Chapter Ten: Is This a Second or First Date?

When Kit and I separate, I go back to my apartment to change and get ready for my date. I wish I could beg off, but I'd never hear the end of it from Kit, so I take a shower and put on a light green summer dress with ties at the shoulders, and slip on a pair of comfortable sandals. My hair has decided to cooperate, so I leave it loose on my shoulders and apply a bit of makeup. I'll have to do.

I take the L train toward 8th Avenue, then change to the C train. As the car rattles around me I think about the failure of today. I owe Kit a day for her. It feels gross that we barely spoke about the fact that she's about to get engaged. I take out my phone and text her.

Thanks so much for today. Next time will be 100% about you.

She sends me back a heart emoji. Good luck tonight!

If he proposes call immediately.

You mean if he GOES DOWN ON ONE KNEE?

Ha!

I smile and put my phone away. When I get to my stop, I walk up the stairs and then to the restaurant. It's seven and the day has cooled off, a gentle breeze in the air. The restaurant is on a street with a string of similar places—smaller, with bistro tables outside and flowers draped over the entrance. The smells coming out of it are wonderful—garlic, butter, and fried cheese. I haven't had anything to eat since I devoured the eggs benedict of death and I'm finally hungry again.

I walk up to the hostess and give her my name. "I'm here for Jack Dunne."

"Yes, he's already seated."

"That's a nice surprise."

Her thin face pinches. "What's that?"

"Nothing."

She smiles the bland smile of a million similar interactions. "Follow me, please." She picks up a menu and walks around the outside of the building to the last table under the deep blue awning. A man's sitting there, fiddling nervously with a fork. Jack.

He looks up. "Chloe. So glad you could make it."

He stands and it's a shock. Because he does look superficially like Fake Jack—my Jack my mind bleats—but also quite different. His eyes are more brown than hazel, his hair a shade lighter with less curl in it, and his frame is thinner. He's a good-looking guy, and his blue checked shirt and dark blue chinos fit him well.

If he'd shown up last weekend, I would've been pleased. But all I can feel right now is a vague disappointment. Some stupid part of my mind thought that it might be him. That the two Jacks might be the same person, playing a trick on me.

I'm such an idiot.

"Hi," I say and try to smile.

We stand there for a moment awkwardly, with me wondering if he's going to try to hug me. He doesn't, just comes to my side of the table and pulls my chair out for me.

"Thank you." I sit and take my napkin off the table while the hostess tells us our waitress will be with us shortly.

"Have you been here before?" Jack asks.

His voice is medium deep, without any trace of an accent that I can discern. A nice voice for a nice man that so far I'm feeling no chemistry with. But I'm not being fair. Did I feel chemistry with Fake Jack immediately? Or was it just the relief of thinking that I hadn't been stood up when I had?

"No, but I've heard good things."

He nods enthusiastically. "It's great. I live near here, so I've been a bunch of times."

"Oh, I thought you lived on the Upper West Side."

"Not anymore. I grew up there. My parents still have a place on Park Avenue."

"Fancy."

"The apartment's been in the family since before it was that fancy, but ... Yeah."

"Sorry, I didn't mean ..."

"It's fine. Everyone always says that."

I look down at my plate. It's white with a blue trim that matches the awning. There's rain forecast for later and I can feel it in the air.

"So ... That's how you knew about the good eggs benny?"

"Yes."

"It was good."

He frowns. "You had food?"

"Oh, Kit didn't tell you ..." I stop. How am I supposed to explain Fake Jack to him? "Um, we went there today. Kit and I."

"You did?"

"You'd spoken of it so highly. I was curious." The lie feels weird in my mouth and like a bad place to start a date. I search around for some other topic. "And it's near the Met, so we went there also."

"How was the Met?"

Yikes. This conversation is a minefield. "It was good."

"What was your favorite part?"

"The Temple of Dendur, I think. And all the Mixed-up Files stuff."

"Hunh?"

A waiter approaches, wearing a white shirt and a black apron. His dark hair is slicked back. "Have you had a chance to look at the menu?"

"Oh, sorry, no," I say.

"Anything to drink?"

Jack nods to me.

"I'll have a glass of white wine. The pinot gris?"

"Of course. And you, sir?"

"Just water for me."

The waiter nods. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Do you not drink?" I say to Jack.

"Not really, no."

I bite my lip. I don't want to tread into dangerous waters. There could be any number of reasons why Jack doesn't drink. It doesn't have to be a red flag. "I don't have to have wine."

"No, go ahead, please." He picks up his menu. "What looks good to you?"

I grab my menu. It's full of delicious-looking items including fried zucchini and grilled octopus.

"I love tzatziki," I say.

It's my favorite condiment. When Kit and I went to Greece on our graduation trip from college, we judged the restaurants in Santorini by the price of their tzatziki. The cheaper it was, the better the food. I gained five pounds on that trip and didn't regret it.

"Oh," Jack says. "I, um, don't like creamy foods. But go ahead and get it, of course."

"Creamy foods?"

"You know, that creamy texture." He shudders. "Makes me gag."

"Does that include hummus?"

"It does."

"Okay." I look at the menu again. "What about the octopus?"

"I'm allergic to seafood."

My menu goes limp in my hand. "Why don't you choose some things."

"Lamb chops?"

I don't normally eat lamb but if I say anything we're shortly going to run out of options. "Sure."

"And the fried zucchini is amazing."

"Finally, something we agree on." I smile at him, but he doesn't smile back.

"Were we not agreeing?"

"No, I ... We seem to have different tastes in food."

"My food quirks aren't adorable?"

"Oh, um ..."

"I was joking."

"Right, of course."

He lays his hands flat on the table. "Sorry, I know my food things can be a pain."

"It's fine."

The waiter returns with my glass of wine, which I'm grateful to see is large, and takes our order. Jack adds a bunch of delicious-sounding things to the menu as the clouds start to darken around us.

I take a large sip of wine as the waiter leaves then look up at the sky. "Will we be safe, you think?"

"It's not supposed to rain until 9:30."

"You trust those weather apps?"

"They're usually pretty on target for bad weather. It's the sunshine they seem to get wrong."

"Totally. Why is that?"

"No idea."

Good lord, we're talking about the weather.

"So, tell me, what was it like growing up on the Upper West Side? I'm not from here in case you couldn't tell, and I love hearing authentic New York stories."

He laughs. "Well, one of the Kennedys lives in our building."

"Ooh!"

"And during the pandemic, she was rating out everyone who was violating the rules."

"Interesting."

Our first plate of food comes out, including the tzatziki, and we dig in. The conversation never gets to sparkling, but it's pleasant and the food is great. I nurse my large glass of wine, feeling like I can't order another given Jack's not drinking, even though I desperately want one. The waiter brings the bill right as a huge clap of thunder shudders above us.

Jack pays despite my protest, saying it's the least he can do, and then it starts to rain.

"Are you getting wet?" he asks as the drops pelt down next to us and drip off the canopy above.

"A bit." I scootch my chair over so it's almost touching the person next to me. "Sorry, you don't mind do you?"

"No," she says, though she obviously does. She and her friend have been talking shit about someone named Tiff all night.

"We'll be leaving in a minute." I turn back to Jack. "I should've brought an umbrella."

He turns and looks at the street. The rain is pounding against the blacktop. Across the street is a city bike rack that's painted in multicolors. There's a blue restaurant behind it covered in patio lighting.

"That looks like a painting," I say, taking out my phone to snap a picture.

I take it, then check it in my photos. It turned out well, but my eye also drags to the photo next to it—the snap Jim took of Fake Jack last weekend. I look so happy in this photo, my eyes shining at him. And it looks like he returns my affection ... God, I sound like Jameela.

Return my affection? This is not an episode of Bridgerton.

"Let me see?" I switch to the photo of the building and show Jack. "That's cool," he says. "Should we make a run for it?"

"Sounds like a plan."

We stand and I think about swiping the napkin to cover my head. The subway stop is only a couple of blocks from here, and I've already been soaked once today. What's once more?

I step toward Jack and we hover under the edge of the awning.

"I had a nice time," he says.

"Me too."

"Which way are you heading?"

"To the subway."

"Ah, I'm going the other way."

"No problem."

"So, we should say goodnight here ..."

I turn toward him and our eyes catch. I can't read his expression, but I think he might want to kiss me. I'm not ready for that—to be kissed by two Jacks in a week.

I lean forward and give him a quick hug. "Thanks for dinner."

He squeezes me briefly, and it's not unpleasant, but I feel nothing when he lets me go. "I'd like to see you again."

"Sure."

"Night, Chloe."

"Night, Jack."

He reaches for my hand, but I'm already spinning out into the rain, trying to dodge between the raindrops, feeling like I narrowly avoided something I didn't want to experience.

###

When I get back to my apartment, soaked, I'm too tired to do anything other than pull off my wet clothes and dress in my comfortable pajamas. I settle in on the couch with my phone to spend an hour scrolling before I go to bed.

How was it? Kit writes.

You didn't turn off Find my Friends did you?

Guilty.

Kit.

Whatever. Tell me, everything.

Zero chemistry.

Really?

Yep.

You didn't think he was cute?

He is, but that's not everything.

But he's nice and smart too.

He is.

So, what's the problem?

He's not Jack, I want to write, but of course, he is.

I'm broken, I guess.

You should go on a second date.

Assuming he wants one.

Did he say anything?

He said he did but maybe he was just being polite. I mean, if he thought that was a good first date, I'm going to think less of him.

Jeez.

Sorry.

Just don't turn him down because you're waiting for someone you're never going to find.

Okay, I write, but then I open a dating app and begin scrolling through potential matches, looking for Fake Jack. He doesn't turn up and I refine my dating parameters to what I guess is his age and his description. There's a bunch of late-twenties guys with dark brown hair and hazel eyes but none of them are Jack. Fake Jack. My Jack. Him.

I put my phone down in disgust.

I feel restless, and I know I won't be able to sleep, so I pull out the book I need to read for work this weekend. It's a rom-com set in a murder-mystery tour where everyone dresses up as their favorite detective. It's a zany premise, and I like to shake things up a bit sometimes. There's an Agatha Christie as rom-com vibe in it, with each of the participants having been lured to the conference by a highly specific personal ad.

I read fifty pages, which I quite enjoy, but now my eyes are drooping and I'm half asleep. I fall into a half-dream state, where I'm now in the book, dressed up as Miss Marple, consulting Poirot on how to get Fake Jack's attention.

"You have a mass marketing campaign at your disposal," says Poirot, twirling his large mustache between his fingers.

"Excellent suggestion!" Miss Marple says, and then I wake up.

Oh!

The BookBox.

His photo.

I could use it to do a viral marketing campaign to have our subscribers help me find him. It could be a fun gimmick. I bet Addison would be all over it, despite her protests against love. Anything that gets the online world talking about BookBox is a good thing in her life. And we could tailor it so that it's just the New York boxes ... We've even got a good rom-thriller to tie it to this month—a romance about a man who returns to a small town after he's been missing since he was a child ...

My brain is racing, but I'm happy. This is how I'm going to find Fake Jack.

I know it.

My phone dings next to me. I pick it up. It's a notification from the dating app I was surfing. I must've favorited one of the guys who came up in my search because I have a message from him. He also looks superficially like Jack, like both Jacks, but he's wearing a tight-fitting suit in his picture which looks suspiciously like it comes from the J.Crew catalogue.

I open the message with trepidation. This app doesn't let men send photos to women even after they've matched, but that doesn't stop guys from getting gross in other ways.

Up for a late night hookup? He asks. His name is Dan and he's thirty.

Are you drunk? I write back.

I might be.

You're drunk texting a girl you don't even know?

I have a thing for redheads. Tell me, are you red all over?

FU.

I wait till he's read my kiss off, then block and report him.

There has to be a better way to meet men.