar with The Sound of Music, Julia thought, putting another mental gold star by his name.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know how to say it without sounding really boring,” he said.

“Try me.”

And, gosh, smart guy that he was, he totally picked up on her double entendre, because his smile this time was a little suggestive. Oh, goody.

“The usual stuff,” he told her. “Movies, music, books, eating out.”

“Sports?”

“Some,” he said. But he didn’t start frothing at the mouth the way some guys did, which was a definite bonus. “I like to watch the Rangers when I get a chance.”

Hockey. A manly man sport. Cool.

“And since I grew up in Indiana, I’m really into college basketball.”

A small cry of delight escaped Julia before she could stop it. “I grew up in Indiana, too,” she told him. “What part?”

“Indianapolis,” he said, obviously as pleased by the discovery as she was. “How about you?”

“Evansville. So do you miss Bobby Knight as much as I do?”

“Hell, yes,” he told her. “I don’t care what anyone says about him, he was the best damned coach that team ever had.”

They launched into an enthusiastic dialogue about college hoops, which was inescapably what Hoosiers talked about when meeting for the first time outside Indiana. Or inside Indiana, for that matter. All too soon, the bell was sounding, announcing the end of their date and Daniel 9’s departure.

“Dammit,” he muttered, sounding genuinely hacked off.

Oh, they really did have so much in common, Julia thought. She was peeved by the bell, too.

“Intermission’s coming soon,” he said as he stood. “I’ll be looking for you, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’ll find me with little trouble,” she assured him.

He grinned at that, lifted a hand in farewell and walked away. But not without looking over his shoulder and meeting her gaze. Six times. Not that Julia counted or anything.

The men who visited her table in the next half hour might as well have had names followed by the number zero, so lacking in everything were they when compared to Daniel 9. Nevertheless, Julia made a few perfunctory notes and decided a couple of them might be worth checking off at night’s end, if for no other reason than to provide her with some amusing anecdotes for her story.

When the long bell sounded to announce intermission, she couldn’t get out of her chair fast enough. She should have been starving for hors d’oeuvres and badly in need of another appletini, but she tucked her notes into her tiny purse and headed for the women’s room instead. Not that her bladder was her primary concern. She needed to check herself in the mirror, to make sure she was at her dazzling best. Then she would find Daniel 9 and keep him occupied for the entirety of intermission. With any luck at all, he’d give her an anecdote—or something of an entirely different nature.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL TAGGART WAS FIGHTING off a major wiggins at the lusty look he was getting from Edna 12, a woman old enough to be his mother, when the long bell signaling intermission finally rang. With a hasty farewell and without a second thought, he retreated to the men’s room, wanting to regroup before he went in search of Julia 6.

What a tasty little morsel she was going to be. In fact, of all the women he was going to, ah, meet while researching and writing his article for Cavalier magazine, she might end up being the most luscious treat. He quickly scanned the list of dates he’d had so far tonight. Man, the way things were going, she’d be his only treat from this batch. Not that he hadn’t checked off a number of names. But few of them were women he really, truly wanted to, ah, meet. Even for the sake of his article.

He was thankful—and not a little surprised—that the subject of careers hadn’t come up while he was talking to Julia 6. So far this evening he’d managed to muddle his way through that mine-filled swamp by lying through his teeth. No way could he tell these women his editor’s most recent assignment was a story about the potential for racking up one-night stands through speed-dating events. That was guaranteed to ensure no-night stands with the women Daniel was targeting for his story.

There was something about Julia 6, though, that made him think she’d be difficult to lie to. He couldn’t imagine what. He’d gotten extremely good at lying to women, even before he attended his first speed-dating party a week ago.

As if he needed something like speed-dating to fuel-inject his love life. Not that his love life contained anything remotely resembling love.

Sex life, he corrected himself. There. That was more like it. And Julia 6 was going to be a very nice addition to it. Even better, he suspected, than the two women with whom he’d had success at the event last week. And certainly better than the other women he also planned to score with at tonight’s.

When Daniel emerged from the men’s room, he scanned the crowd until he located Julia 6, at the exact moment she spotted him. They grinned at each other the moment their gazes connected, and, as one, they began to cross the room toward each other. They met precisely in the middle, but not before Daniel noticed what extraordinary legs she had under her short, frilly dress, and how nicely they complemented her incredible breasts.

What was weird, though, was that his gaze kept traveling upward and landed above her neck, and that was where it ultimately stayed. Yeah, her face was as extraordinary as the rest of her, but it was something in her wide green eyes that really captivated him. Not the gaudy, glittery shadow he’d seen turning up on so many women lately, but the fact that the gaudy, glittery shadow seemed so out of place on her. Even weirder was that Daniel usually liked to see women wearing a lot of makeup, but now he found himself wanting to know what Julia 6 looked like without it.

The dress, too, as nice as it looked on her, made him wonder what she looked like out of it. And not naked out, but wearing-something-more-casual out. Which was the weirdest thing of all.

“How many names have you checked off so far?” he asked when they came to a stop in front of each other.

She didn’t even look at her list before telling him, “Only one.”

“What a coincidence,” he said. “I’ve only checked off one name, too.” The lie left an immediate bad taste in his mouth, surprising him. What the hell was up with that? Why did he feel so guilty all of a sudden? He was only doing his job, for chrissakes. “I wish we could leave right now,” he added. That, at least, was the truth.

He could tell by her expression she felt the same way. In spite of that, she said, “I can’t. I really need to see this through to the end.”

“Me, too,” he told her. Then, because for some reason he felt that it was necessary to embellish his lie, he added, “For my buddy, I mean. But we should be out of here by eleven,” he added. “What are you doing afterward?”

Her eyes widened in surprise at the invitation. “I, um, I really don’t have any plans,” she said.

“Let’s have a drink.”

She expelled a soft little sound of surprise that he found strangely erotic. “O-okay,” she agreed.

The bell rang to notify everyone that intermission was drawing to a close, and Daniel really needed another drink before facing round two. “Just meet me downstairs in the lobby when it’s over,” he said. “You need a drink before you head back into the fray?”

Her expression made him think she was a little flustered by the speed at which things between the two of them were progressing. Which was good, he thought. Why should he be the only one here who felt muddle-headed?

She nodded. “Please. An appletini.”

“Not a cosmo?” he asked. After all, that was what all the other women he’d met tonight had been drinking.

She shook her head this time. “Too trendy. I don’t like to be like everyone else.”

He shrugged off the strange irritation that settled on his shoulders at hearing her say that. And it bothered him even more to realize the irritation he felt was for himself. “Consider it done,” he said.

With that, Daniel took off for the bar and Julia 6’s appletini. Surely that was going to be the next trendy beverage of choice for party-girl barflies, he told himself as he went. Because in spite of the naturalness with which they’d connected, and in spite of the ease with which he’d talked to her, and in spite of his singular reaction to her, he reminded himself that Julia 6 was like every other woman.

And damned if he wouldn’t prove it tonight.

BY MIDNIGHT, JULIA AND Daniel were talking again, with a lot more than four minutes allotted them, at Marquee, arguably New York’s hottest club. She watched as the bartender placed an appletini and a Scotch and water on the bar before Daniel, who dropped a twenty and a ten beside them to cover the twenty-two-dollar tab, telling the bartender to keep the change. Another gold star, she thought, for the generous tip.

And yet another for the fact that the two of them had been talking naturally and comfortably about everything under the sun since leaving the speed-dating party, without a single awkward moment to muck things up. Julia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to talk to a guy with such ease right after meeting him, and she was perfectly content to keep doing it. Talking, she meant. Not, you know, doing it. And looking at Daniel, she could see that he was perfectly content to keep doing it, too. Talking, she meant. Not the other thing. Which earned him yet another gold star beside his name.

At this rate, by night’s end, he was going to be his own galaxy.

After collecting their respective drinks, they threaded their way through the throngs of people milling about beneath the boxy yellow-gold lights, until, miraculously, they saw a couple surrendering a table to their right and quickly ducked into it. But instead of sitting opposite each other, they made a silent but unified decision to fold themselves onto the sleek, red-leather banquette by the wall, side by side.

The music wasn’t blaring quite as loudly here, and they wouldn’t have to shout at each other to talk. Despite that, when they first sat down, they only sipped their drinks and gazed at each other for a moment, as if neither could believe how quickly the night had moved. Julia hated to think about it ending. Then she wondered just how it would end. And if it would still be night—or morning—when it did.

She shook the thought off. No matter how comfortable she felt with Daniel, she barely knew him. Glancing down at her watch, she told herself to find out everything she could ASAP.

“So…what do you do for a living?” she asked, surprised that neither of their occupations had come up yet in conversation.

That was good, though, right? That they’d had so much else to talk about, they hadn’t even touched on what was usually the first thing two people getting to know each other discussed.

She wasn’t sure, but she thought his smile fell just the tiniest bit as she concluded the question, and he seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying, “I’m sort of self-employed.”

For the first time since meeting him, Julia felt a hint of dismay. Had he sounded evasive just then? He’d been answering her other questions straight to the point all evening. Why not now?

“Doing what?” she asked. Surely she’d only imagined his hesitation. It depended on what he was self-employed as. If he said he was a male escort, she could see where it was coming from. And she could see where she was going to. Out of his life. Fast.

Again, he sounded as if he were being deliberately vague when he told her, “I kind of work in the arts community.”

Uh-oh, she thought. Maybe he was gay and still in the closet, and that was why he was hesitating. He was by far the most attractive and appealing man she’d met in a long time. He was well groomed and fashionably dressed. And her karma being what it was—namely, bad—it would be almost mandatory that any man she was attracted to who wasn’t a jerk was either gay or terminally ill, or had a chemical dependency or stalker tendencies.

“What part of the arts community?” she asked.

Seeming resigned now to having to give her a more complete answer, he sighed and admitted, “I’m a writer.”

She brightened. A writer? Well, no wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell her what he did for a living. “I’m a writer, too,” she said. “I’m on the staff of Tess magazine.”

“Tess,” Daniel echoed. “Women’s magazine, right?”

She nodded.

“I think I’ve seen it around.”

Well, duh, she thought. Tess was only the training manual for every bad girl in the making, telling today’s young women not only what to do, say, wear, drink and buy, but also where to go. Uh, for clubbing and shopping and traveling, Julia meant.

“So what kind of stuff do you write?” she asked Daniel.

He seemed to hesitate again before finally telling her, “Right now, I’m working on a…a kind of travel piece that I hope will sell to Cavalier magazine.”

“Cavalier,” she echoed in the same tone of voice he’d used to identify Tess. “Men’s magazine, right? I think I’ve seen it around.”

“Touché,” he replied with a grin.

Oh, she’d love to touché him.

“But it’s not exactly a woman-friendly magazine, is it?” she added. “I mean, it’s not as bad as Playboy or Penthouse, but it isn’t exactly The Journal of Sensitive Men, either.”

“I like to think of it as the magazine for men who never quite left their college fraternities behind.”

Now Julia was the one to grin. “Apt description.”

“And I like to think of Tess,” he added, “as the magazine for women who think Barbie is the quintessential female consumer.”

“No, we think the Bratz dolls are the quintessential consumers,” she countered with a chuckle. “Barbie’s middle-aged now, after all. Not to mention monogamous. And much too wholesome for the likes of Tess. So you’re working on a travel piece?” she asked, turning the topic back to him. “I hope you’re not just in town for a visit.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no. I’ve lived here since I started as an undergrad at Columbia twelve years ago.”

Which would make him about twenty-nine or thirty, she thought, age being another area they had yet to cover. Funny how all their vital statistics seemed of no importance to either of them. They were too busy discussing all the philosophical quandaries of life—and college hoops—which Julia had barely ever touched on with guys before. Now that she thought about it, that went a long way toward explaining why so many of her past boyfriends had had such a short shelf life.

“I went to Columbia, too,” she said. “I must have started the year you graduated. School of Journalism, right?”

“Of course.”

“We seem to have a lot in common,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

“Yes, we do.” And, like Julia, he seemed to find that both interesting and agreeable. “So what kind of stuff do you write for Tess?”

Julia told herself that was her cue to be evasive and vague, too, that there was no reason to tell him she was writing an article about speed-dating. She’d just started her research and would be attending a lot more parties like tonight’s over the next couple of weeks, even going out with some of the guys she met. That was something that could really put a crimp in any potential relationship she might start with Daniel. What guy wanted to date a woman whose objective was to date several men in a short span of time to see who was best?