Jane Gregg, the heroine of See Jane Date has just about had it - had it with her younger, more-popular cousin Dana, who's getting married at Manhattan's celebrated Plaza hotel; had with being father and mother-less; had it with being an assistant editor whose tenacious on-maternity-leave boss Gwen won't stop calling her and detailing her baby's poop schedule; had it with the author she's been assigned to work with, Natasha, who Jane's known since childhood and who she secretly calls "The Gnat."
But most of all, she has had it with the fact that she had no date for Dana's wedding to a (what else?) millionaire. Fed-up Jane, who feels inferior to everyone around her, finally makes-up a boyfriend, who everyone expects to be Jane's escort to Dana's wedding.
Jane's job (in addition to editing The Gnat's memoirs about her torrid affair with an unnamed celebrity who made her sign a confidentiality agreement before consummating their "relationship") becomes finding someone - anyone - to be her date for the wedding-of-the-century.
Jane's worlds are also colliding. The Gnat, who was once Dana's babysitter, is suddenly going to the wedding and even the bachelor-ette party, treating a resentful Jane like an intimate confidante, and calling all hours of the day or night. Jane also contends with regular lectures from her aunt (Dana's mom, who raised Jane after her mother's death). Her aunt is disappointed in Jane's less-than enthusiastic participation in wedding party activities and prep.
She allows herself to be "set-up" on a round of blind dates, in the hopes that one will "take," so that she'll be able to keep up the facade that she's got a boyfriend who's more-than-thrilled to take her to (shudder) "the event."
Senate is most successful as she chronicles the stream of bad blind dates - dates that ring, no, even clang, with truth.
On one of her five blind dates, the guy suggests she meet him at a location - but coyly only gives Jane the address, without any details. She realizes the neighborhood is dicey, except for the earliest stages of gentrification - art galleries -and Jane assumes she's being invited to an opening.
Wearing a borrowed (and provocative) dress, she trudges to the remote location, only to have her date's mother answer the door. Not only is he not home yet, but soon finds out that she's been invited to her date's 11-year-old-nephew's birthday party, held at the home where the "date" lives with his mother.
On another date (one that also reads as very "real"), she meets a date at Starbucks, only to find herself competing for his attention with any other woman who walks by.
Jane's desperation to be close to what family she has left (and who she really doesn't feel quite bonded to) adds a soulful touch to the story. Her granny even joins in, and tries -unsuccessfully - to get Jane to meet the nice guy next door, claiming he often helps out and even, occasionally, plays chess with her uncle. Jane cannot imagine what this guy is like, but decides with great alacrity that he isn't for her. But as the story progresses, the question then becomes, "or is he??"
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