Helena smiled, all congenial and girlfriendly now. “I can always count on you, Kenzie. I have everything ready for you in my office.”
My stride was instantly longer, my posture two inches taller, and I fought to control the giddy grin that threatened to burst over my face. Helena was finally making good on her promise to delegate visible assignments. If this one involved Donald Trump or the mayor, I’d simply have to endure my man allergy for the afternoon for the sake of my new assignment. A girl had to make sacrifices to get ahead.
Helena swung open the door to her office and I followed, but my elongated stride was cut short by the sight of the visitor sitting in Helena’s leather guest chair. A little dog covered with hair longer than mine sat on her pretty little haunches, took one look at me, and yawned. A bad feeling settled on top of my Caesar salad.
“This is Angel,” Helena sang, scooping up the pooch and bringing it close enough for me to see that the pink ribbon between its pointy little ears was silk. And Versace. “This is Kenzie,” Helena cooed to the dog.
The only thing that surpassed my surprise over seeing the frou-frou dog in Helena’s pristine office was the sound of my boss speaking in baby-talk. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“I bought her last night at a pet store on Fifty-Third. Isn’t she adorable?”
“Adorable,” I agreed.
“She’s a Yorkie, a former show dog,” Helena gushed. “Her ancestors belonged to royalty.”
“Ah.” I extended my hand for a trial stroke, and Angel emitted an un-angelic growl. I withdrew my hand.
Helena laughed. “Oh, she didn’t mean that—Angel is as tame as a stuffed animal. She just needs to get to know you better. By the time you get back from Tatum’s the two of you will be fast friends.”
I stared at the creature that resembled a miniature version of Cousin It from the “Addams Family.” “This—” I swallowed and started again. “This is the appointment you can’t make?”
“Uh-huh,” Helena said ruefully. “I just got a thank-you call from the mayor’s office about the public service ads we ran last month on tourism—they want to get a handshake picture, and of course I couldn’t say no. But Angel has an appointment at Tatum’s, the most exclusive grooming salon in the city, and if I miss this appointment, they’ll blacklist her.”
I’d lived in Manhattan long enough to know that those things did happen—even the animals here had a social circle. Still, as far as executive assistant duties went, dog-sitting went a little beyond the normal tasks of picking up the dry cleaning, getting theater tickets and making dinner reservations. “Helena, I’m not a concierge. You said you were going to give me an assignment that would make a difference in my career.”
Helena nodded. “You’re so right, Kenzie, and I promise the next big assignment that crosses my desk will be yours. Just do me this one teensy favor.”
I looked at the little mutt and groaned inwardly. “But I’m allergic to pet dander.”
“I’ll owe you one,” Helena said in her most cajoling voice.
I sighed. “In that case, I’d like to leave the office early on Thursday.”
She pursed her perfectly penciled mouth. “How early?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“I mean…it’s a deal.” Helena recovered with a magnanimous smile, then shoved Angel into my arms.
2
“SO WHAT did you have to do to get out of the office early?” Jacki asked me over the top of our sweet and sour margaritas. Over the past couple of years, my girlfriends and I had gone through a martini phase and a Cosmopolitan phase and now were back to good old tequila…al though we had graduated to El Tesoro Platinum. Olé.
I didn’t want to admit to the girls that I’d been reduced to a dog valet (simply thinking about the horrid afternoon at the pet salon made me flinch), so I shrugged. “Helena isn’t as evil as everyone thinks. She has a soft spot.” For her pooch, I didn’t add. When I’d delivered news from the groomer that Helena should consider having Angel’s wings (i.e., ovaries) clipped, my boss had been outraged. I suspected her reluctance to fix Angel had something to do with Helena’s own well-publicized struggle with the onset of menopause.
And I promised myself this would be the last time I would defend my boss until the career-altering project she promised materialized. In truth, a festering resentment against Helena had been building inside me all week, and today I was feeling defiant of her and of life in general. I was thirty-one, and Thirty-One Candles was not the title of a movie because, as birthdays go, it was an unremarkable milestone. But I was decidedly restless and looking to be liberated from my six-month career marathon. Plus tequila always made me a tad horny. Olé.
I did a slow scan of the bar—between the regrettable one-year stint with my ex James and my new job, I’d been off the market for a while. Among the sea of faces, a boyish grin caught my eye. A sandy-haired man was chatting with the bartender and tossing back a handful of nuts. He looked out of place—woodsy almost, with his L. L. Bean T-shirt (I knew Tshirts) and sunburned cheeks. That was no tanning salon tan. He seemed to be comfortably alone—no guy (or girl) friends on the periphery, and he wasn’t looking up every few seconds to see if anyone was on the make.
Like me, for instance.
“So how’s your man allergy?” Cindy asked, jarring me out of my reverie.
Darn, I’d almost forgotten. “Active,” I murmured, realizing that the man at the bar was just the kind of guy I normally went for. Which meant he’d probably throw my body into metabolic chaos.
“Don’t tell me you’re still hanging on to that pitiful excuse for not meeting men?” Jacki said.
“I’m telling you, it’s for real,” I insisted. “And it’s for my own good.”
“Well, you’re going to have to risk an outbreak,” Denise said, then exchanged devilish grins with Cindy and Jacki. “At least for one night.”
I squinted. “What are you three up to?”
“Happy Birthday,” Denise shouted, then plopped a gaily wrapped package onto the table. “It’s from all of us.”
“You shouldn’t have,” I said, but I welled with pleasure.
In my lifetime I had experienced a high rate of friend turnover because I and everyone I knew seemed to be in perpetual motion—every apartment and every job seemed eerily temporary, a pit stop to somewhere potentially more fulfilling. I had met Denise, Jacki and Cindy when we all worked for a textbook publisher over four years ago. From there our careers had taken different paths, but we had managed to stay in touch. I treasured the low-maintenance, high-gossip bond I shared with these three women.
I dutifully read the humorous card, then tore into the package thinking jewelry! Perfume! Handbag! The girls always knew just the right gift.
When the paper revealed a description of the box contents, however, I decided they must have run out of good ideas. “A Make Your Own Dildo kit?”
“Isn’t it great?” Denise asked, squealing.
I stared at the box, which portrayed a woman from the waist up. Her hands were out of sight, and she looked pleased with herself. “M-make my own? I’m not much of an artist.”
Jacki scoffed. “You don’t sculpt the dildo—you make a cast.”
“From what?”
“From the real thing, silly.”
I gaped. “You mean…?”
They all screamed with laughter, nodding. “Since you’re allergic to sexy men,” Jacki said dryly, “we thought we’d buy you something that would kill two birds with one stone.”
“First,” Denise said, “you find a hot one-night stand who’s willing to be commemorated in silicone.”
“Then,” Cindy continued, “you’ll have Mr. Hot and Sexy’s likeness to keep you company when you find Mr. Nice and Unsexy to settle down with.”
Although their words made tequila-hazy sense, there was an error in their collective logic that I felt compelled to point out. “I’ve never had a one-night stand.”
“Well, Kenz
ie,” Jacki said, lifting her glass, “you’re not getting any younger.”
I was prevented from answering by the appearance of one of the most horrific sights a woman can imagine—a small cake ablaze with what appeared to be the correct number of candles. My friends burst into an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and I felt the eyes of everyone in the bar turn my way while a few tipsy bystanders chimed in. I hid the dildo kit on my lap, thinking maybe I could donate it to the Goodwill store in the red-light district.
The poor waitress nearly set her crop-top on fire as she parked the torch on our table. Since I was already light-headed, I inhaled as deeply as I dared and managed to blow out most of the candles. Cheers sounded all over the bar.
My cheeks burned as I glanced around with a smile to simultaneously thank the strangers for their attention and apologize for the interruption. At the bar, the sandy-haired nut-eating guy had turned his engaging grin in my direction. My own smile went all watery, and when I realized that I was making way too much eye contact, I wrenched my gaze away.
But Jacki had noticed. “Quarry spotted, girls—Eagle Scout, two o’clock.”
Before I could tell them not to look, they all had twisted in their seats. I sank lower in mine.
“He’s perfect,” Denise oozed.
“And he’s looking at you, Kenzie.” Cindy fluttered her hands.
I closed my eyes briefly. “Because he hasn’t seen this kind of spectacle since sixth grade.” I picked up a table knife. “Why don’t I cut the cake?” Or an artery.
Thankfully, butter-cream icing diverted the girls’ attention. I cut wedges of the yellow cake and passed them all around, and there were a few extra slices for spectators who eyed the free food like starving coyotes.
I ate the cake with my hands and savored the fats and sugars that sang to my tastebuds—despite my best dietary intentions, I had a vigorous sweet tooth. I was licking the icing off my fingers when I realized that if the guy at the bar was watching, he’d think my manners were wanting…or that finger-licking was my method of bewitching a man into asking me out. My eyeballs hurt from the strain of not looking back to see if he was looking back to see if I was looking back to see if he was looking back at me, but I had discipline. I had devoured only one piece of cake, hadn’t I?
I pushed the man from my thoughts and ordered us all another round of drinks. For the next hour, the girls and I dished about work and music and movies, agreeing that recycled office air was ravaging our skin, Josh Groban was the best thing that had happened to serious music in a long time, and The Thomas Crowne Affair was the sexiest movie of all time. Once or twice I accidentally glanced toward the bar and noticed that Eagle Scout was still there. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave, lingering over a steak and watching a sports channel on the TV over the bar. Something about the casual, athletic way he held his body spoke to me. I told myself a guy who looked that good had to be taken.
On the other hand, I wasn’t chopped liver, and I was sleeping alone.
At that precise moment, he looked up and caught me staring. A hint of a smile curved his mouth and my heart went kaboom. I had never been so instantly and unjustifiably attracted to a man, so I blamed it on the alcohol coursing through my bloodstream and the urge to be disobedient on my birthday. I readied my most flirtatious smile, then was assailed by a violent itch on my neck that reminded me why I was still single at thirty-one—I kept picking the same kind of guy.
So I pretended to be looking at something behind the guy’s broad shoulder, and rejoined my friends’ conversation about the best long-lasting lipstick.
“We did a piece last month on a lady in Boston who specializes in cosmetic tattooing,” I offered. “Permanent lip-liner, beauty marks, even eyebrows.”
Everyone paused in consideration, then winced and shook their heads. I agreed, but I wondered if I’d warm up to the idea of permanent makeup a few birthday candles down the road.
When Jacki glanced at her watch, I realized that she probably had plans with Ted later and that I should wrap things up and let her off the hook.
“Thanks for everything, girls.” I glanced around at the women who had been constants in my life for over four years and felt a mushy mood coming on.
“Open the dildo kit before we leave,” Denise urged.
The mushy mood vanished. “Here?”
“Just the directions,” Cindy said. “I’m dying to know how this thing works.”
Not wanting to seem unappreciative, I set the box on the table and, while covering as much of the wording as possible, broke the seal with my thumbnail. I raised the lid a couple of inches and studied the innocuous looking white containers and cardboard cylinder. It had all the trappings of a science project. I withdrew a pink sheet of paper with the ominous words Before Making Your Dildo, Read These Directions Carefully printed across the top.
The girls huddled close, and I was reminded of the time in fourth grade when I’d stolen the insert from my mother’s box of tampons and scoured it with a friend on the school bus. In a low voice, I read the step-by-step instructions to mix the casting agent with tap water, pour the mixture into the cardboard cylinder that was closed at one end, then have the properly prepped “caster” insert his member into the cylinder, and the casting agent would harden almost instantly, creating a perfect cast when he withdrew. The final step was to fill the cast with tinted silicone, let it set for two hours, then pop out the replica dildo and “enjoy.”
While the girls hugged themselves with laughter, I scanned the rest of the directions. After “enjoying,” the dildo could be cleaned by placing it in the top rack of the dishwasher. Olé.
“This is going to be great,” Jacki said, nodding. “You have to promise to show us the end product.”
I shrugged. “Sure, but I have to warn you—I don’t see any ‘casting’ parties in my near future.”
“I don’t know,” Denise sang. “The guy at the bar is still looking over here.”
I refused to look, but I couldn’t hold back a frivolous smile. “Really?”
“But if you’re going to have a one-night stand,” Jacki said, “you have to know the ground rules.”
“I’m not having a one-night stand,” I insisted, shaking my head. Then I squinted. “There are ground rules?”
Jacki nodded. “You have to let a friend know who you’ll be with.”
“That’s so if you’re strangled, we’ll be able to give the police a description,” Cindy added solemnly.
“Ah.”
“But don’t worry—I could describe him with my eyes closed,” Denise said, then closed her eyes. “Brown hair, chinos, T-shirt, cowboy hat.” She opened her eyes. “How’d I do?”
“You got the T-shirt right,” I offered.
Denise frowned and twisted for another steely observation. “Damn, why did I think he was wearing a cowboy hat?”
“Because he has that look,” Jacki said. “Like he might lasso something.” She looked at me. “Or someone.”
I scratched. “This is not going to happen.”
“Don’t take him back to your place, and don’t go to his,” Cindy said.
“Right,” Denise added. “It has to be somewhere safe and neutral—like a hotel room.”
“That way he won’t know where you live.”
“Oh, and lie about where you work, in case he’s a stalker.”
“And don’t give him your real last name.”
“Or your real phone number.”
I was dizzy from looking back and forth. “Let me get this straight—assuming the man and I have a conversation before falling into bed, I’m supposed to tell him a pack of lies?”
“Right,” Denise said.
“Is he allowed to talk?”
“Sure,” Jacki said. “But assume he’s lying, too.”
“And if you spend the night, leave before he wakes up,” Denise said.
“That way you can avoid the whole awkward morning-after scene,” Cindy said.
<
br /> “Although leaving something for him to remember you by is a nice touch,” Jacki added. “I once left an earring.”
“The little rose from my bra,” Cindy said dreamily.
“A garter belt,” Denise admitted.
I laughed, incredulous. “If it’s so much work, why bother?”
“Good sex,” Jacki said.
“Great sex,” Cindy said.
“Fabulous sex,” Denise said. “It’s very liberating to get down and dirty with someone you’ll never see again.”
“Right,” Jacki said. “Sex with someone you love is the best, but sex with a stranger is right up there near the top of the list.”
“It’s kind of like being a man for one night,” Cindy said. “Having great sex with no emotional attachment, no strings.”
They were all nodding, and I felt ridiculously left out. A liberating experience might be just what I needed to mark an unremarkable birthday. I glanced toward the bar and the sandy-haired guy was still there, watching TV and sprawled loosely in his chair. I felt myself begin to salivate. Of course, entertaining a naughty thought was one thing— acting upon it was something else entirely. Segues had always been a problem for me. I didn’t mind taking chances, but I could never seem to do it elegantly.
“Assuming I were to have a conversation with the guy, and assuming that he’s available and willing to have a one-night stand—” I ignored the round of snorts “—how does one broach the subject of making a cast of a man’s penis?”
Jacki shrugged. “A man is always looking for an interesting place to put it.”
“Yeah,” Cindy said. “Tell him he’ll be immortalized in silicone, and try to stop him from poking into that plaster.”
“Or,” Denise added, pointing to the sheet of paper I held, “just show him the directions and ask him if it looks like fun.”
Jacki glanced at her watch. “I have to take off. Cindy, Denise, want to share a cab?”
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