Authors: Eden Winters
his theory that the elaborate survey he'd filled out to join the site -- and that Barry trashed and completely redid --
played absolutely no part in the actual matching. The site simply threw profiles at members, hoping one stuck.
Scrolling through one after the other, he found exactly what he expected: most of his prospective dates had selected "Not interested," for his profile.
All set to log off, he noticed the icon that indicated that he'd gotten a message. Hope flaring to life in his heart, he clicked the icon, only to find a note from Barry that said, "Don't even
think
about changing your profile.
Trust me. You deserve someone who'll love you for you!"
Barry seemed convinced that someone would step up to the "real Otis" plate. That'd be easier to believe if the site ever managed to find someone for Barry. That an attractive, wonderful, hardworking man like Barry still bobbed aimlessly in the dating pool didn't bode well for Otis' chances.
He logged off, pulled on his hoodie, and locked up his office, stepping out into a brisk, clear night. The stars twinkled brightly overhead, sweeping him back to a childhood memory. "Starlight, starlight, first star I see tonight…" he recited, wishing for the man of his dreams.
The autumn air carried hints of wood smoke and the crisp, clean scent of new fallen snow, and he inhaled deeply while unlocking his Jeep Cherokee and climbing
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in. He loved fall, with its football games and "get together and eat holidays" that allowed him to show off his culinary skills, courtesy of his grandmother Santino.
Too bad he didn't have anyone locally to invite over.
Danny's family always left town for the holidays, and Steve would bounce from one house to another among an extensive family, eating his way into a food coma.
Otis' belly growled and he decided to whip up some comfort food for dinner. He stopped by the grocery store, trying to recall all that he'd need to make his Nonna's pasta sauce.
Heading straight for the produce section, he nearly toppled a pyramid of pumpkins that had managed to escape Halloween, prolonging their fate until Thanksgiving. Back home, Nonna would have a display of pumpkins, cornstalks, and a scarecrow on the front porch and she would carve up a pumpkin or two, turning the insides into the best pumpkin pies on the entire east coast, in his opinion.
Otis contemplated a pumpkin, then decided, since it looked like he'd be alone this year, he'd bake the turkey and support the small businessman, make that woman, by letting Betty's Bakery provide the pie -- again. No matter how hard he tried, his pies weren't as good as Nonna's. Or Betty's.
"You're missing an ingredient," Nonna used to say, rising on tiptoes to kiss Otis' nose. "One day, when you find out what that is, you'll get it right." After years of trying, the secret remained elusive.
Skirting the pumpkins, he ventured farther into the produce department. He took his time selecting the ripest Roma tomatoes, relieved that the store carried a nice selection. Next came red and green peppers, a firm, unblemished onion, and a bulb of whole garlic, for he preferred to mince his own for better flavor, rather than
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buy the already-chopped convenience packs. Bypassing frozen turkeys, this trip, in favor of chorizo sausages, he hurried to the bakery for a loaf of crusty bread, good for toasting, then on to the beverage section for a bottle of wine. As an afterthought, he added two "Apple Pie a la Mode" candles to his purchases, musing that the contents of his cart gave the appearance that he planned to cook a romantic candlelit dinner. He wished.
Traveling through the store, he met the same people in each aisle: a young couple who giggled and smooched while picking mostly microwaveable foods, a lady with a passel of small kids in tow, who shot the lovers wistful glances, and an elderly couple working as a team, as though long practiced at shopping together. Otis was the only one alone.
He strained to hear the cooed words of the young couple, smiled at the kids' bargaining with their mom for treats, and shook his head at the older couple's good-natured, "Now you know you're not supposed to eat that." What must it be like to have someone looking out for his best interests, or having someone to share a laugh with while doing simple chores?
Otis knew it was time to leave when he noticed the chips, sodas, and beer which had somehow materialized in his cart, topped off with three kinds of ice cream. It was a sure sign of depression that he'd filled his cart half full when he'd only come for a handful of items. He approached the checkout lane. "Hey, Kathy," he said, placing his purchases on the conveyor. "How's it going?"
The girl who'd been ringing up his groceries ever since she'd been old enough to get a job grinned broadly, holding out her hand to flash a tiny diamond ring. "Oh, Mr. Tucker," she gushed, "Andy proposed! We're getting married!"
A Lie I Can Live With - 12
Otis caught a flash of red hair two registers down and saw an equally grinning Andy, whose faced flushed to match his ginger top. He waved a freckled hand in greeting. "How wonderful!" Otis replied. "When's the big day?"
At a reproachful glare from the shift supervisor, Kathy dipped her head and began ringing up Otis'
groceries. "February! We're gonna have a Valentine's wedding. Isn't that romantic?"
Watching the prices onscreen while listening to what sounded like a well-rehearsed litany about flowers and colors and other wedding details, Otis couldn't help but feel old. What were these two kids? Twenty? Twenty-one? And they'd already found the person they wanted to spend their lives with? If they could do it, why couldn't he?
The drive home passed in silence, Otis feeling more than a little sorry for himself and unwilling to listen to the syrupy love songs the local radio station insisted on playing. Here he was, past thirty, and he'd never even known the pleasure of a steady boyfriend, someone to come home to every night, let alone someone he looked forward to growing old with. He'd played around in college with a few like-minded guys, friends with benefits who didn't want more, and kept in touch with them occasionally. All eventually moved on to serious relationships, and other towns, leaving Otis still a friend but minus the benefits.
He pulled into his driveway, his being the only dark house on the street, and sighed, visualizing the windows brightly lit, a partner waiting to greet him at the door.
Instead, he lugged his bags in by himself, whispering,
"Honey, I'm home."
Heart heavy, he chopped tomatoes, simmered pasta, and transformed a handful of ingredients into a tasty
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arrabiata sauce, while in the background Diana Krall lamented, "Almost me, almost you, almost blue…" Otis knew just how she felt.
While the preparation of the food served as a welcome distraction from the prospect of yet another solitary weekend, Otis' culinary efforts ended up in a plastic bowl, haphazardly stacked in the refrigerator.
The idea of eating churned his stomach as he stared at his empty kitchen, attempting to picture someone else leaning against the counter, laughing, trying to sneak a taste before dinner. But try as he might, he couldn't conjure up his dream man's face.
His last thought before turning off the light was,
I
hope that star was listening.
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The Colorado Buffaloes were down seventeen points and showed no signs of making a comeback anytime soon. "Stick a fork in them, they're done," read a sign from the stadium. Otis groaned, feeling his team's pain.
Being a true fan, he rode the ship down, clicking the TV
off only after the final, dismal play.
Whatever the reason, losing team, beer going to his head, a faint bit of hope that refused to die, Otis felt compelled to abandon the couch for his home office.
Shelves of action figures filling the bookcases, and framed classic comics gracing the walls, made it more of a shrine to cyber-heroes than to commerce. A poster of Captain Nathan hung over his desk.
He plopped down into his chair, firing up his laptop.
Why do I do this to myself?
he wondered, logging onto
Since yesterday, six new profiles showed on his home page, five of which already bore the "Not interested" label. In his mind he heard the
Whhhhhhheeee! Boooom
! of his character being shot down. Well, what could he really expect? Using his forefinger and thumb as an improvised gun, he aimed at the screen. "Take that, you hope-crushers!" he shouted, firing volleys at imaginary green slime balls that defeated their foes by sucking out all positive thoughts.
The sixth profile caught his eye. What a handsome man, and what a smile! That picture must be a photo manipulation, and a good one. He'd love to know what program had been used, because nobody really looked like that in real life, did they? Otis snorted. Probably a model's picture yanked off the Internet. He knew from personal experience that site members did that.
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"Garret, gay male, twenty-eight, professional, independent, and looking for a 'geeky bear of my very own,'" Otis read aloud. The profile went on to say that
"Garret" also had a thing for guys with old-fashioned names and believed computer nerds were hot. This had to be a joke, right? Had Barry made up this profile to give false hope? Otis discounted that theory immediately. From what he'd seen so far, Barry was on the up and up.
He clicked on Garret's "Hobbies" folder. "Loves Buffaloes football," he read.
I wonder if he feels as
bummed out as I do right now.
He kept reading. "Enjoys fishing, long walks, and working out." Otis looked down at his belly, mood dropping. "There's something we don't have in common."
When he reached the "Interests" folder, his spirits lifted, seeing that Garret loved international cuisine. "I could hook you up with some authentic Italian food," he told the smiling image onscreen.
"I suck at cooking," Garret's
About me
, blurb stated.
"Got ya covered," Otis remarked.
He stared at the profile again, purposefully diverting his eyes from the picture. In terms of their common interests, they were a match made in cyber-heaven. Too bad the guy was an Adonis and Otis was Shamu.
What would Garret think if Otis were to contact him?
Would he even bother to read the profile and see their similarities before clicking "Not interested?" For a moment Otis contemplated resurrecting Vincent. "Don't you dare!" his conscience shouted, sounding amazingly like Barry. With a
here goes nothing
attitude, Otis clicked the button that sent Garret a simple message:
"Hey there!"
Shutting down his laptop and saluting his hero's poster, Otis donned his hoodie and took a walk around
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the block to de-stress, feeling as blank as the laptop's dark screen. Later he brushed his teeth, returning his toothbrush to its lone place in a stand designed to hold two. He crawled into bed and flipped through a gaming magazine, unable to focus on anything he read. Finally he gave up, laid his glasses on the bedside table, and curled up clutching a pillow to his chest, trying to find warmth in his empty bed.
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The next morning Otis checked his computer, not really expecting much. He rubbed his eyes, sure he was seeing things, yet there it remained: a message from Garret.
Hey yourself! How in the world did I miss your
profile? Did you only recently join the site?
Otis scanned his home office, searching for what, he didn't know. Perhaps for a wicked witch with winged monkeys to tell him he wasn't in Kansas anymore. A joke. It had to be a joke. He blinked hard, but when he reopened his eyes, the image of the handsome hunk still smiled up at him from the computer screen. He read the rest of the message.
I'd love to meet you!
"You would?" Otis asked the room. It being Sunday, he couldn't beg off, claiming, "I gotta work." He took a deep breath, and before he could think better of it, dashed off a note.
What do you have in mind?
He prepared breakfast -- leftover linguine with chorizo and the arrabiata sauce from Friday night. Pasta sauce always tasted better a day or two after being made, even if a handful of antacids loomed in his immediate future. He enjoyed a brisk walk around the block, crunching through a light snowfall, and when he returned, he found another message:
How about the mall, say four o'clock? You like video
games, so you know where the arcade is, right?
The arcade? Of course he knew his second home's location. Electric Amusements -- the one contract he refused to delegate to Danny or Steve.
Rank does have
its privileges,
he thought smugly.
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At two o'clock, after a solid hour of pacing, he bathed more carefully than ever before, wishing he'd thought to get a haircut. He toweled off and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring critically at his reflection.
Thwarting all attempts to suck it in, his belly stubbornly remained a rounded, furry blob.
He shaved, dabbed on some of the expensive cologne his sister had given him last Christmas, saved for special occasions, meaning this would be the first time he'd used it.
Cleaned up and sweet smelling… Now, what to
wear?
He tried on button-downs, pullovers, even a hand-knitted Grandma sweater. He pulled on slacks in blue, tan, black, and brown, thinking how best to impress the man who'd probably take one good look and run screaming into the night, even if it'd only be afternoon.
Recalling Barry's encouraging, "He's gonna love you for you," Otis finally pulled on his normal attire of jeans and a T-shirt, stuffing his wide feet into comfortably worn work boots. Grabbing a fresh hoodie, he pronounced himself as ready as he'd ever be.