He turns around to face me and I feel like I’ve been blinded. He is shatteringly good-looking. His face is chiseled, his light blue eyes sparkle, his brown hair looks amazingly soft. I can’t help but give him a quick perusal up and down. It’s clear he is completely sculpted underneath his parking attendant uniform. Every single freaking inch of him. He smiles at me, straight white teeth gleaming back. He’s so beautiful, my eyes hurt. It’s like looking at the sun.
My ticket rage melts instantly. My resolve turns into a puddle.
“Oh, hi. I saw you earlier when you parked.”
“You did?”
He’s smiling at me, giving me some sort of knowing grin that unnerves me. He’s probably all of twenty-one, just like Amber. He does not possess the tire that the men I see – at the coffee shops or dog parks – wear around their midsections. No, this fellow owns a pair of noticeably cut biceps and an undeniably trim waist. Why have I not spent more time hanging around the meters in this city with its bevy of beautiful, young, sexy parking attendants?
“Hey, I’ve got some other cars to deal with. But call me later.” Then he winks at me. He crosses the street.
“I didn’t park illegally,” I shout at him.
He smiles again, that radiant smile still strong from across the street. “I know.”
I stand there for a moment, befuddled on the corner of the street. Call me, he said. How would I call him? I look at the ticket in my hand and flip it over.
There is no check mark on it, no official signature, no indication of a parking crime. Instead, there’s a a simple note: “You’re gorgeous. Give me a call sometime.” Then there’s a number.
I shake my head. I’m floored by the turn of events. By the shift in my day from utter crap to a pick-up line. Okay, McKenna – which is more implausible? That your ex-fiancé had a baby with her? Or that an achingly handsome young meter man wants you to call him for a date?
I walk slowly back to my car, still in a daze. I reach my Mini Cooper and lean against my car for just a minute, not caring if the backside of my sky blue skirt picks up dirt – a skirt I snagged when my girlfriends Hayden and Erin stole me away for a wine country spa weekend to forget all my woes, and it didn’t work, but I did score some cute clothes at a vintage shop I found next to a bowling alley on the drive home. I flip the ticket over again, looking at Meter Man’s number. Then I glance one more time down the street and see him on the other side now, writing out parking tickets. He must feel my faraway eyes on him, because he looks up and waves at me. He mimics the universal sign for phone, holding up his hand against his ear, thumb and pinky out. I can’t help myself. I laugh at the incredulity of this all. I read the note yet another time. “You’re gorgeous. Call me.”
There’s a part of me that wants to lock myself inside and have a pity party. To call my girlfriends and let them help me drown my sorrows as they have done every single time I’ve needed them to in the last year. But if Todd can change everything about himself, maybe I can too. So I go against my natural instinct to retreat. Instead, I pull my phone from my purse and dial the meter man’s number. I watch him off in the distance as he extracts his phone from his pocket.
“I’m glad you didn’t make me wait.”
Be still my beating heart. He’s hot, he’s nice and he’s flirty.
“I’m glad I didn’t wait either. So, what’s your name?”
“Dave Dybdahl.”
I try not to laugh at the odd alliteration of his double-D – wait, make that triple-D – sounding name.
“Dave, why’d you leave this note for real? You’re not trying to pull a joke on me and I’m really going to have some massive parking fine?”
He laughs, then assumes a very serious voice. “I never joke about parking meter matters,” he says and I’m liking that he’s got a little sense of humor working underneath that fine exterior. “I saw you get out of your car before you went into the diner and I thought you were pretty. Want to go out sometime?”
I laugh again. A date. I don’t have dates. I have shooting sessions with video games. I have crying fests with my girlfriends. I share a king-size bed with a lab-hound-husky.
And I have a hope that it all may change. That this life of the last year is not my life to come. That this day is the nail in the coffin on my heartbreak. That the songs I listen to could someday be sung for me. The ones about mad, crazy, never-gonna-let-you-go love. Maybe with Dave Dybdahl. Maybe with someone else.
“Why not? I’ll call you later to make a plan.”
“I can’t wait.”
I hang up the phone and stare at it again, still not sure if that conversation really just happened. I push the phone back into my bag and it suddenly occurs to me that Todd doesn’t have to be the only one who gets to win here. I am single, I have a good job, an awesome job in fact, and I’m not bad looking.
Todd took my heart. He took my name. He took himself. He gave it all to Amber, his Trophy Wife. But that moment in the Best Doughnut Shop in the City doesn’t have to be the last word, does it? He doesn’t deserve any more tears. He doesn’t deserve any more of my pain. There is no more room for sadness or hurt.
I have to move on and I finally know how.
Because my brain has hatched the perfect plan, right here, right now, thanks to this handsome young meter man. I can turn the tables. I can even the score and take up the mantle for all the jilted ladies, young and old. This is no longer about me. There is something bigger at stake here. I have been presented with a rare opportunity. This isn’t just happenstance. This isn’t just coincidence.