The Half Life and Swim Read Online Free PDF Page B

showed up at the Beverly Center parking stand at the appointed hour and found Lonelyguy waiting. I’d allowed him to steer me toward the escalators, then up to the fourth floor, where, on the way to the pet shop, he’d asked whether I’d ever done any online dating myself.
    “No,” I said. “Maybe some day. But I just got out of this long-term thing...”
    He nodded sympathetically. “Prison?”
    “A long-term relationship,” I clarified. Okay, not technically true, but how was he going to know that? “Long-term relationship” definitely sounded better than “one misguided drunken blow job, given to a guy who eloped to Puerto Vallarta with Taryn Montaine two days later.” The Chihuahua yawned and curled up on its side in a nest of shredded newspaper with its back to me. Fabulous. My pathetic excuse for a love life wasn’t even interesting to lesser species.
    “I’ve got a date tonight,” he said.
    “Well, that was fast,” I replied, feeling an unpleasant twinge of emotion I couldn’t name.
    “Yep. I put a new picture up and added the stuff about the writers, and the cookies, and I got five responses by noon, and tonight I am seeing”—he stared at the shopping-mall ceiling, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth—“a d-girl named Dana.”
    “Well, good,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “That’s great!”
    “I could use some wardrobe advice. What do you think?”
    I studied his outfit. From its glass enclosure, the dog appeared to be checking him out, too. Blue ring-neck long-sleeved T-shirt, khakis, orange Pumas. Official uniform of the Los Angeles man-boy. The khakis were supposed to signal I have a job, while the funky shirt and sneakers said but I haven’t sold out. Robert had worn the plaid shirts and concert T-shirts he’d had since high school. Nobody would ever mistake him for the Man. Once, he’d told me, he’d been sitting outside World of Pies and someone tried to put a dollar bill in his coffee cup. Which, he’d said, looking pained, was full at the time.
    “Are you pro or anti cologne?” Gary asked.
    “I’m indifferent.”
    His Adam’s apple jerked and bobbed when he swallowed. “Help a brother out,” he said. “It can’t be any worse than listening to the hopes and dreams of seventeen-year-olds.” He led me toward Macy’s and got me to sniff half a dozen eye-watering potions that he sprayed into the air. “What do you think?” he asked after each one. “Is it doing anything for you?”
    I rolled my eyes, and finally started laughing when he waggled his eyebrows and asked, in an atrocious Austin Powers accent, whether something that smelled aggressively of limes was making me horny. “Are you newlyweds?” the bespectacled, gray-haired saleswoman asked as she wrapped up Gary’s Chanel por Homme.
    He gave her a sweet smile and took my hand. “Brother and sister.”
    Back at the valet stand, I wished him good luck with his date.
    “It’s not too late,” he said. He pumped my hand up and down once, and then he just held it.
    “Too late for what?” “We could go back in there. Buy that puppy. I’ll ditch the d-girl. You’ll forget about your unfortunate time behind bars. We could go to the beach and let the little guy run around.”
    I shook my head. “You need practice, and I’ve got plans.” I retrieved my hand and put it in my pocket. “You might want to take a shower first, though. You smell kind of confusing.”
    “Can’t have that,” he said cheerfully, and handed the valet his parking stub. “See ya.”
    “Good luck,” I said, leaving him to his date as I headed for the pool.
    “Phone for you, Ruthie,” my grandmother announced, clutching the cordless as if it were a wild animal she’d managed to subdue with her bare hands. “It’s a man,” she emphasized in a loud whisper, as if I’d missed the manic glee in her eyes. It was Saturday, six days after I’d left Lonelyguy at the mall. We’d been e-mailing. His date,