Breakfast At Bethany's

Carefully she smoothed out the pale pink material of her bridesmaid dress. That made two bridesmaid dresses that were flying in her closet at half-mast. Oh, yeah, the Bachelorette Pact. Single forever! Long live the infinite torture of the dating ritual! Beth blew a raspberry, which she hoped wasn’t sacrilegious, but she figured God would understand. God wasn’t married, either.

Now Mickey was. And Jessica was. Beth wasn’t.

“Forget something?” asked Cassandra, gliding into the chapel. Amazing. The woman oozed sexuality even on holy ground.

Beth took in one last sniff of the roses. “Not a thing.” Then she bundled up in her coat and slung her bag over her shoulder in what she thought was a sassy move. “Are Jessica and Adam still here? We could get a drink,” she suggested, hoping no one would actually take her up on it. She felt like the worst sort of party squasher. Possibly it was her sinuses. She was grasping at straws, but tonight she just wasn’t feeling perky.

Cassandra picked up one of the nosegays and lightly traced a rose petal with her forefinger. “We could if you want. I thought you had a date.”

“I have one scheduled for 9:45 p.m.” Beth checked her watch. Two hours to liftoff. So far, she’d been on eleven dates with her Internet dating service. Yes, you heard that right folks, eleven. It was demoralizing, dehumanizing and downright depressing.

“Have you met your match?” asked Cassandra, sitting down on an old oak bench and looking as if she were actually interested.

That made Beth sit down, too. “I’ve been on eleven dates and I think I’ve found the dregs of the dating pool.”

“That bad?”

“I’ve met Viktor the eccentric—read ‘mad’—Russian. Kyle, who’s exploring his more feminine side. That man is going to need luck with cross-gender dating, because his feminine side is pretty pronounced.”

“Poor baby,” murmured Cassandra.

Beth waved her hand. “Oh, that’s not all. We have Bob, who likes to eat—a lot, not that there’s anything wrong with that. The painfully, and I do mean painfully, shy Ted. Bob II, whose favorite topic of conversation is himself. Blah, blah, blah, Bob this. Blah, blah, blah, Bob that.” She wrapped her head in her hands. “It’s a nightmare.”

“Maybe you’ll find more promising candidates.”

“Those are the most promising candidates.”

She was spared further depression when an elderly janitor opened the creaky door into the chapel, the cold wind cutting through the last of the heat. “I’m locking up for the night. You girls need to clear out of here.”

Beth stood and looked at the remaining flowers, then shot a what-the-hell? glance at Cassandra. “Are you going to throw these out?”

The janitor winked at Beth and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. For a moment she wished he were about fifty years younger, or even forty. “You’re welcome to take some home. I used to bring the leftovers to my wife when she was alive.”

Quickly Beth tucked a nosegay inside her purse. “Thank you. I’ll give them a good home.”

Cassandra was already walking out the door ahead of her, but just before the janitor shut them out, she whisked back in, wrinkling her nose. “Maybe just one.”

Beth just smiled. For all her big talk, Cassandra looked to be just as jealous as the rest of single America. Even a great sex life didn’t remove the lonely truth when you went home alone. Vindication was sweet.

SPENCER JAMES WASN’T USED to being kept waiting. He liked punctuality, he liked schedules, he liked organization. His ex-wife had called him anal. Thoughts of his ex sent his fingers tapping impatiently on the linen tablecloth. He preferred the term “driven,” which was more precise. A reporter lived and died by his adjectives.

The waiter came by, and Spencer shook his head. Annoying toady. Then he checked his watch, but it’d only been thirty seconds since the last time he’d looked.

Finally he took out his notebook and began to jot down some ideas for his piece. Humiliating. Soft news. As the result of a misguided bet—Spencer had said the Cubs would win the pennant—he was now working in Tempo, that is, the lifestyle section. Fashion, gossip and food. Fluff.

It wouldn’t earn him a Scripps-Howard Award like the article he’d done on corruption in the Chicago unions, but his editor seemed to think the feature profile on the age of Internet dating would be picked up by the AP.

The impersonality of the personal ad. Not just for the lovelorn, it was now part of the mainstream. Singles didn’t congregate in bars like packs of blathering hyenas, they sat alone in their bedrooms instead, with just the dim light of the computer screen to keep them warm. In short, it was a lot like his own life.

Lost in his thoughts, he found the words began to flow. When the hostess arrived at the table, he almost told her off—until he saw the ash blonde standing next to her.

Pretty, somewhat shy, but with an innocence in her blue eyes. Ingenue—not that he believed in them anymore. They’d gone the way of the dodo, but still there was an artlessness and honesty there that made her unique.

The perfect subject. Inspiration sent his pulse racing. How hard could it be to convince her to let him write about all the excruciatingly painful details of her love life?

Then he stood up and held out his hand in a businesslike manner. She smiled back at him, an open expression in the cerulean eyes.

Absolutely perfect.

SPENCER JAMES WASN’T QUITE the SWM she’d been expecting. Age? He looked to be thirtyish, not the fifty-two-year-old that seemed more likely. Hair substance? Not balding. His blond locks looked inviting and thick, the streaks of brown giving it just the right touch to spoil the pretty-boy image. Much dishevelment potential there.

When he’d stood up, she’d gotten an eyeful of the bod. Muscles. Height. No paunch or spare tire visible. Good clothes sense. Black open-necked shirt and slacks. Casual, elegant.

After the waiter brought their drinks, Spencer started on the pre-dinner conversation. Refreshingly enough, he didn’t waste time with small talk, he simply began asking her questions. At first it was jolting, the way he fired them like a sharpshooter, but then she relaxed and began to enjoy herself. He didn’t seem to worry about pretenses or social niceties, he merely seemed curious, asking her multitudes of things, most pertaining to the dating process.

A newbie, she thought to herself. And so she did her best to educate him.

When he took a sip of wine, she took advantage of the momentary lapse to ask him some questions of her own.

“Do you live with your family?” she asked, wondering what his issues were. Every man that she’d met so far had issues, and this man in front of her was just too, too perfect.

He shook his head, looking puzzled. “No. Patricide is frowned on in our family.”

What an odd sense of humor. Only the tiny crinkles in the corners of his eyes gave him away.

“So, Spencer James, what do you do with your daytime hours?” Mentally she rolled her eyes. She’d be asking his sign next. So far she was enjoying herself too much, and the lust factor was running off the charts.

There had to be a catch.

“I’m a journalist,” he said, his fingers twisting on the wineglass. “In fact, I’m working on a story right now.”

Beth nodded politely, and reminded herself to keep quiet about the sixteen articles she’d sold to True Fantasies. She picked up her glass of chardonnay—according to the weight guide, 2 points—and gave him an “isn’t-that-nice?” smile.

“I was wondering if you’d be willing to help?” he asked, his eyes sharper now. The smoky-gray was metamorphing into granite. Solid granite, not that faux stuff you found on countertops.

“I actually don’t know what I could possibly do to help,” she began.

But he cut her off. “Internet dating. I want to follow a subject through the bits and bytes of finding a mate via computer. It’s fascinating and the public would love to read about it.”

The lightbulb flashed and her heart sank into her toes. So there was a crack in his facade, after all. This was one big research project for him. He was probably married. “You’re not even single, are you?” she asked sadly.

“Actually, I am. But I’m not interested in experiencing the process myself. I really just want to write about it. Ascertain if Internet dating is used because of the lack of free time to investigate more accepted means, or if it’s still the modus of last resort.”

“You just want to study us poor, pitiful schmiels who are forced into it?” she said, blinking her eyelashes innocently.

“Exactly.” Then he grimaced, with a foot-in-mouth expression. Beth was cheered by that bit of token humanness. He seemed so detached about everything else.

“No, not exactly,” he corrected, but then he leaned in, all conspiratorial-like. “But I want to be candid with you. I want to know if the schmiel-factor is still there.”