Due Date
By Sasha Hutz
Copyright © 2012 Sasha Hutz
Smashwords Edition
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It has become a tradition for Samantha to end every Friday at Arturo’s, the neighborhood dive bar. This week is no exception, and when she walks in, her roommate Newt is already sitting at their favorite corner table.
They usually spend the whole time gossiping, but Sam has been feeling listless all week and she doesn’t even make through her first beer before she starts complaining.
“I am just so fucking tired of being single.”
Newt gasps in mock horror. “Don’t tell me you’re lusting after one of those conventional monogamous relationships?”
“Look,” she says, laughing despite herself. “Like last weekend, I take this girl home from the club. And then in the morning she left my house to go have brunch with her fucking girlfriend. And she was cheerful about it! Why can’t someone just be hot and single?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve finally had sex with all our friends?”
Sam shoots him a look over the rim of her tortoiseshell glasses. “That would be difficult, considering that I only sleep with attractive people—”
“—And those with perfect grammar,” adds Newt, the corner of his mouth twitching. Samantha’s high standards are legendary among their friends.
“Why don’t you make a profile on OkAphrodite?”
“What the fuck is OkAphrodite?”
“Online dating.”
“You’re kidding.”
He runs a finger over the rim of his empty glass. “You want to meet new people.”
“I do,” she grins. “But I will never need the Internet to help get me laid.”
“Just a suggestion,” he shrugs, seemingly immune to her skepticism.
*
Saturday morning is unseasonably warm. It’s a pain to be cooped up working on such a sunny day, and Sam is already feeling crabby by the time she reaches the library. She has to push through a hoard of happy picnickers to reach the door. The library itself is deserted but for an elderly man making photocopies in the foyer. She is assigned to the main check out desk. By mid-afternoon she is nodding gratefully over the barcode scanner.
“Excuse me?” A soft female voice startles her out of a dream. She jumps, frantically wiping a trail of drool from the corner of her mouth.
Standing in front of the desk is Sara Hawkins, one of the regular weekend patrons. The woman is an insatiable mystery reader. She has also been catching Sam’s eye for months, though Sam doesn’t even know if Sara likes women. She does know Sara is some kind of physical education teacher at a school in Manhattan. That seems like a good start.