It was my fault.

  Barry and I were sitting in his apartment sprawled against a gray leather couch that had seen better days. It didn’t make sense because the rest of his apartment was pristine. The kitchen had beautiful granite countertops and a sub-zero refrigerator, the living room had expensive, framed art on the walls and a beautiful rug on the floor. The whole place looked like a renovation win on “Love It or List It” but the couch looked like it had been pulled out of a dumpster or something. It made me wonder about Barry.

  It didn’t help that I was wearing my favorite denim skirt. Even though it was cute, it rode up practically to my underwear every time I sat down, and my legs kept sticking to the leather. Every time I moved, it would make a suction sound that I hope Barry realized was the couch and not me.

  Barry was just about to lean in to kiss me when I realized that I really, really needed to use the bathroom. Maybe it was nerves – Barry was hot – but it could have been the place we went for dinner that I swore used reheated food from three days before. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “You okay?” he asked, concern knotting his eyebrows together. “I mean, let me know if there’s anything you need. You kind of look pale.”

  I laughed. “I’m fine!” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Okay, but if you’re not back in two minutes – “

  “I’m fine!” I repeated. I stood up and gave my skirt a little yank down, quickly, so that he wouldn’t realize. But I somehow missed the bottom of the skirt and stood in front of him for a few seconds in an awkward, half-pose, like I couldn’t figure out what I was doing. I started off down the hall.

  “Zoey!” he called. “The bathroom is the other way.”

  I tried to laugh lightly but it came out like a dorky snort. I found the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. The bathroom was a mishmash of decorations. There was a granite countertop but the faucet had old fixtures, rusted and tarnished. The shower was updated but the glass door looked like it was falling off. What the hell? Was this what Barry’s mind looked like?

  I texted my friend Marlo. “Barry is hot but weird. In bathroom now.”

  Her response came back immediately. “Want me to call you in a few minutes?”

  I looked around and thought about it. In addition to being hot, Barry was a top executive at a firm that specialized in building homes for the homeless. He was smooth, and suave, and had a lot of interesting stories to tell – granted, he had repeated the one about the time he met Mick Fleetwood about three times – and seemed overall to be a good guy.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  But on the other hand, Barry was weird. I knew I was also weird, but he seemed to take it to new heights. All he had in his fridge was bottled water. No food, just bottled water. And he seemed to have an odd fixation with his parakeet, Ben, who he talked about incessantly.

  I texted Marlo, “I’ll keep you updated but no for now.”

  She texted me back a crying/laughing emoji and an eggplant emoji. “You get him, girl!”

  I stood up, pulled up my skirt, and flushed. In one instant, almost in slow motion, my phone slipped from my hand and fell into the swirling, flushing abyss of water. “Crap!” I cried. “Damn it!” I kneeled down and tried to fish my phone away but the water must have been on auto power speed or something because it tried to suck my phone down. I leaned in further, my arm soaked, and tried to wrestle it free.

  “Everything okay in there?” Barry called, knocking lightly on the door. “Zoey?”

  I wanted to shout back at him, “No! Your stupid toilet is eating my phone!” but instead I laughed and said, “No, I’m fine! Just indigestion!”

  Oh my god. Oh my God. Did I just say that? Whatever. I closed my eyes and pulled harder. The only thing that mattered in the world right now was my phone.

  I leaned down further, not even caring that I was getting my shirt wet. It was my favorite one – red, form fitting, and until now, somewhat sexy. It was hard for me to find clothing that made me feel that way. Most of the time, I felt old and frumpy – no match for the other women in the dating pool who were either much younger than me or had a better butt.

  Being forty-two years old in the dating world was much different that being twenty-one, when everything was firmly in place and just…firm all around. No sagging yet, or wrinkles, or weird pains, or saggy ass syndrome.

  Barry opened the door at the exact second that I felt my whole body go into the toilet, grasping and groping and clawing for the phone. “What the hell?” he shouted.

  I grabbed the phone, finally, stood up, and held it in front of me in victory, water streaming down my arm. The top of my blond hair was wet, there was water on the floor, and my mascara was running down my face. “I got it!” I yelled.

  “Got…what?” he asked, confused. His eyes went back and forth from my hand to my phone and back again. “Your phone?”

  “Ummm.” I pictured what he was seeing right now. His date just had her head in the toilet. Her butt was literally just sticking out of the toilet. Now she was unstuck, holding a phone over her head. My life was over. Ruined. I tried to laugh but it came out like a snort. “Yes?”

  He stared and didn’t say anything. After a minute or so, he walked to his strange shower, plucked a neatly folded towel from the stack on the door, and handed it to me. “Why don’t you clean up and meet me back at the couch?” he said, his voice strained. “We can have some pizza before you take off.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said.

  “Okay.” He nodded formally, turned, and walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.

  I didn’t need Marlo to make the emergency call. I had singlehandedly screwed up my first date since my divorce. Maybe Dan, my ex-husband, was right. Maybe I was hopeless, beyond repair, an old, washed-up former girl-in-an-indie band turned mom turned receptionist. Maybe I didn’t know how the world worked now, how dates worked, how anything worked.

  I took a selfie standing next to the toilet and sent it to Marlo.

  “What. The. Hell,” she texted back.

  I texted her back a poop and shrugging emoji. Then I cleaned up as best as I could, grabbed my jacket, and left the mishmashed apartment. Barry held up his hand in a weak wave. "You off?" he asked. I nodded and he didn't say anything.

  I doubted he would call me ever again.