"Because you're on a date with me, but you're fixating on your ex-wife. Sorry, but that's a little weird."

"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm over her." He rose from his chair. "I'll be back in a minute. Then we'll go back to having a nice date. Okay?"

She had news for him. That ship had sailed.

He strode toward Janet's table, only now Janet was getting up, looking really pissed, and walking away from him. She strode toward the front of the restaurant and disappeared around a corner with David storming after her.

Alison was stunned. World War III was on the horizon. Thank God they were taking it outside.

She sat there for a moment or two more, wondering what to do. No, wait. There was no wondering here. It was time to go, preferably before David returned and this charade began all over again. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was regretting that one more date hadn't worked out, but she was so fixated on putting as much distance between her and the fish flusher that, at least for now, she just didn't care.

She grabbed her purse and headed for the front door of the restaurant, stopping off at the ladies' room before the long drive home. She went inside, turned the corner from the dressing area to the bathroom stalls, and heard voices.

"I hate you," a man's breathy voice said, "You know I hate you."

"I hate you, too," a woman's voice said. "Why do you think I divorced you?"

"You didn't divorce me. I divorced you!"

"It takes two to split, you bastard!"

David? And his lovely ex-wife, Janet? Cussing each other out in a bathroom stall?

But then there was more heavy breathing. A grunt or two. A little moan here and there.

What the hell?

"But you know I can't live without you," Janet said. "I hate you, but I can't live without-oh, God, yes. Yes! Like that!"

Alison looked under the door to see only one set of feet. Male feet. So what had happened to Janet's feet? Alison tried to visualize the exact configuration of body parts, but that particular X-rated puzzle was still in pieces.

"You like that? Of course you do. You're a bad girl. You've always been such a bad girl. You like it dirty, don't you?"

"Yes. Dirty." Gasp. "Make it dirty."

And it didn't get much dirtier than doing it in a bathroom stall.

"I saw you with that woman," Janet said. "Do you want her, David? Do you? Or do you want me?"

"You. I've always wanted you." Gasp, gasp, gasp. "Even when I hate you, I want you. Christ, it's a curse!"

"Yes, David. Do it to me. Do it hard. Oh, God, that's good...so good...so...aaaghhh..."

More gasps. More groans. More screams.

Just then the ladies' room door opened and a woman walked in. As if it were just any old day in a restaurant bathroom, she walked toward the stall next to where the action was. Just then, Janet let out an orgasmic moan that rattled the walls, mingling with David's grunts of satisfaction.

The woman leaned away quizzically, her brow scrunching up. She turned to Alison. "Is there a man in there?"

Alison leaned over and spoke in a confidential whisper. "Yes. I think she's sick and he's helping her."

"Yeah? Sounds to me like she's horny and he's screwing her." Then she proceeded into the adjacent stall and closed the door behind her.

Okay. That woman might be able to pee with a live sex show going on next door, but that was a line Alison just couldn't cross. Instead, she left the restaurant, drove down the street, and used the bathroom at a McDonald's. Then she washed her hands, looked in the mirror, and wondered: This is a first date. How did I end up here?

She got in her car to drive to Brandon's house, where he was going to give her an answer to that question, or else.

Chapter 12.

Brandon had just about fallen asleep in front of the TV when he heard somebody banging on his front door. Tom got up and looked out the peephole. "Uh-oh."

Brandon came to attention. "What?"

"It's Alison."

Brandon grabbed his phone and looked at the time. Crap. Too early. She clearly wasn't dropping by to tell him what a screaming success her date with David had been. He jumped out of his chair and went to the door.

"Go back to the den," he told Tom.

"You sure? If she starts swinging that purse, you might need some backup."

"Will you just go?"

As Tom left the room, Brandon opened the door to find Alison standing on the porch, her arms folded and her mouth set in a grim, angry line.

"We need to talk," she snapped.

"Uh...okay."

"Is Tom home?"

"Yes."

"Then come out here. I don't need to hear anything more about whale noises."

She turned around and sat down on the porch swing, her arms folded, glaring at him. The night was hot, and cicadas were screeching madly in the trees. Brandon had a feeling that in a moment Alison was going to be doing some screeching of her own. He closed the door and walked over to sit down beside her, bracing himself for the onslaught.

"I assume this is about your date with David," he said.

"You think?"

"Okay. Tell me what happened."

"Well, let's see. David had sex on our first date. It just wasn't with me."

"What?"

"He saw his ex-wife at the restaurant. He followed her into the ladies' room. Turns out it's not just something they made up for porn movies. You really can do it in a bathroom stall."

Brandon sat back in disbelief. "He did his ex-wife in a bathroom stall while he was on a date with you?"

"Wow," she said with a touch of sarcasm. "Sounds even worse when you say it."

"He told me he hated women like her. That she was cheap and slutty and she cheated on him."

"Which quite obviously turns him on."

"He told me he was over her."

"He told me he was over her, too. About sixty-seven times. Then he met her in stall number two. Judging from the pillow talk, he hates her but he can't live without her. It appears the feeling is mutual."

"So you listened to the whole thing?"

"At first I was in denial. Then I was in shock. Then I had to pee, but I sure as hell wasn't going to do it there, so I went to a McDonald's. What a way to end an evening."

Brandon started to tell her that sarcasm really didn't suit her, only to realize that right about then, it kinda did.

"Maybe he was trying to prove to himself that he was over her," Brandon said.

"Well, if that's the case, he blew it big time, didn't he?"

Okay. He was in trouble now. It wasn't going to take three strikes. Alison was going to call him out at two. He tried to think of any excuse for his failure that he could possibly think of, but he couldn't come up with a damned thing.

"I'm sorry, Alison," he said, shaking his head. "I checked out that guy from top to bottom. His questionnaire was great. Didn't have so much as a parking ticket. He sounded like the perfect match for you."

"The guy has been divorced only five weeks," Alison said. "You didn't think that was a big red flag?"

Brandon drew back. "Five weeks? That's all?"

"So he didn't tell you?"

"God, no, or I never would have set you up with him!"

"Don't you think that would have been a really smart question to ask?"

Yes. It would have. So why hadn't he thought of it?

"Do you know this is a man who flushed his wife's tropical fish down the toilet?"

"What?"

"But only in retaliation for her piling up his Playboy magazines and burning them."

Brandon shook his head in disbelief. This didn't sound like the guy he'd talked to at McCaffrey's the other day. That guy had seemed reasonable and levelheaded, even if he was down on his ex-wife. After all, she'd cheated on him, hadn't she? It was reasonable to Brandon that he'd be at least a little bitter. But the guy Alison was describing was just this side of pathologic.

"I guess it's a love-hate thing," she said. "Can't live with her, can't live without her. But at least they have a little passion going. That's more than I can say."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know that the weirdest place I've ever done it was in a bed? What does that say about me?"

"You like to be comfortable?"

"Nope. I lead a really boring life."

"So you want me to set you up with a guy who drags you into a bathroom stall and has sex with you?"

Alison thought about that. "No. I don't think I can have both. If I want a family man, I have to settle for a little bit of ordinary. If I want passion, I'll end up with a guy who runs back to his ex-wife at the drop of a hat. But that's what love is all about. Modest expectations. That way you can't be disappointed."

"That's bullshit."

She whipped around. "What?"

"Don't settle for a life like that."

"An ordinary life? What's wrong with that?"

"Forget ordinary. You should be looking for something extraordinary."

"Nope. I just want a nice, normal life with a nice, normal man. If a little bit of blah comes with that, so be it."

Blah. She hadn't put that on her questionnaire. Maybe he needed to keep that in mind for the future.

"I don't know why I didn't see what kind of guy he was," Brandon said. "I mean, I had no trouble reading you, right? So why couldn't I read him? Or Greg, for that matter?"

"I don't know," Alison said. "All I know is...this isn't working."

That hit Brandon right between the eyes. She was right, of course. And it probably never would work. Not just his attempts to match Alison up, but the business in general. Yeah, he'd finally had a couple of successful matches, but his ad had flopped, he wasn't finding any more new clients, and he didn't see any way on earth to make this business the short-term success he desperately needed. At the very least, he needed to stop trying to set Alison up before he humiliated her one more time.

Brandon sighed. "Maybe it's time I gave you your money back after all."

Alison glanced at him, then looked away again. "Yeah. Maybe that would be best."

Brandon was surprised at just how rotten that made him feel. Yeah, he'd just been using this business as a means to an end, but he hated failure in any form. To have to throw in the towel when he'd barely gotten started ate away at him like nothing else. He'd hit rock bottom in real estate, and now he was failing at the one thing that was supposed to help him bring that back. Where was he supposed to go from here?

"If you'll give me a minute," he said, "I'll go inside and write you a check."

When Alison nodded, he rose from the swing and went inside. He walked to his office at the back of the house and flipped on a single dim lamp. He sat down at his desk and pulled out his checkbook, only to stop and look around the room. And suddenly he was overcome with that same feeling he'd had as a teenager, that gutlevel feeling that he couldn't do a damned thing right-a feeling that had been hammered into him by his father from the time he was five years old.

Then his thoughts took a different turn, this time to his grandmother. He remembered watching her at this very desk, her bifocals low on her nose as she pored over the file in front of her. He wondered if she'd ever screwed things up with a client as badly as he'd screwed things up with Alison. Probably not. He couldn't imagine a guy like David getting past her.