News Blues

by Marianne Mancusi

  “Well, according to my online banking register, it appears to be Hawaii. Oh, no. Wait.” I hear clicking in the background. “She flew to Fiji this afternoon.”

  “What? Why would Mom be in Fiji? Or Hawaii for that matter?” I screamed into the phone. This was unbelievable.

  “Well, from what I can see by looking at the charges, it appears she’s shopping.”

  “And we are not to be concerned that our cookie-baking, stay-at-home, never-been-outside-the-continentalUnited States mother is suddenly on a globe-trotting shopping spree?”

  “Honey, I’m sure she’s fine. She’s free for the first time in her life and she’s enjoying herself.”

  “Fine. Whatever, Dad.” Furious, I threw the phone across the room. Unfortunately, phone throwing only hurts the phone itself, not the person on the other line.

  “So can I live with you?” Lulu asked.

  I sank down into the armchair, head in my hands. What did I do in a previous life to make my karma so screwed up?

  CHAPTER SIX

  FROM: “Diane Madison”

  TO: “Madeline Madison”

  SUBJECT: Hello from Japan!

  Hi Sweetie!

  Sorry this comes by e-mail, but you know those foreign phone charges can really add up! I’m at a Tokyo Internet café having a grand old time and I thought I might drop you a line. So, how are you? How’s Lulu? Hope you are all doing well.

  Not sure when I’ll be home—having way too much fun! I can’t believe all these years I sat around wasting time raising children (no offense, Sweetie), when I could have been traveling the world!!!! Now your father will soon be stuck changing diapers again and I’m free to do whatever I want—all on his dime!!! I may NEVER come home.

  Make sure Lulu is doing her homework. And remind her that skipping school just ain’t cool.

  Love you to pieces,

  MOM

  I couldn’t believe my mom was traveling the world and I was stuck taking care of my crazy sister. You had to understand, my mother was the most non-travel-the-world type you’d ever meet in your life. And she never, ever shirked from the smallest parental duty, never mind getting up one day and abandoning her teenage child. It didn’t make any sense.

  I couldn’t mother Lulu. I could barely take care of myself. Like tonight. I had a date with the surfing Czech. Did I have to now make dinner first? Get home in time to check if she made curfew? I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. I didn’t even own a goldfish for this very reason.

  Still, what could I do? She was my sister, after all. And despite what a pain in the butt she could be, at the end of the day, I loved her dearly. What was I supposed to do, kick her out on the street? Sure, her being here would cramp my style a little, but we were sisters. And sisters stuck together when their parents went off the deep end as ours had.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if Lulu was in diapers and needed constant surveillance. She was sixteen. Mary from Little House on the Prairie got married at sixteen. And she was blind! Lulu had perfect twenty-twenty vision—surely she could figure out how to use a stove or call for takeout.

  So after laying out a few ground rules, I headed to my bedroom to find an outfit to wear on my date. Ted, the surfing Czech had called me yesterday, soon after I sent my e-mail. We talked for about three minutes—he said he was impressed by my profile—and ended the conversation by making dinner and movie plans for tonight. To avoid potential future stalker issues when I inevitably dumped him, I said I’d meet him at the Old Town Mexican Cafe, a fun restaurant in San Diego’s historic Old Town. We’d have dinner. We’d have drinks. (Though not too many. I was so not having a repeat of Thursday with Jamie.) Then, we’d go to the movies in Fashion Valley and at some point I’d take a photo for proof. This way, I could prove to Jamie that I wasn’t: a) lying to him and b) pining over our one-night stand. He’d know that I, Maddy Madison, had a full, active social life with cute surfer boys.

  Then I could tell Ted it wasn’t working out and move on. Hopefully the surfing Czech wouldn’t be too broken up about losing me, poor desperate online-dating-service guy.

  The only problem now was what the heck I was going to wear on the date. After a brief closet assessment, I resigned myself to the fact that everything I owned was hopelessly worn and/or ugly. Not that it mattered. After all, I was only using Ted for a quick photo op. But what if he turned out to be really cool? What if by some rare stroke of luck, he was The One and I had worn such an awful outfit that he ran away screaming and I ended up living out the rest of my life as the crazy cat lady because I didn’t dress appropriately for the date? It was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

  Finally, I decided on a swishy black DKNY skirt, a red strappy tank top, and cute little flip-flops I’d gotten from Urban Outfitters. The outfit said fun and flirty, but not to expect too much. A quick brush of eyeliner and a dab of lip-gloss and I was ready.

  At first, Lulu wasn’t too happy to learn that I was ditching her on our first night as roommates, but she seemed somewhat appeased after I handed her twenty dollars, a pizza menu, and the telephone. I promised myself that I’d spend some quality time with her the next day. See how she was doing. After all, this divorce was a major life change for her and I wanted to make sure she was okay with everything.

  Thanks to traffic and zero parking, I arrived at the restaurant fashionably late and scanned the place for a blond-haired surfer-looking guy. No one in sight.

  Maybe he decided to be fashionably late as well and was simply a bit more fashionable than me. As long as he didn’t stand me up. That would be unbearable. To be stood up by a guy you were just using to prove to the guy you just slept with that you weren’t a loser. Ugh.

  Calm down, Maddy. Go get a drink.

  After checking in with the hostess, who told me there’d be a half-hour wait for a table anyway, I hit the bar and ordered myself a nice glass of Chardonnay. I would have much rather had one of their delicious margaritas (they had eighty different types of tequila here), but this was a first date which meant I had to behave myself. I had to seem grown-up and sophisticated.

  I took a sip and then (in a very ungrown-up fashion) managed to spill half the glass of wine down the front of my tank top. Great. Thank goodness I didn’t order a Merlot.

  “Are you Maddy?” a male voice asked as I frantically tried to dab my soaking breasts with a napkin. I looked up.

  “Yes, hi, ” I said brightly, pleased to see the Czech surfer (okay, I was going to have to start referring to him as Ted from here on out) was actually pretty cute in real life. Had the total surfer look going on. Tanned, in good shape. And of course blond hair and really intense blue eyes. Why the heck was he on an Internet dating service? I mean, he could surely get real life women. Then again, I was on it, too. Though that was sort of for a different reason.

  I realized he was staring at my chest and was about to be offended when I remembered I was still holding a napkin over my right boob. Oh yes. Great way to make a first impression. I lowered the napkin, painfully aware that the combination of cold wine and napkin rubbing had made my nipples stand at attention. He probably thought he turned me on or something. Bleh.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Ted.” He held out his hand. He had nice hands. Not too callused, but not too femininely smooth either.

  “There’s like a half hour wait for a table, ” I informed him, after we shook. “I put our name in.”

  “Cool.” He had an American accent and didn’t seem Czech or German at all. But that was okay. I just needed a photo, not a voice memo, to prove our date. Though that brought me to my next question. How the heck was I going to snap a photo without him thinking I was a freak of nature?

  He ordered a Corona and paid with a Platinum card. Ooh, that meant he had money. Not that I was some gold digger, but still . . . very interesting. Maybe this date wouldn’t be such a wash after all. Then again, he failed to ask me if I wanted a refill, which wasn’t exactly
a good sign.

  “So, ” he said after getting his beer, “do you use Match dot com often?”

  I felt my face heat. Did he think I was some pathetic creature who couldn’t get a date? Then I remembered he was on it, too, so he probably wasn’t trying to insinuate anything.

  “Nope. I’m a Match dot com virgin.” I chuckled.

  He didn’t.

  “My brother signed me up as a joke a couple weeks ago, ” he said. “We had a good laugh over some of the photos.”

  Or maybe he was trying to insinuate something. I withheld a grimace. Who did this jerk think he was? He wasn’t that good-looking. In fact, if you lined him up side by side with say, Brad Pitt, he’d seem downright ugly.

  “So, then, why did you decide to go out with me?” I asked, realizing my voice sounded a little huffy. “If it was all, you know, a joke.”

  “Well, duh. You’re a major babe. Not like some of the other women on there.”

  Okay, he was redeeming himself a bit. A lot, actually. I smiled and flipped my hair back behind my ears in what I hoped was a “major babe” manner.

  “Also, you said you loved European football on your profile. Do you know how hard it is to find an American girl who likes football?”

  Uh-oh.

  “So, what team do you support?” he asked.

  Was it too late to run screaming from the restaurant?

  “Um, team?”

  “Yeah, you know. Football team.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Think, Maddy! Think! My brain went completely blank. Actually “went” was probably the wrong term since it wasn’t exactly full of European football team names to begin with. In fact, I wasn’t even positive if European football was football at all. Something told me it might be soccer.

  “England?” I said as half a question, praying that since England was a country in Europe they’d have a football team.

  “Ah, you follow the national teams, eh? Should have known. Probbaly were a Man-U fan, too, before Becks crossed the pond, right?”

  “Um, yes?”

  “Can’t say I blame you. I’d much rather see the old skipper in his natural habitat, too—rather than tune in to a pathetic Galaxy match that he probably won’t play in anyway.”

  What the hell was he talking about? I took a big gulp of my wine. I knew he was speaking English, but I had no idea what anything coming out of his mouth meant. Oh, why had I written that I followed football on my profile? This was going to be a long date.

  Definitely time for a subject change. “So, um, you surf?”

  “No.” He laughed. “Sorry. My brother put that on my profile ’cause he said girls dug surfers.”

  Of course. The football thing (which I had no clue about) was real and the surfing thing (which I could at least hold my own in a conversation) was fake. I didn’t want to even broach the topic of the ten kids. So now what did we talk about?

  Luckily at that moment the waitress announced our names and we were ushered past other diners to our table in the back of the restaurant. Unluckier, when we got there, The Date From Hell turned the conversation back to football. He was like a mad dog with a bone. Who cared how many goals this player scored last night? Or how so-and-so was probably going to get traded because he screwed up royally in the midfield? Or how this other guy was always diving? I mean, diving? Was there a pool or something?

  He paused only for a moment, as the waitress took our orders and then launched back into his incomprehensible spiel.

  I desperately wanted him to shut up. But what could I say? I mean, I was the liar who initiated the date under false pretenses, not him. Now I simply had to sit back, enjoy my food and get through the night. Then I’d never have to see this football bore again.

  Oh, and I had to get a photo. Might as well get that over with now. Then maybe after dinner I could feign a headache and get the hell out of Dodge.

  “I have to make a quick phone call, ” I lied, reaching into my handbag for my cell.

  “Is that a fake Kate Spade?” he asked. “The label looks funny.”

  Oh, nice. My counterfeit bag was evidently so counterfeit-looking that even a macho guy who had been delivering a sports monologue stopped long enough to notice it. I sort of gave him a half laugh which he could interpret as he would, ditched the bag back by my feet, and flipped open my camera phone. Needed to get this over with ASAP.

  Pretending to dial a number, I turned on the camera and framed him up. I felt like a secret spy. A double agent. I was on a stealth mission to get photographic evidence of an international conspiracy.

  I clicked.

  SNAP!

  Oh, shit. I forgot to turn the fake camera snapping sound off. I would definitely be fired from James Bond duty. Maybe Ted wouldn’t notice.

  “Is that a camera phone?” he demanded, looking a little pissed off. You know, between the handbag and the cell phone, he’d become suddenly become quite observant.

  “Oh, ha, yeah, ” I said quickly closing the phone and stuffing it in my bag. “I guess so.”

  “Did you just take a photo of me?”

  My face flamed. “Uh, I think maybe? It went off? By accident?”

  “Did you delete it?”

  “What?”

  “Did. You. Delete. The photo. That you ‘accidentally’ took?” Now Ted looked seriously angry.

  “Um, yeah. I did. It’s gone.”

  “Let me see.”

  I was in hell. Seriously in hell.

  “What? Why? It’s fine. It’s gone, ” I said.

  “Give. Me. The. Phone. Now!”

  Reluctantly, I pulled the phone from my bag, hoping to delete the photo before he could see.

  Unfortunately, he grabbed it out of my hands before I could manage to flip it open. And when he did his own flipping, of course he saw his own mug staring back at him.

  He pressed “delete” and threw the phone back at me. It landed with a loud clatter when it hit my bread plate and several diners turned their heads in interest.

  “You’re psycho, ” he said. “Completely and utterly psycho. Who does that?” He rose from the table. “No wonder you need a fucking service to find a date! You’re pathetic!”

  Before I could protest, he stormed out of the restaurant, leaving me to face the stares from the other patrons.

  “She took a picture of him, ” whispered an elderly woman at the next table.

  “On a first date?”

  “Those camera phones should be illegal. I heard once that some people take them into locker rooms and then post naked photos on the Internet.”

  I had never been so humiliated in all my life. I wanted to stand up and scream and inform the whole restaurant that I wasn’t a camera phone pervert, that I just needed a picture to prove to my engaged coworker with whom I’d had sex that I wasn’t a loser with no life. But unfortunately, as willing as I was to make that speech, I didn’t think it would change any diner’s opinion of me. In fact, it might sway the few holdouts in the opposite direction.

  Now what did I do? We’d already ordered dinner. Did I sit in my seat, suck up my pride and eat my meal? Would I have to pay for his? Did I even have enough cash on me for that? My credit cards were maxed and I hadn’t deposited my paycheck yet. I’d come prepared to pay for my own meal, if it’d come to that, but not someone else’s. What if they made me wash dishes? Let’s see, I had sixteen dollars probably left on my Mas-terCard. Maybe seven fifty on my Visa. If I combined those two cards with the cash I had . . .

  I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. Why did I always end up crying? It was my body’s first reaction to upset, anger, fury, whatever. So embarrassing. Especially when it happened in public places. I angrily swiped at my eyes with my arm.

  “Maddy?”

  I looked up at the voice addressing me. Into the eyes of an angel. Jamie stood at my table. How did he find me yet again? It was like we were two soul mates, destined to keep running into each other.

  “Jamie!” I cri
ed, overjoyed to see him. I didn’t care if he had a fiancée. I didn’t care if our relationship stayed platonic forever. At that moment I simply needed a friend. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “Are you on your date?” he asked, his eyes sparkling. “Do I get to meet the famous blond-haired, blue-eyed Czech surfer in the flesh?”

  Shit. I was hoping he’d forget about that.

  “He, uh, had to leave early.” I grimaced. “I did have a picture, but . . .”

  I waited for him to tease me, but he didn’t.

  “Didn’t go as planned, huh?” he asked sympathetically.

  “Not exactly.” I sighed. “But he ordered before he took off, so if you’re in the mood for a chicken fiesta burrito, you’re in luck.”

  A ray of hope peeked through my dark evening clouds. This would be great. Jamie and I could have a nice meal. We could become friends. Other diners would see that I wasn’t a loser who got walked out on by her date.

  Jamie smiled. “I would but . . .”

  “Jamie! Our table’s over here. Did you get lost?” A tall, anorexic-looking blonde came up behind Jamie and slipped her arm around his waist. Protectively.

  Oh. Jamie wasn’t alone.

  Of course he’s not alone, a jeering voice in my head taunted. Who eats at a restaurant alone? Well, except for you, you loser. I suddenly realized this was the second time in a week Jamie caught me drinking by myself.

  “Uh, Maddy. I’d like you to meet Jennifer. My fiancée.” Jamie said, succeeding to unintentionally rub salt on my wounds. “Jennifer, this is Maddy. My new coworker at News Nine.” He introduced us so casually, as if I weren’t the other woman. The one who, just days ago, he’d accidentally had sex with.

  “Nice to meet you, Jennifer, ” I said in my best new-coworker voice. If he could be cool and grown up, so could I. “I didn’t realize you had moved to San Diego yet.”

  “She came down from LA for the weekend to surprise me, ” Jamie explained. I studied his face. Was he even the least bit bothered by the introduction?