international intrigue. Trevor believed that a group of local high school computer geeks was plotting to hack in to the new website that he’d designed for his company, Mutual of Michigan Insurance. Sounded plausible. What group of teenagers wasn’t completely captivated by the insurance industry?
“Ahoy mateys, what can I get you two landlubbers for dinner?” asked the waitress in a weary voice, as if she’d been swabbing the deck for three days straight without any sleep. She had bags under her eyes and a white sailor’s hat bobby pinned to her head at a jaunty angle. I couldn’t help thinking that making a human being who was probably someone’s mother dress and talk like Popeye the sailorman was a cruelty that should be reserved for terrorists and child molesters.
A few minutes later, when she brought our appetizer plate, Trevor made a perfect deep-sea dive onto the plate with his fork, leaning forward to shovel several hush puppies into his mouth. Trevor didn’t bother with a little nicety like swallowing before speaking as he asked me the sole personal question of the evening.
“You don’t watch TV?” he asked after I’d given my reply. He looked stricken, as though he’d just been harpooned.
And then, as usually happens in times of my greatest stress, I was struck by divine inspiration. What the single women of this country needed was Date Rescue. As surreptitiously as possible, I pulled my journal out of my purse and scribbled down a few notes about this idea under the table. I don’t know why I was worried about hiding this, since Trevor was staring at his hush puppies with rapture.
“How long have you been divorced?” I asked Trevor during a particularly painful lull, remembering that fact as a plus in his profile.
“Oh, I’ve never been married,” he told me while still eating. “My mom told me to say that because she thinks some girls might think I’m a loser if they find out I’m forty-six and never married.” Trevor had never been to college either, but I guess those little details were extraneous in the eyes of his mother, who was no doubt eager to have her baby bird finally leave the nest after nearly half a century.
* * *
I’m on a beautiful country road in Wisconsin lined with towering one-hundred-year-old oak trees, passing white clapboard farmhouses with dilapidated red barns, and herd upon herd of black and white cows grazing peacefully in sunlit green pastures. Grabbing the reins tighter, I feel the ostrich moving smoothly between my thighs as it picks up speed to a gallop. I look over my shoulder and there they are, a pack of men and women also riding ostriches and carrying ray guns, chasing me. Just as a death ray whizzes dangerously close to my left ear, I’m lurched to the middle of an empty field where I land in a swivel chair behind a desk. The black rotary phone on the desk starts ringing, and ringing, and ringing ...
“Hello?” I said, still 90 percent asleep. Six a.m. Oh God!
“Good morning, Samantha,” Elaine said cheerfully. “Still sleeping? Or perhaps you’re busy with an overnight guest?”
There was a hopeful lilt in her voice.
Yes, Elaine, I’m in the middle of amazing sex and stopped to answer the phone. “No,” I said, “I was still sleeping.”
“Glad to hear you’re catching up on your beauty sleep. So,” said Elaine, all business now, “how many dates have you had so far?”
This made me think of Trevor, whom I’d done my best to strike from my memory bank, although over time that might be impossible since he holds the record for the worst date I’ve ever had in my life.
“One,” I admitted, blinking at the bright slivers of light sneaking in through the mini blinds that fell across the gray quilt on my bed like prison bars.
“You need to pick up the pace, my dear,” said Elaine in a dry voice. “A three-hundred-pound trailer park mother with eight kids and a goiter the size of basketball could do better than
“Ahoy mateys, what can I get you two landlubbers for dinner?” asked the waitress in a weary voice, as if she’d been swabbing the deck for three days straight without any sleep. She had bags under her eyes and a white sailor’s hat bobby pinned to her head at a jaunty angle. I couldn’t help thinking that making a human being who was probably someone’s mother dress and talk like Popeye the sailorman was a cruelty that should be reserved for terrorists and child molesters.
A few minutes later, when she brought our appetizer plate, Trevor made a perfect deep-sea dive onto the plate with his fork, leaning forward to shovel several hush puppies into his mouth. Trevor didn’t bother with a little nicety like swallowing before speaking as he asked me the sole personal question of the evening.
“You don’t watch TV?” he asked after I’d given my reply. He looked stricken, as though he’d just been harpooned.
And then, as usually happens in times of my greatest stress, I was struck by divine inspiration. What the single women of this country needed was Date Rescue. As surreptitiously as possible, I pulled my journal out of my purse and scribbled down a few notes about this idea under the table. I don’t know why I was worried about hiding this, since Trevor was staring at his hush puppies with rapture.
“How long have you been divorced?” I asked Trevor during a particularly painful lull, remembering that fact as a plus in his profile.
“Oh, I’ve never been married,” he told me while still eating. “My mom told me to say that because she thinks some girls might think I’m a loser if they find out I’m forty-six and never married.” Trevor had never been to college either, but I guess those little details were extraneous in the eyes of his mother, who was no doubt eager to have her baby bird finally leave the nest after nearly half a century.
* * *
I’m on a beautiful country road in Wisconsin lined with towering one-hundred-year-old oak trees, passing white clapboard farmhouses with dilapidated red barns, and herd upon herd of black and white cows grazing peacefully in sunlit green pastures. Grabbing the reins tighter, I feel the ostrich moving smoothly between my thighs as it picks up speed to a gallop. I look over my shoulder and there they are, a pack of men and women also riding ostriches and carrying ray guns, chasing me. Just as a death ray whizzes dangerously close to my left ear, I’m lurched to the middle of an empty field where I land in a swivel chair behind a desk. The black rotary phone on the desk starts ringing, and ringing, and ringing ...
“Hello?” I said, still 90 percent asleep. Six a.m. Oh God!
“Good morning, Samantha,” Elaine said cheerfully. “Still sleeping? Or perhaps you’re busy with an overnight guest?”
There was a hopeful lilt in her voice.
Yes, Elaine, I’m in the middle of amazing sex and stopped to answer the phone. “No,” I said, “I was still sleeping.”
“Glad to hear you’re catching up on your beauty sleep. So,” said Elaine, all business now, “how many dates have you had so far?”
This made me think of Trevor, whom I’d done my best to strike from my memory bank, although over time that might be impossible since he holds the record for the worst date I’ve ever had in my life.
“One,” I admitted, blinking at the bright slivers of light sneaking in through the mini blinds that fell across the gray quilt on my bed like prison bars.
“You need to pick up the pace, my dear,” said Elaine in a dry voice. “A three-hundred-pound trailer park mother with eight kids and a goiter the size of basketball could do better than
Similar Books
