by Amanda Aksel
THE MAN TEST
AMANDA AKSEL
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Copyright© 2014 Amanda Aksel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing by the author or publisher (except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages and/or show brief video clips in a review)
The Man Test is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, establishments, or localities is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9960286-1-5
Elephantine Publishing, LLC
http://www.elephantinepublishing.com
Cover Design by: Jessica Rose Goldner Bowman
http://www.jessicarosecreative.com
Edited by Lauran Strait
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lauranstrait
For Chantell
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful for the support and encouragement of my husband, family, and friends during the pursuit of creating this novel. For that, I want to say a sincere thank you.
A special thank you to my publishing partners, Sara and Heather. Without them this work would still be unpublished.
And Chantell, my lobster, I couldn’t have done this without our friendship.
CONTENTS
1. Love and Las Vegas
2. The Catch
3. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
4. The Book
5. The Wedding
6. The Hunt
7. What Goes Around . . .
8. Zen and the Art of Fictitious Dating
9. Catch Me If You Can
10. The PI
11. Family Ties
12. In The Mood For A Melody
13. Bombs Bursting in Air
14. Working Late
15. The Man Test
16. Gone Fishin’
17. Welcome Back Holly
18. Everyone Hates Marin
19. Make It Right
20. Comes Around . . .
CHAPTER ONE
Love and Las Vegas
The truth will set you free. And yet, people have a tendency to keep secrets and difficult feelings from those they love. I observed this occurrence regularly. Even now as my patient let out a sigh of defeat. Forty-five minutes of attempted honest communication with her husband had been wasted due to her overuse of tact and ambiguity. Her long silence was my cue.
“Abby, you’re not being very clear. Be honest and tell Dylan what you need. Go on,” I said as if urging a child not to be afraid. She lifted her eyes to meet Dylan’s and took his hand. Her mouth opened, but she hesitated. I gestured her to continue as she glanced my way for assurance. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture.
“I need more passion in our sex life.” She blurted the words like she’d waited years to say them. Dylan flinched slightly. “There’s no spontaneity with us. You’re always asking me, ‘do you want to have sex?’ I want you to stop asking and just do it! I want you to pick me up and throw me on the bed. You know, just really give it to me. How come you never pick me up?”
“You’re too heavy,” he said.
I shot him an incredulous look, unintentionally of course. Abby did the same.
“I’m not too heavy. You’re not strong enough!”
Their insults ensued, each nastier and more spiteful than the last. Every second increased their volume and pace and quickly spiraled out of control. I grabbed the whistle from around my neck and blew hard. Abby and Dylan’s heads whipped in my direction.
“Time out,” I said calmly. “Let’s not criticize each other.” They turned spitefully from one another and each rolled their eyes like spoiled children.
“Dylan, I understand this can be difficult to hear, but Abby is trying to be open with you about her needs. How do you feel about her suggestions?”
“I’m not into what she is into. Is that so wrong?” Dylan offered while resting his elbows on his legs. His chin drifted down.
“It’s not wrong, but we always do it your way. I’m just asking for you to do it my way sometimes,” Abby said.
He remained still and silent, so I leaned in and asked, “You love Abby, right?”
“Of course.” He lifted his head.
“Does she make you happy?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“You want her to be happy too, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then why don’t you try Abby’s way tonight? One night can’t hurt. Who knows, you might find that you really enjoy it.” He nodded half-heartedly at my proposal. Abby smiled and rubbed his shoulder. They left my office happier than when they came in, and that progress gave me a sense of accomplishment.
My father used to say, “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” The only thing I could ever stand for completely was love. I’m not talking about the butterflies, can’t eat, can’t sleep kind of love, but the morning breath, movie night in, grow old together love. My affinity for love can be traced back to my childhood obsession with happily ever after fairy tales and witnessing the deep love between my parents and even my grandparents. It gave me a sense of believing, of knowing that there was a great love out there just for me. Not just me, but I believed this to be true for everyone. Standing up for real love gave me a purpose and a passion for my profession. It was my mission to remind couples of the heartfelt reasons they got together and to help them stay together. I won’t be so bold as to say I’m a relationship expert, but I’ve helped absent men become present husbands, set wandering eyes straight, and fueled fire back into sexless marriages.
I glanced at the clock. Time to collect my things and head home to finish packing for a weekend-long bachelorette party in Vegas for my dear friend, Rachel. Diana, our office assistant, sat at the front desk typing with only her index fingers. For the most part she was a wonderful assistant, except for one thing; she had a way of making short, simple answers unnecessarily long and drawn out. Not overly informative or longwinded, she just spoke too slowly, which was fine if you had an hour to kill. I didn’t have minutes to spare.
“Diana?” I tried to look rushed as I approached.
“Oh, hellooo, Marin . . . how are you?” she said sweetly as she stood with her fingertips touching near her chest, a classic move that always preempted long conversations. I needed to be quick.
“Great, thanks. I wanted to remind you that I’m leaving for a long weekend and will be back Tuesday. If you need me, call my cell, okay?”
She smiled, but it quickly faded into her conversational entrapment look again.
“Oh, okay . . . You have a message. Would you like me to read it to you?”
“No, that’s okay. Can you email it to me?”
“Oh, um . . . yes. I guess I can do that. Okay.”
I thanked her before rushing out of the office and around the corner to the elevator, which was as slow as Diana’s speech. Its open doors seemed to wait patiently while my least favorite associate, Andy, gabbed on his phone inside.
“Hold the elevator!” I hurried forward, clutching my oversized purse to my side. He glanced at me, still talking on his phone, but did nothing as the doors began to close. I managed to wedge my body between the doors at the last second. As I squeezed in, I tumbled to the ground. My poor shoe, lodged between the steel teeth, completely detached from my foot. The elevator began to move. I
pushed my hair out of my face and rescued my Ralph Lauren pump.
Andy hung up. “You all right?”
“I’m fine, no thanks to you,” I said, catching my breath.
“Sorry,” he said, not taking his eyes from his phone. I gave him a sour look, and held up my beloved navy pump, after noticing a decent scratch on the heel.
“Look what you made me do.”
“Me? I’m not the one who made a mad dash into a closing elevator.”
“It wouldn’t have closed if you’d held it open,” I said through clenched teeth as I continued to put myself back together.
For the few years I had known Andy, there had always been a rift between us. Something about his east coast arrogance made me defensive. Andy was a cynic and some of his ideas about human relationships were appalling.
The shoe eaters reopened as we arrived on the first floor. Andy stepped out.
“Run faster next time.” A sarcastic grin spread across his face before he walked away with his usual haughty stride.
Once I made it outside of the building, with both shoes on my feet, I breathed in the warm San Francisco air. I was looking forward to the long weekend escape with my friends. Barely beginning my six-block commute home, my cell phone rang. I reached into my purse touching everything except my phone. The call was moments from going to voicemail. Gotcha! And just in time.
“Hey, it’s me,” said my best friend, Telly, a divorce lawyer who lived and worked in the city. I’d met her in passing after her client became my patient. Needless to say the client didn’t need her services after I was through with her and her husband.
“You excited about Vegas?” I asked.
“Yeah, after the day I’ve had, I’m most definitely ready for Sin City.”
“What happened?”
“Ugh, it’s Grayson. He’s being such a whiny bitch.” Grayson was her lover, one who mistakenly started saying things like love and marriage—two red flags to Telly. “I’m like ‘what do you want from me, kids and a white picket fence?’ I don’t think so dude. Get yourself a wife and give me some ass.” She cackled.
I laughed too. “Is that what you said to him?”
“Yeah, right. He’d probably start crying. I just told him that it is what it is. I never gave him any reason to believe it would be more. I didn’t lead him on, and if he can’t handle it then I’m sorry.”
“At least you were honest.” I shrugged, poor Grayson.
“That’s right! I am honest. He’s the one who said he could handle it. Now he says he has to think about it. Pfff! No, I’m done.”
“I guess another one bites the dust,” I said.
“You know I don’t sugar coat anything.” It was true. Telly was brutally honest, and never neglected to put in her two cents, especially when it was unsolicited. Some called her coarse, but I appreciated that about her. I could always count on her to tell me the truth.
Five increasingly steep blocks later, I arrived at my building and climbed the stoop. Mine was the first apartment on the right, number 102. True to San Francisco real estate standards, it was “cozy.” I loved everything about it from the dark stained hardwood floors to the close proximity to work and the park. But what I loved most about coming home was coming home to someone, my fiancé Chad.
Since we were only months away from getting married, we decided it was time to share our living space. Mounds of Chad’s half-empty moving boxes blocked my path as I made my way through the living room.
“Hey, Babe!” he said, smiling from the kitchen as he fed vegetables into a juicer. Yum. Chad’s toned, personal-trainer body that is, not the veggie juice.
“Hey.” I ran to him with open arms. He held me tight and kissed the top of my head, making a sweet muffled kissing sound.
“Are you all packed?”
“No, I still have more to do, and I don’t have much time.”
Chad sat with me while I crammed more outfits into my already overstuffed suitcase, his eyes gazing at me as if he had to have me. I wanted him too. I struggled to lift it from the bed.
“Let me do that.” Chad moved it to the floor.
“Thank you. It’s gonna be nice having a man around the house.”
“Well, now there’s more room on the bed.” His eyes set on mine a moment before he grabbed me and kissed my neck. With his body pressed tightly against mine, he laid me on the bed. Our lips were locked and I wedged my hands between us to undo his belt.
The sophisticated sound of Telly’s 7 Series BMW car horn beeped outside of my apartment.
“She’s here.” I lifted myself onto my elbows and pouted my lip. “I have to go.”
“Can she wait five minutes?” he asked.
“Five minutes?” I laughed. “We’ll finish this when I get back.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” He gave me one last long kiss. I took a moment to stare into his sweet brown eyes, wanting to stay.
“I’ll miss you,” he said. “Don’t get into any trouble.”
“I won’t.” I smirked.
Telly popped the trunk, and Chad placed my bulging suitcase inside.
“Love you!” I said one last time before getting into the car.
“Love you too.”
I opened the passenger door to find Telly dressed in a short, skin tight, black DKNY dress with matching four-inch stilettos and big dark designer sunglasses. Already tall, her heels made her legs go on for miles. She was a stunning Latina goddess with amazing breasts. She was never in short supply of eager men and their compliments.
Telly was definitely the pretty one, the one who was asked out first at the bar, the one people stared at whenever we went to a party. Though I never begrudged her, I did wish I had been born with some of her physical genes. I was shorter and lacked her curves. We did share similar long locks, as I was fortunate enough to inherit my Chinese-born mother’s thick Asian hair. But it was wavy in all the wrong places, which I got from my American father. Not to say I was unhappy with my appearance, I was perfectly pretty with my big almond-shaped hazel eyes that reflected specs of green, brown, gold, red, and blue. The one unique physical feature I had over Telly.
We met up with the girls at the terminal bar, and from the looks of it, the bachelorette party had already started. Rachel, the bride-to-be, wore a hot pink sash that read Bachelorette and a plastic tiara with a white tulle veil.
Rachel was one of those girl next-door types, a schoolteacher in her mid-twenties with a sweet naivety about her. She probably still kept a stuffed teddy on her bed. Beyond her Sandra Dee good-girl image, there was also something elegant and enchanting about her. It was most easily seen in her eyes, big and beautiful with long thick lashes that gave the illusion she had the secret to perfect mascara.
“Marin, Telly, you’re here!” Rachel hugged us. “I want you to meet my bridesmaids. This is Denise, Jamie, and Sonia.” She pointed to each of the cute twenty-somethings.
“Hi!” the girls said in unison.
“Where’s Holly?” I asked Rachel as I looked around for her sister.
“She went to the bathroom. She’ll be right back.”
There was still a half-hour before boarding so I asked Telly to order a cocktail for me while I went to find Holly. In the ladies room, I found her leaning against the wall near the sinks reading a newspaper.
“Hey,” I said, stealing her attention.
She looked up at me beneath the brim of her khaki cap and smiled. “Marin, how are you?”
“Good, what are you doing in here reading?”
“I got caught up in this article, and it’s quieter here.”
“Are you excited about your sister’s bachelorette party?”
She scoffed. “Partying in Vegas with a bunch of drunken twenty-six-year-olds? No, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m excited.”
“Come on, everyone’s waiting for you,” I pulled her in, and we walked out to the terminal.
Holly was my oldest and dearest friend. I’ll n
ever forget the first day of second grade in Mrs. Smith’s class when a little frizzy-haired girl came up to me at recess and asked if I wanted to help her pick up litter after school. I didn’t know what litter was, but I knew that I liked her right away.
As we grew into our early thirties her hair became less frizzy, but her passion for the environment increased. She worked for a company called EcoWorld and traveled the globe promoting eco-friendly initiatives.
We found the girls still sitting by the bar enjoying their cocktails. Telly handed me a Malibu Bay Breeze, a favorite of mine. Rachel’s bridesmaid Sonia gave us a run-down of the weekend’s events and it wasn’t long before we were on our ninety-minute flight to Vegas. The plane was packed and lively, everyone engaged in conversation and seeming to have a good time. When we landed at LAS, the pilot sang to the tune of Barney.
We love you. You love us.
We’re much faster than the bus.
We’ve got style and personality.
Marry one of us and you’ll fly free.
Everyone applauded and laughed. True story.
After baggage claim and a cab ride, we made it to the MGM Grand Hotel. Telly, Holly, and I shared a large suite with a view of the Vegas strip, thanks to Telly’s frequent stays and reward status.
“I can’t believe my sister’s getting married,” Holly said while she examined her figure in the full-length mirror.
“You mean getting married before you?” Telly smirked as she carefully put the finishing touches on her mascara. I rolled my eyes and smiled at Telly’s reflection in the bathroom mirror we shared and imagined Holly had done the same.
“It’s not that, just that she’s so young. She’s my baby sister. She’ll have her own family soon,” Holly said.
“A family? You mean Rachel’s pregnant?” Telly leaned over the counter to finish her make-up, cleavage spilling from her iridescent gray dress.
“I didn’t say that!” Holly sounded mad. “All I’m saying is she’s growing up.”