What I Did On My Summer Vacation...: The Guy DietLight My FireNo Reservations (Harlequin Blaze) Read online

  “I’ll find things to keep me busy. I’m not that shallow.”

  “Ha,” Paula said. “You’re as toe-deep in the Evian as the rest of us.”

  She was probably right. Still, work kept me busier than a hospital full of doctors. And there was the column, which took up a fair amount of time. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t find distractions.

  Of course, summer wasn’t exactly the best time to undertake a Guy Diet. But it’s practically built in that, at my age, you don’t want anyone to see you really skimpily clothed the first days of summer, let alone high, wide and naked.

  And then, it’s hot. So when you think about sweating and over-heating, you’re not thinking about sex at first sight or finding the man who will change your life. You focus on changing your own life.

  Only, does it really make sense to take my cupcakes off the menu when every second guy is putting his beefcake on the counter?

  I’ll just ignore them. I’m determined. I’m going organic instead of orgasmic. I’m talking willpower. Hold the spice. Portion control.

  Hmm. This is going to be harder than I thought.

  Besides, I can’t renege on The Guy Diet now because I’ve been so vocal about it. I just have to prove to Paula it can be done.

  Maybe I could write a book about it.

  Chapter One. Setting up The Guy Diet. Become a hermit.

  Chapter Two. Negotiating The Guy Diet. Have all your groceries delivered and never go out of your house, watch TV or read a magazine, newspaper or the back of a cereal box.

  No. That doesn’t work. I have to work—everybody has to work. You can’t avoid guys at work. You just have to develop a different mind-set.

  This is my mantra: you can’t continually be a target for any old guy’s heat-seeking missile because the odds are you’re going to crash and burn while he just brushes himself off and walks away.

  There. My missionary position.

  Damn, I mean my mission statement. I’m going to write it down, keep it over my computer.

  Distill it: grab and go, crash and burn.

  Story of my dating life.

  And look at it this way: Jed’s having given me the opportunity to write this food column was an incredible gift—even if it was only for a local paper.

  I couldn’t help it if I wanted some dessert. The problem is the best grab-and-go dessert is cake, and that always crumbles when you take a bite.

  Kind of like relationships. All voluptuous, seductive and yummy to look at, and nothing substantial underneath.

  That cake analogy did it for me.

  I need someone substantial to sink my teeth into.

  I mean—something. Something substantial.

  On the other hand, sometimes cake melts in your mouth—

  Check that. I am not allowed to think like that.

  Crash and burn, remember. It never works out, no matter how high you fly.

  Okay. It’s the first of July. Perfect. I am now officially on The Guy Diet.

  The first thing I did was order myself up a platter of healthy exercise regimen.

  Since I walk a lot, I haven’t needed a specific exercise program. Now to keep myself occupied and entertained, I decided that twice a week I would bike ride in Riverside Park plus do a weekend walk, as well.

  I planned to live a simpler life: forget dressing up, forget makeup. Forget my usual haunts. No clubs. No bars. No drinking, no sex, no dates.

  Yeah, on the surface, that sounds like a really fun summer.

  On the other hand, there might be a method to this madness. If I wasn’t at the usual places, I wouldn’t meet and sleep with the usual grab-and-go guys. If I reverted to the jeans-and-T-shirt-clad, minimal-makeup me, I’d learn to appreciate myself all over again, and maybe then the right guy would appreciate me, too.

  Whoa…how long is this going to take?

  Say…one week?

  I’m girding myself, can’t you tell?

  It’ll probably be easier than I think.

  So I went bike riding.

  I like Riverside Park; it runs right along the Hudson River so you have that great view of the water while you’re riding, walking, running.

  Downside: pretty much everyone who’s not in Central Park is riding, walking or running there every evening. If I wanted to avoid bare-chested guys and sexy six-packs, I should have gone bike riding in the subway.

  The testosterone level was off the charts.

  Not a good move to be moving your muscles while bemoaning lost opportunities. Exercise is good for the thighs, the soul and the mind. If I let myself think about sweaty bodies, I’ll backside.

  I mean backslide.

  Paula was watching all this with a skeptical eye. She’d gone with me Saturday morning just out of curiosity. Paula never exercises except on the dance floor, so this was a great sacrifice on her part.

  “The Guy Diet is never going to work. The guys are too tempting.”

  They sure had tempted her. Paula had met a week’s worth of dates on that walk. Because she didn’t walk, she stopped and talked to every guy who looked single and likely and took cards as if they were hundred-dollar bills.

  I shrugged. “So? What would be the point if it’s the same old strut?”

  “You know what the point is.”

  I’d been on The Guy Diet for exactly three days. Paula was not making it any easier with her salacious jokes.

  “And besides, what would happen if you met someone?” Paula went on. “What if there were this one perfect guy who wanted right then, right there to be the perfect person in your life?”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “What if?” Paula pressed me. Probably because it was Saturday night and, unusual for her, she had nowhere to go, no date, nothing to do but harangue me.

  So I’d made dinner, one of my grab-and-go specialties—fast fajitas, with top blade steaks, fresh veggies and the usual accompaniments.

  Love those little top blade steaks.

  The point? That damned point. What if?

  “It’s inconceivable. And besides food is better than sex right now.”

  “You think? Nothing is better than—”

  “The usual? No, anything is better than sex with a get-it-up-and-go guy.”

  “You protest too much.”

  “And you can’t tell quality from quantity anymore. It’s just one big-bang theory with you.”

  Ouch. I should not have been so blunt with Paula.

  However, since I had transmogrified myself by virtue of The Guy Diet, I figured I had become pure in thought, deed and body.

  “Saint Lo,” Paula muttered sarcastically. “You’re really going to drive us all crazy with this, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m just giving up guys. Not your problem.”

  “Oh, you think you’re not going to get cranky like the rest of us on a diet?”

  “I will have lost a minimum of 170 pounds this first week by not having contact with a guy. I’ll be all sweetness and light.”

  NOT.

  “I’m praying for a devil to tempt you beyond all reason,” Paula said.

  “That, too,” I murmured. “Finish the steak.”

  “Full speed ahead and damn the fajitas?” she retorted.

  “I’ll find a movie. In or out?”

  Oops…sorry I said that.

  “That was a movie,” I said defensively.

  Paula raised one brow. “In and Out was the title. In and…”

  I can’t get away from it. “Don’t go there.”

  “I’m already there,” Paula said lightly. “And for the record, I always prefer in.”

  I can’t win.

  Damn—there’s even an in in win….

  2

  MY SCHEDULE: work, bike ride, work on column. So, on the weekend we’d eat really well because that was the time I allotted to experimenting with recipes. Or read it another way: busy work.

  Oh, and entertain self…there was always a museum exhibit, a speaker at the N
inety-Second Street Y, a concert, theater, a gallery opening.

  I deliberately excluded Paula, who the following week was busy pointedly going on dates. Can you stand the negativity?

  Who needs friends? Who needs men?

  You can be your own best company—except you wind up talking to yourself.

  I talked to myself a lot. It turned out it was a great icebreaker because people always think I’m talking to them. Men think I’m coming on to them. Like the guy at the gallery opening down on Broadway last weekend.

  “Did you say something?” The kindest way to initiate a conversation or a letdown.

  And I just can’t not answer. “Sorry. Just talking to myself.”

  “The show is that bad?”

  “No, no, I’m enjoying it.”

  “Me, too. I came in from Jersey. I love this artist…”

  Oh my God—Jersey? New Jersey? That’s so over the bridge! Forget that. New York women do not bed bridge guys.

  That was an easy out. I got away without a bruise to my ego and my Guy Diet intact.

  “You can’t keep doing this,” Paula said for the hundredth time when I told her what had happened. Not much had happened. He’d caught me at a weak moment. If I’d been concentrating, I wouldn’t have spoken to him at all.

  Really.

  And besides, he reeked of “over the bridge.”

  “Especially this time of year,” Paula continued.

  “I have plans,” I said stringently. “I can talk to people. That’s not disallowed on The Guy Diet.”

  “Did you even make a list of forbidden food?”

  Honestly, I never thought about the forbidden part. Wasn’t giving up guys forbidding enough?

  Hey, wait a minute. Was Paula suggesting I have a sell-by date? “You are trying to undermine a very serious experiment in personal power here,” I said finally. I didn’t like the fact I was veering deep into distraction when I should have been fully focused on me.

  Paula would say I’m always fully focused on “me.”

  “I’m trying to make you come to your senses,” Paula said. “You’re voluntarily giving up parties, night life, friends and sex. And not necessarily in that order.”

  “Yes,” I said emphatically. “I am. And do you know why? I’m tired. Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want a relationship not to be tiring? And crazy making? Don’t you want a relationship, period? Forget the jokes. I’m tired and I’m not having fun. That’s why I’m doing this on my summer vacation—I’m giving up one-shot gratification. I’m giving up one-nighters, bad boys, no calls, desperation do-overs, disappointments, missed appointments, clubs and bars—in other words, I’m giving up the dating scene.”

  “Oh, well. That explains your crazy Guy Diet.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  Paula sent me a skeptical look, that smug “yeah, sure” look and I burst out: “Okay, I’m going to flat-out say it. I want to find that love-you-forever, got-your-back guy.”

  What? The words sounded way strange. I hadn’t meant to say that. Not out loud. I wanted to take the words back immediately because that was something no one was ever meant to know.

  This wasn’t about finding the forever guy. Or was it?

  “He doesn’t exist.”

  “Well, if you nitpick everything about every guy you meet and you’re looking for guarantees and perfection, then, yeah, he doesn’t exist.”

  Paula gave me a long, deep look. “I never thought you were a romantic. You’re not bio-ticking are you?”

  “No.”

  “Just tired.”

  “Yep. And trying to figure out why I’m continually following all the other lemmings and diving off the cliff.”

  “It’s exciting. It’s a rush. It gets the adrenaline going.”

  “Until you fall headfirst and hit the concrete.”

  “Recreational relationships aren’t like that,” Paula said. But then, she was pretty acrobatic, limber and adaptable.

  “Aren’t they?” I thought so. Recreational sex worked out the body but not much else. And the pleasure was always evanescent, never transcendent.

  Fly-bys were just not that kind of guy. They were never boyfriends—they boyfriended us for the time it took to add one more conquest to their résumés.

  Men always leave; I knew that. My life was all about that. And I secretly hoped otherwise.

  “And besides, you know what happens when you go on a diet. Guys come out of the woodwork and your head’s going to burst open.”

  “Then I’ll put on blinders. If I don’t see them, they’re not there.”

  “So this is, like, a one-week fast?”

  Oh, damn. I had been no-guy for almost a week. Another consideration I hadn’t thought about. How long did one do The Guy Diet?

  Long enough to get a glycemic advantage?

  “The whole summer,” I said recklessly. “I’m giving up guys for the summer.” God, that sounded like a long time. Still, if I was going to do it, I couldn’t just do it in a grab-and-go way.

  “Ha,” Paula said. “I’m setting up a diet pool. You won’t last two more days, let alone two weeks.”

  “I’ve lasted nearly a week already,” I said back. “You are so on.”

  That was all bravado, of course. The overlay of friends betting on my willpower meant I really had to get serious. I had to define what the diet entailed: like how much contact, or how little, what I would allow myself to do and to say, what was acceptable, what I would forgo.

  Not so easy when you’ve been talking diet in general terms.

  Not enough to just say, I’m giving up guys.

  I mean, there are gradations of sacrifice. Did giving up mean no contact altogether? Responding to a come-on comment? Or only people I knew? Guys at work? Making general conversation? Listening to a pitch? Eschewing—I love that word—men altogether?

  And then, I had to talk to Jed. Already there was a Guy Diet but.

  “You have to have rules,” Paula said, like she had sonar and could read my brain waves.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m thinking about that. How much, how little. Jed’s the exception. I have to have intercourse with him.”

  “Huh?”

  Oh, the look on Paula’s face.

  “I mean, I have to talk to him.”

  “Oh? Talking is intercourse now?”

  I felt myself prickling up. “It always was,” I said loftily. “Forget about Jed. He’s my free safety.”

  “That’s football. You mean safety net,” Paula amended sarcastically.

  “Right, he’s my free ingredient. Okay, forget Jed. I get to make the parameters because it’s my idea. So let me think.”

  And then I couldn’t think.

  On The Guy Diet I can’t:

  Date

  That was about all I could think of. Just not date.

  No, wait.

  Have sex

  Good. A little deprivation never hurt anybody. That’s why there are diets. Oh, oh—I have another one:

  Flirt

  Not necessarily in that order.

  Let’s see: Flirt, date, have sex. That’s good. That’s enough deprivation.

  But now I had to contend with the real dilemma.

  On The Guy Diet I can only talk to:

  Paula

  All of my girlfriends

  Jed (weekly only)

  Any guy I meet as long as he doesn’t ask for my card

  The guy in line at the corner store

  The guy whose foot I invariably step on in the subway stairs

  There you go. No flirting, no dates, no sex.

  Paula read the list. “You’re kidding. You can’t get involved with all those guys.”

  “That’s not involvement, that’s…that’s—good manners.”

  “No, that’s temptation. It has to be no more guys, period, or what’s the point? After all that talk…” Paula shook her head. “You have to eliminate Jed.”

  That was too much to ask, since she knew I talked with hi
m regularly. Her vehemence seemed a little disingenuous, maybe a little wary.

  I girded myself for a fight. “Jed’s the freebie—he has to be exempt.”

  I hadn’t forgotten the odd moment in the restaurant the night I’d met Jed. Or the hum of tension between us every time I spoke with him. I’d just disregarded it.

  I knew what he was: a charming trust-fund baby with too much money, even more free time and a boatload of arrogance that had gotten crushed to a pulp when he’d screwed up working for the family brokerage firm five years ago.

  To his credit, he immediately transformed himself into a budding entrepreneur to show “them” that he could earn money, he could run something and that he wasn’t going to run from anything.

  However, the truth was, if you believed the gossip columns, he was always in pursuit of something, and continually leveraging his growing reputation and his profitable little newspaper into the mainstream.

  He hadn’t dated Paula for more than a month before they broke up. Frankly, it didn’t surprise me, because Paula was just like that herself, bored after a couple of weeks and endlessly seeking excitement in the novelty of the new—the great new account, the first-to-try fabulous restaurant, the exotic vacations.

  Jed never said a word about her after the breakup. There was never a “How’s Paula doing?” or “Send her my regards.” I decided that since I was reaping the rewards of their touch-and-go relationship, discretion was the better side of the road, rather than my losing either a great opportunity or a friend.

  So I waited while Paula thought about it. Obviously, she didn’t like it, but any of her doubts seemed irrelevant to my diet. Especially because this was specifically about Jed.

  I wondered if it was a test.

  “Isn’t there an editor or someone you could talk to instead of Jed? I mean, since when does a publisher edit a columnist? I think talking to Jed is cheating. Well, it’s your diet. It’s your rest of the summer.”

  Rest of the summer…ominous words. How many weeks was it till the rest of the summer? Could I rest and wake up when it was over?

  I was getting really leery of the fact that Paula was suddenly into the idea. I mean, a betting pool on whether I could make it through the day without talking to a guy? Vetting my list of guys not to talk to? Please.