Men of the Year

by Colleen McMillan

  “Was someone there to save you?”

  “Kind of. My roommate dragged me to the infirmary, but no one was there, so she had to call an ambulance. I would have gotten into a lot of trouble for underage drinking if I hadn’t almost died!” He gives me an odd look but doesn’t say anything. “We had a laugh about it later, but she was freaked out for months. Wouldn’t let me set foot outside without an escort.”

  “Do you like the wine?” he blurts, and I’m taken aback. Did I offend him?

  “Yes, it’s wonderful. I’ve never had organic wine. I suppose I should switch but it’s expensive.”

  “If more people bought it, it wouldn’t have to be so expensive,” he says, almost chastising me. “The same goes for organic produce. It’s only expensive because so few people are willing to throw out the processed junk and treat their bodies respectfully.”

  “You could look at it that way. Some people simply can’t afford it.”

  “They could afford it if they avoided fast food chains and other restaurants.” We’re silent for a moment and I contemplate the bread. It tastes good but keeps sticking in my throat. The jam is very gooey.

  “You don’t like to go out to restaurants?” I ask, hoping it’s an innocent question. You can’t live in the city and not enjoy restaurants. There are so many to choose from with exquisite food. Not every place uses poor ingredients and high fat oils.

  “Never. Restaurants need to make money, so they use cheap ingredients to get away with bad flavor. I have my own vegetable garden and have fruit delivered from growers all over the country. I don’t trust most local produce.”

  “But we’re a farming state,” I counter, and he gives me an “oh please” look. “There has to be some good food here. There’s a huge farmer’s market in St. Paul and it has tons of organic stuff.”

  “I’d rather grow my own to be safe. You never know what those farmers are really using on the crops. If I found out even one apple had pesticide on it…” he mimes throwing up, and I’m shocked by his stubbornness. I get food from the market all the time and I’m fine.

  “I eat out a lot but try to stay healthy.”

  “I’m surprised you’re as fit as you are,” he says and looks me over, unsure if I’m telling the truth. If I eat at restaurants I must be depraved.

  “I run in the morning.”

  “That’s it? No weight training or other cardio?”

  “Nope.”

  “I find running dull. Especially in the gym. A treadmill doesn’t take you anywhere.”

  “I only use the gym once the cold gets too bad in winter.”

  “But that’s six months out of the year,” he says, incredulous. “I don’t know how you can stand it. Even running outside is so boring. My mind wanders. Now, cycling is more intense. You have to be focused to cycle at a competitive level.” And running doesn’t take focus?

  “I find running therapeutic. Almost cathartic. What I can’t understand is why people become gym rats. Exercise takes over their lives so nothing’s left, but calories eaten, calories burned, and muscle tone.”

  “I suppose you belong to one of those open-all-night energy hog gyms too,” he says, disdain dripping from his lips. What in the hell is he talking about? “And you waste energy by using air conditioning?”

  “Do you leave your lights off all year long to conserve energy?”

  “Of course not—”

  “Then don’t bash my air conditioning. We pale people don’t like extreme heat.” My argument is shoddy, but I’m getting angry. What right does he have to criticize me? About air conditioning? Maybe if I were a small third world country dictator hording all the AC then I could see his point.

  “I don’t either, but you don’t see me polluting the planet just to keep cool. Wear shorts or something.”

  “Even with shorts on it’s too hot in my place,” I seethe, waiting for his reply. Obsessive people make me crazy. If it’s not “we should all go back to being hunters and gatherers,” it’s “we’re killing the planet by turning on a fluorescent light bulb.”

  “You should try harder. The more people turning off that unnecessary equipment the better.”

  Fed up, I say, “Where is all this coming from? I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “You’re an admitted criminal who probably dines at the Olive Garden once a week and uses air conditioning even though it’s bad for the environment.” He shudders, as if I’m a super villain bent on world domination. And the Olive Garden’s not that bad, it’s just not that good either.

  “Criminal?”

  “You said you stepped on the hornet’s nest when you were drinking underage. You get fined for that and ticketed. Doesn’t it go on your permanent record?” So that’s what set him off. He’s probably never committed any violation his entire life.

  “And you’ve never made mistakes?”

  “Never.” That’s foolish. No one’s perfect. People make mistakes. I’ll bet even Mother Theresa had closet skeletons.

  “You’ve never smoked a cigarette or shoplifted? Never blew some girl off because she wasn’t a vegetarian or something?”

  “Aren’t you a vegetarian?” he asks, arms crossed in a defensive posture.

  “Hell no. Aside from a brief junior high delusion. I love steak.”

  “I knew it,” he says triumphantly. “You lied on your profile.” Uh oh.

  “I never did. If you took something out of context it’s not my fault.” I stand and grab my purse, upsetting my wine glass. A dark stain spreads across the checked fabric. I hope it attracts ants. “I feel bad for any Sherpa who tried to get you up a mountain. Imagine trying to get your fat head up the Himalayas.” I spin and walk away.

  “You didn’t seem this combative in your emails,” he yells after me. Asshole.

  “Maybe you should say you prefer submissive women in your profile,” I say over my shoulder.

  There must be a marathon or a fun run going on, because everyone in the Twin Cities is getting in my way this morning. I run at the same time every day, and it’s never this congested. But today someone radio-trafficked all pedestrians to stand on the sidewalk and chat or walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk. It’s like a road, people! This is not England! Move! Get in the correct lane!

  My usual calm is replaced by a slow-burning rage that may explode onto whomever I meet next. I swerve around a pair of nannies pushing strollers along as if it were mid-afternoon. A hotel dog walker surrounded by labs, poodles, terriers, and mutts is dragged across my path, to and fro without apology. She glares at me when I become entangled in the leashes and almost fall. Extraction takes ten minutes, and when I finally start running again, I’ve lost my rhythm. What in the hell is up with people today? A meandering bicycle couple push me over the edge, and I race past them and cut back into my lane. They yell something after me about being more careful, and I feel like turning around and breathing fire at them. Fuck you.

  All I ask for in the morning is some alone time, with maybe a few other runners here and there to greet as I run by. This early morning circus is completely uncalled for, especially after yesterday.

  After eating the chocolate, I purchased last night, I went online and signed up for one of those free online dating sites. I wanted to see what the hell men want, because I ruined things with Greg, and I have no idea how I did it. Maybe he liked me because he saved me. I was vulnerable, and he could help me. The typical white knight syndrome? Is that what men are most attracted to? Someone who needed saving? Someone easily dominated? I had to find out.

  The tacky website with its bold type and advertisements for other singles sites had hundreds of profiles. A single girl could find any type of guy she wanted, or so it claimed. I wondered if there are as many women signed up but don’t have time to check the bisexual box and look. There were too many profiles to go through.

  Most men had a long list of traits they wanted a prospective girlfriend to have: funny, out-going, athletic, slim, full-figured, blonde, goo
d sense of humor, fun, truthful, trustworthy, caring, thoughtful, likes sports, watches hip TV shows, doesn’t smoke, drinks occasionally, and intelligence. Pretty much every guy listed “intelligence” as one of his main attractors.

  That last one threw me, because if that’s what men want then why don’t more intelligent women have boyfriends. You see career women divorced or alone because they became more successful than their husbands. Women like Keeley with college degrees and oodles of smarts don’t appeal to the same type of guy: those college grads want nothing to do with her once they get past her looks and hear her thoughts. And I’m no genius, but whoever made me didn’t leave out the brain. I see myself as a fairly smart person; at least I can keep up mentally with most people, except theoretical physicists and math majors. When I dated in college, guys told me how smart I was right before they dumped me. I was good for a bar trivia team but too daunting to go out with. Pete said the first thing that attracted him to me was my smile, then my brain, but he’s gone too. Greg wasn’t impressed with my independent thoughts and basically said he wanted someone who wouldn’t challenge his opinions or beliefs. I’m up for a good debate, but people who won’t see another’s point of view bother me. Greg didn’t like my brain. He wanted me to remain the wasp-stung, nervous-on-a-bike maiden, someone he could sweep off her feet and carry along with him.

  I logged off the site, shut down my computer without writing in my journal about Greg, and went to bed early. Tomorrow’s run would help ease my agitation.

  Except it doesn’t. The line outside Minnie’s is so long it snakes out onto the sidewalk, and the customers block my path. Seriously, I think as I weave around them on the street, what are people thinking today? Is it a full moon?

  An SUV jockeying for a close parking space nearly creams me and honks when I rush past, the passenger flips me off. I don’t think it’s going to be a very good day. My run is ruined, all I can think about is Greg and his outlandish complaints. I realize on the way home that I’m angry with myself for letting Greg get to me. I haven’t been this irate since May when the girls sprang The Plan on me. Are the four failed dating attempts getting to me? Is there something wrong with me? I need to go somewhere I’m appreciated and talk with people who know me well and care about me.

  Time to go to work, where at least some things still make sense.

  “How is Kiss and Tell coming along?” asks Kelly. I stand next to Justin, Carly, and Joe in her office with portfolio and notes in hand. They glance at me, and Carly chortles under her breath. She’s working with Justin on the enormous dramatic piece by Carlos Ruiz and is almost finished with the first edit. Joe has gone over his piece about whale watching off New England and is ready for another assignment. I feel uncomfortable with my manuscript and still haven’t put a mark on it.

  “Everything’s going well,” I say, trying to cover my embarrassment. I don’t have anything to show Kelly besides a few handwritten notes. Carly whipped out a huge binder at the meeting’s beginning and went into a twenty minutes monologue on how she and Justin have managed to condense one thousand pages down to eight hundred and still can cut more. Justin rolled his eyes and looked at me, begging for assistance, but I couldn’t help him. Carly’s his problem until they finish the manuscript. He didn’t shave this morning and is looking rather rugged. I mimed choking and he suppressed a laugh.

  I’m not laughing now.

  “Do you have anything to share?” asks Carly, feigning sweetness, and Kelly clears her throat and says, “It is a difficult book to get through. A lot of work must go into it, and Cassandra is the perfect one for the job.” Whew. At least Kelly stands up for me. Stupid Carly. I’m surprised she didn’t have a PowerPoint presentation. “I expect to see your first revisions by Friday, Cassandra. Justin and Carly, you are both doing an excellent job. You three can go. Joe, I’ve got a new batch of essays for you.”

  We shuffle out and Justin mouths, “Lunch?” I nod and turn for my office. Kevin is back from vacation, so it’s time for a "Three Publisheers" luncheon meeting. We fight for justice and protect Editing Queen Kelly from harm and slander.

  I work on Kiss and Tell until noon, and Kevin peeks in. “You ready? Mountain Man over there wants to try the new sushi place down the street.”

  “Why didn’t he shave today?” I ask and giggle. Kevin shrugs and says, “Maybe he lost his razor. Maybe he felt like channeling the Brawny guy. I have no idea. Ask him yourself.”

  “I will,” I answer, a haughty lilt in my voice.

  “So prim and proper, Miss Cassandra. The only editor who can handle rough sex and romance.”

  “Shhhh! What are you talking about?”

  “Kiss and Tell. Isn’t it racy and divine! What are you talking about?”

  “How do you know it’s racy? I’m the only one besides Kelly who’s read it.”

  “I’ve read everything Elizabeth Hanks has written, so if there aren’t some juicy scenes in the new one, call me straight and set me up with your sister.”

  “I don’t have a sister,” I grumble and grab my purse. “And the sex scenes aren’t that good. I’ve read better.”

  “Bet you haven’t had better.” What a dick.

  Justin looks shifty beside the elevators, and he keeps glancing left and right as if something is hunting him. “Hurry up,” he says. “Carly’s been hounding me about taking her to lunch since I got here this morning. Says we need to talk more about the Ruiz manuscript. She keeps cutting good stuff and I have to fight to put it back in.”

  The editor’s dilemma, what to cut and what to keep. Some editors, like Carly, have no feeling for a work; they cut everything that seems superfluous and move on, like a glacier stripping a mountainside. I don’t think she reads the manuscripts but combs them for errors then moves on. If a passage is in passive voice, for instance, she changes it automatically, where Justin or I might look at the sentence, tinker with it, then realize the author had a reason for writing the sentence that way, because there are no other passive voice sentences in the chapter. Editing is a difficult process, because we often cut the writer’s favorite words or change things he or she desperately wants to keep, but we are necessary. If every writer got to keep all material in his or her work nothing would sell. Books would break shelves from excess adjectives and adverbs. But if Carly had her way, the most exciting and different parts of people’s works would be cut away like spilt ends.

  “Poor baby,” says Kevin who grabs Justin by the tie and drags him into the elevator. “At least you don’t have Cassie’s problems. Too much sex,” he whispers at the end.

  “Not enough plot is more like it,” I fire back, and Justin smiles.

  “Romance novels don’t need plot, hon,” says Kevin. He ticks things off on his fingers: “The reader should laugh, cry, get horny and feel happy by the end.”

  It’s certainly making me cry.”

  “About the narrator’s misfortunes or run-on sentences?” asks Justin.

  “I hate you both.”

  We walk to the sushi place and order an obscene amount of California rolls. Before digging in, Kevin asks, “How did the second date with Sir Gregory go?” I have yet to write about the second date, and the girls are getting antsy about lack of reading material. Kevin has been more patient, like a five-year-old who wants a sucker opposed to a two-year-old. “I don’t have time to wait for your next tome, so spill.”

  Justin loads his plate with green wasabi and mixes it in his soy sauce, but he doesn’t look at Kevin or me, disinterested. His inattention surprises me, since he was so keen to chastise me when we last had lunch.

  “It didn’t go as well as hoped,” I say and grab a roll. The tiny crabmeat morsel pops out and lands next to my plate. I pick it up with chopsticks and stab it back into the roll, which makes the avocado and cucumber slide out. “Get in there!”

  “I see,” he says and glances at Justin. “It didn’t go well.”

  “We got in a fight about organic food and energy conservation.”
Justin chokes on his food and Kevin roars and grabs his stomach. “It’s not funny!”

  “It so is!” says Kevin, and the server walks past with a raised eyebrow. Keep it down, he implies, this is not a feeding trough.

  “It was stupid. I lost my temper. Although he was a huge pompous, arrogant ass whose penis is probably proportionate to his height.”

  “Did you know it saves more energy to keep your lights on at all times rather than turning them off when you leave the room?” asks Justin, and Kevin and I leer at him. Crestfallen, he looks down at his food and shrugs, “Just a thought.”

  “That can’t be right,” I say.

  “I’m sure it is, even if it sounds weird,” says Justin, who brightens at my reply. “There was a show on about it a while back—”

  “Off topic,” interjects Kevin. “We’re discussing Cassie’s love life.”

  “I’d rather discuss energy conservation with Greg again.” I drop my chopsticks and one rolls onto the floor. Justin rises to get me a fresh set, and Kevin eyes him with suspicion.

  “Have you noticed anything different about that boy?”

  “No,” I say. “Why?”

  “It’s nothing, maybe.” A thought forms in Kevin’s mind, and I watch it unfold in his facial tics. First, he narrows his eyes and stares off into space, his lips purse together and he licks them, then he nods slightly and looks back at me. “Do you think he’s into Carly?”

  “What? That’s preposterous, and I mean that in a using-a-big-word kind of way. He can’t stand her.”

  “Or is that what he wants us to think?” Kevin rubs his chin like a cartoon villain and says, “What if he slept with her and is trying to avoid her? Maybe that’s why he looked panicked in the office.” Kevin with an idea is not a good thing. If he’s right, he’ll act so superior you’d think he was the Queen of England. Even if he’s wrong, he’ll prance about the office and taunt you with his implied knowledge. It drives me crazy when he says he has a secret, because I never know if it’s true or not. His hunches hit home occasionally, which makes him infuriating.