Apparently, at least for talk show devotees, there was no squeamishness at the thought of a woman robbing the cradle.
“A younger man! Well that’s fabulous!” said Oprah. “Okay, here’s the question that I’m sure all our single ladies would like to know the answer to. How did you meet each other?”
“Well, I’m very active in the prison ministry. We met on one of my visits ...”
“Your husband is a prisoner?” asked a stricken Oprah.
“Technically, yes. But he’s not guilty! When they agree to do the DNA testing then they’ll have to let him go ...”
Oprah mumbled a congratulations and then cut to commercial.
I was beginning to understand the sickly lure of public hangings. My apartment building could become engulfed in flames and I’d still be sitting here, glued to the screen. The commercial minutes couldn’t tick by fast enough until the show resumed.
“We are very lucky to have with us today Elaine Daniels,” Oprah said smoothly, having regained her composure. “She is the CEO and editorial director of Tres Chic magazine.”
It was a shock to see Elaine, who looked her usual blond femme fatale self, dressed in a perfectly tailored beige suit, probably Prada. In the past month I’d conveniently erased her visage from my memory.
“Thank you, Oprah, it’s a pleasure to be here,” said Elaine in a voice dripping with honey.
“Elaine, tell us, how did you come up with this incredible idea of the Mystery Woman?” asked Oprah.
“Well,” said Elaine fluttering her eyelashes and trying her best to look modest, “I have Dr. Huber to thank for that.” Elaine flashed a smile at Dr. Huber, whose face was as emotionless as an android. “Without Dr. Huber’s book, I never would’ve come up with the plan to prove that a professional woman over forty can easily find a wonderful husband, if that’s what she chooses to do.”
The audience applauded politely.
“Easily?” said Oprah. “So you don’t agree with Dr. Huber’s statistics?”
“I can’t imagine that an intelligent woman would let some silly little book convince her that she can’t do whatever she wants to do with her life.”
The audience clapped louder, mixed with a few cheers. “Silly?” interjected Dr. Huber, who looked like she wanted to , ask Elaine to meet her in the alley after the show. “Excuse me, but I can’t imagine that someone who runs a superfluous women’s magazine is qualified to intelligently comment on scientifically compiled data.”
For a split second Elaine’s true feelings flashed across her face. It was a look that could have dropped a herd of buffalo. But she smoothly covered it up with tinkling laughter that sounded like fingernails down a chalkboard. And then, to accentuate her femininity in contrast to Dr. Huber’s severe lack of it, deliberately uncrossed and crossed her perfectly toned legs.
“Dr. Huber,” said Elaine sweetly with her white-knuckled hands folded in her lap, “a real woman would never let a few meaningless numbers stand in her way.”
The audience went wild. The camera flashed to Dr. Huber, who sat looking like a prune with her arms crossed over her nonexistent chest.
“Elaine,” said Oprah, who looked nervous, “tell us what you can about the Mystery Woman. Does she have some special qualities that will help her find a husband in such a short time?”
“Special?” Elaine tittered. “She’s a darling woman, but if anything, she’s actually a little too ordinary. Average looks, average intelligence, and an average personality. I deliberately selected her for those reasons, because I want the single women of this country to know that they don’t need to be supermodels or wealthy or need to take any extraordinary measures to find a great husband. They just need to be themselves.”
That was my wonderfully supportive boss. If I’m ever contemplating suicide I’ll just expedite things by getting a pep talk from Elaine first.
“We’re out of time for today,” Oprah said. “I’d just like to close by saying a few words to the Mystery Woman. Wherever you are, whoever you are, I wish you all the luck in the world. And I want an invitation to your wedding!”
A round of applause followed by a few hoots and shouts of approval could be heard. The camera panned over the audience. Several members held up signs saying, “you can do it mystery woman!” and “we love you mystery woman!”
I turned off the TV. I sat there stunned, and then realized I had tears in my eyes. After I’d composed myself, I called Lessie back. “I can’t believe the attention this is getting,” I said.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “Do you know how many single women in their thirties and forties want to fall in love and get married? Millions. They’re depending on you, Sam. You’ve got to do this.”
“Thanks for the added pressure,” I said. “You know, any single woman could do what I’m doing if she wanted to spend the time and energy on video dating, the volleyball league, personals ads, all of it.”
“And money.”
“True,” I admitted. “I’m not paying for this, but I think treating this like a job search is the answer for women who really want to meet someone.”
That’s it! It should be like a job. What we needed were love resumes and love interviews, I thought. I said good-bye to Lessie and grabbed my journal. I had to get this idea down before I forgot it.
Later, having arranged to meet Javier, who’d called me yesterday, I drove over to his duplex. As I pulled up, he was standing outside his pickup truck, loading two bikes into the back.
“Sam, it’s great to see you!” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “I hope you’re ready for some serious riding. I’m thinking we could easily do a hundred miles today.”
“A hundred what?”
“I’m kidding,” he said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’ve picked an easy trail for us.”
“You mean you picked an easy trail for me. I can see you’re in very good biking shape,” I said, staring at his thick, muscular thighs while he’d turned and bent over the truck to adjust the bikes.
Most of the time when I see biking shorts on a man I get embarrassed for them, like men in Speedos. It’s like trying to not look at the giant pimple on someone’s face. The more you try to avoid looking at it, the more you end up staring at it. But Javier’s tight black shorts fit him perfectly and his royal blue biking shirt fit snugly across his muscular chest.
We drove west beyond the outskirts of Milwaukee, passing a few old farms that had survived the onslaught of urban sprawl, until we reached a turn-off about thirty minutes beyond the city. The narrow two-lane road we turned onto was hilly. We drove by pastures with grazing horses and cows, thick forests, and the occasional three-story mansion tucked next to a stream.
Javier parked on the side of the road and unloaded our bikes. We rode single file for almost an hour with him turning around every minute or so to make sure I was still following him, until we came to a little cafe, tucked away in the middle of nowhere, next to a grove of pine trees. I wondered how it stayed in business until I saw a dozen bikes in a rack outside the restaurant. Nearly everyone inside was dressed in biking gear. A few of them nodded at Javier and said, “Hello.”
“These must be all the people who zoomed past us at the speed of light,” I said, looking around while we waited in the doorway to be seated. “I’m sorry you had to go slow for me.”
Javier grinned broadly and very deliberately crossed his arms.
“What?” I asked him.
“Sam, first of all, these guys are some of the best bikers in southern Wisconsin. I have to struggle to keep up with them. Second, it doesn’t matter, I just love spending time with you.”
The waitress seated us at a table on the patio, and I noticed that Javier hadn’t even broken a sweat even though it must be close to eighty degrees.
“I do some long rides and races on the weekends when I get a chance,” he told me and went on to explain that he’d decided to try bike racing a few years ago after watching Lance Armstrong win the Tour de
France after surviving cancer, and had promptly joined a local bicycle club that trained for racing.
“And have you won many races?”
“A few,” he said, and I could tell he was purposely being ultra modest. As with salsa, all it seemed to take for Javier to excel was to watch and then do.
“That was really fun, Javier, thank you,” I told him later that afternoon, as we stood next to his truck outside his duplex.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he said, not making any moves in my direction.
I stood there for a moment, waiting for the moment that didn’t happen. Okay, Javier, take me into your arms and kiss me, you fool! I don’t have the strength to resist you but I know I should.
“Well, I’ll see you,” he said.
“Soon, I hope,” I said, giving him a little wave and then driving away. I was disappointed at our nonphysical good-bye, but I supposed it was partially my fault since I had been giving him pretty definite don’t-kiss-me vibes.
Since it was only four o’clock, I decided I had just enough time to drive over to Single No More and pick out a couple more prospective dates before they closed for the day. Twenty minutes later, I braced myself and pushed open the glass door to the office. Nothing had changed since my last visit except a slender Asian woman wearing a T-shirt and cut-off blue jean shorts was sitting in the stuffy waiting room flipping through a tattered copy of People. A fan in the corner blew hot air around. A chip of paint fell from the wall to the carpeting. A couple of flies buzzed around the room. God, this place was depressing.
“Can you believe this issue is two years old?” she said, tossing the magazine onto the wood veneer coffee table in front of her and brushing her inky black bangs aside from her forehead. “For the money I paid you’d think they’d subscribe to some current magazines. And get air-conditioning. Have you been here before?”
“This is my second time back after I signed up,” I said. “How about you?”
“I’ve been a member for five and a half months,” she said in a monotone. “I’ve only got two weeks left, so I wanted to get a few more profiles out before my membership expires. You know, get my money’s worth.”
“How much luck have you had?” I asked her.
“I’ve gone on a bunch of first dates, two or three second dates, um, maybe a third date, and one disastrous fourth. The pickings are mighty slim.”
Just then Bunny Woods opened the door to the waiting room. “Well, my two favorite clients, Jane and Samantha!”
Bunny’s blond bouffant was seriously wilting under the heat, but she managed to act cool and breezy.
“I don’t normally do this, but since we’re pressed for time today, do you two mind doing your selections together?”
Jane and I looked at each other and shrugged.
“Excellent! Come with me,” Bunny said, leading the way into the video room. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything,” she said, patting the top of the vault.
“Do not go out with him,” Jane said, pointing at an attractive guy named Dennis. “At the end of our first and last date, this loser winks at me and tells me he only picks up the check if he knows he’s going to get lucky.”
“Have you ever gone out with this guy?” I asked her, pointing to a photo of a man named Etienne, who reminded me of an older version of Pierre, my first love from Paris.
Jane drew her index finger across her throat, and went on to also nix Tom, whose breath could “melt steel”; Sean, who couldn’t stop talking about his soul mate who dumped him seven years ago; and Jason, who had told her that while he liked her and personally had nothing against her race, he couldn’t see things ever getting serious because his parents didn’t like “Chinamen.” “I’m Japanese,” Jane said. “I guess we all look alike to him.” “Maybe to save time you should point to the ones you haven’t gone out with and we’ll just split them up,” I suggested with a smile. Looking at my watch, I could see that we only had fifteen minutes until the office closed.
Turning to the next page, she picked up the album for a closer look. “Wow, either this is a new addition or somehow I’ve missed him before. Look at those eyelashes!”
“You mean that one?” I said, pointing my finger at the very first photograph I’d selected at Single No More. I had a weird feeling that I couldn’t begin to describe. She was looking at the man who told me on our last date that he thought he was falling in love with me. What should I do?
“Is something wrong?” Jane asked. “Do you want to go out with him?”
“No, no that’s okay. You saw him first,” I said, but I suddenly felt as though I’d swallowed a tennis ball. Was Robert dating other women from Single No More? I was dating other men, but after all, it was for my job. I had an excuse.
“I’ll bet he’s your type,” Jane suggested. I smiled inwardly. Women were always naturally thinking of others’ feelings. Men would handle this situation a bit differently, no doubt working out an equitable and sensitive sharing arrangement, something like, “I’ve got more money than you and drive a better car, so I get the first poke at her. When I get sick of her, you can have her.”
We each chose two photographs. I breathed an inward sigh of relief that Jane hadn’t chosen Robert after all. We gave our selections to Bunny, who then offered to pull their videotapes. But I told her I was in a hurry, which I was, in a hurry to avoid lapsing into severe depression if I spent five more minutes in there. The place gave me the creeps. I filled out my two postcards, wished Jane luck, and quickly left.
As I walked outside to my car, a brown sedan parked almost directly across the street caught my eye for some reason and I took a second look at the driver wearing dark sunglasses and a hat. I turned to put my key in the car door lock, and immediately whipped my head back around. Was that Sebastian Diaz? It definitely looked like him. What was he doing here? Before I could even think about whether I should wave, the sedan suddenly sped off. Weird. But then again, everything about that man was weird.
When I got home, I called Elizabeth to discuss the issue that had been bothering me since that first night at Club Cubana. I hadn’t realized how much it would bother me that Javier hadn’t kissed me good-bye earlier that afternoon. I needed to resolve what I should do about him, and I knew Elizabeth was the best person to talk to.
“Elizabeth, if you met a guy who was younger than you, let’s say hypothetically nine years younger, and he’d never been to college—let’s say hypothetically he’s a roofer—and you found him smart and incredibly nice, would you go out with him?”
“This isn’t the guy you met from the video dating service,” she said. “Who are you talking about?”
“No one,” I said quickly.
“You’re under a lot of stress, Sam, so for now, I’ll spare you my exceptional cross-examination skills and let you slide,” she said. “The real issue is, who cares about the age difference? Men date and marry much younger women all the time and no one blinks an eye,” she said, making it sound so logical. “If your hypothetical roofer is mature and doesn’t care that you’re older, why should you?”
“Yes, but a decade? He wasn’t even alive when Martin Luther King was killed.”
“Do you want a lover and a friend or someone you can discuss historical events with?” said Elizabeth.
It was true that Javier didn’t seem to care about the age difference. I’d warned him. I’d given him a fair chance to run away from me. But he kept coming back for more.
“Well, there’s a bit of a height difference,” I said, “He’s an inch or two shorter.”
“Sam, I know you well enough to know you don’t care about things like that. What’s the real issue?”
“Okay, what do you think about a professional college-educated woman dating a blue-collar guy?”
“Well, I’ve never gone out with a guy without a college degree,” she said, “but I guess if I met one I really liked, and I thought he was smart, I might go for it. But you’ve got a bigger problem.”
“I know. My job,” I said. Elaine had made it very clear whom I was supposed to end up with. Fifty percent of the 900,000 readers of Tres Chic had college degrees. Thirty percent had master’s degrees and seven percent had Ph.D.s. Blue-collar men only appeared on their radar screens when they needed their cars or plumbing fixed or when they stayed late at work and bumped into them mopping the hallways.
We caught up on Elizabeth’s life. Her weekend in the Hamptons with Judge Doug had gone great. They were now seeing each other about three times a week.
“So is Doug the ...?”
“Stop,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to go there and break the spell. I’m taking this slowly, one step at a time. I haven’t even met his kids yet. And his divorce won’t be final for another couple months.”
“Okay, I understand. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“Look who’s talking. But Sam, I have a very strong feeling everything will work out for you.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” she said. “By the way, I saw your picture on the cover of The National Enquirer. I’ve got to say it wasn’t your most photogenic angle.”
“Very funny, Elizabeth.”
“So will the wedding be in New York or on Planet Zuron?”
“Enough,” I said, to her uncontrollable laughter. And I would have laughed with her if I hadn’t been so consumed by my mixed feelings about Javier.
I sat down at my computer to type my weekly report for Elaine, which I knew was not the news she would want.
Week Six Status Report:
Had date with the only man who answered my personals ad from the newspaper, Mark, an orthopedic surgeon. He might have a bedside manner at work but he’d obviously left it at the hospital. Date was, in a word, awful!
As for the Singles Sand Volleyball league, it is highly recommended that only women who know how to play volleyball or who are willing to make contact with the ball be encouraged to join. I will not be finishing out the series. However, after game number one, I met Joe, a chemical engineer who took me out for ice cream and said he would call. Still waiting.
Adventures of a Salsa Goddess Page 16