The guy glances at me, and his step doesn’t even slow, but then his eyes fall to Jello, and his booted hoof, I mean foot, stops short.
His eyes go to Agnes.
“Nice day outside, ma’am,” he says. His voice is slow and deep and not unpleasant at all. Actually, I kind of like it. It seems a little at odds with the way the dude looks, but sometimes voices do.
“It sure is. And it would be much better if you had a girl on your arm,” Agnes says, and I feel like I kind of know why she never got married.
“Well, ma’am, I might have to disagree with that. In my experience, women are a pack of trouble, on a good day.” He has blue eyes and they twinkle, and I feel like he might be safe, actually.
I’m still not worried about him saying yes to this crazy proposition though. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that the ladies are going to have a good time and a fun day trying to find me a boyfriend, and we’re going to go home without one.
Which isn’t surprising, but honestly, I’m not disappointed.
None of the guys that I’ve seen can hold a candle to Doug, and he’s not my type.
Really. He’s not my type.
I kinda chuckle to myself. Because it’s such a lie. A clean-cut guy, who is serious about his job, who has compassion and maybe even a sense of humor, who’s responsible and has character. Of course he’s my type.
He’s every girl’s type. The fact that he isn’t bad to look at certainly helps. I kind of like Doug with his few imperfections since they make me feel better about mine.
“How much does the gig pay? And how long does it last?” the guy says, and a small slice of panic moves through me. This is more interest than anyone else has shown.
Just to be sure, my eyes track to his hand. No ring.
Gertrude tells him what we agreed on. “We are going on a whitewater rafting trip, and she needs a boyfriend for it. We pay for your trip, and you get a little spending money.” She names the price we agreed on, figuring that was pretty much double the average weekly wage.
“Well, ma’am, you might not believe this, but I actually own a whitewater rafting rental company, and if you book your trip through me, I’ll agree to your deal. I’ll be that lady’s fake boyfriend, as long as she ditches the dog.”
“You don’t like the dog?” I ask, forgetting my vow to keep my mouth shut.
“It’s cute. I’ll give you that. But not on a whitewater rafting trip. It’ll just get in the way.”
“Well, it’s not mine anyway,” I say, not really paying attention, because my insides have just turned to stone.
I think the dude’s going to do it. I’m looking at my new fake boyfriend.
While he’s not completely terrible, I know the ladies are going to be trying to set us up, and suddenly I remember that I need to make an appointment for a root canal. Maybe the dentist can see me tomorrow.
Chapter 9
Doug
Patrick and Chubb and I walk across the front aisle of Walmart with Melissa, the woman who has agreed to be my fake girlfriend, following us.
She is the first one we asked.
It took a long time to ask someone because Chubb and Patrick couldn’t agree on a girl who was “good enough,” for me, I guess, or maybe good enough for Cherry Tree. I’m not sure.
She had to be dressed and not still in her jammies, and I’m not being discriminatory; I’m just telling you what Chubb and Patrick said.
She couldn’t be wearing a ring, of course. And that was my requirement.
Chubb wasn’t so strict on that, which gave me a whole new perspective on him, but everyone has their faults, I guess. Patrick agreed with me though.
Thankfully. Although, I’m pretty sure I had veto power on that one.
I would have demanded it anyway.
The men said she couldn’t look weird, whatever that was. That was another one of Chubb’s demands.
Patrick said she had to look classy.
They were very particular about who they set me up with.
Anyway, Melissa and I haven’t exactly hit it off. At least not on my end.
I’m not sure why she agreed, as she didn’t look exactly thrilled about the whitewater rafting trip.
She doesn’t really look like the kind of girl who would enjoy whitewater rafting.
After they said that, she took another look at me before she said yes.
I kinda feel like since she introduced herself as “Melissa” and not Missy, or Lissa, or some other nickname version of Melissa, that she is just as prim and proper as she looks.
She said she is a legal assistant and works in a law firm in a town down the road.
That puts us about forty-five minutes apart.
She was willing to take a vacation and come on our trip, after we offered to pay her, of course.
I’m not sure I like the way she’s looking at me, and I hope she understands that fake really means fake. That I’m not actually looking for a girlfriend.
Although, I suppose she and I would bore ourselves in a way that would make us marriageable material. Except I’m not really looking to get married again.
As I think that, Leah’s face comes to mind. Her goofiness, and her willingness to jump in with both feet, and the way she totally throws herself into her job or whatever she’s doing.
She just lives with her eyes wide open, and her heart too. Which is a really dumb way to live. It makes me uncomfortable.
Melissa seems like the opposite. She’s very closed. She holds her purse just so and her feet just so, and I’m guessing that accepting two old men and a middle-aged man’s proposition of being a fake girlfriend is not something that she would ever have thought she would find herself doing.
She does still seem kind of surprised, and I can’t help but feel like she must need the money.
Regardless, we walk over to the other set of doors—we were working on people who are leaving the store, while Leah and her ladies were working on the people who were coming in.
We felt that working at the same door wasn’t a good idea.
It looks like they’ve...caught someone.
Everything inside my ribs feels like a bottomless pit as I look at the man that they’ve “hired” to be Leah’s fake boyfriend.
He looks dangerous.
I assume that’s the guy they’ve hired.
Unless they thought we needed a bodyguard too.
Unbidden, the thought comes to me—is this the kind of guy that Leah is attracted to?
He’s brawny and could pretty much make two of me. Not that he’s fat. Actually, he’s less chubby than I am.
I’ve got some middle-age spread going on, and he doesn’t. He’s just one of those heavyset dudes, who puts weight on through his chest and shoulders while his hips are narrow, and I don’t find that the slightest bit attractive, of course, but I guess women might.
Maybe Leah does.
I’m never gonna look like that though. When I put weight on, it goes directly to my midsection. With another twenty pounds and a beard, I could convincingly play Santa Claus. Even my hair is more salt than pepper.
Leah is standing there talking to the man, and it looks like she’s holding her sister’s dog, Jello.
Her sister even takes the dog to church.
At least she has once or twice.
I think when it was younger, she didn’t want to leave it alone. Regardless, it’s kind of weird to see Leah holding the adorable little dog.
If my heart wasn’t already having somersaulting problems, that would cause it to do another slow curl.
She looks good with the puppy. Her hands are holding it gently, and she’s stroking it while the puppy is all snuggled up next to her.
I wonder if Leah is a cuddly type.
I’ve got to stop thinking about these things. I push the thought away, although it wants to linger, since my ex was not a cuddly type.
Melissa, whom I’d almost forgotten about, does not seem like the cuddly type either.
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Maybe I don’t seem like the cuddly type, but there’s just something about curling up with your wife that makes marriage a picture of heaven.
For me anyway.
We reach them. Leah has seen us coming. Before any of the older folks can say anything, she gives us a generic smile and doesn’t meet my eyes. “This is Bain, and not only has he agreed to our stipulations, he also owns a whitewater rafting company that gives tours down the Snake River, and he will give us a deep discount on a four-day rafting trip.”
She sounds a little robotic, in my opinion, as she says that.
I admit it bothers me some.
It also makes me happy, in small way. I get the idea that she isn’t thrilled with her fake boyfriend.
Which, since I’m not exactly thrilled with my fake girlfriend, seems like a good thing.
I step forward. “Good to meet you, Bain. I’m Doug.” He grabs my hand, and I like his firm handshake. Bain puts me in mind of what I think a mountain man would be like, which seems like that wouldn’t be the kind of guy I would be good friends with, but I get the idea that, if circumstances were different, I would like Bain.
There’s a shifting inside me, and a feeling of irritation seems to hit me, and I realize that I’m supposed to have a partner now.
Is a girlfriend a partner?
I kinda feel that way about a wife.
I guess I’ve been out of the dating pool long enough that I’m not even sure that girlfriend is the right word. Does a man who is looking hard at fifty have a girlfriend? It seems like a high school term.
A woman friend.
They make all kinds of crazy names for everything else; you’d think they’d come up with something new for someone who’s middle age who has a friend who’s more than a friend but not a fiancée or wife.
Maybe they have. Maybe I’ve just missed it since this hasn’t really been my thing.
Regardless, I stifle my sigh and turn to my side. “This is Melissa, and she’s agreed to our terms.” I look her in the eyes as I say this, and while Melissa isn’t who I would have chosen, she probably does suit me really well. I just hope this is giving the ladies something to keep them occupied, because while I’m sure Melissa is a very nice person, I find myself wishing it were Leah the ladies were trying to set me up with.
For some reason, I feel like that would be fun, while I have a vague desire to move away from Melissa.
We make some arrangements, and Bain says that he’ll send us the tours and prices he has available as soon as he gets back to the office.
I suppose finding one fake boyfriend and a guide for our whitewater rafting trip along with one fake girlfriend isn’t bad for four hours of work, and it got us out of the shark-infested waters, so I’m happy with it.
We do our shopping, which doesn’t take very long, I think the ladies are tired, and we head home.
As Leah is getting off the bus, I stop her.
“Before you go home today, can I talk to you in my office?”
She gives me a look I can’t decipher, and I add, “Please.”
I am the boss, and I haven’t forgotten it, but I feel like things have been changing between Leah and me, and I’m not sure exactly where we stand together. I’ve already figured out that it doesn’t really matter to her whether or not she has this job, although the ladies matter to her.
I think I care more about her staying and keeping her job than she does.
And it’s not because I can’t find another activities director, although I will never be able to find one as good as she is.
But it’s because despite Melissa and Bain and the matchmaking efforts of the elderly folk around us, I realize I’ve come to look forward to seeing her every day, and I would miss her, probably more than I realize, if she weren’t around.
That is definitely not something I’m going to say to her. It’s not what I want to talk to her about at all.
“I will,” she says, and then she keeps moving, off the bus, and with her arm around Miss Harriet and her other arm linked with Miss Gertrude, she disappears into the facility.
Like any sane man, I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.
Bain is as good as his word, and there’s a message waiting for me from him when I walk into my office.
He said he had a cancellation and he can book us for next week.
I wonder if he really had a cancellation, or if he’s not busy. And if he’s not busy, I wonder why.
Because I care about the people in my facility, I call him back, intent on getting some questions answered before I just go with the opportunity that’s placed itself in front of me.
Maybe I’m crazy, and maybe I’m too suspicious, but I’m not going to let the people in my care go anywhere with someone I don’t trust.
And maybe part of it is Leah. This is supposed to be her fake boyfriend for the trip. I might resent that a little, and perhaps I’m looking for problems that aren’t there. Something that will keep us from associating with him and from my having to watch them together.
Leah is not exactly mine. She’s not my responsibility, not my girl, but yes, there’s just something inside of a man that wants to protect the people I care about.
I care about Leah. There. I’ve admitted it.
And she really brings out my protective instinct.
All right, it probably has to do with the feelings of attraction that I have for her and the way I feel when I’m around her, and it was hard enough to admit that I’ll probably miss her when she leaves.
I don’t want to have to examine the feelings of wanting to protect her now while she’s here. So I’m not going to.
“Hello?” The familiar voice of the man I just met a few hours ago answers the telephone.
“Bain, it’s Doug.”
“Right. The Walmart dude. The guy who’s with my fake girlfriend.” Bain gives a huff of breath that could be a chuckle. “Is it okay that I’m kinda weirded out by all of that? I mean, obviously I agreed to it, and I’m kind of intrigued, but this is not normal, right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Thanks. I mean, things change so fast that I can’t keep up, and I’ve actually quit trying, but that’s another story. I just wasn’t expecting to be hit with a proposition as I walked in to do my grocery shopping.”
“Yeah. I see how that could be a little disconcerting.”
I wonder if I’m using words that are too big for him. Not in a mean kind of way, just I hate it when people are talking to me and I can’t understand what they’re saying.
“You got it there, dude. Flipped my brisket for a minute, but hey, if it’s going to bring me some business, I’m down for it.”
“About that. You said you had a cancellation?”
“Yeah. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. I had some people who said they were interested in booking next week, and yesterday was the day they were supposed to get back to me by. I got a message from them when I got here that they’re not going through with it.”
“I see.” I tap my fingers on my desk. “Have you been doing this long?”
“Funny you should ask. This is my first year.”
“Have you ever gone down the river?” His words are not exactly easing my mind.
“Sure have. I grew up on the river. In the woods. My parents were kind of hippies, and while we owned an acre in the woods and lived in a cabin with no electricity and no heat other than a woodstove, we roamed all over the national park land. Uncle Sam probably doesn’t know he was feeding my parents and my brothers and me for the first twenty years of my life. I suppose it’s illegal, but my parents did it anyway.”
“You lived out of the woods?”
“Sure did. Mushrooms, moss, small animals, we did some trapping, too. It was probably illegal, although I was out of the house before I realized that you needed permits and stuff to do that.”
All right, so the dude is unconventional, and someone that definitely would not fit in back in California, but t
he more he talks, the safer I feel going down the river with him and trusting the ladies and gentlemen in my care to him.
Not Leah. I wouldn’t completely entrust her to him. I don’t want to look into that too deeply.
Maybe it’s arrogant, it probably is, but I feel like I’m a better man for her than he is. Not a better man if one were lining us up side by side, just better for Leah.
“Sounds like you’re pretty well versed in living outside.”
“I sure am. But I can function in society, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve actually held a couple of different jobs with regular hours.”
“No. I wasn’t really worried about that.”
“I can put your mind at ease or anyone else who might be concerned. I speak English, and I’m potty trained.”
I had to grin over that one. I can appreciate a man with a sense of humor.
“I am more comfortable outside than I am in,” Bain says. “I had to leave the mountain in order to make enough money to outfit my business. Guiding tours is as close as I’m going to get to living the way I want.”
“I get that.” Honestly, I really do. The more time I spend in Idaho, the more I am sure I am not going anywhere else ever. The country has grown on me, kinda just slipped in between my cells with its tentacles and became a part of me and made me so I want to stay.
Completely satisfied with everything that Bain has said, I give him my card number, reserve the dates, and tell him I’d be back in touch with the number of people that are going.
I don’t think any of the other residents want to go, but I’m not entirely sure.
I hang up the phone, satisfied but still a little uneasy. Bain is a nice dude, and I’m not entirely sure that Leah, even if she doesn’t particularly care for him now, won’t be enraptured with him after spending four days watching Bain in his element.
I tell myself that if anything is meant to be between Leah and me, it will work out, then I wonder why I bother. Am I really interested?
None of that seems very concrete, and I don’t like dealing with things I can’t nail down. But it’s all I have, so I have to be content. For now.
Me and the Helpful Hurricane (Good Grief, Idaho) Page 8