I know I sound ridiculous. I would be extremely embarrassed if anyone I know hears me talking like this.
But if it keeps the ladies from diving for sharks, and from skydiving, and from petting tigers, it might be worth it.
I am sure we won’t attract new residents to our facility if we make the national news because someone gets eaten by a white shark.
“No.” Both of the men are shaking their heads.
I can feel disappointment welling up inside of me, but I can’t let go of my idea. Not until Patrick speaks.
“We’re too old. We might not even be here next year this time.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re fine. You can be here for years and years. That’s why we’re...” I almost let it slip. The last thing I told Leah before I left her office was that I didn’t want the residents to find out that the facility might be closing.
Not until we are sure we won’t be able to save it.
We have two weeks to get started on a plan. If nothing looks like it is going to pan out, then we could say something. I don’t want to leave the residents high and dry like the higher-ups are going to do.
“No. It needs to be you. You’re young and a little exciting, and we shouldn’t have trouble finding someone at Walmart who’s willing to go home with you, especially if we offer ourselves as chaperones. So she knows you’re not a serial killer or anything.” Chubb grins. “One of the benefits of getting old is that women tend to trust you more.”
I nod. “Thanks. That’s encouraging.”
How badly do I want to do this? How badly do I want to keep from having to talk about sharks and skydiving and goodness knows what else?
What could it hurt? Seriously? At the very least, I might get a little bit embarrassed, and worst-case scenario, I might end up going out with someone who doesn’t like me or that I don’t care for. If we don’t like each other, we’ll break it off. It’s not a big deal.
“Okay. I’ll do it. How do you guys suggest we work it out?”
Both sets of eyebrows go sky high, and the men look at each other with satisfied grins.
I almost feel like matchmaking isn’t just for women after men reach a certain age.
Maybe I could be wrong, but the men seem pretty eager to start scoping out women for me.
“I think what we need to do is get Leah involved as well. We’ll scope out Walmart for a guy for her and a woman for you, and that should keep the ladies occupied.”
Somehow, the idea of them finding a man for Leah turns my stomach inside out and twists it into a horseshoe that survived a train wreck.
Protest is on the tip of my lips, and the words almost spill, but then I remember sharks and skydiving.
“Do you guys want to ask her if she’s willing, or do you want me to?”
“You’d better. Maybe you can make a deal with her, that she can go to Miss Agnes and see if Miss Agnes would be willing to scratch a couple of things off her bucket list if she gets to play Cupid.”
“Surely that shouldn’t be on her list,” Patrick says.
“You think?” Chubb says seriously.
Talk about the last thing in the world I want to do. Approach Leah and see if she’d be willing to let the residents find her a boyfriend tomorrow at the Walmart shopping trip.
She’ll think I’m off my rocker.
I grunt. I really am off my rocker. It is over there, and I’d gotten off it a while ago.
Goodness, my humor leaves a lot to be desired.
I am probably just laughing at anything, because my life has taken such an unexpected hard left.
I can’t even call it a U-turn, because it is not like I am going back over familiar territory.
Shopping for a potential partner isn’t something I’ve ever done before.
At least the guys aren’t suggesting I do it online. That would be even worse.
“We could document this on YouTube, or Facebook, or that snap thing whatever it is. Seems pretty popular with the youngsters. You could get a lot of traction out of this. Maybe you could even raise some money for the facility or raise money to take your significant others on our rafting trip.”
Oh boy. Now I am going to be picking up a chick at Walmart, and picking up a dude for Leah, and taking strangers on a rafting trip out in the middle of nowhere.
I need to make sure they somehow go through metal detectors before we leave.
“I feel like we should think about this. Sleep on it a bit maybe.”
“The Walmart trip is tomorrow. If you’re going to get Leah on board with this, you better say something to her, and then if you guys are good, we’ll have to get the ladies involved, and the less they think you know, the better off we’ll be. Ladies like to be sneaky,” Chubb says in a somewhat humorous tone, although I’m sure he is dead serious.
“I don’t know how you guys went about finding...” What were they even finding for me? Not a wife. Goodness no. No way. Heck no.
Girlfriend?
Please no. Not even that.
A date. I can call her a date.
“I don’t know how you guys went about finding yourselves dates back in the day, but you didn’t do it at Walmart, and you didn’t ask her to go on an overnight trip when you barely know her.”
That seems like a pretty solid argument, and I think I just won.
“Sharks,” Chubb says.
“Skydiving,” Patrick says.
“On second thought, you’re right. I don’t think I need to sleep on it. I’ll go say something to Leah right now.”
The old men smirk, look at each other, and then look out the window with those faraway expressions that old men wear quite often, that makes them look like they are deep in serious contemplation, but now I know better.
They aren’t contemplating anything except how to get the assisted living facility director to look like an idiot.
I feel like I’ve fallen right into a trap.
However, they are right. If I manage to keep the ladies, Leah included, out of the ocean and out of the sky, it will be worth it.
“You talk to the ladies, and you make it seem like Leah and I don’t know anything,” I say, not entirely comfortable with trying to keep such a big secret, but it won’t be secret for long, I am sure. “I’ll talk to Leah.”
I know she will be on board. With bells on.
Of course, what do I know about women? Maybe she will hate the idea.
Chapter 8
Leah
I’m ready to go home.
Normally, a typical trip to Walmart takes an hour, maybe an hour and half. Two if you count the ride there and back since there is no Walmart in Good Grief, and we have to go on the interstate for ten miles or so to get there.
We live closer to a big store than a lot of Idahoans do.
It’s a blessing and a curse, I suppose. When you have seniors to take shopping, it’s mostly a blessing.
Regardless, I’ve been here for four hours, and it’s been torture for three hours and fifty-five minutes.
I think Agnes and Harriet and Gertrude have been having fun though, which makes it a little more bearable.
I also imagine that Doug is just as miserable as I am, which makes it even more bearable.
Actually, it almost makes me want to smile.
I thought he was crazy when he came to me with this idea, but his logic was spot-on.
Ladies love romance, and they love to meddle in other people’s business.
If he and I give them something to meddle in, we will have leverage.
And we did. The shark cage is out.
Which, I gotta admit, relieves me.
“Could we hire you to be this woman’s boyfriend?” Agnes says, for what feels like the hundredth time, but I think it’s only fifteen. Harriet is keeping track.
I’m guessing this is something I’ll get teased about. That I couldn’t even pick up a man at Walmart.
I try to smile in a way that doesn’t look like my last husband is buried
under the front porch, and I’m hardly even that embarrassed anymore when the guy shakes his head and keeps walking.
“That one had a ring on his finger,” Gertrude says, and Agnes gives her a look.
“Really? I didn’t see it.”
“It was there. You can’t ask married men. Even though this is a fake situation, we’ve got standards, and we’re not hiring a married man to pretend to be her boyfriend. We’re just not. We have to draw the line somewhere.” Harriet is pretty easygoing, but when she puts her foot down, she really puts it down.
I have to agree with this. I am not interested in fake dating anyone, but I am definitely not interested in fake dating a married man.
My life is complicated enough. I don’t need an angry wife shooting at me.
“She needs something to make her look cute,” Gertrude says, easing herself down beside me on the bench where I’ve been allowed to sit for the last three men.
Before that I had to strike a pose in front of the doors.
Well, I was originally allowed to stand beside the doors, but when they couldn’t get the guys to stop, they had me scoot over so I was in front of the door, so I at least slowed them down before they disappeared into the store.
Just then my sister Claire comes in the door, and I jump up.
She’s carrying her little dog, Jello, and has both of her daughters with her along with her fiancé Trey, and I figure either they’re all taking a skip day and having some family shopping time, or there is a holiday I didn’t realize was going on.
Knowing Claire, she probably let her kids skip so she could hang out with them for a day.
She’s a good mom.
Trey is beside her, and they’re laughing and so deeply involved in each other that she doesn’t even see me until I’m almost beside her.
“Leah!” she says, and she gives me a hug, although we just saw each other in church on Sunday.
“Shopping day?” she asks, looking around my shoulder and waving at Gertrude and Agnes, and when her gaze goes to Harriet, her brow puckers, and she sweeps again. I suppose she’s probably looking for our shopping bags.
Typically, we don’t just hang out in the entryway of the store. She knows we get in and get out.
“Not exactly,” I say, wishing I hadn’t rushed over to see her. Now I’m going to have to explain what’s going on.
I greet my nieces and think about starting up a conversation about rocks or basketball, their main interests, to possibly head off the conversation that I am afraid I’m going to have to have now with my sister.
A gasp beside me makes me turn my head quickly.
“We could use her dog!” Agnes says, her finger pointing straight ahead as she moves toward my sister with confidence.
My sister doesn’t exactly back up, but her eyes do widen. Jello looks adorably cute in the bag over her shoulder. She’s a rather new addition to the family. Our dad’s a vet, and Jello was a stray that was brought into his practice. He had Claire keep her while he searched for the owner. No one ever claimed her, and Claire ended up adopting her.
Claire doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who walks around with a designer dog in her pocketbook, but she’s become that.
It suits her.
“What for?” Claire asks suspiciously, and I don’t blame her.
I remember what the conversation had been about before she walked in.
Making me look cute.
“Can I hold your dog while you shop?” I ask, trying to inject some enthusiasm in my voice.
“What for?” she asks again, and I realize that the conversation I didn’t want to have is going to have to be had.
If that makes sense.
My ladies aren’t shy, and they aren’t embarrassed. Harriet doesn’t have the same hesitation that I do, and she answers, her orange hair glowing under the fluorescent lights. “We are trying to hire a man to be Leah’s boyfriend and are not having any luck.” She puts an arm around me, and it feels so maternal I lean into her.
It’s been a hard day. Rejection is never easy, and rejection in front of an audience is even worse. But it’s for our assisted living center, so I’m taking it for the team.
Doug owes me.
Unless he’s been going through this too, and maybe he has since he hasn’t come parading by with his hired girlfriend.
Although, it wouldn’t surprise me if Doug got a girl on his first try.
He’s that kind of guy.
My heart stirs a little at that, in an angry kind of way or maybe it’s a jealous kind of way. Whatever kind of way it is, it’s uncomfortable and I don’t like it.
I turned my eyes back to my sister. “It’s a long story, and we’re going to need chocolate in order to tell it, so I’ll do it at our girls’ night on Sunday night, okay?”
She nods, still not looking certain but pulling her purse off her shoulder while patting Jello’s head.
“She doesn’t need the purse. She’ll just hold it,” Agnes says with authority while Claire jerks her head and sticks her hand in, scooping Jello out.
She hands the fluffy little dog to me, and I have to admit I’m charmed as I always am.
I also have to admit it’s probably a good idea.
Men might be able to resist me, but who can resist Jello? I’m not feeling very generous though, so I don’t tell Agnes that this is a brilliant idea.
I do thank my sister though, nod at her fiancé, and snuggle Jello to my chest.
She pushes in and sticks her nose right at the base of my throat. It’s cold, but her tongue is warm, and she makes me feel like maybe not everybody in the universe hates me.
I guess that’s what dogs do for us, right?
Maybe I should get one of my own.
After my sister Tammy decided not to get a dog, she ended up with a four-wheeler.
Maybe I’d better stick to cats.
Somehow, they just don’t give love like dogs do, though. Jello snuggles deeper, acting like she loves me to the moon and back, and after all the rejection I’ve faced today, I’m going to need to hold her for at least a year to get over it.
My sister and her family walk off after grabbing a cart, and the ladies position me where I started out, in the middle of the double doors, cuddling the puppy.
“That’s perfect. You are irresistible now,” Gertrude says, patting my shoulder, which I guess makes me feel a little better.
I promise myself that I’m going to make eggplant Parmesan tonight for supper. I’m not a big believer in comfort food and emotional eating, but sometimes, it’s necessary.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t smile. Men don’t want to see a woman with a goofy grin on her face for no reason,” Harriet says, patting Jello’s head, then stepping back and looking at the picture we make.
There is a reason for my smile. It’s the eggplant Parmesan. The thought’s enough to make anyone smile. But I try to wipe it off my face and get serious about this.
With my limited experience with men—two years of marriage to someone I pretty much wished I hadn’t married the day after we said “I do”—I really have no clue how to attract a man.
I’ve never really wanted to.
My conscience pokes me in the rib and says one word: “Doug.” I elbow it back and tell it to shut up.
“If the dog doesn’t work, we are going to have to run into the store and grab a shirt that shows some cleavage. That’s our last hope,” Agnes says, sounding very businesslike, while I try to think of something that could come up so that I don’t have to do it. Could I have forgotten a dentist appointment in Hawaii?
“We could just take her shirt off, and she could stand there in her undergarments. That would probably be just as effective,” Harriet says.
I promised myself I would be a good sport, but I can’t help it. I tilt my head and look at her. “Really?”
“You probably have a boring white bra on, don’t you?” Gertrude says, like that’s a sin or something.
�
�I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention to what color it was this morning,” I mumble, but it’s not really true. I honestly didn’t pay attention this morning, but I only own white bras. I didn’t realize there were laws against that.
“Well, no wonder we have to find a boyfriend for her,” Gertrude mumbles.
I’m feeling defensive, so that excuses my next words. “Ladies, are you trying to tell me that you guys are wearing any color other than white?”
“Mine are kind of a dirty gray,” Harriet says.
Agnes gives her a look. “Mine are bright red. And I can prove it.” She starts to lift up her shirt.
Okay. I like to think I’m a modern woman, but I admit I’m scandalized over this, and I shove Jello to one arm while putting my hand over top of Agnes’s hands.
“I believe you. Sorry I asked.”
I really am too. What does the color of a woman’s underwear have to do with anything, anyway?
“Places, ladies. We’ve got ourselves a prospect,” Agnes says looking out the door. “Oh yeah. This one looks like a good one.” Her white hair seems to float as she turns and looks at me. “Don’t smile.”
Trust me, I wasn’t even close to beginning to smile. But I don’t tell her that. I just look as grumpy as I feel.
And snuggle with Jello.
“Good day, sir. Would you be interested in earning some money as this lovely young lady’s hired boyfriend?”
I want to fall through the floor. I also am positive that this is going to be a no.
If Walmart had metal detectors, he’d be setting them off.
I count at least three knives, one in each pocket and one strapped on the outside of his lower pant leg.
I bet he’s got a gun strapped somewhere under his shirt. Maybe two guns.
He’s got a full beard, which makes his age hard to judge, and hair that looks like it hasn’t been cut since Christmas three years ago.
He’s big and brawny, and while Doug is not my type, this dude is not my type either.
But that’s okay, because I’m sure I’m not his type. I put my nose down on Jello and breathe deeply, looking up at the dude, and maybe I’m even a little coy, since I know that this is going nowhere. And fast.
Me and the Helpful Hurricane (Good Grief, Idaho) Page 7