BLIND: A Mastermind Novel Read online

  Right. Time to go. Muttering a quick, “Okay, then.” She climbed out and gently shut the door. He nearly took off her toe as he sped out of her driveway and whipped the car, into drive.

  Rolling her eyes, she dug out her key. “Moron.”

  Once inside, she tossed her clutch on the table, rolled her eyes at the condoms scattered on the surface, which had a better chance of expiring than being used, and kicked off her heels. Her fingers plucked the clip from her hair and massaged her aching scalp. Thank God that was over.

  Her phone chirped. Ah, there was her dear friend. Right on time. Sliding her thumb over the screen, she read Nicole’s text.

  How’s it going? Call me when you get home IF you go home *wink*

  A hiccup of disbelief slipped past her lips. It was as if she’d gone out with a different Drew. Thumbing the call back command, she waited for Nicole to pick up.

  “You are not home already!” her friend answered.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Scarlet, what happened? It’s not even nine o’clock.”

  Nosing through the freezer, she selected one of the partially eaten pints of strawberry ice cream and peeled back the lid. “What happened was thirty years ago a man named Drew Archer was born and the continents shifted under the bulk of his ego. The guy’s a complete narcissist, Nicole.”

  “No, he’s not.” She tsked and let out a whine ringing with disappointment. “You didn’t give him a chance.”

  “I gave him two hours of my life I’ll never get back. That’s all the chance I can afford.”

  “Lettie, if you don’t broaden your horizons you’re never going to find Mr. Right.”

  “This has nothing to do with broadening my horizons. He was, without a doubt, Mr. Wrong.”

  “Why? He’s straight, independent, never been married—”

  Scarlet plopped on the couch and pulled the cold spoon from her mouth. “Yeah, you know why that is? Because no one wants to be married to a guy who only talks about himself. Women and gay men have steered clear for a reason. I don’t think his independence, bachelorhood, or orientation is by choice. It’s a circumstance that comes with being a bigheaded snob.”

  Nicole was quiet. Scarlet frowned and checked the screen of her phone. Still there. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Crap. Drew was still Nicole’s friend. She probably offended her on his behalf.

  Nicole sighed into the phone. “You know what, Scarlet? You have an excuse for every guy you’re set up with. No matter what, there’s always something wrong with them. Drew was really excited about tonight. Just because people aren’t as shy as you and enjoy talking, it doesn’t make them narcissists. If there was a snob on the date, I don’t think it was him.”

  Her spoon plopped in the ice cream. “Are you serious? Nicole, I went into this with an open mind. My ass is numb from the underwear I wore thinking someone might actually see them. Just because I have standards doesn’t mean I’m a snob—”

  “Well, how high are those standards, Scarlet? No one seems able to reach them. Maybe you should write them down and really look at them. Chances are even you won’t measure up.”

  It truly hurt that her best friend thought such things. “Where’s all of this coming from?”

  The frustration in Nicole’s voice was so out of left field. It was like drunk fighting fueled with honest confessions. Scarlet was only mildly buzzed and every accusation hit with a sobering sting.

  “I’m just tired of hearing you complain that no good men are out there. There are plenty of good men, but you’ve fabricated this ideal person in your head who, quite frankly, doesn’t exist. It’s time someone told you to get real.”

  It took a lot for Scarlet to snap, but Nicole was seriously crossing a line and it hurt. “I am being real! I’m sorry I didn’t want to marry your friend. I didn’t know my opinion of him would be the stone to tip the scale on what a stuck up person I am. If I’m so terrible, stop fixing me up with people you like. There’s obviously something wrong with me if I have such unachievable standards.”

  “I just think you set yourself up for failure,” Nicole said in a small voice.

  This conversation had to end before their friendship did. Her aching scalp transformed into a piercing headache. “Whatever.”

  “Don’t be mad, Scarlet. Friends are supposed to tell each other when they’ve lost their grip.”

  Funny, she thought friends were supposed to be there with a helping hand when life slipped through her fingers. They were both quiet for several seconds.

  Exhaustion seeped in. Not the sort of tiredness that came at the end of the day, but the sort of weariness that crept in over time, unnoticed, and swallowed a person whole.

  She was a good person. She paid her taxes, voted, volunteered, worked hard with her students. Why wasn’t there a decent man out there that recognized those qualities? And why did people assume standards lowered with age? Didn’t she deserve a partner that would meet her needs and love her?

  Over the last few years, life became painful as friends moved on and relationships thinned over time. Everyone was past the initial marriage excitement and on to having children. Scarlet had done everything she was supposed to do, and her life was turning into a lonely, pathetic slideshow of repetition with no end in sight.

  It was becoming more and more difficult to keep up the façade that everything was okay, when in reality, some days, she felt like she was dying on the inside. “I have to go.”

  “Scarlet…”

  She shut her eyes against the bleakness of her solo future. “Yeah?”

  “I love you. I just want you to be happy, but sometimes I don’t think you know what it is that makes you happy. We all have to pick and choose our ideals at some point.”

  She didn’t want to pick and choose. She just wanted the basics of happiness. Someone—anyone—to be content with who she was and give her a reason to believe in love. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  The phone slipped out of her hand as she ended the call. Resting her head on the back of the couch, she stared at the empty walls of her living room. Aside from the picture of her parents on her end table, there were no photographs of loved ones. Framed posters and generic art from Home Goods decorated her empty house. It was all so cliché and hollow, not really a home at all.

  Nicole had met her husband, Matt, in college. They’d married immediately after graduation. Eight years after the fact, Nicole had no right to act like she knew what it felt like to still be single and thirty. Scarlet lived it, every day of her lackluster, solitary life.

  The calls from friends used to come every day and now only came once a week. Texting had replaced the sound of actual voices. Some weekends she had no one to talk to aside from Thor, her cat.

  Every evening was a struggle to heat up her Lean Cuisine and force herself to sit at the table like a normal person. On the days she ran out of papers to grade and laundry to iron, she went crazy looking for something to do.

  She and her friends used to go out every Wednesday and Friday night. Now, their weekends were reserved for date nights and weekdays were monopolized by cozy evenings at home with a spouse.

  Her lips twisted. She really needed to get one of those.

  In the beginning she was invited over to her friends’ houses for casual dinners, but over time those simple visits started to sting. Loneliness imbedded itself deeper in her heart with every secret glance or stolen touch she witnessed, and soon she was making excuses in order to avoid being the third wheel.

  She’d done it all, suffered through countless blind dates, swam in the cesspool of dating sites, regretted the aftermath of too many bar pick ups. She even tried babysitting her friends’ kids so she had an excuse to loiter at the park and scope out the single dads. No matter what, there was always an issue with the men she’d met. Perhaps Nicole was right. Maybe she was too picky.

  Perhaps it was time to peel back the protective shell she’d encased herself in years ago and take a deeper loo
k at the real her, even the ugliest layers, which she loathed to examine. But the idea hurt too much, a shard of unease causing a near crippling cramp in her belly. She’d always shied away from exposure, like a gaze unable to fasten to the unforgiving sun, so she shoved her self-examination back where it belonged.

  Shutting out the lights, she detoured into the kitchen to trade in her ice cream for another bottle of red. As she climbed the stairs she considered actually listing her expectations like Nicole suggested. Her standards couldn’t be that far out of reach, could they?

  She changed into a nightgown, removed the excruciating thong, and pulled the decorative pillows off her bed as she considered what she truly wanted in a partner. She required someone responsible. The world was infested with middle-aged guys that acted more like her students than actual men.

  Money wasn’t an issue, so long as they held a job and were independent. All she really wanted was someone to care, care if she came home on time, care how her day went, care about her. She’d like to be able to count on someone other than herself for a change so accountability was a must.

  Unlike her date from hell, she mostly wanted to be able to talk to someone, to have another person interested in what she had to say and what she wanted out of life, someone who actually knew how to hold a conversation. A simple, “How was your day?” would be nice every once in a while.

  Reaching for her laptop, she opened up her document and began the list. These qualities were nothing short of what she expected of herself. So why didn’t anyone fit the bill?

  She wasn’t built for a runway, but she certainly wasn’t ugly. Shutting her eyes, she conceded. You’re too late. All the good men are taken.

  But how did other people keep finding love? Where were the good ones hiding? They had to be out there somewhere. Even when she made her profiles on the dating sites she was lenient, adapting her standards in hopes that someone decent might bite.

  Maybe I am a snob.

  Nicole’s opinions lingered like unwanted cobwebs in the corner of her mind. Scarlet wasn’t blind to her flaws. Like any woman, she was blatantly reminded of them on a daily basis. When others pointed out her shortcomings, it only pressed the blade of self-doubt deeper in her tender self-esteem.

  Since childhood, she’d found it easier to hide her unfavorable traits by blending in. She easily laughed at herself and never tried to take life too seriously, but sometimes laughter hid real insecurities, insecurities she believed every one had. When she felt low like this, there really wasn’t much difference between the woman she was and the awkward girl she’d once been. The race to fit in was exhausting and she’d expected to be past such emotions at this age.

  But as everyone else coupled off and left her, she’d somehow ended up standing alone—her shortcomings all the more prominent through undesirable isolation. Some days she wished she could just stop caring, drop all her guards, and just let go.

  “Gah!” She flung her head into her pillows. Nothing like a pity party. She was making her self sick with all this complaining. I’m better than this.

  Scrubbing her hands over her face, she took a sip of wine and readjusted her attitude. There was no point to going on like this. This was her life and while she might not be filling her days with Hallmark sentiments, she was content. That should be enough. The pressure to find a mate had spun out of control and she needed to find level ground, find peace with her independence.

  Ditching her list of tallying qualities for Mr. Nonexistent, she opened up a blank document and placed her faith in the cathartic art of writing. She’d always advised her students to journal when they needed clarity, so why not take a bit of her own advice?

  I’m thirty and I seem to be the last single female standing, strange that this tends to bother my married friends more than me. Tonight, a friend told me my standards for Mr. Right were too high, but how could that be? Any woman staring into the endless abyss of disappointing blind dates would surely sympathize with how frustrating single and thirty can be. Nobody gets everything they want in this world, but I’ve seen some get damn close, so why should we—the single and thirty—have to drop our expectations?

  My heart will always pinch at the sight of an older couple holding hands or a man smiling at his wife when she doesn’t know he’s watching. There are those frozen moments in time when I observe couples laughing, but can’t hear their laughter. Their happiness is startling and beautiful no matter how many times I see it. I have no idea what that sort of belonging feels like and I crave it, but only with a partner that truly appreciates me.

  I’ve become invisible. I’m the woman you pass in the grocery store with a near empty cart stocked with the necessities for one. I’m the woman who always gets her car inspected ahead of time because I have nothing better to worry about. How nice it would be to take care of someone else’s needs for a change.

  I make a modest living teaching middle school, support myself, and have been independent since graduating college. I’ve always been a comfortable size twelve. My hair is red and yes, I even have freckles. Does that mean I somehow don’t qualify for the spoils of love? Am I so ordinary I don’t deserve something extraordinary? The truth is, I’ve never been in love and I wonder if I’ll ever know what it feels like to be adored.

  I know what it is to sleep with a man, but I’ve never spent the night with a man, never whispered in the dark, or confessed my deepest secrets and desires. I wish I knew what it felt like to truly be seen, to be adored, to feel things I’ve never felt before.

  Just once I’d like to believe my presence is significant. I’m not talking about physical intimacy. I’m speaking of something greater. I want an intellectual man, someone confident and capable of listening, a man who can awaken a part of my soul no other person has touched. There must be someone out there who would cherish what I have to offer. If only I knew what it was to be adored, even if just for a moment, I might be able to release this envy weighing on my heart and appreciate the perks of being single once more.

  Just once I’d like to experience that sharp jolt of anticipation, knowing there’s someone waiting for me at the end of the day, awaiting what I’ll say next. Someone I could trust to reach parts of me I can’t find on my own. Even just a glimpse of this might suffice, one chance to feel the grass on the other side and decide for myself, which is truly greener.

  Scarlet sat back and admired her words. It wasn’t a masterpiece of literature by any means, but it was definitely more than a simple list. It was a plea—a plea for single women everywhere! Or maybe just for her.

  Tipping back the empty bottle of wine, she grimaced then giggled as she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her lips were stained and her cheeks were a tipsy shade of rose. Setting the bottle aside, she reread her letter, falling more and more in love with the sincerity of her words.

  It was a damn good letter—the Jerry McGuire sort, except this time it was about cocks instead of jocks. She was seeking for Don Juan instead of the “kwan”. Snorting at her clever drunken musings she sighed, slightly unburdened by her journalistic exorcism, and quite liquored up and loose.

  She tweaked the document for no good reason. The wine had made her brain fuzzy and she had to actually pause and consider the grammar in some cases. It wasn’t like anyone was ever going to read it, but still, she held herself to a certain standard, being a teacher. Plus, this was good shit.

  “You and your standards,” she mumbled, hiccupping as she made her way back from the kitchen with another bottle of wine and two aspirin for the morning.

  As her eyes became heavy, she flopped back on her pillows and rested. Her laptop slid onto the mattress and she sighed. Journaling was good. It was a therapeutic exercise, a reminder that she was vindicated in holding out for what she wanted. It didn’t solve anything, but clarity was there somewhere beneath the haze of Merlot.

  She toyed with the idea of letting Nicole read it, but quickly shelved the thought. There was no reason to justify her choices to the ma
rried population who would never understand what it felt like to fill her shoes at this age. Beside, this wasn’t justification. It was more a matter of clarification.

  As a matter of fact, it was time someone stood up for all the single ladies out there, dredging their way through the swamp of unrefined bachelors that would never grow up. It was time someone spoke up for the thirty and single as a whole!

  Motivated by her one-woman rally, she lurched from her pillows, waited for the room to steady, and retrieved her laptop. There was a columnist by the name of Roxy who wrote for the opinion section of the local paper on all things involving romance. It was a cheesy column, but that was exactly where epiphanies like this belonged. Cheesy or not, she was about to gift Roxy with sheer brilliance from the mind of a fed up single woman.

  In a matter of minutes she was on the paper’s contact page, clicking on Roxy’s email. Scarlet copied and pasted her kick ass letter. There was a window requesting a name. After pausing for only a second, it came to her, the nickname she’d had as a teenager, Lettie Red Riding Hood. She shortened it to read L.R. Riding Hood.

  “Bring on the big bad wolf, bitches.” Her finger snapped down on the send option and she grinned with satisfaction just before she fell back and passed out.

  ****

  The weekend concluded with a hangover no good person deserved. Scarlet needed to call Nicole to make sure everything was okay with them, but she couldn’t bring herself to take the first step. Her friend’s words still hurt.

  The truth hurts, Scarlet.

  The morning after their disagreement, Scarlet berated herself for drinking too much wine and accepted her penance in the form of a killer headache and blank spots in her memory. In hopes of finding temporary comfort, she wasted a good hour Googling sex toys. That market must be a goldmine, as even the little toys cost close to fifty bucks. And what the hell was a vagankle? To think, her friend thought her expectations were weird. There were people out there fucking synthetic feet. Gross!