In Stereo Where Available (4 page)

“Yeah, I figured. I waited around for a while, but I figured something had come up for you. That’s okay, we can do dinner another time. It’s not like you live that far away.”

“Um…I’m not sure—”

“Aw, c’mon. You’re in Takoma Park, right?”

“Well, I did grow up there, actually. But no, now I’m in Silver Spring.”

“Silver Spring? Even better. Why’d I think you said Takoma Park? Look, give me your e-mail. There’s something I want to send you. Read it and then make up your mind, okay?”

I sighed. This would be easier to do over e-mail than over the phone, anyway. “Okay.”

That night I opened my e-mail, deleting my way through all the junk offers of mortgage loans and wonder drugs, a forwarded joke from my father, some photos of my little cousins sent by my aunt. And then, sent an hour or so before, a message from a Jerry Sullivan with a subject line that said, “Hey again.” I opened it.

When Lauren got home from her date later that night, I asked her, “How was the computer programmer?”

“Oh…no good. I could tell as soon as I saw his car.”

“How is that?”

“It’s a Suburban. No wife, no kids, and he drives a big gas-guzzling Suburban. I drive a Prius, right? That’s
definitely
not in the cards.”

“You’re car-incompatible.”

“We are. It’s too bad, too. He seemed like a nice guy.”

I turned the page of the art resource book I was looking through and began making a list of necessary supplies.
Tempera paint
, I wrote.
Manila paper. Soda straws
.

“So give him another chance,” I told her. “Maybe you can talk him into trading it in for a smaller car.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No way. I’m not about
changing
anybody. Besides, it says a lot about him psychologically. He wants to be able to look at every other guy on the road during that morning commute and say to himself, ‘I’ve got a bigger one.’“

“So what kind of a car are you looking for in a guy?”

She considered the question seriously. “I think maybe an Acura Integra. Something that says ‘financial security,’ but at least
somewhat
environmentally responsible, and classy without being showy. You know what I mean?”

“I suppose.”

“A Saturn would be good, too. Speaking of men, did you ever call good old Jerry?” I’d told her about my mystery caller. She was following the developments like a newspaper serial.

I sighed. “Yeah. I couldn’t break it to him that I’m not Karen. He sounded so
happy
, I just couldn’t do it. He asked for my e-mail address.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“Yeah, I figured that way I’d get an e-mail from him, and I’d be able to write him back and tell him about the mix-up without having to hear his reaction, you know? But you know what he sent me?”

“What?”

“A
poem
, Lauren. He wrote it himself, to me. I mean, to Karen. It was so sweet. I can’t tell him I’m not her. He’ll be so embarrassed.”

She grinned and took a few steps into the kitchen, opening the fridge door and pulling out a Styrofoam container of leftover steak fajitas and a packet of tortillas. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t just ignore it. I’d feel like he was just sitting there forever waiting to hear back from me. Besides, I don’t want him to start sending me a string of e-mails that sound as pathetically hopeful as his phone messages. That I just couldn’t handle.”

The microwave buttons beeped, and the light inside flashed on, the foam container turning slowly. “Can you pretend you’re Karen and tell him you’re in a relationship right now?”

I shuddered. “I couldn’t do that. It would break his heart. Anyway, why would I have given him my phone number if I was in a relationship? He’ll never believe it. He’ll know I’m just ditching him.”

“Well, you’re going to have to do
something
.”

“I know, I know. I just have no idea what.”

“He could be a psycho, you know. Maybe there’s a reason Karen gave him a phony number. What kind of guy sends a woman poetry after he’s just met her, anyway?”

“A
sweet
guy, maybe. I don’t know. I’m just going to sit in front of my computer and wait for insight.”

“Let me know what happens,” she said, spooning sour cream onto a plate. “I don’t envy you. I hate breaking up with guys I don’t like anymore. I’ve never had to break up with someone I haven’t even met.”

I closed my bedroom door and turned on my computer, staring at the screen blankly, knocking the mouse every now and then to keep the screen saver from coming on. Finally I hit “Reply.”

There
, I thought. Perfect. Flattering, while making use of Lauren’s never-fail method for avoiding men: the busy schedule. I sighed and logged out of my e-mail account, musing on the irony of Jerry and his lonely love poetry. I’d written in my profile on Kismet that I was looking for someone intelligent, romantic, and gentle yet assertive. Finally there was a chance he was coming my way—and he was looking for somebody else. Go figure.

“Welcome to an enchanted world where the morning brings gentle mists that rise over fields of cotton, lovers share secrets in the cool retreat of a grape arbor, and gorgeous spreading vistas offer little girls a chance to dream of princes and castles on a slow summer afternoon. Here in this beautifully restored antebellum mansion, twelve very special ladies will have the opportunity to seize their fate and make that dream their own—if they can become—the Belle of Georgia!”

The camera swooped dramatically through the front door of the vast white-columned house and into what looked like a ballroom, where the twelve very special ladies fanned out on each side of a guy who looked like he’d just stepped out of a cologne ad. He wore a loose white cotton shirt and khaki pants with a pair of old-fashioned leather explorer boots—everything but the pith helmet and a spider monkey on his shoulder. When he smiled, the cleft in his chin deepened. My sister was third from his right, flashing thousands of dollars in cosmetic dental work. She wore a dress of pink rosebud-print calico, her shoulders bared, her skirts four feet in diameter. She looked like some kind of early Dolly Parton album cover.

“Each of these ladies has been chosen in a nationwide search to vie for the love of a Southern gentleman—and yet not one, but two gentlemen will be competing for their hands. True love will prevail, and with it, a spectacular reward unlike anything they might have imagined. Stay tuned for the television event of the century!”

A maid-service commercial came on. I microwaved some leftover chicken casserole and sat down just in time to see the contestants’ bios flashing across the screen.

“Lily Martin, nineteen, a personal trainer from Tallahassee, Florida; Kathy McNamara, twenty-two, a pediatric nurse from Boston, Massachusetts; Grace Kassner, twenty-four, a first-grade teacher from Silver Spring, Maryland…”

“You
wench
!” I said out loud. Riding the coattails of my job like that. And she’d shaved five years off our age.

“And I’m your host, Brent Holloway. Now let’s meet the eligible bachelors who will be competing for the hands of these lovely ladies. It is of utmost importance that the true identities of these gentlemen not be revealed until the conclusion of our whirlwind romance. With this in mind, may I introduce you to our first bachelor—Rhett!”

A tall, dark-haired man in a red silk smoking jacket was standing in an elegant library, one hand on his hip and the other on top of a bust of Julius Caesar. He was pretty cute, even if he didn’t look all that much like Rhett Butler. He was missing the mustache, and his toothy grin looked more uneducated than piratical.

“A Charlestonian by birth, Rhett is searching for a woman who is intelligent, beautiful, and knows what she wants out of life. She should be free-spirited yet devoted, with an interest in exotic travel and enjoyment of fine wine and cuisine.”

I nodded approvingly. Madison had as good a shot at him as anyone. She fit most of that description, except for “devoted” and, to some extent, “intelligent.”

“Our next bachelor, a Georgia native, is a man we will call—Ashley!”

The camera cut to a lanky, well-bred guy with curly blond hair, wearing riding boots and standing beside a horse, reins in hand. He turned and looked casually into the camera, smiling a little sadly.

“Ashley prefers to spend his days discussing poetry and philosophy, and is searching for a kindred spirit with whom he can share his innermost thoughts and feelings. He enjoys European travel, great literature, and the orchestra.”

Well, Maddie was out of luck there. At least she still had Rhett.

“On their own, each of these wonderful ladies has a marvelous opportunity to win the heart of one of our gentlemen. Yet they will not be competing alone. Two teams will be chosen, and accept challenges to display the skills and talents becoming of a Southern belle. Each week, the losing team must choose one contestant among themselves who will return home—a dream forever lost, and yet, tomorrow is another day!”

I rolled my eyes and poked around in my chicken casserole with my fork, looking for more of the Ritz-cracker topping.

“Our teams have been chosen based on one of the most important events in the history of our great nation—a crucible on which our national identity was forged. As Americans, our contestants are eager to participate in the re-creation of this most significant time in our history—the epic battle between North and South!”

Brent Holloway gestured toward a small mahogany table draped with a dark blue cloth and pulled the cloth with a flourish. Laid out in a shallow box were twelve oval brooches, six of the American flag and six of the Confederate. There was an audible gasp from the women behind him.

“As I call your name, ladies, please come forward and receive your colors.”

One at a time he pinned the brooches to their strapless dresses. The two cameras switched back and forth between the contestants’ cleavage and the way Brent Holloway’s nubby cotton shirt floated over his pectoral muscles. When my sister came forward and he picked up an American flag, she looked nervous. I knew what she was thinking. Maryland. Border state. And those Southern girls looked mean.

The first challenge came right after the commercial. It was called “Barbecue at Twelve Oaks,” and began with a scene of all the girls running around a big, pale-blue bedroom in old-fashioned underwear, lacing each other into corsets. Lots of leering shots of women moving their boobs around and their suggestive grimaces as they pulled each others’ laces as tightly as they could. One girl, a Yankee, passed out. Lined up in two neat rows in the rose garden, they sucked in their stomachs as Brent Holloway measured their waists with a long yellow tailor’s tape. The Rebels won by a good six inches, and Brent unveiled a table full of barbecue and iced tea for them to enjoy, if they could, while schmoozing with Rhett and Ashley.

“We gave it a good try,” said a girl from New York, weakly.

“I guess that’s the price we pay for not being a bunch of anorexic debutante bimbos,” my sister added acidly. They voted out a girl from Delaware. She was the fat one.