by Julia Kent
“It means you need to learn to use your words. Silence works for cavemen. Not modern men.”
Someone knocks on the door and it opens instantly. Declan is standing there, Shannon right behind him. He taps the threshold.
“Look, little bro, I don’t have all day. The resort in Maui needs me for a marketing kickoff meeting about a new merchandising deal we have for branded sunscreen, and—”
“We were just finishing up here. Amanda has to leave for something far more important,” Andrew says, his voice closed off and cold.
“More important than Anterdec?” Declan flashes me a dazzling smile, while Shannon’s eyes turn suspicious. “What could be more important than a meeting with us?”
Andrew grabs his suit jacket off the chair and shrugs into it, his neck thick with tension. If he tightens his jaw any more he’ll crack a tooth. He storms out of the room, calling back over his shoulder:
“A date.”
Chapter Ten
“The anti-depressants did wonders for little Muffin here.” Jordan is forty-two and a short Italian guy who I could never, ever wear heels with if we were dating for real, because I would look like Hagrid next to him. He picked me because I have a teacup chihuahua, too.
He’s sweet and friendly, bald, with bushy eyebrows that have erratically long stray grays that extend out like uncoiled springs. Definitely not my type, but the kind of person who deserves to find a low-conflict partner to go to bingo night and chess tournaments and Mass.
Did I mention he goes to Mass seven days a week? His profile on DoggieDate didn’t note his Catholicism, but Jordan has managed to bring it up nine times. In fourteen minutes.
As we walk along the esplanade, the Charles River filled with people rowing and sculling, I find myself hunching. I have to. He’s so soft spoken and so short that I can’t hear him if I don’t.
“That’s great,” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can. Muffin is a tiny little thing that makes my mom’s dog, Spritzy, look like the Incredible Hulk by comparison. If Muffin weighs two pounds, I’d be surprised, and she’s so nervous she vibrates.
She has also scratched or bitten off most of her hair, so she looks like a rat with a short circuit.
“When my mother died, Muffin just fell apart.” Jordan’s eyes fill with tears. I’m guessing Muffin wasn’t the only one.
“Mama would have loved you,” he adds, giving me a shy, sidelong glance that fills me with guilt and a simultaneous sense of relief that this is all pretend.
“Umm...”
“Would you like to meet her?”
I halt. If Mama is dead, what does he mean? Is she sitting in a rocking chair somewhere in his apartment on the North End? Jordan suddenly looks a little too much like Norman Bates for my tastes.
“How would I, uh—”
Muffin sneezes. She scares herself and shakes some more.
“Her grave is a few blocks away. Mama likes it when I bring Muffin to visit her.”
I am starting to think that Jordan’s favorite toy is a homemade skin suit made from online dating prospects.
“Okay.” It’s only pretend. It’s only pretend. It’s only pretend.
“Amanda!” We’re interrupted by the divine hand of God (or, perhaps, Jordan’s disapproving mama) as Marie screeches my name from across the way. She’s in the middle of a large patch of grass with about ten people, all on yoga mats, all in Child’s Pose.
It would be way too convenient for Marie to just happen to appear in this exact moment at this specific park, right? It’s not. We arranged it. You know how some people arrange “rescue calls”? Marie offered some “rescue yoga” for me. She moved her class outdoors for fun, and also to help give me an out when I described Jordan to her.
She’s so giving.
“Is that your mother?” Jordan asks a little too eagerly. “She’s angelic.” His voice goes dreamy and soft, and now...yep.
He’s crying.
We walk over to Marie and her outdoor yoga class. Well, I do. Jordan follows about three paces behind, sniffing with each step.
“What are you doing here?” Marie asks as she gives me a hug. The question is rhetorical, and she gives me a wink. She’s sweaty and radiant, and still manages to smell like lavender even when she’s in the middle of teaching a strenuous outdoor class. When I sweat, I smell like a teenage boy’s locker and tainted cinnamon.
“Hello,” Jordan says formally, extending his hand to shake hers. Marie gives me a questioning look but offers her hand, which Jordan rotates slightly so he can kiss the back of it.
How courtly.
And slightly creepy.
Marie gives me a look I can’t quite read. It’s somewhere between How sweet and Call the police.
“My name is Jordan Montelcini. This is Muffin.” He gestures toward the dog, who is either excited or having a seizure. It’s impossible to tell the difference.
Marie’s eyebrows go up. Her mouth twitches. Nineteen gears involving my sex life click into place in that scheming mind of hers, and one of them involves Andrew, because she tilts her head, blinks in Morse code, and if I could decipher it I’m sure she’d be saying, What about Andrew?
Yeah. I know, I blink back. What about him?
“I’m here with Amanda on our first date. Muffin approves so far. It’s so nice to meet Amanda’s mother.”
Muffin puts her jaw on his forearm and closes her eyes. Right. Seal of approval.
Marie looks at the dog. Looks at me. Frowns.
“I’m actually Amanda’s best friend’s mother,” Marie explains, correcting him. Her face explodes into an expression of sheer delight. “Did you say your last name is Montelcini?”
Jordan puffs up. He’s almost tall enough now to ride a roller coaster at Six Flags. “Yes.”
“Of Montelcini Flowers?”
The man’s face spreads with a joyous glow that makes me inhale sharply, for he becomes luminous. It’s like watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly before my very eyes.
“Yes. You’ve heard of us? I mean,” he frowns, swallowing hard. “Me. It’s just me now.”
Marie looks like she’s been slapped. “Just you? But the Montelcini team is renowned for—”
Jordan wails as he drops to the ground with a sob that even his mama must surely hear in heaven. Or, um, wherever she resides.
I’m deeply confused. Who exactly are the Montelcinis, and why is Marie looking at Jordan like he invented salted caramel ice cream?
“Mama!” Jordan sobs. Muffin begins spazzing out and walks three feet away to tinkle on a stray dandelion. A dandelion that is bigger than the dog.
“Is your mother okay?” Marie asks, dropping to the ground and putting her arm around the poor man’s shoulders. I’m watching all of this with a strange sort of clinical detachment, as if Jordan isn’t my date.
That’s because he isn’t my date.
So far, we’re two for two with DoggieDate men. Two weirdos. Two showstoppers.
And I have eighteen more to go.
“My mama is deaaaadddd,” he cries.
Marie’s eyes fill with tears. A few of her yoga students pop their heads up in response to Jordan’s cries.
“I’m so sorry, Jordan.” She rubs his back. He’s genuinely mourning, and I feel for the guy. I do. I’m in my twenties and while my own mother can be an anal retentive, uptight pain in the butt, I love her and don’t know what I’d do without her. Jordan seems, to put it mildly, like a mama’s boy, and I can only imagine that losing your mom and business partner would be devastating.
“Does this mean Montelcini Flowers isn’t doing weddings right now?” Marie asks softly.
Aha.
I roll my tongue inside my mouth and then bite it. If I don’t, I’ll say something I regret.
Now I understand.
And a lightbulb goes off.
At one of the late night tactical weapons meetings...er, wedding planning sessions, Marie mentioned that the best florist in town was booked three
years out.
Montelcini Flowers.
Rescue yoga, indeed. Suddenly her gracious act of bad-date assistance becomes more evident for what it really is.
“How can I do weddings when the bliss of Mama is gone? No one can make her red sauce for me. I had to learn how to do laundry! And make my own bed!” he wails. “Hospital corners are haaaarrrddd.”
“That is so difficult,” Marie says, completely shining him on. Some part of her genuinely cares about the man’s pain. Hell, I sure do. But another part of her is clearly emboldened by the idea that she might be able to book the premier wedding florist in Boston. The society coup of this one would give her a Momzilla orgasm.
Jordan leans in to Marie’s hug, his face pressed against her bosom. He lets out a series of small, hitched sobs. “You smell a little like my mama.”
And then he leans in and just cries.
Muffin toddles off, sniffing in a crooked line in the bright sunshine, still within twenty feet of us. It’s probably the most freedom that poor little two pounds of flesh has ever had in its coddled little life.
Like Jordan, right now.
As Marie pats him gently on the back, I stand there, my mind occupied by the earlier hour at Anterdec. The kiss. The kisses. Andrew’s words cycle through me, his on-off switch so easy to flip, his obvious anger at my “date”—who is now burrowing into Marie’s arms in an alarming way—leaving me with more questions than answers.
And then the silence (other than Jordan’s sobs) is pierced by a strange cry from the sky.
A red-tailed hawk swoops down and in what feels like slow motion, descends to the grass, plucks little Muffin in its talons, and lifts up, wings pushing down with the effort of getting greater lift with its dinner in its hands.
“Oh, my God!” I scream. Jordan and Marie look up. I’m pointing at the horrific scene as Muffin quakes in the hawk’s grasp, twelve feet above us, eyes bulging in terror.
Or is that how she normally looks? It’s hard to tell the difference.
“MUFFIN!” Jordan screeches, scrambling to his feet. “No, Muffin! Mama will be so mad if something happens to you!”
“Do something!” Marie cries out, running after the bird, who is lurching up and down as it struggles to hang on to Muffin the Hawk Munchie.
I grab a rock and throw it. I have the pitching arm of a four year old, so all I manage to do is hit a passing dad pushing a stroller as my anemic throw ends in a parabola of shame.
“Hey!” the dad shouts. “Watch it. Babies here.”
Great. I hit a dad with twins. The karma on that one is going to be massive.
“Don’t hurt Muffin!” Jordan screams at me. “That rock could maim her.”
Right. Because throwing a rock to make the hawk drop her is exactly like having her eaten alive by the bird.
Jordan is definitely on my permanent list of people I will never, ever touch.
Marie sprints over to a little boy who has a remote control in his hand. She says something to him and he hands it over. I look up.
A tiny little silver toy helicopter makes a giant U-turn and dive bombs the hawk.
“MUFFIN!” Jordan screams.
In a split second, I race over to the ground under the hawk and Muffin. Someone has to catch the little dog, because at this point, the hawk’s a good twenty feet in the air. If he drops her, she’ll be a Muffin pancake.
“BOOYAH!” Marie shouts as she manipulates the helicopter. The dad of the twins in the stroller jogs over to the little boy and says soothing things to him. They watch Marie attack the hawk with the toy helicopter.
“Daddy, it’s my turn next, right?” the little boy asks. “I wanna hit the hawk. Twenty points!”
Suddenly, the silver copter buzzes loud in my ears, and I hear Muffin whining. The hawk drops her as Marie goes in for one last try, and I aim, barely reaching my arms out in time for falling Muffin to hit my hands, my body stretched as far as it can go in a last-minute lunge that leaves me holding her in my palms, my chest and hips smacking into the solid sidewalk section with a belly-flop that knocks the wind out of me.
My hands shake.
Because Muffin’s in them, quaking away.
“MUFFIN!” Jordan snatches her out of my palms as I try to breathe. I fail. My face is smashed into the rough concrete, the blooming pinprick of a bad scrape seeping in to my consciousness. I can’t breathe, though. It’s like a brick became my lungs. My legs feel like rubber behind me, and my belly is exposed, the lunge to catch the dog pulling my shirt out of my pants.
I’m facedown, palms up, breathless, and about to die.
Then the clapping begins. If I’m going to die because I saved a dog from becoming a Scooby snack, then there damn well better be applause.
“That was amazing!” the dad with twins says as Marie gives him back the controller. The little boy looks up into the sky and frowns.
“Where’s the bird? I wanna attack the bird! My turn! I’m Player 2!”
I want to say help, but I can’t. I am lying here and it feels like I have a balloon inside me stopping me from breathing. My ribs spasm and my throat gags and then bam!
I’m breathing. The feeling is painful and ragged and god-awfully rippling, like I have layers of skin sticking to each other inside wet lungs, but oxygen gets in.
You don’t realize how much you appreciate the simple art of respiration until you can’t respire.
“You used that helicopter so well!”
“Mama! Mama was Muffin’s guardian angel,” Jordan cries out. “And you!” he shouts, pointing at me.
I roll over and sit up. My knees have grass stains on them, my belly and face are scratched, and my hands are covered in what appears to be Muffin’s pee.
I wipe them on the grass and unwrap my purse from my neck, fishing around for my wet wipes and antibacterial gel. You mystery shop enough men’s bathrooms, you carry those two items everywhere. Who knew I’d be using them to wipe a date’s animal pee off my hands?
“What’s your name?” Jordan asks Marie.
“Marie Jacoby.” She’s laughing, a sound of relief and unfettered joy.
“Marie, you are my hero!”
A new round of applause erupts.
Now, wait a minute. It slowly dawns on me that they’re clapping for Marie. Not me. I’m the one who threw the rock. Who caught the dog. I look at Jordan, who snuggles Muffin and tightens his grip as he gives me a nasty glare.
“You leave my Muffin alone!”
Wha?
“Excuse me?” I choke out.
“First you threw a rock at her and almost killed her. Then you nearly missed catching her. Mama was holding her in the light the entire time, and sent Marie the angel to me.”
I look around. Three or four people are videotaping the entire thing on their phones. A cop on a bicycle appears and stops.
I can barely breathe, and my cheekbone is wet. I can’t touch it, though, because eww. Dog pee.
I stand and look around. Bathroom. As I walk down the slight slope to it, I hear Marie say in an excited voice:
“Repay me? Oh, Jordan. My dear, sweet boy. You never have to repay me for doing a good deed and helping your mother’s precious Muffin. But...if you insist...are you free in July for a wedding at Farmington Country Club?”
Chapter Eleven
How was your date? the text reads. It’s a number I don’t know.
Hold on.
Yes I do.
It’s AJM.
Uneventful, I type back, lying.
YouTube says otherwise, he replies.
Oh, no.
I tap into my phone’s browser and search “hawk dog Boston” on YouTube.
There I am. Nine different video versions.
That was, um... is all I can type back. Words fail me.
You divebomb like that on all your dates? he texts.
Only when there’s something interesting to lunge at, I reply. I hit Send before I lose my nerve.
That can be arra
nged.
I stare at the words and blink. What is he doing?
I let three minutes go by. He made me wait nearly two years. I can make the man wait a hundred and eighty seconds.
He cracks. Hah.
Nothing new to add to your personal database? No entries?
I snort.
Not even a new row, I write back.
Why am I assuring him? Why is he texting me? What game is he playing? The first two times he kissed me I never heard from him again. For nearly two years I had to play a stupid game of Let’s Pretend, in which I went to the occasional client meeting where he was present and avoided eye contact.
Now we’re maid of honor and best man in Shannon and Declan’s wedding and I know his big secret and...what? What’s the significance here?
How about we extend one?
I frown. One what?
A row.
Which one?
Mine. Dinner tonight. I’ll pick you up.
Andrew just changed the game.
I am at home after texting Greg about the incident, which was technically a work related event. You can scare Greg with two simple sentences:
I was hurt at work.
and
I am experiencing my monthly.
Either one is quite effective.
He gave me permission to come home and clean myself up, then just manage mystery shopper updates from home. In addition to the new DoggieDate account, I am still handling all my ongoing mystery shop programs, which currently include Assisted Living evaluations, a chain of coffee houses and their new gluten-free pastries, legal insurance evaluations, hairdresser shops, and my personal favorite: tobacco compliance shops for liquor stores.
Try finding a bunch of twentysomethings who look like fifteen year olds but act like mature adults. Good luck with that.
I stare at Andrew’s last text. Our living room has an enormous mirror over the fireplace, and as a kid I used it to study myself. As I’ve aged, I look less often. Right now, though, I stand in front of it and really take a look at myself. Mom’s in her office, on a conference call for her job. I can hear intermittent typing as she takes notes.
Maybe I should be taking notes of a different kind.
My cheekbone is raw red, the nasty abrasion filling in with a few spots that will scab, but it mostly looks like a rug burn. My brown hair is wet and I’m wearing no makeup. I slipped into my comfortable jammies after my shower. Victoria’s Secret’s got nothing on flannel ducks.