in my ear and looked down at my phone. “Oh my God!” I said quickly.
“What is it?”
“I think I just got a message from Mark.”
“No way. What did he say?”
“Hold on.” I looked at my screen. “Oh hell no.” I started laughing. “This guy is delusional.”
“Oh my God, what did he say? Tell me.”
“Listen to this.” I couldn’t stop laughing. “He said, you look like the sort of girl that could use ten grand. If you’re interested, come back to the cafe now, suck my dick and I’ll give you ten grand in cash.”
“What the hell? Is he for real? Oh my gosh Gemma you should report him to the dating agency. He’s awful.”
“Oh my God. Girl, all I can do is laugh right now. He’s going to be alone for the rest of his life.”
“Yeah girl. He definitely is, he is a loser with a capital L.” Sarah sighed. “You okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m going to catch an Uber and go home. And then I’m going to send an email to the agency and complain. I’ll speak to you later, okay?”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Love you too, girl.”
“Bye, and remember, don’t take any of those fools personally.”
Chapter 7
“Adele, Bob Marley, Coldplay, Drake...” I scrolled through iTunes and looked at the different music I had on my computer. I had no jazz songs, which wasn’t really a surprise to me because I didn’t really listen to jazz, but I thought I’d at least have one or two. I knew I had to download some before I went on my date with Connor. I didn’t want him to think I was a complete and utter Philistine, which I obviously was. After my bad date with Mark, I wanted to make a good impression on Connor and only hoped he would also make a good impression on me.
I didn’t want to tell him that though I’d said my taste in music was eclectic, I mainly listen to Top 40. Most men were not impressed by that. I wanted to give myself a little bit of a chance. I decided to google top jazz musicians and figure out who to download first. I scrolled through some names, some of which looked slightly familiar, but most of whom I’d never heard of before. “Brian Newman? Who the hell is that?” I mumbled under my breath and pressed play to listen to a sample of his music.
The triumphant sounds of the trumpet blasted through my speakers, accompanied by a saxophone, drums and keyboard. It sounded okay, nothing that I absolutely loved. I figured I’d download a couple of his songs and moved on to the next person. “Maybe I’ll look for famous jazz musicians,” I said and searched for that. John Coltrane popped up. “Oh, I’ve heard of him, though I couldn’t tell you any of his songs.” I quickly downloaded his album of hits. I decided to look for one more jazz musician. I’d listen to a couple of songs from each of them and then if Connor asked me, I’d drop the names of some of the titles as if I were familiar with jazz. “Let’s see, who else should I download?” I thought to myself. Sonny Rollins’ name came up and for some reason I liked it, so I downloaded one of his albums. As the music was downloading, I got up and I walked to the mirror and looked at my reflection.
I studied myself and frowned. I hated looking in the mirror sometimes, not because I was unattractive, but because there were things about me that I wished that I could change. I knew I came off as really confident, in fact I was pretty sure that Sarah and everyone else that I knew thought I was overconfident, but really I was compensating for the fact that I would never be who I’d always wanted to be as a child. I’d always wanted to be tall, skinny, blonde with blue eyes and big boobs. And I was average height, curvy with long brown hair, green eyes, and I looked nothing like a Barbie. I studied my reflection for a few more seconds and smiled. I was older and more confident now. Yes, there were things I wanted to change about my appearance, but the good thing was I no longer wanted to look like a Barbie. I just wish I had a little bit of a flatter stomach and a little less droopy boobs. “But that’s what you got push-up bras for, Gemma,” I