Chapter Six
I stare at my computer screen, as if the solution to finding a guy who’ll fill my heart with gladness and take away all my sadness lies somewhere in the machine. Because Meter Boy was a bust, and Craigslist is not my cup of tea, and I don’t know where to go next. It’s not as if I’m terribly good at the bar pick-up scene. Does that even work anymore? I haven’t a clue about how to date, let alone how to run a dating contest. Why did I ever think I could pull this off? I’m a fashion blogger. I know which shirts go with skirts, and where to find the screaming deals. I don’t know about men anymore.
The doorbell rings. I straighten up and head over to the front door, quickly checking my reflection in the nearby mirror. All clear. I peer through the peephole.
The Fedex Guy is back.
He really is cute. He has blond hair and brown eyes, a combo I love. I’m reminded of Lena’s suggestion that I consider him as a candidate. Maybe the eight-year-old was right.
“Hold on, I’ll be right there,” I shout, then I peek at the mirror, fluff my hair, bite my lips for color, and smooth my tee-shirt, a pale yellow number that I picked up at a little shop in Petaluma that’s my best source for quirky cool tee-shirts. This shirt has an illustration of a mechanical horse and the words “Saddle Up and Ride” on the front. I’ve worn it a few times on my show, and viewers love it, and so does the store that sells it since I’ve sent a ton of business its way. I also worn it once when I picked up Hayden’s daughter from school to help her out. I got a few cold looks from the other moms that day. Whatever. It’s not like it says “Saddle up and Ride Me.”
I open the door and do my best to assume a sexy smile, but not quite a come-hither one. It’s a delicate balancing act. And I am so out of practice at the art of seduction, I’m beyond out of practice. But I give it my best shot. Be sexy, be bold.
“Hello,” I say slowly, drawing out each syllable.
“Hi there. Got a package for you. Want to sign?”
“I would love to sign your package,” I purr back.
He raises an eyebrow, and all my self-confidence depletes to zero. A withered balloon.
“Just tell me where.” I return to my professional voice. No wonder I haven’t landed a date. I’m abysmal.
He points to the clipboard he’s holding, tapping his pen against the spot where he wants my name in ink. I sign as directed, then look straight at him, not up or down, so he must be right about 5’10” too. I try again, going for simple and direct this time. “McKenna Bell, there you go. And what’s your name?”
He hands me the envelope and smiles back. “Steely Dan Duran.”
I crack up right there on my doorstep. “What’s your name for real?”
“It really is Steely Dan Duran. My mom was a huge Duran Duran fan.”
“Evidently.”
“And my dad liked Steely Dan. So they compromised.”
“That is the very definition of compromise.”
He nods and gives me another smile, and that’s exactly why I like it when he brings me packages. That sexy sweet grin is precisely why he’s the type of deliveryman a girl can fantasize over. So I lay the envelope on the table by the door and decide to see if he qualifies. Because maybe this is my parking karma at play – Triple D might not have worked out, but perhaps the universe is delivering the best man to my porch in the form of Steely Dan Duran.
“So is your mom like a child of the eighties or something?”
“Apparently. I think they were listening to Duran Duran and Steely Dan when I was born.”
Oh, he practically walked right into that.
“And that would be in 1982?” I ask with a wink.
He laughs. “Ha. ’90.”
Twenty-three. Perfecto. “So Steely Dan Duran. Would you like to go out some time?”
He takes a step back, as if I’ve just asked him to drink hemlock.
“Scratch that,” I quickly add, crimson racing to my cheeks. Why did I ever think I could pull this off? “I’ll just take that back.”
But Steely Dan Duran will have none of it. He steps towards me and places a hand on my arm. “I would love to take you out to dinner.”
“You would?”
He nods vigorously. “I was just surprised that’s all. But please don’t take it back because I would love to go out. And I would love to be the one to do the asking. Would you like to go out with me?”
“Yes.”
I’m ready to dance a little jig, kick my heels up in the air a la Gene Kelly. Maybe it’s not that hard to find a Trophy Husband after all. I make plans with Steely Dan Duran for next weekend and head back inside. I reach for the envelope he dropped off and rip it open.
And there goes my happy mood.
My jaw drops as I read a letter from Todd’s attorney, requesting joint custody of the dog. Now that he has a house in Marin, and a baby, and a yard, he’s claiming the dog is better suited with him. I can’t believe he has the audacity to ask for this, but then he’s the same person who didn’t leave my favorite restaurant when he ran into me even though that would have been the courteous thing to do.
I read more, pushing my hands through my hair, hard against my scalp. My brain is about to officially pop when the papers request three canine sleepovers each week, and then I nearly gag when I see Amber’s name as well on the claim – Todd and Amber Frank.
I pick up my phone and call him at work. He answers immediately and I don’t bother with niceties. I launch right into it. “You have got to be kidding me. The dog is mine, and you haven’t so much as taken her for a walk in the last year, let alone a sleepover.”
“And that needs to change,” he says.
My mother lioness instincts kick in. I’m the one who trained the dog, walked the dog, fed the dog, took her to every vet appointment, threw tennis balls to her in the water. He didn’t want the dog when he left me for Amber. He doesn’t get the dog now. “The dog stays with me.”
“I figured you would feel that way, and that’s why I hired the best attorney, so perhaps you should take it up with him. I believe you have his number on the legal papers.”
Then he hangs up on me.
I slam the papers down on the credenza and huff back into the kitchen, practically ripping the fridge door open. I need a Diet Coke and I need one now. I grab one from the lower drawer and angrily pop it open, taking a thirsty first gulp.
I savor it because I find few things in life as singularly satisfying as the sound and feel of a can opening. The Diet Coke trickery should have been my tip-off that things with Todd wouldn’t work out. I’d be working or paying bills at the kitchen table and ask him to please bring me a Diet Coke. He knew about my first sip fixation, he knew I derived uncommon pleasure from the very first bubbly sensation, from the taste of the virgin cold metal on my lips. Yet, he would always ruin it for me by opening the drink himself and taking a sip while he mosey-ed on over to the table to deposit the can in front of me with a devilish little smirk. He’d give me this look, this “Aren’t I cute for taking the first sip when I know you love it” look. And he’d think it was endearing. I tried to explain every time that I was serious about this. I really wanted my own first taste.
I know it’s not a big deal. I know that disagreeing about the first sip of a soda isn’t the reason he left.
I can enjoy every single ounce of this soda all by myself right now. I can enjoy the money from the sale of The Fashion Hound. I can enjoy the silence in this house.
But I can’t always. Because tears now roll down my face as I look at this legal letter, this cold, business-like language that we have been reduced to. We used to spend nights tangled up in sheets, and lazy afternoons only with each other. We used to be each other’s rocks and each other’s lovers, a potent combination of reliance and passion that would see us through all our days.
Then there was one night in Vegas, and everything shattered. Right down to the dog. We adopted Ms. Pac-Man three years ago from the San Francisco Humane Society, picking her out at that same jinx-you-owe-me-a-coke moment when she tilted her blond head to the side and won us over with those big brown canine eyes. We were a threesome, a little family unit.
Now, she’s some pawn to him.
My chest heaves, and I bring my hand to my mouth, shaking with sadness. Embarrassed that this is who I am now.
Alone with a soda and a letter from a lawyer.
I try so hard to be tough, to be impervious to the whole f*cking world.
But moments like this?
I miss, and I miss, and I miss.
I miss being cared for. I miss being loved. I miss being considered. I wipe a hand across my cheek, my mascara streaking. I used to love him so goddamn much. I didn’t stop loving him the second he took up with Amber. And now he’s with her, really with her, and I’m here in my kitchen, with only the first sip for comfort as he tries to take my dog from me.
As if she’s some sort of toy for his new wife, his new kid, his new life without me. Ms. Pac-Man hears me and ambles on over to sit at my feet, looking at me as if to ask if everything’s okay. I tell her yes, even though it’s not true.
I sniffle, reach for my iPod, and pick Sailboat in the Moonlight by Billie Holiday. I might as well just stick my finger in a flame, but I can’t resist the way she sings about tender lips, about dreams coming true, about all the things I ever wanted.
I may be hunting for a boy toy, but somewhere inside of me I am still longing for someone to sail away in the moonlight with.
Only, I no longer have that luxury. I can no longer ask for or expect those things. So I take a breath, I dry my tears, and I crush the empty can of soda in my hand.
Crushing my dreams of a love I can’t dare to hope for.
* * *
Steely Dan Duran isn’t much better. For starters, we’re dining at Baby Doe’s all the way in Marin County on the other side of the bridge. I don’t go to Marin often. There’s not much need because the city has everything I want. But let me tell you all you need to know about Baby Doe’s.
Baby Doe’s is where you took your prom date in 1977. It hasn’t changed a lick since then. It’s the same dimly-lit restaurant, with the same red pleather, same puckered booths, same orange chandeliers, and probably serving the same steak and baked potatoes and garden salad.
Steely Dan Duran loves this place. Had I known he was taking me here, I would have found a gentle way to nix it. I would have perhaps delicately suggested something more interesting, like sushi, Japanese, Thai. Heck, a pizza joint or even a taqueria somewhere on Fillmore would be better. But Steely Dan Duran wanted to surprise me. So he picked me up, wearing dark brown slacks, a striped shirt, and a tie of all things, and kept the location a secret as we drove down the 101 in his sky-blue Buick. When we arrived, he came around and opened my car door – I will concede he gets points for that – and said “Ta Da!”
“Your baked potato, ma’am.” The waiter lays the side dish on the table for me, complete with a sprig of parsley and a pat of butter. Then he presents a baked potato to Steely Dan and heads back to the kitchen to retrieve my date’s steak and my chicken.
I gesture to the spud, my right index finger adorned with a flashy pink stylized ring in the shape of flower petals that complements my maroon lightweight sweater, one of those wrap-around numbers with a super slim tie around the waist and a low-cut neck. I’m wearing a white lacy cotton camisole underneath it and black capri jeans with ballet flats. I lean in and say playfully, “Maybe we could get bacon bits for the potato too.”
Steely Dan stops his fork in mid-air. “Would you like me to ask for some?” He’s so earnest, so thoughtful, but there goes another joke, falling to the floor with a dull thud. “I was just kidding. I don’t like bacon bits.”
He looks at me quizzically as if I have just told him I have three ears and one of them is on my forehead. “You don’t? Why not?”
Um, because they’re gross?
“Just not my thing,” I say lightly. Then I happily spear a hearty glob of potato innards and smile broadly to show I am enjoying every second of our evening. Just as I am about to taste the spud, he reaches for my wrist and stops me.
“We have to say grace first,” he says.
“Oh.” I place my potato-filled fork down.
He lays his hands out on the table, gesturing for mine.
“Maybe I could say it,” I say, sort of teasing him. Because I wouldn’t know the first thing about saying grace. I’m all for religion, but have never been into it personally. My parents were completely non-religious. He shakes his head. “The man should lead.”
“Excuse me?”
“The man should lead. That’s why I was the one to make sure to ask you out. Because the man should be in charge. Guide all the decisions. For the woman. For the family.”
“About everything? Like dinner? Like work? Like where to live?”
He nods. “All of that. And also, what a woman should wear. For instance, I would never let my wife leave the house until I had approved her outfit.”
I crack up into peals of laughter. “You are a funny guy! That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
His face is stony. “I wasn’t joking.”
Oh. That’s not going to fly. I think I’m about to officially walk out on a date for the first time. Yep. I definitely am.
“Goodbye Steely Dan Duran. This girl dresses herself.”
* * *
“So maybe I should call this off,” I tell Hayden as I flop down on her couch after the cab drops me off, and she lets me into her house.
“Because of one bad date?”
“Two bad dates. Dybdahl was a total bust.”
“Oh right. Good point,” she says as she settles in next to me.
“And to top it off, Todd now wants custody of the dog.”
“You’re not going to let him, are you?”
“Of course not. But do I have a choice?”
“Well, I’m a patent attorney, not a pet attorney, but I’ll look into it for you,” she says. “Because that is a cause I can totally get behind. Project Dog Custody.”
I pull myself into a sitting position on her couch. “And I thought you weren’t fond of pets,” I tease.
“Not the ones that pee on my furniture. But the good ones, like Ms. Pac-Man? Yeah, I’ll help you win this battle, that’s for sure.”
I glance at the couch and the cushion I’ve been sitting on. “That’s not your way of telling me Chaucer peed right here?”
“No,” she says with a laugh.
“So, um, Hayden. Do you think I should just throw in the towel on the Trophy Husband thing?”
She gives me a rueful smile. “McKenna, I think you should do what makes you happy. Would it make you happy to throw in the towel?”
I shrug. I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what makes me happy except for the dog. “I think I’m going to go spend the rest of my night with my dog.”
I head home and Ms. Pac-Man is so excited to see me that I give her a kiss on her wet snout. She licks my cheek, a big, sloppy dog kiss, and I love it. “There is no way I will let anyone take you away from me,” I tell her, and I know she understands. I know she wants to be with me. She loves me unconditionally, and I love her the same.
I pat the side of my leg, her cue to trot along by my side as we head into my bedroom and over to the closet. “Let’s look at clothes for tomorrow’s shoot, shall we?” I say to my favorite creature.
She sits down and watches me as I survey my clothes, her eyes on me, her tail still wagging. I can’t resist. I bend down to pet her once more. The dog is kind of my soulmate, and maybe I will keep fighting the good fight. For her. I won’t let Todd win. Not when he’s throwing punches so far below the belt.